Marty Friedman's RR, where is the pickup switch?

[vampire dark]

Hey everyone,

Marty in the 90s used to have an RR (maybe RR1?) with a tunomatic bridge and gold hardware, the pickguard seems to have been changed for one with only one knob ....I can't see the switch for changing between pickups.... Did he use the other pickup or not? Is it that after changing the pickguard the electronics were configured in such a way that only one pickup was used?

Thanks

(just search "marty friedman rhoads guitar" and you'll see him using it, also there are many live videos from the year 1992 when he used it)

[thebigz]

I found this video that gives a ton of different shots of this guitar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ay5CUjBdBE

I can't see any pickup selector anywhere - just the one knob that I would assume is a volume, but I guess it could be a blend pot to go between the pickups (used with basses, not really guitars), but I never once see him use the knob.

Thats seems pretty crazy to have a 2 hum guitar but no selector.

I guess one pickup was a dummy and not wired up for some reason or he had both always on. That isn't the greatest metal tone in my opinion, but his tastes have always seemed a bit unconventional.

That would be cool to figure out what is actually going on.

[vampire dark]

yeah I mean he only used bridge pickup for years, so maybe it's just an RR1 (when did they start making them into production ?) and he just changed the pickguard to make it like his other Kellies, prior to Megadeth he had a Kelly with 2 humbuckers and at the time he went to Megadeth he had it repainted black and filled the neck pickup leaving only the bridge

[toejam]

Could have had a push/pull pot to switch pickups like George Lynch did, but most likely just left it as one volume for the bridge pickup as he really didn't use neck pickups much. The other RR when he's playing the solo for In My Darkest Hour has a Floyd on it and also just one volume.

The RR1T (tune-o-matic bridge) was first available in the year 2000.

[vampire dark]

thank you toejam, yes that's what seems to be case

[toejam]

Yeah, the one pickup/one volume is how Marty used to roll. Now that he's back with Jackson, it's weird how his signature models have neck pickups.

[vampire dark]

from mid 2000's he started using neck pickup (at least guitars equiped with them)

[eakinj]

I think the Rhoads is one of the PCS Rhoads, and I remember having a photo of him with that a (Players Choice Series?) PCS Rhoads with the neck pickup removed and only one volume knob. I would guess it's that same guitar though who knows.