Guitar players only

Long time guitar player mostly electric (although taking a long lay off) I have many electrics, many pedals, 4 amps, etc. The list goes on. I've done a few kit builds. Here is one of them. Tim in Maine.

 

I realize the irony of this thread is that many of us have spent more on guitars and amps than our trucks!

 

Hobbies can be expensive

 

I have a few as well...

May favorite of course:

 

I got this in about 3 weeks ago.

Guild 240e- maybe the best low price dreadnought out there. Action is low without buzzing or losing intonation. Color and build are beautiful with a solid spruce top and layered mahogany sides/arched back. It plays very well and has less of a high chiming voice compared to my Taylor. It's probably the mahogany that almost seems to muffle certain sounds, two other mahogany guitars I've played had that characteristic. Not a bad thing at all, it's softer and pleasing to the ear.

I played it daily until Friday night when I let my neighbors 16 year old son borrow it. He plays bass and guitar but a neighbor complained about the volume (admittedly it was pretty late). He takes care of things so I don't mind him hanging onto it for a bit. Maybe after Christmas I'll trade him my Guild for my Taylor. Would be interested to hear his take on either as they sound very different.

 

I know it’s not a guitar but I’ve been looking for one for 25 years, it’s a 1958 Hammond B3, now all I need to do is find a Leslie 122 to match up to it, anybody know of where I can find one?
UPDATE… I found a mint condition Leslie 122 off of eBay, I hooked up the half moon switch to it and oh my… what a sound
See above photo

 

Last night I got this one. Epiphone Casino "Worn" (which is how Epiphone spells matte finish with brand new-looking hardware).

The matte olive drab lends it a utilitarian look and the feel of the finish does as well. Compared to my other guitars this one feels almost like plastic or synthetic wood (ever see that big tree house at disney?). It's super light weight as well. Layered maple body, mahogany neck and laurel fret.

All of the hardware is nice. Tuners feel firm and the pots don't just spin around freely, they feel precise. This is my first hollow body and my first P90 guitar. The sound is addictive. I would describe my Les Paul as if it sounds like whatever effect my amp is using, but this guitar has its own distinct sound and the amp just reproduces that. Playing clean it doesn't need any reverb.

It does seem to buzz when hammering frets on the low E, and the top 3 frets on A. B string sounds a little bit muted to my rookie ear. I need to play around with the setup a bit. This model is notorious for bridge rattles but I don't know if that's the problem yet.

Here's the pics.



A little close up of the neck finish, you can imagine the synthetic feel.

 

Beauty!

 

My 2009 Mexican strat I converted to a fat strat with a Seymour Duncan JB trembucker. I’ve been playing it off and on for years since that time.

 

I love my Mexican Telecaster. When I bought it, they were better built than the American ones and about half the price.

 

My Casino suffered from a well known problem with the ABR style bridge. They use a wire retainer to hold the saddle screws in place. The string tension holds the saddles down but there is nothing to prevent them from moving up or down (as in towards tailpiece or neck) or side to side. As a result they rattle. Here's a pic to see what I mean.


I did some reading and the best thing to do is swap for an aftermarket bridge without the wire retainer. I found this Gotoh for $23. It says Japan but on closer examination it doesn't say "made in Japan", so for all I know it's probably Chinese or Indonesian or other. Hard to imagine a Japanese made part costing only $23. In any case, it has a screw-through design and is much tighter.

Some blurry side by sides, the Gotoh looks bigger but thats just an illusion. It is slightly bigger as seen in the first photo, but not much.


The Gotoh has philips screws rather than flat head. The screws appear to be captive, I am not sure how to flip the saddles if needed. Those with a keep eye will notice that the notches in the Gotoh are very small. I noticed this only after stringing it up and realizing my low E and A strings pop out easily. I'll need to file the saddles a bit to allow proper seating.




I reused my existing strings for now, tuned and did my best to get intonated. My low E refused to get right. I'm going to take these strings off soon to file the saddles and will replace the strings at that time. Hopefully the intonation on low E works better then. Other than that my initial impression is good, no rattles.

 

I've had similar issues with these inexpensive abr style bridges coming apart and yes you will have to deepen the saddle notches with a file. If anything you may gain a little intonation travel with the new bridge. I went in a different direction and purchased wilkinson style roller bridges and some builds. Tuning stability seems to improve especially went bending strings.

 

Here's my '43 banner Gibson J-45

 

Yeah I'm hoping once I file the saddles and put new strings on the intonation will be fixed. Its dead on for other strings, just the low E is off and doesn't have room to correct. I find that odd because looking at the original bridge (which had intonation spot on) the saddle was flipped but positioned relatively center. I keep coming up sharp on low E and extended as fast as I could without success.

Wheeeeewie! I'm too poor to be a Gibson man but I love that! I bet it sounds beautiful. I played an Epiphone J45 once, I imagine the real deal is even better.

 

yes sir! she's sounds sweet!!

 

I officially have another guitar on the way...

 

what did you get?

 

I've had a $75 gift card for Guitar Center burning in my wallet for a while. They put the Epiphone Les Paul Traditional Pro IV on sale for $399, so I'm in for $325. I got a gold top with the satin wood grain back/neck. It has built in treble bleed and coil splitting pots. Quite a good deal I think.

 

Robo tuners, who uses em and are they worth it.

 

I have a Les Paul with g-force tuners, and I had an acoustic with tronical tuners. Tronical and g-force are the same, just branded differently. It's cool technology. Once the novelty wore off, and I got tired of correcting the final tuning, I would have to say "no". Not worth it. I don't use a ton of different tunings (standard, drop-d, double drop-d, drop-C, Double drop-C, and CEBEBE), so I typically have a guitar already tuned for my needs.

 

The gold top is the new one, the 59 I've had for a year now. The 59 cost me over twice as much, but it has better quality parts.


The gold sounds pretty different. The pickups don't have as much growl or punch, but they do sound good. They have coil splitting built in so I can run either as a single coil to lighten the tone, almost imitating a Fender sound. It has treble bleed as well so when I turn the volume down the treble doesn't go flat. The neck is all flat, no sticky gloss at all, I love that.


So far I dropped the action and found that like it a lot. I will swap the strings this week and correct the intonation. It has a few minor blemishes, the most obvious is the scuff under the paint right below the bridge. I'm not worried about any if that, this is the "bring anywhere and if it gets dinged no big deal" guitar that I needed. The jmportant thing is in terms of playability it's great, no proud frets and everything is in good order.

I'm going to swap out that truss rod cover for something else, maybe a dios de los muertos one or something with a vintage vibe. I may swap the knobs as well but not sure what color or style. My 59, and I'm not counting on this or anything, may be somewhat a collectable one day. I want to keep ir pretty original, so this Trad Pro gives me the freedom to swap things up. The trouble is aside from cosmetics I don't see a need to swap any parts so far. I guess that's a great problem to have.

 

Love a gold top.

 

This is my ‘93 LP studio. First USA guitar and first and only Gibby. Probably 8.5lbs but feels like 20. Ebony fretboard. I put new wiring and pickups (Lambertones Cremas) in it because I wasn’t playing it much because the original wiring was acting up. Decided to give it a little facelift too with the aged plastics and different knobs from the original. Plays like a dream.

This is my first guitar I built about a year and a half ago. 62-63 style jazz. I wanted a bound fretboard and block inlays so I did that. Lambertones Ristrettos pickups. Mastery bridge and trem. Didn’t run a rhythm circuit because I knew I wouldn’t use it. Lake placid blue (because it’s an awesome color, and originally a Cadillac color and my grandad loved Cadillacs). Guitar sounds incredible.

this is my newest build. Just finished about a month ago. New #1. Has all the features of the guitars I own that I like. Offset/jazzmaster body in mahogany with a quilted maple top. Mahogany neck. Ebony board, 24 ¾” scale neck, TOM bridge. Lambertones Ristrettos (p90 sized covers in aged nickel). Designed it to pay homage to my favorite guitar of all time without being a complete rip-off: Jerry Garcia’s “Wolf” This thing is an absolute monster. Plugged straight into the dimed TB channel of that AC30 is pretty magical sounding.



Edit: that 4th pic is my long travel setup (to keep this tundra-relevant lol)

 

Thats a crazy guitar. I was impressed with his custom built guitars until I looked into Phil Lesh's bass guitars, wild innovation.

I like those jazzmaster bodies and that Vox is sweet! Nice collection.

 

Thank you!

But yeah Alembic/Owsley Stanleys mods to Phil's basses are insane. For them to start out manufacturing/modding speakers, then PAs' and then modding and building those instruments is just nuts to think about. Even more impressive due to the innovation and lack of YouTube university.

 

This isn't great news if you like tube amps

 

Very interesting take. I'm a fan of Rhett as well. I think he's right about the future to an extent. I slightly disagree about it being the "end" of tube amps. e.g. People still produce and buy oil paintings when a digital photograph is far more efficient, etc. There will still be a market, maybe not as significant and it will be more of a collector type thing instead of gigging with tube amps 150-200x a year.

 

I hope it isn't the end. I have a solid state amp and a "hybrid" amp. I would like a tube amp but if the tubes themselves become more scarce and price gets even higher than today, it may shift them toward being relics rather than work horses. I have seen that there are some suppliers in Slovakia, hopefully they can supply enough of the right tubes to keep the amps alive.

That said I've been stalking a small tube amp on Craigslist for 2 weeks, maybe I should grab it.

 

@Darkness

Yeah JJ tubes are incredible sounding. I have some in my AC30. (they're the Slovakian plant). You're looking at a 6mo backorder time probably for those though. I'd grab that amp off of craigslist too if you're interested in it. If the amp has been cared for and the owner wasn't diming the volume and master volume on the amp each time they played it, standby switches were used properly, tubes can last a long time, and even outlast this "pause" or whatever it ends up being. But if you're Brian May and just cooking tubes each night for your tone, you're gonna be SOL after about 5-6 hours of use.

If you're a gigging musician, most of the time you play, your amp is going to be mic'ed and that will be pushed through a solid state amp/PA set up anyway. Your Tube tone will be just for you for stage volume and your own edification. or it's mic'ed in an iso-room/off-stage and you're running in ears or stage wedges for monitors. plenty of "amp in a box" solutions out there that get close enough for most live performances. Kemper, Helix, AxeFx, Strymon iridium, Walrus ACS1 to name a few.
But there really isn't anything quite like standing in front of a class A tube amp that can really move some air with some warmth and organic feel to it.