Leaderboard

Put it all back together, polished it up and it plays just fine. What a bargain

I don't think I've posted here before - I'm a member of basschat.co.uk, but after playing bass for decades, lately I've been singing and playing mandolin and octave mandolin. I don't actually play guitar, though I have a couple of guitar-shaped objects in my collection - an acoustic guitar bodied octave mandolin, and earlier this year a local guitar builder converted a copy of a Gibson SG to mandolin for me. I'm currently working towards a Rock School grade 2 acoustic guitar exam... with a mandolin!

Decided to get the Epi Les Paul 60’s Standard in Bourbon Burst I had looked at PRS but decided this is what I wanted. Out of the box the quality, setup was spot on and amazing for a £500 guitar. Sounds excellent and pickups are very good and sounds great clean and overdriven They have definitely improved since I owned an Epi Les Paul Plus Top Pro about 10 years ago this is as close to Gibson quality you can get without the price tag ! Awesome guitar

Thinking that I ought to have a hollow bodied guitar for jazz I bought a Streamliner and have indeed given that Bigsby a wobble from time to time despite it being considered inappropriate within the genre.

I picked up a super cheap Ibanez S670 with a fake body for 1500RMB ten days ago and went about upgrading, fixing and customising it with chrome Gotoh hardware and Dimarzio Satriani signature pickups. I wanted to do a Chromeboy painted finish but it's not possible to do it well on wood bodies. The original Chromeboys had finish cracking and bubbling issues do to wood expanding and contracting with seasonal changes, the follow ups had bodies made of lucite not wood. So I did the next best thing - bought a load of mirror vinyl wrap online and found a friendly auto wrapping firm to do it for me after my own attempt failed miserably. The reflection isn't 100% sharp but only really noticable when you are standing closer than 5 meters. I'm planning on using the guitar for a show coming up on Jan 11. The good thing of vinyl over paint is that I can get it re wrapped if it starts to look a little worn.

To better appreciate this event, I would refer you to a previous post here, where the 'back story' is quite fully related, so doesn't need repeating here. Skip it if you're in a hurry, but you'll be missing out. Soooooo... I've just, in the past few days, taken delivery of a new (to me, but not quite...) guitar that has been on my 'bucket list' for over half a century. A fellow member of our sister site (Basschat...) passed me a link to a site where this quite rare guitar was for sale, in Sweden. After looking up my finances (it was not cheap...), I contacted the Seller I 'bit the bullet', and, after some tractation over acquisition of a hard case for shipping, it finally arrived, safe and sound, snuggling up nicely in a brand new case. 'OK', I hear you ask, 'but what guitar is it..?' You'll have guessed if you'd read the post in the link above; it's a Hofner President Thinline E2 Florentine, from the late '60s, the same model that I foolishly 'let go' in my stoopid youth. Yippee..! Here's the photos I hastily took as it arrived... Pleased..? You betcha; pleased as Punch. I'm now struggling to get back to where I was, all those decades ago, trying to play a chord-melody version of 'Misty'. By a horrible coincidence, I had trimmed my nails, on both hands, and will have to wait a while before playing that way, as I have done since year 'dot', with only fingers, so I'm struggling at the same time with the use of a plectrum. It's all good, though, albeit extremely slow going. I have a Chromebook for displaying a Pdf of the version I'm using (from a Sandy Sherman YouTube video; just about the best and most accessible I've seen...), but as soon as I think I've assimilated a few bars, I turn the page to continue, but have forgotten it when I turn back again. I'm using my usual method of learning the 'outro' first, so that I'll be working into 'known' territory as I move forward, but, for now (it's been only a few days, but...) I'm finding it quite a job remembering only these dozen or so bars. It'll come (it has to..!), and I find the neck of this guitar to be exactly fitted to how I play (perhaps 'muscle memory' from all that time ago, when I learnt on that first President...). Anyway, enough rambling; back to the Chromebook for another session. I'll see about better pictures if/when the weather picks up, for outdoors lighting. Bye for now... Douglas

Son(16) is a fan of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Cheap Squier Bullet Strat from Cash Converters and a Most-Marvelous Inter-Fret Job by @Andyjr1515 fella who sits (slumps!) at the bar in the BassChat Arms... (Blah! Blah! and Pics in a BassChat Tech&Repair post) https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/496955-microtonal-fretting-microwhat-but-sorry-not-on-a-bass/?do=findComment&comment=5264843 When 12TET and 20 or so frets just arn't enough... go 24TET and over 40 frets to play with!

Thanks everybody for your answers and contributions. Made some interesting reading, and some great model photos. Just before Christmas, I privately bought a Marshall amp. The owner asked if I would also take his old black and white Strat off his hands too for a meagre £30.... It was an exact double of the one in my original post with identical headstock and weight. Well...you can guess the rest! Cheers again for all of your input.

I think HB are great value guitars and worthy of modifying too...here is a Youtube video showing what I do to them:- Infinity Mirror Guitar v3 with hot rail pickup.

Quick update to say I pulled the trigger on the Thinline Godin. It's new, coming from the States and even with delivery and taxes will be £300 cheaper than the best price I could find in the UK!

After a bit of work with fine wet and dry and a polish up with brasso, it transpires it's a Coxx Classix.

What a palava. OK so GC has been offline for a few days due to a mix-up in transfer of content from the old server (which was upgraded due to email notification issues on BC) to the new server. The old server subscription cancelled last week taking GC down with it. Then we had issues trying to get things set up on the new server. As you can see, we have managed to restore GC but the only back up on the old server was from January. Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry to any of you who had made the effort to post detailed or lengthy replies during that time, I've personally lost at least one lengthy post as well. If you need to flame, go ahead. We had to unravel a whole load of secondary issues to do with databases not working quite right, upgrades not installing quite correctly, DNS and nameservers not being what they should be. However, thankfully, we have made it through the other side and GC is faster and more stable than ever. I don't expect this perfect storm to happen again and thanks in advance for your patience and understanding.

On Saturday we had a work party where we provided the entertainment. About six weeks ago I rounded up a bunch of colleagues and proposed we do a song together. Below is the result: 52fb7b34b4790dbaf517c3d5cce802d3.mp4 It was my first time performing on guitar and I used the instrument mentioned here: All sorts of technical issues that I won't bore everyone with but the band had no right sounding as good as this recording suggests. I originally rehearsed with a 4U rack containing my beloved Triaxis and MPXG2 into a Marshall 20/20. But there were 60Hz hum and phasing issues so I swapped the rack for a Kemper and used a profile of the Triaxis instead with only marginal improvement (no more phasing). The Kemper went into two Hotone Loudster Class D power amps sat on a pair of Joyo 1x12 cabs loaded with Celestion Neo Creambacks. The speakers struggled to disperse, but this shouldn't have been too much of an issue if we had been given PA support. Unfortunately the video stops just before I move up front for the solo guitar breaks. I did the thing though - one foot on the monitor. No hair in the wind unfortunately.

Hi there! I just joined a new band called Sons of steel. This is one of our singles: Let me know your opinion about it. Thanks!!

This year a Joyo "Oxford Sound" pedal. So far I'm very pleased with it - lets me go straight into our PA without lugging an amp around.

When singing a melody through, in your head or out loud, try to pick out the highest and lowest notes, when you get to them. That's when to pick up the guitar and find those notes, and only those notes. That'll determine where on the fingerboard the rest of the melody lies, so, having established the extremes, now find the initial, starting note, keeping in mind these extremities. Does this help..?

If you can afford it and it will make you happy then do it. I personally am a tight arse and even if I could afford a Gibson (I can't) I'd never buy one because I'm a klutz and it would be an expensive thing for me to damage, same goes for a Ferarri, I'd have door pockets full of crisp packets and I'd no doubt kerb the wheels parking it.

There is a chap on Instagram named Ohms in Hawaii and he posts beautiful guitars on the beach like this photo: There are hundreds of posts just like this one, these photos really warmed my winter mornings.

What about selling it and buying a nice gift for the donor, or explain to him that you aren't getting on with it and ask if he would mind you selling it. You could offer him all or some of the money minus any expenses.

Here it is, about to get treated to a good clean and some new strings. Setup seems spot on but I’ll check it all and set the pick-up heights to suit. The overall finish is superb - not just for the price but for a guitar of any price. The binding is lovely and clean with no gaps or flaws that I can see and the fret ends are super smooth (the frets need a good polish though). It needs a good clean up and some oil on the fretboard and I may swap the volume and tone knobs for black ones at some point but I do think I’ve blagged a real bargain for once

Apologies for the two months absence - super busy with life stuff! I hope anyone who's still around from last year are keeping well & have had a good start to this year! On my front.. bad news is I didn't have time to record updates or really progress much through modules... However.. good news is I still managed to put in circa' one hour practice pretty much every day which has just helped me further cement the early foundational stuff as well as the new things learned in the first module of grade two, which I've now completed between the start of Jan & now... in the next module I'm about to start I (finally) start taking a first look at the F.

I blame the advent of GPS. ...

Hah! Lucky I'd just swallowed my tea when I got to "Rickenwaffe" - not heard that one before! Yeah, they are more on the ball than anyone I've ever seen about their marks. Ric copies of any serious closeness only exist in Japan that I've ever seen... the very occasional one on ebay disappears almost immediately. I'd love a Ric solod body - a 4003 bass even moreso, but I'm resigned to the fact I'll never be able to afford one (and even then I'd struggle to justify the spend, tbh). Part of me wishes they'd do a diffusion line, A Rickensquierphone. They'd surely sell well, given their absolute nixing of the market for any other options if it's a Ric you want. (The Harely Benton options are about the only ones I've seen, and they're so deviated from the original - even if nice instruments in their own right.... you'll not see a Beatles tribute act playing them the way I've seen them use a Squier to recreate Rocky, let's put it that way...). Another part of me rather respects Ric for deciding they're happy as they are rather than just chasing the lifestyle brand market, or otherwise squeezing their property for every last penny. It was a remarkably late registration attempt by Fender - real stable door / bolted horse stuff. Trademarking a shape wasn't an issue for them in 1951 -or 1954 - as it wasn't until 1960 that you could trademark a shape in US law. The first registered US trademark shape was the Coca Cola bottle, a shape they'd been using since 1916, so I doubt Fender would have had any trouble registering The Tele, Strat, and other shapes then. As memory serves they had the foresight to at least trademark the shape of their headstocks, though.... Similarly, they were behind the curve in the UK as well, where shape-based trademarks became an option under the Trade Marks Act 1994. Gibson seem to have been more effective here, though from my casual awareness of their legal efforts (not least the PRS case), most of their real protection falls in the zone of lawfare.... i.e. Gibson can afford to spend a lot more than most of those they go after, and fighting a lawsuit will most of the time be far more expensive than just tweaking your design a little to make it go away. Smoke and mirrors to some extent once you see the eminently sensible decision by the Appeal court in Gibson v PRS.

If anyone is interested there’s a massive guitar, amp and music memorabilia auction on 10th June in Corsham, Wiltshire spanning 5 days. Imagine owning 500 guitars!! https://www.easyliveauction.com/catalogue/5abe5b32c7710c2b409b15545ad1d718/0af8d24542e81eb9357e7ef448a6646f/the-guitar-sale-five-day-auction-including-the-gordon-gi/?currentPage=1

Many thanks for the feedback both. Seems that what I want to achieve isn't quite in the remit of my amp. I might just go back to my comfort zone of 90s solid state.

I have friends that bought some Mosky overdrives and they're good. But I can only attest to owning the Mosky Pure Buffer and it's a good buffer, so good that I moved my two VHT Valvulator 1's to my rack. My friend bought the Golden Horsie and it is just as good.

here is the current board with some diys and some stock pedals. More diys kicking about and more Boss to add on a new board for part of my rebuilding the rig of my youth

I had already pre-empted Christmas in offering to myself my bucket-list guitar : a Hofner President E2 thinline, Florentine cut, having foolishly traded away the first one I had, late '60s. Half a century later, I got this one from a Reverb seller in Sweden. The Christmas gift..? Our Daughter, thinking (rightly...) that it would be difficult to find something I'd want/need that I didn't already have, posted a sum of money into my bank which covered the cost of the hard case and shipping of my dream guitar. Much appreciated, and a Very Nice Surprise. Here's a (bad...) photo of the delivery and unpacking of the guitar...

I’d love an L5, or an ES175 at a pinch, but I’m quite attached to my kidneys.

This year: A book on jazz guitar comping concepts.

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dad ive always been a tight git. i just go on ultimate guitar its free. plus ive just started learning to use fl studio which was given to me for nowt so i can make my own drum beats and backing stuff. dunno if you need to have a face book account to wacth this but here is a very short clip of my doing my best Ian mcCulloch impersonation. i was only going to put the chorus bit in and was virtually mouthing the lead up lines but decided to leave them in. ive watched youtube clips of echo and the bunnymen live and i can safely say i "p1ss" all over what he can do nowadays on the high notes. he needs to go on ultimate guitar and transpose it down a bit lol. https://www.facebook.com/alan.jackson.7731/videos/2532299470293234

ive done some reading and some cheap machine heads are bad and you cant tune down to get it in tune because they just go out of tune too quick, likely by carrying on turning down by themselves. so you have to go lower and then tune up to get it in tune. thats what the seller told me tune back up. and it helped a tiny bit. but they still just turned by themselves no doubt encouraged by string tension. i mean they arent going to tighten up are they? i looked at the design and the worm is designed to be forced in one direction and hence persuaded not to turn. but it can and does. only a tiny bit but thats all it takes. but not now. its perfect thanks to the tiny washers making the screws actually do their job. thanks for trying to help Dad 3353. guitars arent as difficult to set up as people think. i am a builder and diy mechanic and there is nothing i wouldnt take on myself. ive made nuts from scratch even widened the spacing from std. shortened and packed saddles up. plus ive got a ruddy great big hammer.

Hello and welcome. Plenty here to learn from and chuckle at. Frustration and patience are your biggest hurdles by the sound of it. You Tube is great, but no replacement for a proper teacher and I would heartily recommend visiting one, even just for a few months to even out your technique. I would also counsel against changing the songs to make them easier, if you only play the stuff you can already play you never progress. Changing them to fit your voice is one thing, but trying to avoid chords just because isn't doing you any favours long term. But also, don't get too hung up on playing them exactly as the records, most of us here can't play everything and do simplify songs to a degree. At the end of the day... just enjoy the journey!

Hi all if I tuned down half step… where would a capo go if I wanted to get back to standard tuning? The first fret?

In all honesty, I haven’t actually played a jaguar before! But I have numerous guitars both electric and acoustic that have similar or even shorter scale length (which all suit me well since I’m not a very tall person) so I’m confident I’ll enjoy the feel of a jag. One of my 2 main guitars on tour is a Mexican tele and it’s brilliant. It’s got bare knuckle pups and electronics as well as better tuners but build quality and woods are just as good as my vintage and custom shop strats. But I do definitely prefer the classic jaguar with lead and rhythm circuits and individual pickup switches as opposed to the new stripped back player series ones. If I found a Mexican one for sale with standard layout I would really consider it

Yep, sounds like a partially pinched harmonic to me. You may find that part of the thumb or finger, holding the pick, are choking off the note and creating a false/pinched harmonic. This can be used to good effect, if you want it and that’s your thing, Billy Gibbons and Zakk Wylde are noted exponents of the technique.

you might call me Fender Fluid lol

I'd have to have friends and the ability to socialise to do that also frustratingly I can't drive which limits my location options a bit. This is something that makes me want to find people I can play with, support, encouragement, and some accountability to keep practising when I want to give up. I think that is something that would really help me. This gives me pause for thought. I do have a few physical restrictions that I've taken into account, but keep thinking I might be able to overcome to a degree. I've never really thought about not trying to play in every style. I kinda felt that in order to be good and happy with what I can do, I'd have to be good at every style and know all techniques, etc and not just a few. @Dad3353 I'm having weekly lessons and he is a good tutor, teaches in schools, which probably helps him deal with me as I have the intelligence of a small child. He has played professionally in the past. The last two lessons I've bought up that I'm getting worse and struggling more and he had noticed so we went through some different bands that I like to find songs that I may enjoy learning and I was given the tab for them to practice. I've also download yousician in the hope it will give me a bit more structure to my practice. Thank you for the help and for taking the time to read through my post. I really do appreciate it.

Hi Crusoe, Dad33..., EZ and Randy!! Nice to meet you all!

Faceache turned up a G4M 12 for not a lot... cleaned up rather nice

I agree with this statement. Plus, there are a whole host of differently voiced humbucker replacements out there, maybe more than single coil options.

There is precedent for removing the bridge pickup and associated electronics, both Pat Metheny and Tuck Andress did/do this. Try it and, if it's still not right, put it back as was and move it on for something that you get along with.

Thanks for the suggestions. I have experimented with the Ultrabass setting on my Behringer V-amp and it does drop the lower strings without seeming to affect higher notes. It is an octave divider by another name. However the sound coming out of the octave down strings is pretty much a fart, if you’ll pardon the expression. I think I’ll just live with no bottom end.

Spotted a Chapman ML3 modern on facebook marketplace at a good price last weekend so pulled the trigger and absolutely loved it. So much so I bought an ML1 Pro this weekend ( I really do need a bigger house !) This is one of the best looking and playing guitars I've owned (it's so bassy !)even when compared to custom build territory like my Ambler. Now I need the green sparkly semi - hollow one and a baritone to complete the collection !

Proper nut files are extraordinarily expensive, and the cheaper ones not really good at all for that job. If it's just to get rid of the 'jerking' of the string over the nut when tuning, a light sprinkle of graphite powder does a fine job. Some folk get the graphite from quality pencil lead, but it's easy enough to obtain. Amazon propose various versions, as a little flaçon of 50ml for 9€86, or a 1 litre tub for 10€10, and everything in between. Try that first, if unsmooth tuning is the issue..?

Originally, resonator guitars were invented for just this reason : cut through against competition from the brass section, without an amp..!. Worth a try, especially if the repertoire is suitable. One or two points to consider : many players use a reso guitar like a lap-steel; these models have a square neck profile, unsuitable for 'standard' guitar playing position. Look at models with a rounded 'C' or 'U' profile instead. Some models have a piezo mic built in, but more rarely with a pre-amp, which makes amplifying a little trickier, as either the amp has a piezo input, or an external pre-amp is required. The reso part of the guitar is fragile, so a stout case is needed for anything but home use. They're louder than a folk guitar, especially in the 'medium' frequencies, but won't fill a large hall unaided just the same. Trying a few models would be recommended; proces start at around £300 and go up quite quickly. On the other hand, it's not uber-effective, but a piece of felt over the accordion grill could be tried to mute it a little..? Some folk remove the grill, line the inside with masking tape or similar, then put the grill back. Choice of register has an effect, with some 'bassier' registers being less strident. Other than that, it's just playing technique to play with less volume. Hope this helps; sounds like a nice project.

No they are not, they are just not posting clips of them playing badly. For all you know, the clip of them playing it well which they put online, might have been the 400th take.

A present for myself : a piezo_pre-amp kit to install into my acoustic (holes to be cut into the sides, and the capteur to be fitted under the bridge...). I'll then be able to record without recourse to a mic.

i used one continuous oak board (easy cuts) to make this: lots of sanding, some stain, etc. I used the scraps to create supports for the bottom side (given the stomping): i used a 1 3/8" hole saw to cut an opening for wires. i then took that plug and split it in half to make posts, to wrap the excess wire: on the underside, i used wire ties, tacked into the wood, to secure the power lines: in the far corner above, you can see i velcroed the transformer onto the underside. then, velcro on the top, and on the pedals, and a $6 leather handle: then, rubber feet on the bottom, and wire it all together. PS this is not representative of my pedal setup, this is just for testing! i'll post the actual rig soon. it's made it through 6 gigs. hopefully more to come (we have about a dozen lined up!). what i'd change- it doesnt stand on it's side, probably because of how heavy pedals are. to put a stand plate on one side would mess with the aesthetic. what i'm thinking of adding- maybe a shoulder strap so i can make one trip from the car to the studio. i can send plans if anyone wants.