Leaderboard

Get some wood. Kicking off with a Martin from circa 1840 with original hard case, but a dodgy newer bridge... which will soon replaced with an original looking one when I get some cash!

OK - here's one of my recent lightweight builds. Built for my sister-in-law at 25" scale length and 5lbs 3oz total weight. Amboyna top, oak back (from her late mother's mantlepiece), maple/purpleheart/mahogany neck :

I have one of these Godin 5th Avenue jazz guitars incoming in about a month but without the fancy maple top. I've found a company here who claims to ghost build them and Godin make some great kit.

Nothing, absolutley nothing, no way do I need anything else, no man don't tempt me. I'm back off to Bass chat

If we're open to other guitars than the high-flying Usual Suspects, I could present some of my guitars, just for their own sake, and recount a little of their story (how/why got them, what they're good or less good for etc...). Similarly, I have been learning, on and off, for decades, some aspects of guitar-playing; specifically trying to get to grips with chord/melody, and testing my receding memory with 'Misty'. I put the guitar down for a couple of weeks and it's gone; I have to start again (old age, you see...). Would a Beginners Guide to Guitar Pro or Drop 3 chords be useful..? Just a few from the top of my addled head...

DiMarzio do some very good hum cancelling Tele pickups, that still sound like a Tele, the Area T for instance.

Hulk fists and wet celery...or a spot of mud wrestling as they did in the old days, with onlookers throwing guinea coins and making obscene or humiliating demands.

It is worth throwing the amps and pedal board up as well?

I’d call it free improvisation. There was a lively discussion on this a while back over on Basschat, but it is a movement with quite a long history. A lot of it’s best known exponents are horn players such as Lol Coxhill and Evan Parker. Amongst guitarists, best known are people like Derek Bailey and Fred Frith in his wilder outings. Very much an acquired taste of course and not really for anybody who likes to know where the one is, but it does have a following. For the curious, there’s plenty to choose from over on yoochoob. Not for the musically faint of heart though; you have been warned.

OK and here it is, my new Ltd M403HT superstrat. As some of you may have seen elsewhere on here, I've been after a guitar for that neck, single coil Strat vibe that wasn't necessarily an actual Strat, and this is what I've ended up with. It's a 2016 Korean model, basically in "as new" condition with a solid mahogany body, flamed maple top, maple bolt on neck, rosewood or pao ferro fret board (the current Malaysian ones are pao ferro but I think the Korean models had rosewood - it certainly looks like rosewood to me anyway), a pair of Seymour Duncan STK -S4 stacked single coils in the neck and middle positions , a TB-14 Custom 5 in the bridge, a hard-tail bridge with through-the-body string anchoring and Grover tuners at the other end. Controls are a 5-way selector, a single volume and a single tone. First impressions were that it looked really good and played OK - the previous owner had the action set far too low, the pickup heights were all over the place, and the tone knob was coming loose but after a quick setup, everything is much better although I'm finding the dead-flat fret board a little unnatural feeling but no-doubt I'll soon get used to it. The Custom 5 in the bridge is a perfectly good pickup but I'd had one of those in previous guitar and knew what to expect with that. The S4s are amazingly quiet with the hidden coil doing an excellent job of cancelling any hum (in fact they appear to have less noise than the bridge humbucker), tone-wise they sound pretty much like your standard single coil pickup, perhaps a little warmer, but I will give them a go one day with this second coil shorted to ground to see if it makes any discernible difference to the sound - if it does, I'll probably then replace the tone pot with push-push or push-pull so that I can have this as a switchable option. General workmanship is pretty good - the fret ends are nice and smooth (more so than my previous Korean made Fenders which needed a mini-workover with a small file and some wet'n'dry), the strings and pickups line up on this one unlike an earlier one that I almost bought, although I can feel the slightest of lips on the nut where it's less than a hair's width out of alignment - one day I'll probably have go at fixing this too (anyone know if it's possible to easily remove the nut and reposition it on these without damaging either the nut or the guitar?). I've got a new set of NYXLs coming in tomorrow and I'll write a more detailed review when I've put those on and given the guitar a thorough setup. Update - it's now been re-strung with my string of choice, the fretboard cleaned and oiled, the pickup heights adjusted and the relief / action / intonation all setup. So what do I think now? The bridge pickup is great for heavier stuff - a little scooped but not too much (the NYXLs help smooth that a little but emphasising the mids and high mids while toning down the bass and extreme highs a little) and the neck and middle pickups are great for the funky rhythm stuff when played together. As I've already said, the build quality is good for the "street price", certainly on a par with my other Korean guitars but it just can't quite match the feel of quality that you get with a full-fat Japanese ESP. It might sound like a cliché but when I play my Japanese ESP Eclipses, they don't feel like guitars - they feel like a part of me while this feels like … a guitar. A good sounding, well balanced guitar but still a guitar none-the-less. The main reason for that, I believe, is the neck - while it's beautifully smooth and shallow, it's just a fraction wider than I'm used to with a flatter fretboard - no doubt if a I give it a chance and play it as regularly as I play my other guitars, I'll soon get used to it, after all I can switch quite happily from a 5 string Spector Euro 5LX bass to a 4 string EBMM Sterling and then to an ESP Eclipse 6 string electric guitar. Update 2 - I've now re-aligned the nut, and the pickups (the middle pickup was slightly slanted and the bridge humbucker was slightly off centre), and now I'm feeling happier. I'm still finding it a little un-natural to play but I've only had it a day so give it some time ...

Another Tele Tuesday - my home build assembly. Walnut body (weighs a ton) finished with gun-stock oil, flame maple neck with macassar ebony board, Lollar pickups and Callahan hardware. Plays and sounds way better than it has any right to given that I put it together

On the flipside, it probably makes your signature guitar a lot more within your reach than for many! Nothing wrong with liking the classics, imo; some things are so popular as to become 'run of the mill' for good reason....

I am closet guitarist. This is my third guitar. I have an Ibanez SA and an steel string acoustic, but I couldn't resist this one. An Ibanez 1977 lawsuit-era Les Paul. It needs a bit of love, but in the meantime I can take the opportunity to learn to play.

And in the meantime I made a bit of progress with the fretboard. Cut a couple of swifts for the 12th fret: Then used a precision router base on the Dremel with a 1.5mm bit: and installed with epoxy mixed with Macassar dust: Dots fixed either side and sanded smooth with the radius block: And that's all up to date as of this morning

First!

Hi, I thought I'd start a thread for discussion and sharing Cab IR's. Obviously I'm not suggesting we should share anything other than those which are freely available. So Cab IR's. The latest digital witchcraft in helping us chase the holy grail of tone or just another con? To my ears, there's no doubt at all that changing a Cab IR in a patch on my unit can makee a massive change to the tone and overall sound of the patch. But..... is it really a Marshall 1960x/Mesa/Fender/Ampeg can with an SM57/SM58 on/offcentre - well I have no idea as I've never had the ability to try all the millions of possibilities and options that now exist. To me, if it sounds good, sounds as you want it to, then it's the right thing to use. Accuracy of 'modelling' doesn't really matter to me. Much like the whole amp modelling debate. Oh, I use a Mooer GE200 which I think is extraordinarily good value for money. It's Amp Sims are as good as I need, it's small and really simple to programe and it takes Cab IRs. What's not to like? Anyway, here's a link to a load of Cab IR's I've collected over the years - fill your boots! https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Vyly3Doh4F3_x2xN4VnpvjnqlRrnR4ms

That's his real name! How could you be so mean?!

My old trusty 77 Tele, much missed. Seen with my old 1956 and 1957 Champ amps.

As Kiwi has gone to all the trouble of setting up this section, it seems churlish not to use it so I’ll ask the first question - and although I’m no longer an absolute beginner, it’s one that I’m not sure of the answer as I can see pros and cons of each. Anyway, my question to the panel is; What’s the best choice for a complete beginner - electric or acoustic or classical? Obviously, with an electric you have the added complication of an amp but I wonder which is the easiest for a beginner to get to grips with in the very early days when it’s all about learning some chords and getting your fingers toughened up?

I'm sorry, I forgot that you're rather new here. Never mind; have it be known that I'm old, and these things that happened to me are in a dim and distance Past. I really can't remember quite how long ago I bought the Daisy Rock, but I doubt that the Seller is still advertising, or if he is, he's very old now, too..! That 'Venus' guitar looks to be excellent; I'd be pleased too..! Keep looking; meanwhile... Keep well, stay safe Douglas

Rusty screws are necessarily a bad thing, unless it prevents some sort of adjustment, reliced models come with rust as standard. The jack socket might be a bit of a nuisance to put back in place, not impossible, just fiddly.

Fixed a buzz like that on a Vox amp once. Unclipped each valve in turn and wiggled it in its socket... Could also be a valve with something loose inside.

I foolishly tried one of these today in GuitarGuitar. For the money, they're brilliant. I tried it alongside a Setzer signature and it wasn't a million miles away from being as good. Damn, it was only the mega bucks for a Setzer that was stopping me having Gretsch GAS in the first place!

$25000... Hell, why not? You gotta be all kinds of sure its gonna be your 'keeper' or so wealthy that its no big deal to you...

This boutique 70's rig sits in my lounge, the 100 watt Head has been reduced to 30-ish, it's a 4 x 12 cab, it's fabulous all valve sound ! If I could afford the Kempler I'd flog this rig to Richtonemusic , and get some space back whilst emulating anything on the planet surface. I have a Les Paul HP, it has so many abilities sound wise, (maybe 150 different ) Put the two together and there would be no end of variation, but would it be like the old graphic equalisers where you ended up with all the sliders set in the middle ?

Hi Well - as I've risked life and limb three or four times posting 6-string builds in Basschat, I thought the least I could do is post the first build in Guitarchat While it would be a hoot if it was a bass, it's actually a 6-string and there is a build diary on Basschat currently live. If you've been following that, then ignore this but, if you haven't, I'll do a summary thread of the progress. There's quite a bit of detail in the Basschat version if anyone is interested in building one and, of course, feel free to ask. So - over three or four posts I'll bring it up to present progress. First of all - this is my third acoustic build. I built this OM size for myself: I had a go because, although I had discounted ever trying an acoustic as 'too hard', I saw a build thread on one of the other forums and thought 'you never know...' Spurred on by beginners luck, a few years later I built this dreadnought sized one for a 'special' birthday of our band's vocalist, Chris: So why a third? Well - I am mainly a finger-picker and OM's are perfect for that. Mine turned out to be no exception. But they are a teeny bit jangly for strumming. Chris on the other hand is a strummer - so a dread was right for him. But what surprised me for this one - maybe the woods, maybe just luck - was how good it sounds finger-picked. As good as my OM. And - because it was for a special birthday, I bought enough wood to recover from any major building disaster. And that wood was just lying around in the way and what could I do with it? Well....I could always build one for myself. I s'pose So I got the wood out, which included lacewood (London Plane tree) back and sides, an offcut of Macassar ebony fretboard and maple neck blank as well as the original mahogany one. No top wood but I could always get some of that. And dug out the Elite Guitar Plan I used for Chris's build: And went down the cellar to start making sawdust

hi first time here

Hiya TBB!

I was in the market for a small, basic valve amp recently, and did consider the Joyo. If you're in that market they're well worth a close look IMHO. I know very little about the company, but they do sound good on the YouTube reviews I've listened to. In the event I went with a Blues Junior IV. More power than I really need (and a bit more than I was planning to pay), but a great sound straight out of the box combined with plenty of clean headroom with the single coils on my Strat was what swayed it for me. I don't see me playing live again any time soon, but if I did it's good to know the amp could do that job too.

My rebuilt Tele. It was originally a Squier CV '50s, but then it evolved. The neck is original, but I changed the body for a contoured, ash body. I added DiMarzio pickups (a heavy blues Strat neck pickup and an Area Hot T in the bridge, painted to match) and a chromed brass bridge. I have also fitted a Stesbar tremolo, but I swapped back to the hardtail recently. The body was coloured with water colour paint and then Danish oil and waxed, I then added a faux binding courtesy of Humbro model paint. It sounds great, very P90 like. Here it is in both trem and hardtail guises.

Thanks for the warm welcome. I have looked at justin guitars you tube lessons and am going to work through them systematically. Scratch.

I've followed You Tube channel to set up. I think it was a cheap licenced flloyd rose or the guitar body wood is not hard enough to hold the studs steady? I have now removed flloyd rose and replacing wuth floating tremolo like my other guitars which seems to work fine.

Oooh, that is nice

Probably this Had the nicest neck I'd ever played on an electric, but when it came down to it I just didn't quite get on with the single coil dynasonic pickups. Sold it as I thought you'd need to do some routing to fit filtertrons. Only found out after TV Jones made filters to fit a dyno hole. Doh! Of course then theres the one that got away. A 1964 Gretsch Viking Wunjo Guitars had for an age. I played it last summer - it had knackered binding, the original (stupid) bridge had been replaced, someone had dicked around with the electrics .... but boy it had mojo and just that sound. Nearly pulled the trigger at two grand. Just before Christmas they reduced it to £1500. As I was (and still am) overseas I dithered for a few days and predictably it went. Double Doh!

Sad but true.

I remember talking to the guys on the Gillett stand about doing a guitar at the last bass show I went to. Good to see that they have produced one now. Enjoy it when you receive it.

I suspect you'd get a very different list, in terms of players, depending on whom you ask. A non-player would likely reference more populist musicians like the Beatles; these days, does anyone other than guitar players really even reference Van Halen at all? For me, I'm not honestly sure which four I'd narrow it down to, but I would certainly say that there are a lot of big names in guitar world that I wouldn't pick if it were up to me to choose those who were most important to *me*. Hendrix, for sure. Johnny Ramone. Chuck Berry, and maybe..... Joe Moretti? or Link Wray.... I'm sure amore common version would have Clapton, Harrison and Page, or maybe Beck. As to the men behind the guitar as a physical instrument as well as those who defined how we play it........ sticking to the electric guitar cause it's just easier, for me the giants would be Lester Polfus, whose ideas on the solid body concept influenced Leo Fender, whose guitars and amps were played by Buddy Holly who took what had been viewed as a country guitar into rock and roll (as well as establishing the two guitars, bass and drums lineup), and Jimi Hendrix, who reinterpreted how it is played to the extent that, now closing in on fifty years after his death, he remains adirect and primary influence on current players to an unmatched degree. Maybe that's my four?

I do, but then I don't and wouldn't have a Gibson, and my main guitar is usually a double humbucker.

Tried to finish this off. Almost but not quite. First popped the magnets onto the truss-rod cover: ...and hey presto: Then installed the Shadow Doubleplay electrics. It comprises a blendable under-saddle piezo: and a mini magnetic pickup at the end of the fretboard: I suspect that this is intended for a flatter fingerboard radius (prob 12" - I've build closer to an electric neck with 10" rad and locking tuners. Makes it easier for me to transfer from my electric to the acoustic) so I sunk it into the top to make sure it didn't foul the top and bottom E strings: As it turns out, I've overdone this and will, at some stage, take it off and pop a shim underneath. I then installed the preamp / blend unit that sits inside the soundhole (I'll photo it in the 'finished' shots) and the rear strap pin / jack socket. Before I put the strings back on, I cleaned up and oiled the fretboard. The frets - well, at the moment there is absolutely no buzz anywhere so I haven't even polished them! When I get a moment, I'll at least do that but there is no need for levelling and crowning By the way, before you go thinking I know what I'm doing, that is a first... And - other than the low nano-mag pickup being a bit quieter than the piezo - we have electric amplification. Lastly, now the strings are on, I do my usual 'sit it like a cello and scrape the neck to the final shape by feel, spinning it round and playing it then re-scraping until it feels like I want it. This is followed by a quick tru-oil slurry and buff and it's good to go within an hour. Am I the only one that does this? No matter how well you fit a neck to the profile templates, I don't think you can really tell if it's right until you play it. So that's what I do. And the most subtle tweaks can make all the difference! Remaining jobs: - Replace the nut with a slightly wider one (plays fine with the present one but it isn't quite wide enough - Raise the nano-mag pickup (ditto) - Side dots! It's a big b****r and there is no way you can see the top of the fretboard when you are playing it - Final polish in about a week's time - Take the arty farty photos In the meantime, here are a couple of unplugged noodling clips - probably best listened to on headphones: https://soundcloud.com/andy-rogers-6/sets/ajr-dreadnought-acoustic-soundclips Andy

I have mine already: Custom Telecaster Body of a Telecaster shorn of virtually all adornments, rib and elbow contouring like a Strat, pickup/selector configuration basically from a superstrat but with a few tricks up it's sleeve so I can have any configuration I want (including the Tele mid-position), pickups made by Rob himself and specified for tone over power (definitely not DiMarzios!), neck set and made so as to be as close as possible to my '84 Gibson 335 dot except for a slightly bigger fretboard radius and a Fender scale length. In short, my favourite bits from some of my favourite guitars. If I think of anything else I'll post it later.

The finish has maybe 2 coats more to do. There's a lot of waiting around, though, when the varnish is dry enough to touch and handle but not dry enough to take the next coat. So in that time I've started on some of the other jobs. The bridge goes on last (you have to scrape away the finish that you've just spent weeks putting on!) but needs to be shaped to match the spheroidal shape of the top. This is where the old 'engineers blue' approach comes in - except you use blackboard chalk. I put a wide strip of easy peel masking tape where the bridge will go and gave it a liberal coating of chalk. Then placed the bridge on top and moved it around a couple of mm. Hey presto - the high spots: Then all you do is scrape where the chalk is and repeat (multiple times). Here it is after the first scraping: So same m.o. - now scrape these areas away. After about 8 iterations, I am getting there: So I know now that most of the area is making good contact. Just a final bit of tidying up and it will be ready to fit as soon as the final coats of finish have been applied. The colour won't change much now - it will just get glossier. Here's where we are at in overall look so far: So - all being well - a few more days of finish coats and drying and then I can move towards final steps

Thanks for the show reports S.B. over on B/chat, excellent stuff. Are you going to to some for here ?

Indeed, although it would be fantastic to have the same level of activity as on basschat its not going to happen overnight unfortunately!

You build some fine instruments, keep 'em coming! I do a bit myself (at a lower level) and need threads like this to get the juices flowing!

MGAW from before here..hello chaps

Who has 2 thumbs, and is a guitarist who prefers Basschat to the majority of muso forums..? This guy..! I'm excited by this, and hopeful it'll get me participating again. KotS

Thanks guys, I'll just stick a few things on and see how it goes.

Going to be the first to say it, John Petrucci. Not just for the shredfest type stuff but he really does have some beautiful playing at times too

Ageing plucker

Currently GASing for a reissue Princeton Reverb that I can gut and replace with a handwired turret board, and maybe an upgraded OT and speaker. Like this: