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

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.

Coming from the light side (basschat) and after having a friend of a friend show me how to get the most from my hx stomp, the other week I picked up an electric to try and learn… it’s from 1990 weighs less than 3kg and has switches on both knobs that makes it sound different- learning needs to happen !

Hi! It seems I joined a while ago but forgot. I started playing guyitar when I was in my teens back in the early/mid 70s the moved to bass. Now bandless on bass, I am about to pick up a guitar again for the first time in many years and have a few questions. I have had a Mexican Fender Telecaster for some years, stashed away in its case, and just recently bought one of these for a few quid at a bootsale which now sports a Tonerider PAF pickup and some new tuners. Hope to find answers to questions!

J. Bright, The Law Suit, late 1700s: There truly is nothing new under the sun...

I missed the electro bit Yamaha Music London do the FX310A for £235

Yes to both, not helped by intermittent focus in my eyesight and a reluctance to take my reading glasses everywhere in case it brings on mid life crisis.

Or are your fingers too big?

I blame the advent of GPS. ...

We're stoked to announce that we've launched some new multipacks... https://www.rotosound.com/blog/product-news/new-rotosound-multipacks/ These offer our most popular sets in 3- and 10-set boxes for cost-saving and convenience. Starting from £21.95 for the triple pack and £69.95 for the ten-set multipack, they're available now from UK dealers!

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

And it's done. Had to do a lot of routing to get the bridge located properly including plugging and redrilling one bridge post 1mm further way. The wiring was a challenge, I spent three days of eliminating possible causes to arrive at only one conclusion, the pickup selector switch was faulty. My midboost preamp didn't work and I wasn't going to spend a week trying to troubleshoot it, so I bought one only to discover that the guy who build it didn't include separate earth and -9v wires. So had to jury rig something up to provide the output socket with an earth connection, the boost is definitely warm but it lacks the glassiness I expected. So I have on order a genuine Demester Fat Boost (Tyler style) and at some point I will probably wire the switches so they are series, phase and parallel. Although they were fiddly to solder as well. However, after a fret levelling and proper set up, it plays very nicely and has more sustain than my other two strats. I have no idea why. It's quite a warm and loud sounding guitar as well acoustically. More aging is needed on the sides and back but I have other things to attend to in advance of being in the UK next month.

A common mistake is for folk to stick to the minor pentatonic when improvising, whether the key or chord is major or minor. Try and make sure you’re complimenting the chord by emphasising the 3rd note. A lot of players tend to play through the scales from one end to the other. Stand out from the crowd by making some interesting, intervalic jumps (Carl Verheyen is the king of this, check him out). Don’t be in a hurry to show your chops too early, build to a crescendo and release (the solo from Stairway is a great example of this).

Or, pretty much, exactly the same.

Wouldn't surprise me. The older I get, the more I realise 99% of the electric guitar market is about selling branding an intangibles far over the actual, physical product. It does seem to vary by location, though: players in the US on average still seem to be much more likely to be emotionally invested in the idea that a guitar made in the USA *must* be superior, or is somehow otherwise "the real thing". Which I suppose shouldn't be surprising given that's where the electric guitar boom started, and so there's a sense of "loss" that those aren't dominant in the market any longer - as opposed to being "only" another import product as they are for us in the UK.

I am a musician and teacher based on the west coast of Ireland. I teach online lessons across Ireland, the UK and the rest of Europe. I play electric, Acoustic and Spanish guitar in a variety of styles. My influences are diverse, from Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd to John Williams, SRV, Rory Gallagher and Tommy Emmanuel. Music was my 2nd love, but it's the one that never left me. (a good line for a blues).

Steady on, it's not like some of them need extra reasons to slap a premium on a five quid set of parts.

Gordon Smith, although better known for their Gibson types, also do a very nice Tele - https://www.gordonsmithguitars.com/shop/stock-guitars/blaggards/ TBH, though, I'm not sure that's how I would go. Clearly you're not looking for a more affordable alternative to Fender's US or CS ranges if you're thinking of spending that sort of custom money anyhow. Now, this is only a personal opinion, but.... for me it would depend a lot on what you want. A tele is such a utilitarian design that if what you want is the standard set-up Tele, it seems to me madness to spend custom-built money on it. If that's the only way - you want something really offbeat like the Jack White signature, or a Trussant Steelcaster, or you have an original 52 that you want to clone so you can leave the vintage piece at home and play a facsimilie out.... then, sure. But if what you want is "just" a Tele, it seems to be it's hard to justify spending vast sums on it.... I'd buy whatever MIM / Tokai / whatever you like and maybe rewired if you want, or track down a CIJ Fender that's good to go as is. (IMO, the top end Japanese Fenders are as good as anything form the US, typically wired the same with the same specs, and usually cheaper - nut much harder to find.) Unless you want something that's just not available otherwise, imo having a custom built Tele is a bit like having a Saville Row tailor copy a pair of 501s for you. They'll be an exquisite example, but....

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.

Returned today, with a partial refret, new plate, and setup with flatwound 12s.

Good evening, @danhkr, and ... ... Plenty to read and amuse you here, and lots to learn and share.

Filter-trons are an interesting ‘bucker option. Unlike PAF types, they don’t have that muddy honk.

That’s a very fine guitar, good choice.

OK, well now I am tempted to try another...the Behringer does the job, but I wonder if a more faithful Big Muff clone might be closer to what I'm after!

Off the top of my head, Keef, Dylan when he's in that mode, Joe Strummer, Johnny Ramone, Elvis.

I think it might be an age thing. I'm getting increasingly grumpy with technology this last couple of years...

Pool gigs. All the cool kids are doing them. In other news, aren't phone keyboards crap and too small?

It would help explain that scene in Spinal Tap, though.

Good evening, @Iain Douglas, and ... ... Plenty to read and amuse you here, and lots to learn and share.

Have you looked into... https://www.submarinepickup.com/collections/frontpage/products/the-submarine Haven't tried these myself, but I have seen fingerstyle guitarists with far more expensive versions of this solution! The idea is that you can position this to pick up your bottom two strings, and send that signal out to a bass amp or suitable effect/preamp/etc.

Like countless others outside the UK, I've been drawn to and subsequently obsessing over the clean tones that were achieved by in demand US session guitarists in the eighties and early nineties. While Michael Thompson was perhaps best known for his clean tone, Dann Huff appeared on countless Top 10 recordings that featured his lush stereo swells including tracks by Peter Cetera, Amy Grant and others. Part of that sound was down to his rack of effects often involving a Mesa Studio preamp into a Songbird trichorus, then stereo with one side going through an Eventide Harmoniser and Roland SDE3000 or Lexicon delay, the other side going through a Lexicon reverb and then another delay. However another part of his sound involved a highly modified 64 strat c/- Jim Tyler which featured Seymour Duncan STK2 pickups in middle and neck plus a JB (SH4) humbucker in the bridge AND...a Tyler mid boost circult which also sparkled up the presence a bit as well. So I'm going to recreate his 64 strat, including making the midboost circuit. I've nearly assembled all the parts, however I had to trash the cheap neck that was going to be used after I discovered that it had warped into an S shape and whoever made it cut the fret slots at ninety degrees to one side of the fingerboard...DOH. Luckily it was only 30 quid but still...a replacement, fully painted, is on the way. Also, the pickup seller sent a TB5 custom instead of the TB4 (trem spaced version of the SH4) but the replacement has arrived. And finally, the series parallel pickup switches that arrived were on-off-on when I ordered on-on. So waiting for the replacements to arrive from a different seller.

Absolutely, it's about selling dreams...as in 'buy this and get closer to living the dream'...whatever that dream is.

Have you ever thought of taking the Fusion to a guitar tech to set up? Maybe they can get the neck closer to the way you want it. I'm surprised that the AS53 doesn't stay in tune. I have an AS73 and it stays in tune pretty well - just the occasional slight tweak needed. I would imagine it has the same hardware as the AS53.

I bought the Classic Vibe 50s Tele many years ago. All that remains of the original beast are, the neck and hardware, neck plate, control plate and scratch plate, although that’s been modded to accept the new neck pickup. The old body has become a small table and the old hardware is cluttering up a cupboard. Can’t help on the tuner ratio thing I’m afraid.

A bit late I know but .. just add more bass to your guitar tone and dismiss the need for bass completely! Works for some modern bands today

Eeps. Be interesting to hear what it sounded like.... if he'd played it anyhow and it had sounded good, the web wold be full or people arguing about how best to melt the wax in your pickups, and what tonal difference it made to do it with them still in the guitar, whether to let the wax stay on the sound board because mojo tonez....

They don't really unless they're just playing one bands songs e.g ACDC. Nothing wrong with SS amps though, the Peavey Bandit 112 has been a long held secret find and they're still available for peanuts. The Yamaha G series designed by Paul Rivera was one attempt at including a parametric eq on a guitar amp to help emulate different responses. But perhaps something ahead of it's time as well. The UK's own Session amps were well regarded even if the owner did occasionally go on anti-valve rants. Plus...with modellers or profilers becoming more popular, pedal board amps are experiencing some popularity now with any players who want to stay with traditional cabs.

I had a 3 way one of those in my Tele. They are horrible, not only in working out the connections, but in general operation. I just replaced it with a decent, open design switch. If your friend is unwilling to spend a few quid on a decent selector, try some Google images for what wire goes where. Sorry, best I can do.

Hi there, This is my first post here, so please be gentle with me. OK, so I have been playing on and off for decades (40 years), but I would say I am pretty much still a beginner, at best an intermediate player. I was originally self-taught and only got to sonngs involving strumming chords, although I longed to be able to improvise like some of my friends could. So, in these early days (my teens), I knew chords such as A, C, D, E, F, G, Am, Bm, Dm, Em, A7, B7, D7, E7, G7. Whilst I understood the happy/sad difference between major and minor chords, I had no idea that there was a specific, consistent 'rule' (i.e. in this case 'flatten the third') connecting the major and minor chords. I didn't even realise that these chords were made up of 3 notes! It was a total parrot-fashion learning experience for me. I knew then that the chord 'Cmaj' was often abbreviated to just C. Now, zoom forward to today, and I know that major triad chords are actually created using notes 1-3-5 of the major scale and notes 1-3-5 of the minor scale are used for the minor scale (moreover, that this is equivalent of the 1-b3-5 notes of the major scale). However, the terminology used in the naming of these chords now has me utterly confused. Where Cmaj is the same as C, Cmaj7 is not the same as C7. Instead, the seventh chord with no major or minor indicated (e,g, C7) is called the dominant 7th. So, instead, there are these relationships: Cmaj : 1 - 3 - 5 (also known simply as C) Cm: 1 - b3 - 5 Cmaj7: 1 - 3 - 5 - 7 C7: 1 - 3 - 5 - b7 (also known as C dominant 7th) Cm7: 1 - b3 - 5 - b7 And this is just the first few chords!!! I suppose if we never refer to the chord C as just 'C', but always call it 'Cmaj', we could write these out as follows: Cmaj : 1 - 3 - 5 (only ever referred to as Cmaj) Cmaj7: 1 - 3 - 5 - 7 Cm: 1 - b3 - 5 Cm7: 1 - b3 - 5 - b7 C7: 1 - 3 - 5 - b7 (also known as C dominant 7th) I'm not too sure I'm putting my point across too well here, but I am trying to find a 'system' of my own which gets me out of the confusion in the bold font above. Now consider the tons of other terms, like diminished, augmented, suspended, never mind the other 'number terms', like 6th, 9th, add9, 11th, 13th, 7th flat 9, 7th sharp 9, etc and it all becomes a minefield!!! I mean, are we supposed to know what a 'dominant 7th' sounds like and how it differs from a 'major 7th'? That concludes my question about terminology. What I meant by formulas is where can I find a complete list of formulas for all these different chord types? These could be expressed as 1-3-5 (note numbers), C-E-G (key of C. note names), and even as 2W-WH (intervals in terms of Whole and Half Steps). What I meant by MORE formulas is where can I find a complete list of formulas for all the different scale types and modes? Again, the Major scale could be writted as 1-2-3-4-5-6-7, for Cmajor scale CDEFGAB(C), and in intervals as W-W-H-W-W-W-H. Indeed, are there only formulas for chords and scales? Are there other formula that are important to know? And no, I don't mean relatively complicated formulae that related string mass thickness and tension to frequency, but rather the stuff we need to know as aspiring guitar players. I suspect that I am overthinking all this, but I feel that a solid understanding of the underlying theory of music, which I wish I had known years ago, helps with one's own playing. Recently, I considered buying various wall-charts showing chord diagrams, scales, circle of 5ths, etc, but I was surprised to find comments by buyers claiming that these were erroneous! So, my question on the formulas is can anyone here please recommend a good (highly regarded and accurate) book which would have all the formulas for chords and scales (and other?) collected in one place? If you have read all this, thanks for your time. I appreciate any responses that I might receive. Cheers, Simon.

Pretty much every UK luthier can make a tele. They are the simplest popular guitar to construct. Most of the sound comes from the pickups so body woods can be anything from pine to ash. Just choose one closest to you, pre-purchase the neck and pickups and get him to make a body to suit.

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

UPDATE: my Behringer SF300 has arrived. Does the job just nicely! Really useful having the three modes, too: I can see myself using the more "vintage" sound of Fuzz 1 the most, but the scuzzier tone from Fuzz 2 has been quite fun to play with so far. Popping the guitar into drop D with Fuzz 2 certainly gives a nice All Them Witches-type vibe! Thanks again for the recommendation!