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.

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.

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!

A few years ago I bought a Blue Ridge 12 string with the confidence that I would soon be able to remove my finger picks and apply my scruggs style technique to the 12 string and be able to emulate the one and only Leo Kotke.......... Well, it did kind of sound like him, if he flipped his guitar to lefty and played it with his bare feet. just had to get that off my chest. So sad

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.

Hi,everyone, I'm new to the site so thanks for having me,my wife made me join so I bore someone else,Sorry.

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.

Ordered a pair of matched JJ EL34 tubes and swopped out the Marshall stock EL34 ( will keep as spares ) Replaced V1 and V2 with JJ ECC83S Pleasing results as it sounds warmer, fuller and less harsh at high gain which the better JJ tubes seem to be helping A nice easy upgrade

For me it has to be Ritchie Blackmore and his stratocasters. As far as I can tell he has at least two - one which is a pale natural wood finish, and another which is painted an ivory colour.

There are posting settings saying you need 5 posts to be able to post in general. Seems a bit high, but otherwise, you probably have enough post count to now do it!

The DSL20 is EL34 paired and I would say it’s more 80’s to modern day rock I have the DSL20HR and it’s a great amp and can run at home at 10w It will sound much better cranked of course when it really shines The Origin 20 head is better for 60’s 70’s rock and with a drive pedal in front would cover most ground. I had the Origin 50 head in my old band and it was a lovely sound. For home I think the DSL20 is a good choice as it can still gig or jam or play at home Boss Katana is a good choice too but I still prefer valves I briefly tried the Laney Lionheart Foundry 60 but it was poorly built and sounded boxy and average The current production DSL20 is a great small amp. Can be bright sounding but back off the presence and treble and it sounds great. I use a Standard Strat with single coils and play clean and rock

I totally agree with this; my Takamine is fitted with these ... ... I have 'etching fingers', which rapidly turn steel or nickel-steel strings to red rust; these 80/20 bronze strings suit the guitar perfectly, with the added advantage of being the same gauge as my electrics and semi-acoustics, all fitted with nano-web sets. They last, for me, much longer than any other make of strings; I previously had to change in less than a year, but these were fitted over a year ago now, and are as good as when fitted, although I admit that I don't play my acoustic every day. It's a joy when one finds the right set for any guitar or bass; I'd even extend this to establishing the best heads for an acoustic drum set..! I used Remo Ambassador heads for decades, but the later choice of Evans Genera and G2 heads made a world of difference..!

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.

That's where I'd start. Seems a good idea to see if that one can be perfected first rather than going to the expense of another. Particularly given that buying from a brand with a traditional wholesale-retail business model is likely to end up with needing to pay about double what the HB cost to get something of an equivalent quality.

Yep! Therein lie the important chord tones, which will add flavour to your soloing.

Thanks for this @Dad3353. Much appreciated and a detailed answer as usual. From a tone point of view I really like the Classic 20, I like the tonal variations it has and do understand that different amps have different tonal characteristics. I don't play actually clean, I find a mild overdrive sort of tone for rockabilly, blues and modern country. I have only played at home, not with a band as yet and would expect to mic amp up when I do, I don't need 'loud' really. So I am happy to have an amp that sounds right at whatever volume level that is and let the PA take the strain. You only really notice when playing along to a cd, not really when just playing with no backing. I don't want to get involved with pedals if I can help it, I have played without them for 30 years and don't want the hassle of cables and power leads. But as it stands, I just can't work out how it can be useful if I can't increase the volume output using the guitar volume enough to change from rhythm to lead on the fly. Even if I did do pedals, surely the pedals likely to give me the effect I need (volume boost and a small amount of gain/overdrive pedal) will likely just do the same as the guitar volume and just hit the amp with a stronger signal which would also give me more gain but no volume increase? Is this likely to be for most tube amps or is it just the EL84? Would a different amp suit this more style more? If not then I will just cut my losses and go back to my normal SS amp. It would be a shame as the tone is lovely overall and adds that extra sparkle that the SS sometimes lacks

I see I haven’t posted here since 2023 when I put up my Taylor 12 string which I have since sold. Replaced with a Taylor Grand Pacific 517e Builders Edition. Matt finish wild honey burst.

Good morning, @Diary Of An Axeman, and ... ... Plenty to read and amuse you here, and lots to learn and share.

Good morning, @Rosie C, and ... ... Plenty to read and amuse you here, and lots to learn and share.

Price for price, and for equivalent condition, I'd suggest that the Fender would be the better deal. Any signs of repair, on any such guitar, would need to be fully investigated (this goes for most s/h acoustics, of course, but 12-strings have their own foibles...). Check carefully that the sound board (table...) of the guitar is nice and flat; some models have a tendency to have the bridge pull up, forming a 'belly', due to the extra tension of so many strings. To prevent this, it was a 'standard' trick to tune down one tone ('E' becomes 'D' etc...), and use a capo at the second fret to bring it back to regular 'E' tuning. It's always best to have a decent gig bag, at least, or a hard case; be aware that the extra headstock length has to be taken into account when buying a case. Other than that, it's much like any other s/h guitar. I'd expect to pay about 300€ for those models, in good condition for their age, maybe a bit more for the Fender, but not the double. Good luck with the hunt; report back here when you find what you're after..? Hope this helps.