Leaderboard

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.

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.

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

Same. To be fair, the 5 series are really, really good and the price difference between a 5420 and 6120 is huge and the law of diminishing returns says you’ll not be getting an awful lot more. 5420, plus some TV Jones pickups and you’ll be pretty much 95% of the way there, for a fraction of the cost.

Interesting - I had not noticed that. Amusingly, the tech mentioned that though he is a Gibson man he has often coveted Jaguars when they've come in, and whilst dealing with this he finally succumbed to the GAS and ordered a Fender custom shop model. Apparently, according to what I have read, they were originally meant to be a luxury model to poach Gibson's customers.

For anybody considering a Goldo DG offset tremolo I got it to work great (there’s nothing on their website or YouTube I’ve looked none stop) I placed an long Allen key under the D shaped string anchor point leaving just enough room for the ball ends to go in the tight fit, brought all the strings to tension from the low to high E equally then A to B etc and it set the “floating point “ then removed the Allen key and tuned to pitch, voila !!!! If everyone is aware of the principle then great but I wasn’t. There’s more travel with this unit than standard offset ones though all the nut groove attention needs to be done like any other trem .

Phase I instigated, just bought one of these. Looks just about as simple as can be and can't go wrong for under £40. I can't imagine taking my guitar playing on the road so just for home use. Nevertheless I have been using one of their wireless jobbies for gigging/rehearsing for 18 months or so and it has behaved faultlessly.

That's my new plan! Perfect, thank you.

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

Yep, you won't go wrong with a Yamaha F-310. It's long been considered one of the best (and best value) acoustic guitars for beginners. I've had one for about 20 years and still play it.

I concur with the advice above : one speaker cable with a 1/4 mono jack at each end is all that's required. It can be plugged into either of the cab sockets; these are doubled up to give the option of linking to a second cab, if desired. This is called 'daisy-chaining'. Probably moot in your case, but one should be aware that the total impedance of cabs connected in this way must not be below the minimum impedance of the amp. Two 8Ohm cabs connected in this 'daisy-chain' fashion would present a 4Ohm load to the amp. If the amp supports this, all well and good. If not, expect costly 'magic smoke'. The 'Baby Bomb' pedal amp, for instance, will not support two such cabs (the output socket is labelled : 8-16 Ohms...), but your single cab should be fine. Ignore, then, the second cab socket. Hope this helps.

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.

PRS SE of almost any description although my personal preference is the hollowbody first followed by the Swamp Ash HSH. Having said that, when I fancy a new guitar, I make one. This might sound like a dream but its happened every year for the last few years now as I've developed confidence and a couple of them are REALLY good. However I'm now caught between running out of space and not wanting to sell any. Honourable mention for the Ibanez AWD83T, amazing guitar for the price used. One of those gems that deserves more recognition once the neck pickup has been swapped out for one from the more modern Artcore range.

Sad news indeed - I read somewhere that it was JHS’s wish that the company be wound up when he passed. Someone is bound to buy Vintage guitars - or at least , I hope so. Their reputation and history has to be worth something in today’s crowded market

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.

Look at barre chord shapes and use those notes as a guide to what to play, then experiment with different positions up and down the neck. Then, if you're brave, try it with inversions and THEN with modes. See how far you can push things without it sounding irrelevant.

OK I think I've reached the end of the road with this one. Or at least I've gone as far as I can... The Ernie Ball VP Jr arrived and works great although there isn't enough space on the already quite generous pedal board for it. Over the weekend, I also discovered someone selling Eventide Pitchfactor for about 230 quid online and so pulled the trigger because it does Eventide Harmoniser detune. So that has replaced the TC Electronic 3rd Dimension. And a second Pigtronix Echolution arrived as well but I may have actually over cooked it a little because just one can handle stereo AND both the RV500 reverb AND the pitchfactor have delay as well...hmmm. Slight buyers remorse perhaps. The only thing left in the set up is another pair of Loudster power amps which I'm in no hurry to buy right now given the Marshall power amp does the job adequately for practice purposes. I'll post a pic of the actual pedalboard once I've finished the re-wiring. Now I should probably go and learn some songs...

I think Behringer just got a little too close to the original design. I am very much a fan of Behringer, by the way. I ordered mine from Anderton’s, as it was the only place that had them in stock, two days before the lawsuit was announced. I told my wife that they would start being worth more because of the lawsuit, and the lack of stock in many places (Anderton’s were the only ones that had them in stock and not back order) but that was to justify buying it… I had no idea that the prices really were going up. Maybe I should have ordered two? I certainly won’t be selling mine, it’s a excellent pedal. I suppose, what I could do, is build my own (which had always been the plan before the Behringer came out and all the massively positive reviews for it), and if it’s close enough, I could sell the Behringer.

Hi fellow musicians. I've been playing the guitar for over 40 years. I taught myself to play. I have been in a couple of bands gigging. I am rhythm but have picked up a lot of lead from Gary Moore tracks, by ear. My first guitar was a 1986 Fender Telecaster. I paid 199 quid for it. As the years have gone by, and as you do, I have collected a couple of Epiphones, couple of Fender Strats and an Ibanez and Fender acoustics. I do have a question around octave pedals. I have bought three so far and they all drop down an octave. What pedal takes you up an octave? I play the light E string 12th fret but Gary plays on the G string which is normally an octave lower. It does make a difference to the sound of the note.

Totally agree. Like you a 6120, Setzer Sig or Hot Rod would be awesome, but

Sounds like a real bargain. I had a quick look on Reverb and other Cox Classix electric guitars are selling from about £150 second hand. Obviously, they aren't covered in stickers with repainted headstocks, but your is now in the same condition after a little work. Well done.

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.

Here’s a few builds I’m working on at the moment……….

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.

I'm sure there's probably some way of doing it; probably involving soaking the teatowel in epoxy resin or something like that.

I too that there’s a lot of fuss over tight neck pockets. Yes they’re good for stability and alignment, but once set up, as you’ve done, I think it doesn’t effect tone, YMMV. I had a 1963 P Bass that had gaps around the neck heel you could drive a bus around (excuse the hyperbole) and it sounded magnificent.

The pictures don't do it justice. The guitar looks impressive out of the box. The fender pre-wired pickguard looks amazing I have to say, it's creamy, not white, which will match everything better with a more pronounced vintage vibe. Colour scheme apart, the guitar is actually very good, above my expectations. The only real problem is that the pocket won't fit the neck like a glove. The neck was out of alignment by a couple of mms and I had to fix that, relying on my eyes and the distance of the strings from the edge of the neck. Question: is the loose pocket a big critical issue? However, half of the Strat pocket is not even there by design hence the pocket will never hold the neck very tight and always have to rely on the bolts. Also I went mad today and I took the guitar apart to the smallest screw to rebuild it tomorrow. It's an ugly duck in need of love but all in all it's a very solid purchase, with lots and potential and most importantly I love it very much. Anyway I will go through all of this when I write my review. The tremolo is set from factory not to work (so they can save time in balancing it with the strings etc) and the electronics were very noisy. More to come on HB... stay tuned.

The Rotta T is coming along nicely….. I grain filled the headstock and fretboard black so I’m going to do the back and the rest of the neck after I’ve shaped it…..