darkandrew

I've always worked on the principle that in E standard tuning you string an LP/SG with 10s and Teles/Strats (or similar scale) with 9s. Until last night, my Fender Showmaster superstrat was tuned to D standard and strung with 10.5s (D'addario EXL110+) to give it the same string tension as 9s at E standard but having recently decided to use a different guitar as my default D standard guitar, I decided to re-string and re-tune my Showmaster to E standard but having had 9s on there before and not liking them (too fizzy) I thought I'd try 10s this time instead. So having re-strung, re-tuned and re-setup I gave it a go, and was really surprised by the results - despite the increased tension, the strings didn't feel that much stiffer to be honest and the fizzyness was also gone, so all's good! What do other people put on their Strats when tuned to E standard?

I suppose it's always been the way but recently I seem to have noticed more signature models of guitars and pickups than ever before. On the whole, do you think involving celebrity musicians in the design / development process of a guitar or pickup leads to a better product or is it just a cynical marketing ploy to persuade bedroom players that they can sound just like their guitar hero?

Just as a side thought - if you leave everything on "10" all the time and never touch the volume or tone controls, will the oxidation on the tracks of the pots build up over time (a bit like rust on brake discs) and so would it not be advisable to do at least one full sweep of each pot each time you play the guitar?

Nile Rodgers shared that on his Facebook feed earlier today - it is pretty cool isn't it!

On 06/03/2020 at 13:04, EdwardMarlowe said:

I'm interested to hear about why those who are primarily basssists havearange of basses - or not. As primarily a crap guitar player who also enjoys playing bass badly, I find the only bass I really am interested in is a P bass - the traditional, one-pickup job.

I can't believe no-one has "bitten" yet, if this was over-the-road on Bass Chat, World War 3 would have started! The strange thing is that I almost agree with you though. Although I have half a dozen guitars that all get used regularly (different pickups, different tunings, etc) I have only 2 basses that I play - a five string Spector Euro and a four string EBMM Sterling; any bass tone or playing "feel" that I need can quite happily come out of one of these.

When you look at my top 3 I think it's quite easy to spot that I am a product of the 80s. My top 3 are:

John McGeoch (Siouxsie and the Banshees, Magazine, PIL, etc) - amazing unorthodox talent and much missed (probably the guitar equivalent of Mick Karn).

Geordie Walker (Killing Joke) - again, an amazing unorthodox talent.

Andy Taylor (Duran Duran, Power Station, etc) - at first consideration, kind of the opposite of my other two choices but still a little unorthodox in his own way if you consider his hard rock playing style in the context of an 80s pop band.

15 hours ago, MWH said:

I've never tangled with one of those,  maybe it's better that way ?

Unless you have two left hands.

Having just had a particularly torturous time restringing my LTD M403, I've come to the conclusion that there is a special place in Hell reserved for whoever invented the reverse headstock.

In my "other" band (ie. The g*th one, not the Britpop one) we once played a club night at Skin Two - now that was an interesting audience!

5 hours ago, Kiwi said:

I think it's OK for each to define their own senses of community and identity.  It's probably inevitable and helps ensure a broader appeal.

And that brings us right around to the initial question of this post - how do we make this particular forum (ie. Guitarchat) more appealing? Whether we like it or not, one question that does need to be asked is whether the forum would have a larger and more active readership if it were a part of the Basschat forum? Would it be possible to have certain pages shared across both forums? This might be one way to increase readership and activity.

On 06/02/2020 at 23:18, Kiwi said:

I think you're right - so the problem is about how to draw in from a larger source I guess.

It's a difficult one - if we look to other guitar-centred forums for inspiration, then we're just going to end up as a clone of them and therefore just another guitar forum. What makes Basschat special are the members and real sense of community that they bring, in which case I guess it begs the question as to whether we actually need a guitar specific forum or if it's best just to keep the one forum (ie. Basschat) and have a dedicated guitar area within it?

It seems that most people on here are Basschat members that also play guitar, I don't know what the official stats are but that's my observation. I suppose that's quite a specific demographic, which is probably why it's not all that busy over here.

A bit late to the party, sorry. If you're looking at replacement pickups for an SG, then it really has to be a Bare Kunckle Riff Raff set - not cheap but definitely worth every penny.

19 hours ago, Lozz196 said:

Probably need loosening if anything

Yes, a little loosening of the truss rod (probably half a turn) should be all you need. Does it have a trem? If so, you might need to loosen the springs a little as well.

Hi, I can't see from your profile where you're based but as this is the sister site of the very friendly and supportive "Basschat" website, you may even be able to find someone who is local to you who will quite happily spend half an hour or so with you going over the basics.

I think there's a video posted on you tube by EBMM where they show how to "finish" an unfinished maple neck and fretboard with TruOil.

On 12/06/2019 at 17:30, Colin 777 said:

Hi Andrew Is this still available? Would you accept Paypal?

Sorry, I hadn't seen your question until just now. I'm probably going to keep the Rif Raf for now - I'm currently pairing the RR bridge with a Mule in the neck but I'll probably keep hold of the RR neck for now just in case I change my mind.

A lot depends on whether you're intending to use the gear at home or for gigging. If you're not intending to take the gear out then it's amazing what can be done "in the box" on a computer these days. There are many guitar effects and amp / speaker simulations which are perfectly OK (Amplitube, Guitar Rig, etc) and a plethora of recording packages which include libraries of drum and other loops ready for you to arrange and edit as you see fit (FL Studio, Garage Band) or if you want to go a bit more "pro" you can get something like Protools or Cubase and a dedicated Drum VST such as BFD. You will also need a low latency audio interface for your computer which will allow you to plug your guirar into it. If you don't want to go down the all-in-one-box approach of using a computer with various items of software, then you can get some pretty decent hardware for not too much on eBay and the like - something like a Line 6 Pod or Boss GT with a digital multi-track recorder. 

Holy Diver bridge pickup - almost new (only installed for less than a week), black/cream reverse-zebra open coil, 6 string / 50mm spacing, short legs and 4-conductor cable.

Designed as a hot Alnico 5 pickup, along the lines of a Seymour Duncan JB but without the mud at the bottom end and ice-pick spike at the top - a great pickup for rock and metal.

Currently retailing for £129 from Bareknuckle, so £85 including UK postage (Sorry, due to bad experiences in the past, I will only post to UK addresses) is a pretty good price. Payment by bank transfer or cash on collection from Chatham, Kent.

Riff Raff neck pickup - almost new (less than a month old), black open coil, six string, short legs and 4-conductor cable.

Probably the brightest neck humbucker that Bare Knuckle make, not quite a single coil tone but probably as close as you're going to get to it in a humbucker. A great pickup for rock, pop and funk or just for brightening a dark and muddy neck position.

Currently retailing for £129 from Bareknuckle, so £85 including UK postage (Sorry, due to bad experiences in the past, I will only post to UK addresses). Payment by bank transfer or cash on collection from Chatham, Kent.

If it's reading 0 ohms then I'd be surprised if it was the switch - I would have expected an infinite or open circuit value if that were the case. Personally as you're reading a 0 or short circuit on the meter, I'd be more inclined to to suspect that a signal wire is touching earth somewhere - for a example, a single strand of wire that not been soldered with the other wires and is intermittently touching something that is earthed.

I remember reading in Gary Numan's autobiography that Bill Nelson was one of his heroes but other than seeing him credited with playing some guitar on a Cabaret Voltaire album I don't know much about him or his style. Please educate me ...

On 26/04/2019 at 19:13, guitar_joe said:

I'm thinking of buying a brand new, expensive guitar, that is listed for around 3500$ on the dealer's site. Now I'm wondering, are prices in this range absolutely final in Europe or there is a little room for haggling? If I ask them if they could sell it for, say, 3300, would they tell me to go f myself? It's a mass-produced guitar that is available at several dealers for pretty much the same price. I'm OK paying the full price, but if it's possible to get a discount (without burning the bridge with the dealer for good), I would not mind at all.  I know that asking for a deal is the norm over the pond, in the Land of The Free, but not sure about it in EU.

I'm from the UK and I always phone the shop and ask them in person what "the best price' is on anything I buy. As long as you're polite and friendly about it then they should be too. 

59 minutes ago, ezbass said:

At least you received an answer, there was just tumbleweed for me.

As for recommendations, it all depends on what you’re trying to achieve. I wanted to give my Tele a P90 tone, so I asked the nice chaps in NY and they came back with the Area Hot T for the bridge and Heavy Blues Vintage for the neck. I remember the SDHBs being absolute monsters that ate Gibson PAFs with ease. If I was retro fitting a humbucker fitted guitar these days, I think my start point would be the Air Nortons as I like the description of them.

My recollection of the Super Distortion is similarly monstrous but I prefer a bit more subtlety these days. Have you tried the Air Nortons? I've read about them, etc, and they do sound interesting but never actually tried them myself - I might have to give them a go one day, especially with Bare Knuckle' s prices continuing to creep up.

32 minutes ago, ezbass said:

I’ve always liked DiMarzio, from my first SDHBs that I fitted to my Aria LP back in the ‘70s, to the Heavy Blues and Area Hot that I have fitted to my current Tele. Not only are their products top drawer, they are also the most helpful company to deal with. They answer email enquires quickly and really thoroughly (even the top guys there who deal with the likes of Satch, Vai and Johnson get involved), which is more than I can say for my experience with a well known, California based company.

I've never had to contact Dimarzio but have tried that other well known US pickup manufacturer that you mention and understand your sentiment - the reply took two weeks to arrive and was just a "cut and paste" answer from their website that didn't actually answer my question. Are there any particular Dimarzios that you'd recommend?