ezbass

Sounds a lot like the way Matteo Mancuso plays, works for him and if it works for you, that’s all that matters.

Nice, congrats on both purchases.

2 hours ago, The Pinky said:

Thanks for the advice, I bit the bullet and bought it.  I am very happy with it and the seller, he was extremely helpful.

Excellent and good to hear that the seller was a good egg too. There is something I need to point out, however...

Kind of an unwritten rule or, at the very least, a guideline  

Around £200 new and £160 used on eBay, seems like a good price. Ignore the, “I’ve set it up,” the set up may not be to your taste and is a common selling phrase, all guitars are set up to differing degrees, doesn’t mean it’s been done well. That said, setting action height, intonation and relief on Les Paul is very straightforward.

If it were me, which of course it isn’t, I’d stick with the KoT as that offers 2 separate boosts/drives over the TS’s on or off. Full disclosure, my best pedalboard contained a Fulldrive2, a Line6 DL4 and an Ernie Ball volume pedal, so I’m biased towards that kind of OD pedal and don’t use over the top dirt.

A very neat job you’ve carried out there.

It’s possible that playing is irritating the tendons and nerves given that you might be gripping the neck harder than needed (this is normal when learning and that need to grip too much should abate). It could also be something else of course. I have suffered from tennis/golfer’s elbow in the past and found that best aid to recovery is kinetic tape.  Maybe buy a roll and look up KT taping for tennis elbow on YouTube for how to apply (I used a T shape application of 2 strips).

Looks like a cheap guitar that has been attacked with a saw, sanded and repainted. There are echoes of a cross between an Albert Lee signature and an Ovation Breadwinner. I quite like it. 

1 hour ago, FM_Guitar said:

Thats great thank you. I think a P90 could be a really good shout to especially to cover so much tone.

The first time I tried a P90 equipped guitar was a PRS McCarty with Seymour Duncan P90s, I was a convert from the first few notes and I’ve not changed my opinion since. My Tele has pickups voiced like P90s, but still has that inherent Tele sound and my other guitar is an Epiphone Casino Coupé, which is a P90 guitar in the first place. I’ve had other P90 guitars too and they always make me smile. I am, without doubt, a bit of a zealot when it comes to these pickups, or at least the tone they produce and how they react to attack and other parts of the signal chain. Is there a downside? Yes, a pure, single coil P90 can be noisy, but it’s worth it.

By way of an alternative, my second choice of pickup would be a Filtertron, especially in a hollowbody. 
 

This is all academic of course, I’m not buying the guitar and it’s not my ears (or hands, playability is key too) choosing for you. Keep us posted.

35 minutes ago, FM_Guitar said:

Hiya, thanks for the suggestions! If I lower the bridge pickup then is there some good suggestions for another guitar that can cover the other side of the tone?

I’m not particularly familiar with that Tele. I’d definitely be inclined to take into a store and do a side by side comparison. I know I’m biased, but it could well be that it’s a P90 equipped guitar that will add to the palette, rather than duplicate.

1 hour ago, FM_Guitar said:

That sounds great thank you. So it sounds like I need to go into a store and play around with a couple of guitars and then make my decision? I have been given a squier contemporary telecaster by a friend recently as he can't get on with it and I like some aspects of the guitar but find the bridge pickup too strong. Where do you guys suggest selling this?

You could lower the height of the bridge pickup and thus reduce its output.

You could always use it as a trade in against something new. However, I’d keep it, sort the output and buy something different to compliment it.

34 minutes ago, FM_Guitar said:

Oh okay, that sounds like a plan. Is there any costs or delivery needed?

 

I might be wrong, but it still may be free to advertise here. As to delivery, that’d be for you or the purchaser to organise via a courier of some sort, if it’s not possible for a pick up or a meeting somewhere.

On the P90 front, however…

https://www.guitarguitar.co.uk/product/191216352622008--epiphone-sg-special-p-90-sparkling-burgundy

Ah, P90s, my favourite pickup. IMO, with a P90 equipped guitar you can cover anything. There is a P90 Revstar, but it’s further up the range and more expensive. In all honesty, with good EQ and gain settings, you can reproduce a massive range of tones from any decent pickup (although a tapped humbucker makes it much easier). Listen to John Fogarty with Creedence Clearwater Revival and you’d swear he’s playing a Tele, but it’s a Les Paul. Whatever you go for, it must be something that you’ll want to pick up all the time, something that inspires. You can always add another guitar down the line, but get comfortable with one to start with would be my advice. After that you’ll have a better idea of what you’re looking for in another guitar, if it even proves necessary.

I always say that you can’t go wrong with a Yamaha at any price point. Therefore, im going to suggest something a bit left field with their Revstar range.

It has a switching system on the pickups, that they refer to as a dry switch, but in reality is going to be something like a coil tap, giving a wide range of tones. https://www.guitarguitar.co.uk/product/220222381756008--yamaha-revstar-rse20-vintage-white
 

Amp wise, it seems that you can’t go wrong although a Boss Katana these days. The 50w version should cover all your needs and bring you in under budget. https://www.guitarguitar.co.uk/product/190923348960008--boss-katana-50w-mkii-1x12-combo
 

For all this, you can’t beat going to a shop and trying stuff in person. As the UK’s biggest guitar store, Guitar Guitar in Epsom would be a good place to have a day trip to, dependent how deep in Kent you are of course. I have always found the staff there to be very helpful and not at all pushy. Of course, other shops are available.

7 hours ago, BadSituation said:

kotzen, SRV, EVH.  honorable mention to sambora.

 

over to a different genre- tommy emmanuel (who i may get to see this fall).  joe pass too.

 

 

Great to see Richie Kotzen getting some love. An often overlooked player and what a voice too.

That finish is disgusting - I love it! 

Welcome.

Great little amps and phenomenally loud. The current choice of Robben Ford when he can’t use his own amps.

34 minutes ago, Monte Blue said:

Can anyone help me with this? I'm a keys player who occasionally plays a bit of rhythm guitar. My standard guitar has always been an Epiphone LP but I put Seymour Duncan pickups in it. Using a Fractal FM3. Each patch just sounds right. But I always felt it was a slightly cheap guitar. Never felt entirely right to play although it sounded great. Was very unforgiving considering my limited technique. 

 

On recommendation I bought a Sire L7. I much preferred the build quality, the feel of the neck etc. It felt more comfortable to play. But it sounded so harsh compared to the Epiphone. Bright, thin, slightly empty sounding and way way too much drive.

 

So I swapped the Seymour Duncans into the L7 (got a guitar tech to do it of course) and... nothing - no change whatsoever. Still that same nasty, thin sound with too much drive. 

 

An example would be Fractal's Alex Lifeson 'Limelight' patch. On the Epi with the Seymours it sounds right. Easy to play, warm etc. On the L7 with the Seymours it's thin and so much drive that each and every slide of the fingers on the strings, every slight overtone is amplified. Very hard to play. 

 

Is there something wrong with the guitar? Should there not be a world of difference between the Sire pickups and the SDs?

 

Very grateful for any advice!

Sometimes, original pickups are just as good as premium replacements. I once had a PRS SE singlecut and swapped the pickups for a set of Seymour Duncans and then a set of Bareknuckles, neither were better than originals, which I put back in. However, in your case you have a set of good sounding pickups in one guitar that sound bad in another. Whilst construction may alter the tone slightly, having them fall off a cliff seems improbable. More likely is that the wiring loom is very cheap and nasty, with one of more components being faulty and therein lies the seat of the problem for both the SDs and the original pickups.

Jeff Beck at the Hammersmith Odeon on the There & Back tour in the early ‘80s, with the Climax Blues Band in support. The JB ensemble of himself, Tony Hymas on keys, Mo Foster on bass and Simon Phillips on drums were so on their game that night. Mo broke a string, something I’ve seen since or before, Si’s drum solo was literally jaw dropping, where he got the energy from to maintain that intensity for so long, I don’t know. Tony did his job of bringing it al, together and Jeff was Jeff, brilliant in every way. After seeing the Climax Blues Band, you could have gone home well satisfied, but to have them followed by Jeff & Co was a sight to see. Never bettered.

From my own annals, the moment that sticks with me most is one of slight embarrassment. I was playing the Crystal Palace Bowl, which has a huge stage. Going for my ‘Woodstock moment’ I ran across the stage (as you do) only to hear a ‘pop!’ as I pulled my lead out of the amp . Fortunately, I managed to get back to my amp and plug in again just in time to play the lead riff of the song. There is a recording of the event and you can hear what happened quite clearly .

Artec or Wilkinson are a good place to start as they're not expensive. However, they most likely won't be calibrated for 3 pickup style guitar and you'll need to buy either 2 bridge or 2 neck pickups and sort out the output later. https://www.northwestguitars.co.uk/p90-pickups/

Tune to the chord of your choice (major or minor) and then if you barre anywhere on the neck, you have that mode of chord at a different pitch. For instance, tune your guitar so that it plays an E major (E B E G# B E), then barre at the 3rd fret and you have a G major and so on. Keith Richards is well known for taking off the 6th string and tuning to open G (G B D B D), although you can leave the 6th on and tune it to D. Play a straight barre anywhere, then play a Amin7 shape and then release it; instant Stones and great for slide.

I'd leave them alone. It is not uncommon to have rusty or discoloured pole pieces. Unless it's shedding rust onto the pick guard and into the pickup housing, it's just aesthetics. Adds a bit of mojo to the look for me.

I'd be more into rubbing those frets over with some 1000 - 2000 grit paper and a micro mesh cloth.