EdwardMarlowe

Yeah, I wouldn't risk hanging them on a stud wall unless you're into the studs. I have three up in my place currently, with a circular base to them. I made sure to put the two screws 'top and bottom' rather than left and right as it anchors it better.

Very cool. Is this intended to have an archtop-type sound (without the feedback, obvs)? It's not every new design I like, but this for me has the perfect balance of being something that looks genuinely different and yet also with a truly vintage aesthetic.

Not yet, but it's been in my Amazon wishlist for a while!

I think that edge of 'artificial' look is why I quite like it! Nice to see a maple board on this sort of thing for a change, too.

Funnily enough, I was watching that film Yesterday at the weekend, and they had a scene on this - a musician saying he was not into creating an image, the label bod stating that if you don't construct an image, then your lack of one becomes your image. I've seen all sorts work for an act, but context is definitely important. I remember going to a black tie do years ago and being very disappointed when the band, such as it was, turned up to perform in ratty jeans and old faded t-shirts. Not sure whether that was meant to cock a snook as we squares or what, but for a covers duo formed to play exactly that sort of function it seemed a bit of a miss-step. Nothing on the eejit drummer I saw perform once as a wedding, though, who made a show of turning up in ratty jeans and a t-shirt with a tuxedo print on the front - and then proceeded to vocalise how clever he believed himself to be for not owning a suit.

At this point: - Custom Strat with the normal appointments you'd expect on a Player type but a 21 Fret, baked-maple neck with a 7.25 radius and soft V profile. Pots per the 50s style, with two extra mini-switches to given the option of bridge and neck / all three pups, and mute. - Nocaster Type Tele, wired like a 'Broadcaster' - Gretsch 6120 - One of those Teles with a single p90 in the bridge, otherwise set up like a 51. - a non-cutaway archtop of some sort. For am amp, the fantasy is something that look exactly like an old, tweedy Fender 1x12, with solid state guts that are indistinguishable from tube in sound, and can switch between a 5w and a 15w tube equivalent (both in sound and volume). NO on-board f/x - unless you count reverb, though I can live without that. Single channel. F/X wise, a decent reverb pedal (if none on the amp), a slap-back echo, clean boost, a decent classic OD, tremolo. For bass, the ideal is even easier: My Brandoni P-type A Fender 57-type P Bass in LPB A big, tweedy bassman type amp, solid state. *Maybe* a Ric bass for the odd occasion I come over a bit early Glen Matlock. And I've always fancied the idea of a P bass with a slab body shaped like either a Firebird or an RD (but otherwise still a p-bass in every aspect, including a bolt on neck).

The Zoot Suit SG was an interesting design from Gibson, well outside their usual comfort zone. Me, I'd love to see an SG reimagined as if made by Mosrite, with that German carved edge.

The top of the line Premium model I remember as looking nice, though they only did the mid level left-handed. For my preferences, I'm more leaning towards the Fender Acoustasonic range these days, hoping they eventually do a Mexican version of those.

Never used anything on maple. Have used a bit of oil on a rosewood board, though more for aesthetic reasons (to try and darken it a bit) than anything else.

I see the June deadline has been extended - probably as a result of pressure group complaints - but best to get in asap.

Useful blog here (not mine, but the info is good) on the process with links to the form to get to your GP by 23rd June for the Type 1 opt out, and an online link for the Type 2. Doesn't seem to be any online way of doing Type 1, unless your GP surgery set it up (but unlikely!). https://medconfidential.org/how-to-opt-out/

Yeah, huge developments there since 2012. In a few months' time there's going to be a huge leap forward: to date, China has always stuck to a sectoral approach (specific rules for specific areas), but the end of 2021/ early 2022 will see the arrival of the Personal Information Protection Law, China's first omnibus data protection law. Basically an equivalent of the EU's GDPR, and very. very similar. There's a big likelihood this could be enough to take China over the edge for the EC to declare it as having "adequate protection" equivalent to the EU. The commercial drive for this is huge, of course, as China wants to expand its ecommerce market into Europe and would love an EU trade deal. I'm sure there's room for objective criticism, though it's kind of a speck / log thing coming from the UK, where - no longer fully bound by the GDPR - the government is currently on a serious data grab of your personal health information - if you don't opt out by 23rd June, they will take all your GP's information on you forever, and there's a separate one for the national NHS. All snuck out undercover of the pandemic - and none of it would have been remotely legal until 31st January past.

It definitely varies from scene to scene. A lot of the retro / vintage scenes are particularly unforgiving that way.

Yeah, that's the general idea... a sort of grand experiment to see whether the notion of "tonewood" really is bunk. Though I can see why a lot of companies would have a vested interest in squashing that....!

Oh, for sure there's a difference between laminate and ply - I think I was more getting at the notion there that a good guitar doesn't have to be all-solid. What intrigues me is the idea as to whether a really great plywood guitar could me made. Like say Fender threw their custom shop at it, absolutely everything totally high end - would the ply render it crap, per conventional wisdom, or is it the case that low end build and other components made as much or more of a difference. I agree that for the industry to find an eco-friendly plastic that sounds good would be a huge shift - obviously changing wood-type is easier as it's still wood, still requires the same skills... which probably makes it unlikely to catch on for now, as if there's no demand, I can't see anyone wanting to make the investment...

This. All the this, in the world.

Almost everything I've ever done I've had a little bit of a rush. I've been teaching law for twenty years now; in about twenty minutes I'm going online to do a lecture for a class in Beijing on Chinese Data Protection Law - been teaching this for over a decade now, and I'm legit getting an adrenaline rush right now.

I do recall having mixed experiences, but I'm not fully ready to rule out the possibility that many of them were crap because they were budget, starter guitars built down to a price, rather than because of the plywood. (The Taylor pallet-wood guitar springs to mind here.) Not unlike the three-bolt neck on a 70s Strats got the blame for lesser quality in that period, when in reality it was far more to do with CBS's poor attitude to QA. A lot of high end semis use ply / laminate, partly because it's easier to mould, yes, but also because it's apparently less prone to feedback... What I keep coming back to is that with a Strat especially, the pick-ups are mounted in plastic, ultimately - the pick guard, which surely reduces the significance of the wood.... One thing I thought was fascinating was the Switch guitars. German company, I think. They were a bit HR Geiger in look for me, but the technology was a fascinating idea. They reckoned with the polymer they could cut out the organic variation common in wood guitars. By changing the make-up of the polymer from which they made their bodies, they could simulate different wood types, and once locked on something that sounded good, they could reproduce it every time, guaranteed. They bombed on the market, though. A mix of being too different on one hand and aesthetics on the other, I think - they had a very 80s Superstrat vibe at a time when that was very much not a big seller. Never got a chance to try one (never saw a lefty), but the concept was fascinating. In some ways, not a million miles from what Steinberger were trying to do with carbon fibre, or Ovation's fibreglass bowlbacks. It does make me wonder about the future of 3D-printed bits. If it played and felt the same, how many here would be up for a plastic guitar? I think it would be a hard sell to the mainstream, but for those who like something a bit different like Jack White's Airplane... They also sold the Switch guitars as environmentally friendly in the same era when Gibson were backing off some woods and experimenting with the 'Smartwood' guitar. Not sure how truly green the polymer plastic was - though the perception of plastic not being EF might have been a challenge for them. Interesting to see now there are more wood-types being considered - I remember seeing a Yamaha bamboo acoustic. I have a feeling though that aside from the odd exception, non-wood becoming a norm is a ways off yet. At least unless there's a new guitar hero of the level of a Hendrix emerges playing ply or plastic...

I think it's that "tonewood" notion again. Danos are made with cheap components and not some fashionable wood type, therefore.... I do believe far too many players hear a guitar by casting their eyes over the spec sheets. How many players have spent years trying to get their Strat to sound perfectly like Jimi's on the Purple Haze leads, only to discover he recorded that with a Tele? Or how many obsess over buying a Les Paul to sound like Page on Led Zepp I, when even Page himself can't remember which of those numbers he played on an LP and which were on a Tele? Don't get me wrong, if folks like and want to pay for a particular guitar, that's fair enough, but 'headstock ears' should at least be honest, shurely...

Totally get you on this. My own tastes are pretty caveman when it comes to guitars: I've tried but didn't cared for locking trems and active pups and such. Thing is, I gave them a go and decided they weren't for me. Aesthetically, I like my guitars to look like they could have been made prior to 1962, but even then I find the market very limited and closed minded - especially as a left handed player. (It's incredible how often some idiot these days still trots out the old lie about "guitar isn't handed", "you should find it easier with your dominant hand on the board" and such). Even within my own tastes, which do have their limits, I find the market narrow. I'm sick to the back teeth of hearing about "tonewood", or dogma that "guitarists should always buy the best [best meaning most expensive] they can afford." The worst I remember was when the first Variax was released, guys all over Harmony Central falling all over themselves to be the 3,009th say "Enjoy your toy" in sneering condescension. Even those who said they'd try one if they put fake pickups on it and made it look like a "real" guitar.... Honestly, I know Leo Fender had a time of it back in the fifties, but if he had to deal with selling something innovative to today's market, I don't know how he'd cope. Probably the one that drives me up the wall most is the abject refusal by so many to try something other than tubes - I've even seen many flat out reject the idea of even trying non-tube where it was guaranteed to sound exactly the same, simply because of, as you say, this misplaced notion of authenticity. The absolute worst are these fifteen year old kids who sound like their grandparents haughtily announcing "there's no good much like Led Zeppelin being made any more." You're bloody fifteen!!! Find your own thing, you have the time!!! MARLOWE ANGRY! MARLOWE SMASH! RAAAAHHHHHH! Ironically, I'm going to end up with tubes myself for no better reason than I can find a small, simple Champalike much cheaper than anything else I've looked at, but I always have an eye out for the price coming down on those Roland BluesCubes, or a chance to try one of those Session Blues Babies that claims to make SS sound like tube. If that works at the right price, I'll dump the tubes in a heartbeat. I'm already perfectly happy with SS for bass. I always have a laugh when some brand-snobs criticise the like of Tokai for not doing "something new", then when they do see something new (even from Tokai)....

I have a knee jerk hatred of people "clapping along". Comes specifically from musical theatre. At some point back when some genius thought it was a good idea to have the band play loudly over curtain call - so nowadays at most shows instead of applause, the performers get only the sound of a few hundred idiots clapping along mindlessly rather than applauding to acknowledge the performance. Grates on me every damn time I go to the theatre. As to youtube.... I did watch quite a few of the Chappers /Captain vids, went off them a bit after that silly kid got under his skin and he posted that video response that made him look, frankly, a bit sad. (Ignoring it would have been far more sensible.) TRogly's vids are interesting to see what's out there. Interestingly as I get older I have less and less interest in actually owning the vast majority of the high end stuff on there, but still fun to see it. Mostly these days youtube is my go to for diy tips, reviews of all kinds of consumer products, and so on. Been nice to keep up with my Sunday services via youtube during lockdown as well, as I'm still not going out much til I have my second jab. Look up the occasional music video, can be interesting for finding new European rockabilly acts. Watched a few good bits and pieces of content on there that I couldn't find elsewhere, including They Live, Psychomania, and the first two series of Auf Widersehen Pet just recently (the BBC were streaming the last two and the concluding specials, but the first two series went out on ITV - couldn't find 'em on the ITV player and damned if I'm going to subscribe to Britbox for anything....).

You're in good company if you have a touch of the stage fright; Brian Wilson was regularly crippled with it (to the extent of serious stomach cramps and vomiting) before he went on stage with the Beach Boys. It's one of the reasons he went off the deep end originally.

I remember when I first picked up a guitar in the early 90s, the number of experienced players then who used to marvel at the beginner guitars available in terms of quality, price and range then available compared to when they started. Now I find myself doing the same thing. In my early days, a beginner guitar was, for the most part, just that - the better ones might be something that could serve as a back up in case of a broken string if you played out. Increasingly now, imo, many beginner guitars (not the very cheapest, but...) are viable, giggable instruments that could serve well for years in their own right.

I'd agree with the suggestion of trying out as many different styles as you can. See what feels comfortable in the hand, and what you like the look of. (If you hate how it looks, that's not a great motivator to play it...). I'd also suggest looking into the JHS Vintage brand. Good range of takes on all the core classics, designed by Trevor Wilkinson, with street prices that make them, imo, often much better VFM than either the Squier or especially the Epiphone ranges. Their SG alikes are especially nice for the money if that's what wiggles your wire. https://www.jhs.co.uk/collections/vintage/type_electric-guitars

I can see the blade switch being a big plus point for those of us more F than G.... Wouldn't it also open up the option of all sorts of wiring too - like a six-way switch which out of phase/ coil taps and such in there? That could be pretty cool. I'd also be tempted to switch it out for two separate on/off minitoggles, though! It does take getting used to. I bought one years ago as a 'travel' guitar, as it's the perfect mix of being compact without being an unplayable, small scale. Funny thing..... I always considered them pig ugly. Not my first choice of guitar, but having experience of one and enjoying how it played I have a whole new appreciation of the design. Really quite nice to play, too.