EdwardMarlowe

I suppose that's true to an extent, but I don't think Thomann have a storefront real world at all?

I would guess that part of it is that PMT are primarily brick and mortar stores where you can go in and haggle, whereas the internet 'works different'. I'd also expect thnigs to be a little more expensive in a bricks and mortar store because of increased overheads, though not £300 different. Doubtless lefties are a little more expensive to make because of retooling, lower demand and such, but I do also feel we often get the shaft in pricing because we don't have the same range of options. Things have improved in many stores, but evne twety years ago it wasn't uncommon to walk into a guitar shop and them not have a single lefty in stock. I badly miss Holiday Music in Leytonstone....

I wonder (not got the tiem to watch thed video just yet, so he may address this) whether part of it is a genfered psychology thing.... Women, by and large, don't seem to obsess over some of thed crap men do - "OH, I nee a dozen guitars to have a palette of sounds" and that rot. Maybe htel adies gravitate to wards that model because it has a wide array of sounds and they just want to have a nice guitar and play it?

Ah, I'd assumed they were all under the plate as per standard. presumably, though, that lets you access the pots without having to take the whole plate off, which couldc be handy.

They all look nice. Interesting variation on the LP shape - I detect a touch of Telecaster on the neck end of the body, I think. What's under the rear plate on the red fixed-bridge S type?

I think you could be right to some extent re bass players.... Bass is my second insturment, though I'm one of the hardcore bass luddites - if it's ain't a P-bass, meh. I mean, as I get older I'm mellowing - I'd love a P-bass with a body the shape of a Gibson RD Artist. I would prefer a maple board over a rosewood one, because, as Dee Dee RAmone once put it, "they bounce better." That 'wram stone' looksl ike a really interesting concept. Clever ona number of levels - if it takes off, it could sell to a lot of people who already have tube amps they love. More to the point, I could totally see it being hugely popular with guitar techs on major tours, where the reliability of solid state would be very welcome indeed. That would be interewsting to try.

True story: I owned a plectrum for about ten years before I owned a guitar!

Quite so - there's something about bass players that they've always been much more open to new ideas.... Maybe with only four strigns to worry about (most of the time, anyhow) they have the extra brain space to cope with other bits? Funnily enoug,h one of the guitars I'll be selling is a Westone Thunder IA (Matsumoko-built) with onboard actives. Flick on the boost, and it sounds like the best sort of SG.... exactly the sound I always wanted in a Les Paul but could never find.... I instinctively shrink at the idea of active pickups., but I ouldn't honestly tell you why. I think it's one of those "But these go to eleven" mental blocks... IT's intersting that the original Clapton Fender sig model with the mid boost was designed so it stayed on permanently.... I alwayswodnered if they could have achieved the same thing another way without the need for a battery.... probably not, as I'm sure Fender are pretty on the ball no these things at that level!! I'm liking the concept of the Vox Nutube on paper. If they can guarantee the future of those and were also able to produce a convertor plate so they could plug in in place of "normal" tubes, I think they could havea killer app that would reach that paert of the marketr that will orever be "tubes good, digital baaaad".

Yes, that's clever.... I'd love to see the insdie of it if ever you open it up. Specifically, I'm wodnering whether it could retrofit on another guitar designed to take that kind of two-post bridge....

Very nice. Remidns me how it was - I think - PRS Who repopularised the one-piece, wraparound bridge.

Yes! THe one that replaced the frets with a stepped fingerboard, right? Only ever seen one of those in person - it was on sale in a guitar shop in - I think - Amsterdam in 2003. Never played one. I imagine it takes a bit of getting used to.

He's obviously donig it for the brand profile / advertising - that's a norm these days. Business gotta keep the money coming in. I don't mind it, though, tbh - I find him an easy watch / listen - informative, without the hard sell, and I tend to feel he's fair and honest in thse things - while sensaibly leaving it up to the viewer to decide between pricebands - e.g. Epi v Gibson. I like hoe he's open about his preferences for high end stuff, without being snobbish or dismissive of the affordable options.

Here's another one.... Remember Switch guitars? Somesort of plastic polymer body and neck? They wre all far too futuristic looking for me, but I liked the theory - the idea that you could alter the consistency of the polymer to imitate specific wood types, and achieve total consistency. Think about it - you want to be able to buy a Strat body that directly imitated the tone of, say, Blackie or Jimi's Woodstock Strat? Or you want to buy a Strat body for a project designed to produce a sympathetic tone for specific pickups? This is honestly the kind of stuff I think Leo Fender would be working on now, were he still with us. Guitarists will take a long, long tiem to convince of its value, but if I could buy a recycled-plastic polymer body (thus: green) that was cheaper than wood and had a ool look (like a glitter blue or something), that would rock.

The new price on those HB SGs is shocklingly low if they play as goodas they look! I didn't think anything could outdo the Vintage SG type for value, but.... In a year or two once I have their DC and SC LP Junior types, I'd like to see them do an SG Junior! Agree with exbass - I'm not a V guy, but that one looks very nicely done indeed. Some very classic V features, yet doing its own thing with the form too.

I suspect most of those things are designed as far as possible to only take sound from one input at a time - remember they were developed first and foremost as busienss options (in the main) - so as to get a good, clean sound.

Yeah, it just avoids a bit of excess noise. OTOH, if you're using a tube amp, I'd whack it to zero before you turn it on.

Tanglewood started off as a lower-price affair, but have streadily grown into a full range of imnpressive stuff, including higher end guitars. Their top end stuff I'd put up against anything in a similar price band. As for Epiphones, well... as I always say of any particular Epiphone, the relevant Gibson will be twice the guitar, for five or ten times the money. Up to you at hat ponit along the alw of diminishing returns scale you jump off the train... I can't claim to have based this on anything as I've not handled any of the 2020s yet, but I have a suspicion that Epiphone might just be very concertedly upping the ante as of these last few months, having been facing an awful lot of competition from some very good price-band alternatives in recent years. The new brooms at Gibson seem to be a lot more intune with the market than the previous admin.

p.s..... Looked Marlin up online - they were first made in East Germany (only very briefly in 1985) for British Music Strings Ltd based in Wales; 1986-89 they were made by Samick in Korea, then in 1989 Hohner bought the brand and shifted production to Cort in Korea.

I have fond memories of my Marlin electric, my first guitar. Marlin were a very successful, Korean-built range of guitars which, I believe were built to contract for Hohner (I have seen a few that carried a "Marlni by Hohner" branding). Their electrics were the reason that Fender initially introduced a Korean Squire in the mid-late eighties to compete on price, and then 1992 Fender introduced the Squier Silver series built in Japan. The Marlin Sidewidner, a Strat take-off, was outselling the Squier hands down in the UK over several years by severely undercutting the Squiers on price. Squier's early Korean guitars had also gone over to plywood bodies, whereas Marline used solid (basswood) - a fact mercilessly exploited by competitors (around the same time, Yamaha introduced the 112 with an advertising campaign based on "ask whether it comes in natural finish" - whichthe Squiers didn't; it even showed the back end of whaT was obviously (but not labelled as ) a Squier with the paint sanded back to reveal plywood. Squiers didn't come in ...). They were never quite as bad as it's now fashionable to believe, nor were most of them as good as the budget brand electrics avaialble today. For guitars that were everywhere in their day, you don't see so many of them appear for sale now; I' guessing al ot of them have over the years been handed down through families, ended up in basements or attics, or as wall hangers, or the Strat types have been parted out for various projects. The Marlin acoustics seem to have been rarer (Yahmaha's bottom line dresdnought was the big seller back then, and Tanglewood were beginning to take off...). A friend had a black one with an untinted maple neck and fingerbouard - a relative rarity on an acoustic guitar. Yours looks pretty cool. SAdly, for its rarity, I don't think it'll have much commercial value - I'd suggest sticking with it for now. See how you go with some lessons, then consider whether you want to repalce it or buy an electric. Squier are making soem pretty good guitars today. I heard good things about the Harley Benton brand (house brand of Thomann.de, Chinese made), though I would also highly recommend the Vintage branded guitars from JHS with the Wilkinson-designed gear. All great guitars that if you really get into it you'll likely want to keep as a 'back-up' for something more expensive. Love the red and Green o that Marlin, its' one I've never seen before.

Thinhing of re-kickstarting my playing by picking up a Cigar box guitar - undecided as of yet whether three or four strings. Get mysefl going on some slide. Any players on here?

That's be interesting. The Fenders are, I think, something else again, but it's interesting that the idea of a piezo hooked into a 'regular' electric guitar has never really take off for live performance - maybe most players were just happy with an acoustic simulator pedal, though surely the piezo would get closer the 'real thing'. I seem to remember that James Dean Bradfield from the Manic Street Preachers had some sort of piezo gubbins fitting to the ridge of his white LP back in the late 90s, but I don't recall any more details. PRS are the sort of company I can imagine convincing people to buy into that, though. In a good way, I mean. While they're not a guitar I've aspired to own myself, I've always been impressed with how they came from nowhere to being big enough that the big boys - certainly Gibson - saw them as a threat. I wouldn't be surprised if their SE range is what's behind the serious revamp of the ~Epiphone brand in the last few years.

Look nice - what are they? SEcond looks like it might be a Harley Benton, if I'm reading the headstock correctly? Got my eye on a couple of their Juniors currently...

I've hesrdgood things about the Bugera; I also heard there was anotyehr brand (might have been Subzero?) that was the same amp rebadged. DEfinitely will look out at those. The Subzero 10 is nice; I'm also open to the Harley Benton Tube 5, which is switchable to 1w. I really wanted the Fame / Joyo 5 watter, but that saeems to be sold out absolutely everywhere. I need to stop looking at this stuff til I sell a bunch of things (I have two big amps, a 2x12", four guitars and two basses to sell before I am "allowed" to bring anything new in... Decided a while ago that I'm just going to make the jump to a coupel of small tube amps, and if I ever manage to gig again, I'll buy myself a nice amp-repalcement pedal and possible a small cab for use in the absence of monitors. For home and recording, I think it's nice to have a 'real' amp, but I've slowly been convinced of the value of amp simulators in a live envorinment over the last couple of years. Bout three years ago I saws a guy playing heavy rock type stuff with a great tone, plugged into a laptop which was hooked up to the PA. Surprisingly good sound at a relatively low volume level too.

I wonder if they're starting with the pricey one to create a perception of "value", then down the track a couple of years we'll get an "affordable" verison and we'll see it as "an affrodable veriason of that expensive guitar", rather than "an expensive version of the affordable guitar", which could be a harder sell. If I was a session pro, I'd have one for acoustic sounds in my rack already based purely on ther demos I've seen, but yeah, they're priced for a pro as they are. Fingerscrossed for "Player Series" vrasions that include lefties in future. My only difficulty would be choosing between the Tele and the Strat.... If they did the Strat with a baked maple neck, that could be decision made...

I do like the looks of Reverend. I've considered the Strat-eque one with the three p90s before now. Fano are anotehr brand that really appeal to me - guitars that look very much like they could have existed back in the day, but didn't - that's bang up my street. I also admire Eastwood for that (not bad for lefties either), though I've not yet had a chance to play one. I hear they need a fair bit of fettling sometimes. I would love to have one of the Jack White Airplane types - there's something about those that gives me a real Link Wray vibe, like those bitsas he used to play assembled from a whole bunch of bits of the sort of guitars Eastwood take on. The other Eastwood I would definitely buy is one of the Johnny Ramone type Mosrite copies - I think they call it the JR Elite, a nice repop of Johnny's white Ventures II as heavily customised by himself. If they ever make that as a lefty... "Mosrite of California" (in Japan) who did the "official" signature never did. Tym in Australia did , I know, but I think he's called it quits now, alas. I never had a chance to play a Variax (they did do the niddle-range model left handed, but only that one). I'd be tempted by an acoustic version. In fact, if I was ever gonig to seriously get into playing out live with an acoustic sound, I'd have somebody like Gordon Smith build me a LP-shaped guitar with no cutaway (so the shape resembled a small O or Parlour model), with a thru neck, thru-body bridge, and two output jacks, with two toggle switches that sent output from the pick-ups (likely someting piezoish, and a body contact-mike) either both to the same socket, both to both sockets, or one each to one socket, and the ability to switch between each pup individually and both on together. With the right amplification system, that could get a goo acoustic sound with no feedback, I reckon. Either that, or send the signal from one socket to a small amp if no monitor is avaialble, and the other via a good acoustic preamp to the house PA. Im' sure somebody's alrady donig something like this, though... If those new acoustasonic Fenders had a MIM or Squier version, I'd be well up for it. As they are, they're just a bit more than I want to spend on a guitar, but I think they're a great concept.