Guitars and more...

[CWelsh]

3 minutes ago, Invidiosulus said:

The "Pink" Stratocaster

 

This one is a c.2001 Fender Classic Series 60's Strat.

 

When I bought it back in 2020 the previous owner had hacked in the aforementioned Texas Special pickups.

I wanted something a little more vintage sounding and installed the (also aforementioned) Fender Original '57/'62 pickup set.

I also added the period correct aluminum shield under the pickguard - paramagnetism or something...

 

I originally wanted(still do actually) a shell pink strat but this one dropped into my lap at a very reasonable price and the color has really grown on me and is the one that gets played the most.

 

 

 

This comes across as almost a light copper color on my screen, but I love the look of the fretboard. Great looking guitar.

[the real Duke Spinner]

6 hours ago, Marvel said:

I see the ubiquitous, crappy NS-10s and some Westlakes...

 

I wish they would have told the cost of one of the consoles. Would have been interesting. I have a pdf of a great interview with Rupert Neve that I posted a long time ago. Really, really interesting.

Crappy speakers have a large ⭕ n a Studio as the Playback will  resemble how people will listen to such

 

[the real Duke Spinner]

4 minutes ago, CWelsh said:

 

This comes across as almost a light copper color on my screen, but I love the look of the fretboard. Great looking guitar.

I have a shell color Tele actually Fender called it t Salmon

 

[CWelsh]

2 minutes ago, the real Duke Spinner said:

I have a shell color Tele actually Fender called it t Salmon

 

I'm thinking about building a Daphne Blue Strat 😃

[the real Duke Spinner]

Schweet. .. such unique colors hack then

Did dja knoww Leo Fender bought leftover car paints.????  🙄

[KT88]

So. the first question was what is in this black suitcase.
I started learning guitar in 1969 when I was 10 years old. At 15 I played in the first band. I really wanted a moped at that time. My parents were worried because our streets are very narrow and my moped had to share the road with heavy traffic and many trucks. So my father had the idea (because he wanted to secure my life) to give me a Lespaul if I renounce the moped.
Oh, I preferred to play guitar instead of riding moped and I immediately agreed to this exchange.
So in 1975 I got a 1974 black Lespaul custom as a gift from my father. I was very very proud and pleased. I played this guitar every day until I was 21 years old. Together with a used quite old Fender Super Reverb. This amp was cheap at that time because transistor guitar amps were so on vogue. It was to this day my very best guitar amp I ever had.

I know today that this Lespaul custom was not the very best quality...the top cover was made of seven! pieces. It was painted black. Already 10 years later you could see that the individual pieces of the top got grooves in the varnish and that the individual pieces sank differently. But that doesn't matter with this guitar...it's the beautiful memory that counts...of the gift, of my father, of the many years in the rehearsal room and at concerts with this guitar. I still have it today and I am still as proud as when I was 15 years old,
Unfortunately, I was a stupid idiot and I sold the Fender Super Reverb when I was 19. I wanted more power and I traded it for a then new Fender Super Twin. That was by far the worst sounding guitar amp I ever had. I will never forget how the guy in the store checked the Super Reverb very quickly and made it disappear. Today I know why (for 40 years). Can you share the feeling when you stupidly sold gear because you was too unexperienced or too young? The Super Reverb always had such a good sound. I naively thought, buy the same brand with more power and it is the same but louder. So far away from the truth…

Back to the guitars.

 

Besides my studies I drove cab, whole nights to save up for a jazz guitar. It became a 1974 Guild Artist Award which I bought in 1980. To be honest, I have an ambivalent feeling about it to this day. Such an attack and punch but somehow in some places not so beautifully resonant. I actually wanted a Jonny Smith Gibson but the neck was crooked. Therefore, from the beginning, the Artist Award was actually my second choice. And this unemotional feeling has been preserved until today. There were at least 20 attempts in 40 years to sell this guitar. But somehow I didn't have the heart to do it. It has an original single coil DeArmond pu. To be honest I think this guitar is too good for me and it needs a really good player, someone like the young George Benson.

 

During that time I played a lot, today I know that it was the happiest time of making music.

Then life became different, study, children earn money, etc. I have always played in bands, until today I do it. I used to play rock and fusion, today blues and jazz, some rock jazz (I really believe that young people today are into the sound of the 70's again, it's about to have a big revival, just look at Derek Trucks).

 

So slowly, actually almost imperceptibly, I went from being a player to a collector. I did not become a collector because I wanted to be a collector. It was the result of my purchases. At first I played all these guitars all the time and everywhere. But it is the course of things that the time to play became scarcer...if I think about it, collecting has replaced playing...unfortunately.

But right now there is a meaningful turn in my life. Three kids are adults with partners, our apartment is too big and too empty, I don't have as much space in the future as I do right now. So I will play more again because I will have more time and own less. Collecting gives euphoric feelings of immortality when you are in the mode of searching and buying.
But it's a lousy substitute for not having more time to play, it's the false promise that you could spend infinite time with all those guitars.

Now to my small, for other people insignificant collection. All guitars bought in her time new only the Casino bought „vintage“ because it was an awesome chance. Again, I did not buy the guitars as a speculative object but to play them. Even if that was a fallacy on the long run to believe so.

 

1974 Gibson Lespaul custom black
1974 Guild Artist Award blonde
1994 Fender Japan Tele natural
2000 ES 335 sunburst
1998 Gibson ES446 cherry (a secret of a guitar)
1967 Epiphone Casino Kalamazoo sunburst (bought in 1999 for reasonable money, awesome when played at low SPL via amp)
2006 Wes Montgomery sunburst
2009 Michael Bloomfield Lespaul VOS
2010 Eric Clapton Beano Lespaul VOS
2010 ES 335 Cherry 50th anniversary of 1960 model, Memphis
2010 ES 335 Sunburst, same model as above
2013 ES 175 Memphis, a very! cool guitar

 

2000 regular D28 Martin
2006 Triple 000 Martin EC
2002 Baby Taylor (is always with me everywhere)

 

Without giving any reasons, if four guitars are allowed to remain, it's the Beano Lespaul, Cherry red ES335, Es 175 and the D28.

 

If anyone notices, I don't have a Stratocaster. I had three attempts over 30 years. I love the sound when SRV, Jimmy Hendrix, David Gilmour and many others play a Strat, or Ritchie Blackmore in the 70s.
But I never developed the connection to the Strat. I leave it to others.

 

My next challenge is to be able to play well again. I am planning my second surgery on my hands. The first was 9 years ago, then in the meantime very often a treatment by needle faciotomy.

It is such a pity not to be able to play at the moment.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dupuytren's_contracture

 

 

 

 

[the real Duke Spinner]

We are not that far apart on  these things

[the real Duke Spinner]

8 minutes ago, KT88 said:

So. the first question was what is in this black suitcase.
I started learning guitar in 1969 when I was 10 years old. At 15 I played in the first band. I really wanted a moped at that time. My parents were worried because our streets are very narrow and my moped had to share the road with heavy traffic and many trucks. So my father had the idea (because he wanted to secure my life) to give me a Lespaul if I renounce the moped.
Oh, I preferred to play guitar instead of riding moped and I immediately agreed to this exchange.
So in 1975 I got a 1974 black Lespaul custom as a gift from my father. I was very very proud and pleased. I played this guitar every day until I was 21 years old. Together with a used quite old Fender Super Reverb. This amp was cheap at that time because transistor guitar amps were so on vogue. It was to this day my very best guitar amp I ever had.

I know today that this Lespaul custom was not the very best quality...the top cover was made of seven! pieces. It was painted black. Already 10 years later you could see that the individual pieces of the top got grooves in the varnish and that the individual pieces sank differently. But that doesn't matter with this guitar...it's the beautiful memory that counts...of the gift, of my father, of the many years in the rehearsal room and at concerts with this guitar. I still have it today and I am still as proud as when I was 15 years old,
Unfortunately, I was a stupid idiot and I sold the Fender Super Reverb when I was 19. I wanted more power and I traded it for a then new Fender Super Twin. That was by far the worst sounding guitar amp I ever had. I will never forget how the guy in the store checked the Super Reverb very quickly and made it disappear. Today I know why (for 40 years). Can you share the feeling when you stupidly sold gear because you was too unexperienced or too young? The Super Reverb always had such a good sound. I naively thought, buy the same brand with more power and it is the same but louder. So far away from the truth…

Back to the guitars.

 

Besides my studies I drove cab, whole nights to save up for a jazz guitar. It became a 1974 Guild Artist Award which I bought in 1980. To be honest, I have an ambivalent feeling about it to this day. Such an attack and punch but somehow in some places not so beautifully resonant. I actually wanted a Jonny Smith Gibson but the neck was crooked. Therefore, from the beginning, the Artist Award was actually my second choice. And this unemotional feeling has been preserved until today. There were at least 20 attempts in 40 years to sell this guitar. But somehow I didn't have the heart to do it. It has an original single coil DeArmond pu. To be honest I think this guitar is too good for me and it needs a really good player, someone like the young George Benson.

 

During that time I played a lot, today I know that it was the happiest time of making music.

Then life became different, study, children earn money, etc. I have always played in bands, until today I do it. I used to play rock and fusion, today blues and jazz, some rock jazz (I really believe that young people today are into the sound of the 70's again, it's about to have a big revival, just look at Derek Trucks).

 

So slowly, actually almost imperceptibly, I went from being a player to a collector. I did not become a collector because I wanted to be a collector. It was the result of my Köufe. At first I played all these guitars all the time and everywhere. But it is the course of things that the time to play became scarcer...if I think about it, collecting has replaced playing...unfortunately.

But right now there is a meaningful turn in my life. Three kids are adults with partners, our apartment is too big and too empty, I don't have as much space in the future as I do right now. So I will play more again because I will have more time and own less. Collecting gives euphoric feelings of immortality when you are in the mode of searching and buying.
But it's a lousy substitute for not having more time to play, it's the false promise that you could spend infinite time with all those guitars.

Now to my small, for other people insignificant collection. All guitars bought in her time new only the Casino bought „vintage“ because it was an awesome chance. Again, I did not buy the guitars as a speculative object but to play them. Even if that was a fallacy on the long run to believe so.

 

1974 Gibson Lespaul custom black
1974 Guild Artist Award blonde
1994 Fender Japan Tele natural
2000 ES 335 sunburst
1998 Gibson ES446 cherry (a secret of a guitar)
1967 Epiphone Casino Kalamazoo sunburst (bought in 1999 for reasonable money, awesome when played at low SPL via amp)
2006 Wes Montgomery sunburst
2009 Michael Bloomfield Lespaul VOS
2010 Eric Clapton Beano Lespaul VOS
2010 ES 335 Cherry 50th anniversary of 1960 model, Memphis
2010 ES 335 Sunburst, same model as above
2013 ES 175 Memphis, a very! cool guitar

 

2000 regular D28 Martin
2006 Triple 000 Martin EC
2002 Baby Taylor (is always with me everywhere)

 

Without giving any reasons, if four guitars are allowed to remain, it's the Beano Lespaul, Cherry red ES335, Es 175 and the D28.

 

If anyone notices, I don't have a Stratocaster. I had three attempts over 30 years. I love the sound when SRV, Jimmy Hendrix, David Gilmour and many others play a Strat, or Ritchie Blackmore in the 70s.
But I never developed the connection to the Strat. I leave it to others.

 

My next challenge is to be able to play well again. I am planning my second surgery on my hands. The first was 9 years ago, then in the meantime very often a treatment by needle faciotomy.

It is such a pity not to be able to play at the moment.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dupuytren's_contracture

 

 

 

 

Nice stuff. 🙂

[CWelsh]

@KT88 Great story! Thank you for sharing.

[CWelsh]

I'm not a great player, and know that about myself. I'm a moderately competent rhythm player and that is probably all I will ever be. But, that's okay. I still love getting together with friends and making music. I started as a drummer and still enjoy that. What I really enjoy, though, is hearing a talented player making one of the guitars I've built sing. When that happens, I'm happy to be on drums, bass, rhythm guitar...whatever.  Heck, I'm fine with a woodblock or cowbell. I just want to be part of making the music.

[oldtimer]

Needs more cowbell.

[captainbeefheart]

3 hours ago, KT88 said:

Does she have a sustain block like an ES335?

 

Yes it's a semi-hollow just like a 335 with the center block. The top on the Gibsons are ply w/ veneer where as Eloise is a solid carved top made from quality tone woods, in her case it's a solid piece of flamed maple. Mahogany back, sides and neck w/ a rose wood fretboard. I wanted Ebony for the fretboard but Eloise came my way on a loan to possibly purchase and I had to have her after a few rehearsals. I actually traded an absolutely pristine 1959 Fender Bassman amplifier for her. I never cared for the Bassman tone for guitar anyway, I'm more of a mid-sixties Deluxe Reverb or Vibrolux kinda guy.

[captainbeefheart]

2 hours ago, CWelsh said:

I may be that one exception. To my ear, lower impedance pickups sound more clear. I don't look for anything "underwound", but gravitate to those with impedance values close to the pickups of the 50s and 60s.

 

One thing that's almost never considered is where the resonance ends up. The inductance of the pickup and the capacitance of the cable + input of amplifier create a resonance that ends up smack dab in the midrange. I noticed with those older pickups that had both weaker magnets and smaller bobbins, ending up around 4k-6k coil resistance and low inductance compared to 10k-12k hot pickups with 8H-12H of inducatance. This shifts the resonance up but also the coil resistance and cable +input amplifier capacitance that creates a low pass filter, the -3db point is shifted higher in frequency from the lower impedance winding. So between the two they end up being brighter and more chimey sounding.

 

It's really fascinating all the different variables to get different tones. Carlos Santana has always used an extremely long guitar cable to naturally roll his highs off before the amp. I know, the guitar has tone controls but hey he likes it.

[KT88]

1 hour ago, captainbeefheart said:

 

Yes it's a semi-hollow just like a 335 with the center block. The top on the Gibsons are ply w/ veneer where as Eloise is a solid carved top made from quality tone woods, in her case it's a solid piece of flamed maple. Mahogany back, sides and neck w/ a rose wood fretboard. I wanted Ebony for the fretboard but Eloise came my way on a loan to possibly purchase and I had to have her after a few rehearsals. I actually traded an absolutely pristine 1959 Fender Bassman amplifier for her. I never cared for the Bassman tone for guitar anyway, I'm more of a mid-sixties Deluxe Reverb or Vibrolux kinda guy.

 

Your guitar seems to be very exceptional, the combination of sustain block and solid top. I have three solid top guitars, Wes, Guild Artist Award and this very strangely cool ES446. The 446 is very close in size to your guitar, but it has no sustain block. I can imagine how nice your guitar sounds with jazz, probably a great combination of naturalness, timbre and super attack.

 

My old Super Reverb was very similar to a Bassman but with reverb and tremolo of course. I play a (reissue 1998 with PCB) Bassman, nowhere near as good as your 1959 model although I'm not as big a critic of PCB as some other people are. Although the 4x10" arrangement is the same as the SR, I find from memory that the 1965 Super Reverb that I stupidly sold when I was 19 was the better sounding amp eben if my Bassman offers the option to play with rectifier tube or silicon as insert in the tube socket which makes a difference.

 

In the living room I play a 15 watt Matchless EL84 Spitfire, wider front model with reverb coil. In the rehearsal room, next to the Bassman, a 1981 Fender Concert (bought new in 1981) with Weber „Chicago 12“ (it's supposed to be a mix of Alnico and Ceramic, I have not searched how it works, the goal is that the driver sounds like alnico but copes 60 watts. In addition a Marshall Blues Breaker 2x 12" combo from 2010. But as with guitars, it's way too much and I only want to keep one or two amps. As they say, the last shirt has no pockets, the era of consuming is over, I want to keep only the essentials.

 

i gave my son a new production Fender Princeton with PCB 12 years ago. And to be perfectly honest, I like it more than any of my other amps. It sounds so nice at home and it has just enough power for the rehearsal room. It's nicer when this whole amp is singing and slogging than when I take a preamp or pedals to overdrive.

 

[captainbeefheart]

You have a Guild Artist Award I am very jealous!! I really really wanted one for an authentic jazz box guitar but they can like any full hollow jazz boxes they can be tough to pair with amps and feedback if not careful. Honestly I would play that guitar through my Roland JC-120. So amazing.

 

The Fender Princeton is a great amp! We seem to be very similar in tastes, especially with evolving into using lower wattage designs where you are in the power stages 'sweet spot', not full out power stage saturation but in the sweet spot where it's producing some nice coloration. My go to rig is a 6G15 clone reverb unit designed for lowest noise possible. The signal circuitry is essentially the same except for grounding scheme, power supply was changed to a full wave rectifier with active pass regulator. The reverb unit goes directly into a 15 watt tube power amp (single ended KT88) powering my vintage 'Ampro' cabinet. The cabinet was found at an antique shop and I was told it was from a very old film projector system. I purchased it because the speaker was original and absolutely mint Jensen 12" Alnico. I can't push too much power through the cabinet but power isn't needed like it was back in the old days where if you didn't have a loud amp you were not heard, now we are mic'd through PA even for rehearsals.

 

 

 

 

[Marvel]

Grrrrr... I typed for 30 minutes during lunch yesterday, listing what I've had over the years and my browser went pooof. I usually type in a local text editor and save it often, but alas, not this time.

 

Starting in the mid '60s, I have had:

Martin D-28 ('63)

Martin 00-18

OMI Dobro

Moseright Resonator

Kalamazoo Oriole lap steel

Gibson ES-125T

Gibson ES-140 (Awesome guitar! 3/4 or so scale, with a deep body. Slightly smaller than a Les Paul but hollow body)

Martin D-18 ('51)

Guild F-30R ('74)

Taylor 615 ('96 I think)

Taylor 812C

 

I only have the Guild, Taylor 812C and Kalamazoo left.

 

 

[OO1]

9 minutes ago, Marvel said:

 

Martin D-28 ('63)

Martin D-18 ('51)

 

nice guitars

[Marvel]

54 minutes ago, RandyH said:

nice guitars

 

The D-28 went to my best friend, who sold it a few years ago to a Martin employee for $5k, and the D-18 went to my BIL. He still has it...

[Invidiosulus]

This was the first guitar I ever bought back in 1998.

It was also the one guitar that I'd told myself I would never sell.

 

Unfortunately after 21 years as my number one guitar, someone who was once close to me decided to destroy it as a result of the manic/psychotic state they were in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[oldtimer]

Sad, sad story.