Guitar geekery redux

[Doctor Rock]

I only ever had two guitars, a shitty Harmony Strat knockoff and a pawn shop Epiphone Les Paul knockoff we used to call the "Faux Paul."

Okay, I'm out. Have fun, fellas!

You know, it's surprising how nice cheap gear sounds these days!  If I was starting anew, or if I was giving advice to someone starting, I could probably put together a cool little practice rig that sounds quite nice for as little as 300 bucks. 

[bebopbalogna]

i'll post my gear up here one day.  it's quite embarrassing though, after that little convoy of gems.  fucker. 

once i get that ac/dc box set with the 1 watt storage box, it's on.

[Jeff]

Any of y'all ever play one of the guitars modeled after Brian May's "Red Special"?

I always liked the hell out of the way that one sounded. Since he made that one himself, there's probably no real way to achieve the same sound, but I wonder how close the reproductions manage to get.

[Doctor Rock]

Here's the wikipedia on May's Red Special: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Special

I haven't played any of the copies (I'm not a fan of signature guitars), but that guitar is so idiosyncratic that I doubt you can really get that tone from the reproductions. 

However, I would venture to guess that the most important things in getting in the ballpark would be the Burns Trisonic pickups, a semi hollow body, a very short scale and a zero fret.  Oh, and a mid-sixties AC-30 amp cranked to all hell. 

[Doctor Rock]

I traded my Rickenbacker 330 and my Danelectro 12-string for this. 

Behold: the mighty Rickenbacker 330 12-string in mapleglo! 



It sounds glorious, but they crowd twelve strings in the same neck they use for six strings.  It demands some effort to play, but I'm getting there.  Now you know why there was a vid of Roger McGuinn on Dan TV.

[Jeff]

12 string Rickenbackers are the shit. Beautiful guitar, Dan.

[Doctor Rock]

12 string Rickenbackers are the shit. Beautiful guitar, Dan.

I've always wanted one of these, and I thought about getting one in the past.  But I bought my 6-string Rickenbacker instead: back then I only had my old Gibson The Paul, and I needed something a bit more versatile than a 12-string. 

But now I got a bunch of regular guitars, and the Rick 6-string wasn't being played much.  I only used it for jangle.  There was a guy on craigslist trying to trade this 12-string for a Gibson ES-335.  I proposed my 6-string, plus the dano 12 string to sweeten things (the dano was worth 300 bucks or so, and I obviously wouldn't use it if I had a Rick 12-string). 

To my surprise, he accepted.  This guitar is from last year, and it's minty fresh.  He didn't play it much. 

[Doctor Rock]

New guitar! 

My old Gibson The Paul was falling apart, it needed a fret job, and it was beaten to shit (it was my first real guitar).  It's the only guitar with humbuckers I had.  I decided to look around for a replacement, something good and not too expensive. 



Here's what I found: Heritage H-157, made in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 2001.
This one wasn't in my immediate plans. I was actually saving for a Godin with humbuckers. 

But I have been... Uh... Haunted by the memory of a Heritage H-157 I played in a Ottawa guitar store a few years ago. It was a very good guitar. This one came up locally, and these are rarer than hen's teeth in Canada, so I had to give it a try. Before I plugged it, I strummed a G chord, the guitar went BLAAAANG, and I knew I had to get it.

This is a very, very good guitar. Puts most Gibson Les Pauls to shame: nitro finish, real mother-of-pearl, triple bound, ebony fretboard, wooden pickguard, locking Grover tuners and Schaller HRW humbuckers made specifically for Heritage. Weighs about 9 pounds, which is heavy, but not boat anchor heavy. Not weight relieved, in any case. The neck is a virtual clone, down to the ebony fretboard, of the neck on my old The Paul Deluxe, my first real guitar, and the guitar I learned to play on, but with better action, binding and pristine frets.  This guitar is the equivalent of a Les Paul Custom Black Beauty, a guitar that usually costs something like 3000 bucks!   

It sounds great, I haven't stopped playing it since I got it. I'm in love, I think.

I think this one's a keeper. I can't believe I got a guitar this good for the price of a used Les Paul Studio. Gibson corporation can kiss my ass!

[Doctor Rock]

[Poop Fresh-Herbed Pickles]

Damn you got a lotta guitars, Dan.  This is like a pornographic display in here.

[Doctor Rock]

I've never played a guitar I didn't like.  It's my main hobby.  I'm addicted to guitars, I think I spend more time playing and thinking about guitars than anything else...  Except maybe sex. 

But keep in mind that I don't smoke, I don't drive and I drink very little.  A man needs a vice! 

[Doctor Rock]

Kurt, you should really take a nice picture of your Les Paul.  I would love to see it.  And then    to it.   

[Doctor Rock]

I just bought the strat above from a guitar playing American friend of mine.  I had a blue Japanese made one, but I sold it recently.  I used the money to finance the strat above.  It's an american-made 57 reissue strat.  The Canadian dollar is high and, because of the current economic problems, the price of used guitars in the US has gone down.  I sold my japanese strat to a Montrealer for 600 bucks, and I bought the US start above for $650. 

If you have money, now is a good time to buy guitars. 

[Doctor Rock]

This has to be one of my favourite rig layouts:

http://guitargeek.com/rigview/107/

"BESIDES MY VARIOUS 6-STRING HIGH-FREQUENCY INTERFACE TRANSDUCERS (EQUIPPED WITH THE WAVEFORM DIFFERENTIAL COMMONLY KNOWN ON EARTH AS THE BIGSBY TREMOLO ARM), I AM FOND OF A DEVICE CALLED THE RAT. THIS SMALL WEATHERBEATEN BLACK BOX RENDERS THE SIGNAL INCOMPREHENSIBLE TO THE HUMAN EAR UNLESS CONTROLLED CORRECTLY BY THE OPERATOR. A USEFUL DEVICE FOR COMBATING THE SILENCE OF SPACE."

TRACE READING

[Tripp]

I agree with what he has to say about the Rat.