Your guitar tone sucks! (guitar tone/gear talk)

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Re: Your guitar tone sucks! (guitar tone/gear talk)

Post by mo »

I just took a break from writing up a proposal to mess around a couple of riffs I've been thinking about on 7 (the Am Dlx Strat) and reminded myself that I really like the S1 switch options, very unique sounds. I A/Bed the neck-middle series option against Velma's (LP) neck pickup and while still not quite as liquid-y, it's got some serious balls, and a very vocal sound because of the frequency cancellations from the neck and middle being so far apart, instead of how humbucker coils are right next to each other.

(NB for those who don't know what I'm talking about. In simple terms, a humbucker is a pickup that has two single coils wired together in series--current flows one way through both coils, determining your output--which has a total output of both coils' output. A regular Strat pickup setup has three single coil pickups that can be combined in parallel--where current goes through each coil separately and then the two outputs are combined--such that the output is often less than that of a one coil because of frequency cancellations. You can also wire these single coils such that they combine in series and it gets a darker, humbuckerier sound but will also have a little Strat quack from the cancellations.)

Anyway, today I prefer this double coil neck sound to any of my other options at home. I just love the Strat, really.
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Re: Your guitar tone sucks! (guitar tone/gear talk)

Post by mo »

Let's talk pickups.

As I've said before, I prefer noiseless single coil pickups for a lot of applications, especially since the DiMarzio Area series came out. I think those sound really really close to true single coils. The Fender N3s are pretty good too, honestly. I like these noiseless pickups because they have a nice, full tone, they quack well (especially the DiMarzios, surprisingly enough) and they are both really good at being noiseless. For stacked humbuckers, they come very close to true single coil tone--it's not 100% perfect, but honestly unless you were sitting around A/Bing the pickups you'd never know. The N3s sound a little more stacked humbuckery, in the sense that the treble is a little more rounded. The DiMarzio Areas tend to have a very clear, bright treble detail that is really beautiful. I haven't tried these pups in anything but solid-body alder Strat and alder S-type guitars, so I don't know how they pair with other kinds of woods. But they are reasonably low-medium output singles, not super-hot, which I do find vitally important to getting the tone I want. I want a basic Strat tone that is bell-like, smooth, not too glassy (that glassiness actually drives me nuts sometimes) and basically sounds like crinkled construction paper (I know that doesn't make sense).

For humbuckers, I also prefer low-medium output pickups. Side note--most manufacturers give pickup output ratings in DC resistance, the logic being that a higher output pickup will have more winds of electrical wire, longer wire means more resistance, so higher resistance represents higher output. Unfortunately there are so many other factors that go into it that make DCR not very reliable, for example wire thickness, the wire insulation, type and power of magnet, type of pole pieces, etc etc. In Velma (LP) I have a Seymour Duncan hot-rodded set of Jazz (neck-covered) and JB (bridge uncovered--A5 magnet swapped for A2 to lower power and mellow it out). I find them medium output pickups, very clear and bright, very tight bass, very usable pickups in that body. For some amp setups they may be too bright, but for mine they work great. In Daphne (superstrat) I have a bridge DiMarzio Tone Zone, which was maybe too high power and a little bassy for me until I did the half-air mod (where you pull out the magnet spacer, put the magnet to the screw coil poles and have no magnet contact with the slug poles). That opened up the pickup a lot, lot less compression and less mud. So basically, yeah, I like my humbuckers a little less powerful than medium spec. On Higuma (BC Rico Eagle), it has Gotoh copies of DiMarzio PAF (neck) and Super Distortion (bridge) pickups, replaced the magnets, especially on the Super Distortion, which was a big fat ceramic, to A2 and A5 respectively, which really changed the character of those as well.

In general I find DiMarzios more powerful, low mid and bass heavy, which Duncans are treble and upper-mid happy. Given a choice I pretty much would go with Duncans usually. The DiMarzios are pretty awesome for a certain kind of shredder metal thing, it's true. But the Duncans sound prettier to me. I don't have a lot of access to boutique pickups here so haven't tested anything out.

Oh! Last note, I have a Gretsch 5120, and the humbuckers on that thing are GREAT. Sort of lower than PAF style, really rich sound. Wish they were a touch more articulate, but really for a beefy BEEFCAKE tone they are perfect.
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Re: Your guitar tone sucks! (guitar tone/gear talk)

Post by Paco Del Stinko »

Wow. That's a lot of experimenting there, Mo. Maybe it's a good thing you don't have access to too many different PUPs, might be the 'ol kid in a candy store thing. Rot yer teeth out. But interesting findings. I know I enjoy the Dmarzio Super Distortion types I've played over the years. I have a beat to hell guitar from my army days that has one in the bridge position and it sounds great, as did the ones on my first decent ectric, a Hondo II Artist from '81. I like thick and crunchy. However, I also appreciate the clear, ringing tones of single coils and their articulate sound. My strat has the original PUPs on it from 1971, and while the bridge one is very bright (with no tone control) they all sound great. I usually roll off on the volume when using the bridge PUP on that guitar.

I had a 1980 Ibanez Artist semi-hollow that I bought used. It came with some weird non-stock PUPs on it. I switched them out for a Gibson 57 and 57 Plus. They had that biting an apple attack but were warm and round. Wonderful, especially on the semi-hollow. I hated to get rid of the guitar and those PUPs, but it didn't get the play time it deserved. The LP Custom I sold was a '73, and those PUPs were total ROCK MONSTERS. My LP Standard is an '88 I bought in early '89. It has stock PUPs, as do all of my remaining guitars. Boring, I know. I might put those '57s in the LP, as they are wonderful, it's still under "we'll see" status. But would be nice, I'm sure.

The nearest boutique PUPs I have are on my Robin Fleetwood. Robin has stopped guitar production, but still makes the PUPs under their other company, Rio Grande. I believe they are the Muy Grande humbucker model. They are not giant big, but still big enough. A warmer bright then my LP. I play this guitar a lot for leads, and when used through my Emplexador head, which is based on vintage Marshall tones, it has what I call the Cream lead sound, ala Eric Crapton at that time. (Not a big Crapton fan, I do like the Cream stuff) I didn't seek this tone out, it just kind of came around.

Pickups certainly matter. For any others reading this, it's not all snobby wankery talk. Well, maybe a little. But this all goes along with the garbage in, garbage out attitude that we refer to around here when recording. Sure, any old electric will do if it's just in some background supporting role, but doesn't a nice sounding guitar stand out? Yes. Yes it does. ANYWAY, I can't envision learning Chinese, Mo, so if you'd like to move to the east coast of the U.S. of A., I'll let you experiment on PUP configuration n my guitar collection.
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Re: Your guitar tone sucks! (guitar tone/gear talk)

Post by ken »

I've got some Rio Grande P bass pickups in my Fender MIM P Bass. Very nice pickups indeed.

I put a Seymour Duncan JB jr. in my Telecasters bridge and that pickup is sweeet.

I also have a Japanese Squire with a single humbucker in it that I replaced with something from GFL. Lately, I've wanted to replace this with a Gibson Burstbucker as I really like the sound of the Gibson Nighthawk Studio and that is what it has.
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Re: Your guitar tone sucks! (guitar tone/gear talk)

Post by mo »

Yes, Paco, I totally agree. I mean, having one thread for people to geek out about guitar gear can't be anything to get panties in a bunch up about (although I'm sure many of us got into playing guitar in the hopes of panty-bunching of a kind). I grew up just outside of Boston, but unfortunately my parents retired to San Diego, so I'm much more likely to see the Cali and West Coast SF crew.

Like Ken and his JB Jr'ed Tele. Incidentally I was in a guitar store somewhere in Japan a few months back that had a Vintage brand blond Tele, maple fretboard, and it was a pretty killer player. Didn't pull the trigger because I'm basically convinced my next Fender-style guitar will be a Jaguar. I like the idea of playing a Jazzmaster but have never bonded with one--it's the pickups. That sound just doesn't work for me. Jaguars though, the amount of switching options doesn't faze me as I would be likely to wire it up with more switches anyway. My only thing about Jags is the sustain, kind of weak and there's not much you can do about it really, but I do love the clean sound of a great Jag. My goal in life these days is that for my own guitars, to buy ones that I don't want to mod immediately. I mean, I probably will sooner or later, but I'm trying to keep myself from purchases that I talk myself into like "sure, the pickups suck, the nut is cheap plastic and I'm going to have to change out the jackplate before it breaks, but underneath all that is a great piece of wood", and instead just to get nice guitars with their own personalities that I don't have to change. Basically I hate it when my GF tries to do behavior modification on me, and I want to try to respect my guitars as well. If that means a little more searching time, so be it. At least now I know what I want in life. Well, guitars at least. Kind of.
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Re: Your guitar tone sucks! (guitar tone/gear talk)

Post by Billy's Little Trip »

ken wrote:I really like the sound of the Gibson Nighthawk Studio
I took a silver burst Nighthawk off the wall at GS a couple months ago and put it through the motions. I REALLY like it. Ive told myself for quite some time that my next guitar will be a Gibson ES hollowbody, but man, I'm really feelin' the Nighthawk.
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Re: Your guitar tone sucks! (guitar tone/gear talk)

Post by ken »

Yep, that's the one. I wish I had an excuse to buy it... and someday I probably will.
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Re: Your guitar tone sucks! (guitar tone/gear talk)

Post by mo »

Really! I have never been able to get past my aesthetic dislike of the Nighthawk, I just think it looks ugly. And honestly, although I love the sound of my LP, there are certain things I really hate about it. One thing is the neck heel construction. I just think in this day and age, what is the point of building a heel such that you can't play high on the neck unless you're sitting down or doing a contortionist's routine? In the pics I've seen, the Nighthawk has that same stupid heel. But if you guys say it sounds awesome I may have to go test drive one just to know.
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Re: Your guitar tone sucks! (guitar tone/gear talk)

Post by mo »

If I were to build a guitar, it would have to have certain elements to it. Thank you all in advance for indulging my insanity.

1. Straight string-pull. Whether 6-in-a-line, 3+3 or 4+2 or whatever alignment on the headstock, I need straight string pull, not like the Gibson setup, also because I don't like the vulnerability of the Gibson headstock. Aesthetically, I prefer 6-in-a-line.

2. Bolt-in or neck-through construction, not set neck. I don't believe in glue between contact points on a solid body electric, so wherever possible to avoid, especially in a key joint like the neck joint.

3. Contoured heel. I want to be able to get to the high frets. I may not play them a hell of a lot, but I want to be able to if I want to, when I want to, easily.

4. Locking tuners. They just make life easier.Preferably the auto-trim type!

5. Vintage-size frets. Although medium frets can be easier, I think thinner vintage frets intonate better.

6. Unfinished or lightly finished neck. I take a lot of finish off the necks on my guitars to make them more playable to me. The satin finish on the Strat is actually pretty good for me already, but on my LP for example my hands stick on the finish sometimes.

7. Fingerboard--Rosewood or ebony-type woods. I actually like the sound of maple a lot, but I like dark fingerboards just for looks. And I prefer to have the position markers on the side of the board and not on top, I like it to look clean on the fretboard; it's classier-looking that way.

7a. Nut. Bone or TUSQ. It doesn't really matter to me, as I think all of the nut materials have their benefits tonally, as long as they are cut right and maintained well. That's the important bit. I like TUSQ for tremolo usage though, and it does actually sound a lot like bone. Let's go with TUSQ.

8. Compound radius. I am a total fan of my 9.5-14" radius fretboard on the Am Dlx Strat, I just think it's a great idea and in practice it really works.

9. Action. Ideally 1.5, 1.2 mm (low E-high E) so the tolerances, neck angle, etc. have to be good. I'm not Jimmy Page crazy (rumor is that his spec is action no higher than 0.7 mm ANYWHERE on the neck. On set-neck Gibsons, no less!) but I do prefer a lowish action. To me, this action is still high enough that I can play slide if I want to (for electric I use a thin glass slide, made to Coricidin bottle thinness, so I can play pretty light). Best to set up for 11s. I am in the process of gradually upping all my string gauges to 11s, as they do sound and respond better to me and frankly I don't experience a hell of a lot of difference in bending or playing fast with 11s. 13s, that might be an issue.

10. Tonewoods. I could discuss these, because I'm not experienced enough with all the different kinds of woods, some of the exotics are pretty amazing. So really for the neck, body, fingerboard, it's all about combinations. Traditionally, I would probably go with a maple neck, ebony board, swamp ash body. I do prefer to see wood grain when possible, so I would like woods with a little figuring to them, but I'm not so crazy as to want quilted this and birdseye that. I do also prefer that the body is one piece, but of course I would need a luthier to discuss this with. Maybe I'd need to balance things out with different woods.

10a. Scale Length. I prefer 25.5" scale. It sounds punchier and more attack-y to me, percussive, snappier. And I find harmonics a little easier on it.

11. Binding. I like the scraped wood bindings, I think it just looks classy. PRS had a great call with that one. This is another reason to use woods with a little figure to the grain, as the binding will look awesome that way. I don't necessarily need fretboard binding though, because it's nice when you have the whole fretboard to play with.

12. 22 frets. As discussed before, for the neck pickup placement, and I rarely actually need to play 24 frets. However I have often found that getting up to 22 (D) is more useful as my highest fretted note than C# (21 fret).

13. Body shape. Right now, if I were to make a guitar I'd like it in Jaguar shape. For a long time, I wanted a body shape like the Ibanez Studio from the 70s. But now I want a Jag. And actually, if it's a Jag then the binding makes no sense maybe. But if I were building my ultimate guitar I'd probably end up going with a Strat-ish shape because that's what I know and am most comfortable with.

14. Bridge. I have to have a tremolo. If it's a Jag, then I'd still want to use the Jag tremolo for the sake of aesthetic consistency (with a Mastery bridge). Otherwise I'd want a Wilkinson VSVG tremolo, as I have one on another guitar and it's the bomb. Nice big steel block, great return to zero, high quality hardened steel, pop-in arm (which I do not understand why this wasn't invented back in 1955; it makes so much more sense than screw-in arms). Anyway, I want tight fit, good intonation, quality materials. I pretty much believe that every bridge design can sound good if its made with high quality materials. Floyd Roses made with quality hardened steel sound completely different than the crap "licensed by" cheap alloy ones.

15. Pickups. Low-medium output, single coils. I could consider a bridge humbucker I suppose. But definitely articulate, good treble and upper-mid detail but slightly rounded and not too edgy, tight bass with a little richness in the low-mids. 3 pickups, neck/mid/bridge. Would be nice to have a piezo also!

16. Switching/wiring. Besides standard Strat 5-way switching, I'd want to have my series options as well, as well as neck/bridge parallel and series options. While we're here I would also through in a phase switch on the bridge for those tones as well. I'd prefer to do this with push-push knobs, as I think they are more convenient than push-pull and I want to guitar to look clean, so not like my BC Rico with all its extra switches. So maybe like this: an S-1 type switch for the 5-way to get all the basic pickup combinations, then one push-push on tone 1 (neck) for phase reversal and another push-push on tone 2 (mid/bridge) as a killswitch. That's be awesome. I don't need the no-load tone pots, I almost never have my bridge tone up all the way anyway. Then I would need a couple of extra piezo controls too probably. Hmmm.

17. Jackplate. I want the jackplate on the side, not like Strat jack. Nicer for right-angle plugs and keeps the front a little cleaner.

18. Schaller straplocks. I just like 'em. Easier to put on the straps than Dunlops. But for the bottom, I would put two studs down there so that the guitar leans against a wall/amp/sofa more safely.

19. Color. I like to see wood grain, and bursts give a little more depth to the finish to me. I like a blackburst or a black cherry burst. I also like a honey-ish violin burst. And for solid colors, white or black is always nice and classy, and looks good no matter what clothes you're wearing to gig with, so your options there open up as well. I would also like a color matched headstock veneer, that always adds a little something to me also. The new Chris Broderick Jackson Soloist has scraped wood binding on the color matched headstock and that really looks awesome (I can't believe I'm giving looks props to an out and out METAL shred axe, but let's face it: it's awesome).

20. Pickup mounts. The issue that I've been wrestling with and have waited to the end to think about, is spring mount or direct mount for the pickups? I do buy at some level that direct mounting does certain things that are cool but then the tweaker in me wants the ability to change things around. But since this is MY dream custom guitar and I'm assuming the luthier is just super-awesome, I'm going with direct mounting, so no pickguard.

And after I've done all that thinking and such, I'm pretty sure I came up with a design that Suhr makes. I'll have to check. But that being the case, it should be easy to get my dream guitar made!
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Re: Your guitar tone sucks! (guitar tone/gear talk)

Post by Paco Del Stinko »

That's all not as nuts as it may appear, Mo. I'd love to see it. And make me one, while you're at it!
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Re: Your guitar tone sucks! (guitar tone/gear talk)

Post by Caravan Ray »

mo wrote:If I were to build a guitar, it would have to have certain elements to it. Thank you all in advance for indulging my insanity. ....
I am loving your posts Mo - seriously - even though I don't get it.

Let me relay one guitar moment for you - in 2006, I travelled to Santa somewhere or other for a Songfight live. I expected to play an acoustic guitar. I was handed a Strat. I fell in love with the Strat from that moment (was that your Strat Lunkhead? It was a basic non-nonsense strat - it is on the videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlW5m3KWL9A

I had never really felt comfortable playing electric guitars before that - I always preferred acoustics. But I loved that strat so much i bought one. I am still not a guitarhead like you and Paco and BLT are - but I get a thrill every time I pick up my strat.

NB - I used to be in a band where the guitarist had a Les Paul. I used to play it - but a Les Paul is not me. Don't know why - but it never excited me like the strat does.
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Re: Your guitar tone sucks! (guitar tone/gear talk)

Post by Caravan Ray »

And just to place myself in the guitar world:

I have
- a Martin acoustic (solid top, plastic sides - now repaired after I smashed it a few weeks ago)
- a very cool light blue 1960's style Fender strat (made in mexico)
- and a cheap (but excellent quality) Yamaha bass

those 3 guitars suit all of my needs perfectly. I know that they are better instruments than I am a player - so I have room to grow.
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Re: Your guitar tone sucks! (guitar tone/gear talk)

Post by mo »

I'm just a guitar rat. I'll play any guitar, anywhere, anytime. Then I'll go looking for a screwdriver/allen wrench/hammer/whatever tools I need.

Speaking of Les Pauls, I know we always talk about the Strat clean sound. But a good Les Paul also gets amazing clean sounds. Thick, meaty, yet delicate. I think Strat cleans sound pure and wiry. Words are so inadequate for this, but them's the tools they gave us.

Maybe LP cleans are a little harmonically richer in the lower mids and the Strat is a little more fundamental? That's not exactly right either. Anyway, I think humbucking pickups can also get fantastic cleans. And I know it's a little heretical, but I played around a shop with an EMG-loaded ESP shredder axe once that had PHENOMENAL clean tones, but very compressed from the active pickups, which I wouldn't use on a regular basis, but I could see being really useful for some applications.

But Caravan Ray, you have also brought up another thought for me that I've always wanted to ask others: what about the one that got away? A guitar that you almost bought but didn't, couldn't afford, or sold/traded/gave away for whatever reason that you just want back?

I'll go first with two examples. First, when I was in Buenos Aires for a job a couple months ago, I found a little granddad store with a bunch of older stuff in it, just sitting around. Even though the dude didn't speak English and my Spanish is awful, we managed to bond and I hung out in that store a bit. Anyway he had a 1963 Fender Duo-Sonic that was to die for. Huge sound, pickups were actually pretty quiet but hot, muscular sounds, very punchy. It was almost all original--he took it apart at my request, 1962 neck (clay dots! so cool looking!), 1963 body (common to happen back then). I knew it was a refinish job because it was a particular brownish-greenish shade that was definitely not a car color back then, so definitely not a Fender color. When we took off the pickguard, saw a pencil notation on the back of it (well shielded pickguard, I might add)--"Refinish 1974" with the name of the shop, in NYC. Also the volume pot had been replaced with a CTS one. Oh, that guitar was a great little player, and just so punchy. But he wanted USD $3,000 for it, which is easily $1,000 more than what you would pay in the US for it, so I passed (not that I actually had more than a few hundred to blow on a new guitar at the time anyway). But I kind of regret it a lot, because that guitar just sounded amazing.

The second guitaregret is the Duboce Triangle guitar, my old Danelectro 56-U2 reissue in Copper. That guitar was kind of awesome. So light and had a hollow Masonite body, so it was like jangle central, but it had some balls to it also. That guitar died a horrible death when--I am not kidding about this--I had stored it at a friend's garage when I thought I was just going to China for a few months and would be back to San Francisco, and he had a sewage leak. Literally, sewage filled his garage and ruined all kinds of things. That guitar was also in a cool old case I'd got for it, but apparently he found it was unrepairable and kind of nasty, so he just threw it all away. But that was the guitar that basically all of the DT electric stuff was recorded on and we had a lot of history together. If D and I get together to do any new DT stuff, I'll use another guitar of course, but it won't feel the same anymore. That guitar had songs in it, and I don't feel like it was done with me. Huge regrets I didn't take it with me.
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Re: Your guitar tone sucks! (guitar tone/gear talk)

Post by mo »

Caravan Ray wrote:And just to place myself in the guitar world:

I have
- a Martin acoustic (solid top, plastic sides - now repaired after I smashed it a few weeks ago)
- a very cool light blue 1960's style Fender strat (made in mexico)
- and a cheap (but excellent quality) Yamaha bass

those 3 guitars suit all of my needs perfectly. I know that they are better instruments than I am a player - so I have room to grow.

Oh yeah, I totally love those MIM 60s Classic Player Strats. I know I sound like a broken record, but if you really want to do the one thing that will make that guitar as good as any other guitar ever (maybe I am slightly overstating the case, but only slightly), look into getting a solid steel sustain block (inertia block, whatever terminology you like) to replace the zinc-ish thing you have in there now. It will cost you a little money but I think it's honestly worth it. The block is attached to the bridge with three screws; very easy to replace. You will immediately get a volume, sustain and clarity boost in the sound of that Strat, doesn't matter if you use the trem or not.
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Re: Your guitar tone sucks! (guitar tone/gear talk)

Post by mo »

Since the last time I posted here, I've picked up a couple new interesting guitars and of course modded them. I know no other place I can talk about them where there's a minute chance someone might be interested, so here I guess is where it will all go.

The first one is a this: http://www.avianguitars.com/swift.htm
Avian Swift BA. 3-piece basswood body, flame maple cap and a rosewood cap on top of that. Chambered body--I ended up getting the version without an f-hole, although I suppose I could've fought the other guy for it. I ripped out the stock pickups for Triple Shot-mounted P-Rails. The stock pickups were a little lifeless for me and a little more DiMarzio-clone-ish, with that slight "ow" voicing, but a bit muddy. The guitar definitely looks unique, designed by Michael Bashkin for Avian. The actual brand is run by a guy named Roger, who's a cool Brit dude. His goal is to have an alternative to PRS. To me though, his guitars aren't worth what he's asking for them (in this case, nearly US$1,000--I bought at a Music Expo for much less than half that, or it wouldn't have been worth it at all) and certainly aren't up to an equivalent PRS. But they are pretty well built. Design features I like are the small neck heel and good, comfortable curve there. Neck carve is nice too. The hardware is all pretty good. Fretboard radius is a pretty flat 16". With the P-Rails, it gets great sounds, I find the single rail sounds not very inspiring, but the middle sound is ok, and all the humbucker sounds are good (parallel is particularly awesome, they advertise PAF-ish output. My experience is that in parallel, they are a little less hot and touch more compressed than Duncan '59s, so that description is not too far off. In series, it is very thick and hot). The P-90 sounds are quite good as well. I like especially all the middle sound options, and the fact that with a good tube amp, I can just bring the one guitar and set the amp such that I can go from clean to searing with just the volume knob and switching pickup options. There's a lot of range available with these pickups and the Triple Shot. I also have a phase push-push switch on the volume knob, and the phase sounds interestingly don't drop volume nearly as much as I'm used to hearing in other guitars, which makes them much more usable too.

Anyway, my gripes with it are that if I were paying full price, I would want nicer pickups to begin with, and a less Claremont-era Wolverine-y color scheme. Something a little more subtle than that yellow would be a bit classier to me. I don't like the thickness of the poly finish (and in fact I've sanded off a good bit of it on the back). I'm not particularly against polyester but I am against thicker coats. My #1 Strat is a polyurethane thin finish and that works great. Pretty much every other guitar I have with a polyester coat has had sandpaper applied to it at some point--I prefer the feel and like to believe that a thinner coating of finish allows better resonance of the body (probably not scientifically true, but it makes me feel better to think so). The nut needed to be recut a little, but that's pretty standard setup stuff. Oh, the last gripe is that the vibrato system is the Wilkinson VS 50 IIK and while it works fine and the sustain is ok, for the price again I would've preferred anything with a steel or brass block. You can order brass blocks for this system online, but it's a pain in the ass.

It is however, great to be able to get 335-ish, Casino-ish and also high output shreddy sounds all out of one guitar though! Right now it is my main gigging guitar because of the versatility.

The other guitar I picked up in September in a junk shop in Lahore, Pakistan. It's a black '87 Fender Japan '57 Reissue Strat, but the neck is actually an '83 (the 57 reissues from '83 -85 were branded Squier JV and are actually even better reputed) which is a great find as these guitars were made on the original Fender machines from Fullerton which had been sent to Japan as CBS was refurbishing the factory. One-piece maple neck, pretty good condition, only cost me $120. Sounds like a great classic Strat. The pickups are a little on the weak side, which didn't bother me for the neck and middle, but the bridge was a problem. I switched that pickup out for a DiMarzio Red Velvet, the Strat single coil with a baseplate. They advertise it as making a Strat sound like a Tele but that's bullshit--you'd have to do a lot more to make a Strat sound like a Tele. What it does do is give the bridge a fatter, middier sound and more output. And happily (I had been worried about this) it made the mid-bridge notch position quack like Donald motherfuckin' Duck. This is also because when I added the bridge pickup to the 2nd tone knob, I think I fucked up something and the middle pickup is super thin and lost a little output. But it made the notch positions really pronounced, awesome and feel louder than they should--no volume drop at all, it feels like; since I rarely use the middle pickup alone anyway, that's fine for me. This is a really vibrant and vocal guitar, not humbucking in any position. I've never played another guitar that has such enhanced notch position tones, so that's pretty awesome. I mean, you know how a lot of people point to Sultans of Swing as the ultimate Strat notch tone? This guitar is the hot salsa to that recording's mild salsa. It's really unbelievable and I have no idea why it's like that. I'm not sure I'll ever replicate that sound on another guitar.

I did pick up a rosewood-capped (front and back, alder body) Tele but fixed it up a bit and gave it away to a relative as we never really bonded the way I'd hoped.

That's my guitar report. Sorry for disturbing your day!
mo
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Re: Your guitar tone sucks! (guitar tone/gear talk)

Post by mo »

By the by, remember how months ago I said I was in love with Jaguars? I've played every Jag I've come across in a music store and I have bonded with a total of zero of them. I don't know why, but when I actually play it, it doesn't sit right on my body and I never feel comfortable with it, not the way I will immediately with any Strat or Strat-type guitar. Teles too. I love the Jag and the Tele in theory, and I wish I had a great one of each, but I doubt I will keep any because those designs just don't work for me. I hope to be proven wrong!
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Re: Your guitar tone sucks! (guitar tone/gear talk)

Post by Billy's Little Trip »

My only problem with a tele is that I randomly turn the volume knob down. But I do love the tone and fret board feel. If I had one, I'd learn to take advantage of the volume knob for effect, like the southern rockers.
mo
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Re: Your guitar tone sucks! (guitar tone/gear talk)

Post by mo »

Remember how I said I never bond with Teles? I found a USA G&L ASAT Special 2ndhand in one of my local guitar stores that I'm thinking about quite often. I'm not like obsessed with it yet, but I played it and a Gibson Les Paul 60th Anniversary (which was about 3 or 4 x the price) and while the LP had that Gibson mojo in spades, an amazing flame top, a great neck, and was reasonably light (I suspect chambered. I also played an 1981 LP they had there and it was 11 pounds easily), the G&L just snarled. It's not a pretty guitar, but the build quality is excellent and those quasi-soapbar pickups sound really amazing. I still can't believe they are ceramic magnets, as usually I find that ceramics have a certain quality to the treble that I find brittle and unpleasing. These sound almost like a Duncan Quarter Pound, somewhere between a hot but standard single-coil and a P-90 tone. The volume knob and tone knob are extremely responsive too. I've had lots of guitars where the tone knobs really were either on or off, or just too subtle to make a difference. On the G&L it's really nice.

I may have to play this guitar a few more times and possibly acquire it.
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Re: Your guitar tone sucks! (guitar tone/gear talk)

Post by hillbilly »

I prefer a Tele but lost mine about a year ago, because of issues. I had a lefty American made 1990, I had had for years. I have replaced it with a cheap Strat, blocked the rear and relocated the volume pot (It seemed to get in my way). In position 2 I get close to a tele sound.
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Re: Your guitar tone sucks! (guitar tone/gear talk)

Post by Paco Del Stinko »

Go get'er, Mo. You'll walk in and it'll be gone.
Bringin' the stink since 2006.
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Re: Your guitar tone sucks! (guitar tone/gear talk)

Post by Billy's Little Trip »

I love chunky necks. Do eeet!
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Re: Your guitar tone sucks! (guitar tone/gear talk)

Post by roymond »

This was either the best thing I ever bought...or not. Anyone use this yet? I' just plugging it in.

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