Leaderboard

Put it all back together, polished it up and it plays just fine. What a bargain

I don't think I've posted here before - I'm a member of basschat.co.uk, but after playing bass for decades, lately I've been singing and playing mandolin and octave mandolin. I don't actually play guitar, though I have a couple of guitar-shaped objects in my collection - an acoustic guitar bodied octave mandolin, and earlier this year a local guitar builder converted a copy of a Gibson SG to mandolin for me. I'm currently working towards a Rock School grade 2 acoustic guitar exam... with a mandolin!

Decided to get the Epi Les Paul 60’s Standard in Bourbon Burst I had looked at PRS but decided this is what I wanted. Out of the box the quality, setup was spot on and amazing for a £500 guitar. Sounds excellent and pickups are very good and sounds great clean and overdriven They have definitely improved since I owned an Epi Les Paul Plus Top Pro about 10 years ago this is as close to Gibson quality you can get without the price tag ! Awesome guitar

Thinking that I ought to have a hollow bodied guitar for jazz I bought a Streamliner and have indeed given that Bigsby a wobble from time to time despite it being considered inappropriate within the genre.

I picked up a super cheap Ibanez S670 with a fake body for 1500RMB ten days ago and went about upgrading, fixing and customising it with chrome Gotoh hardware and Dimarzio Satriani signature pickups. I wanted to do a Chromeboy painted finish but it's not possible to do it well on wood bodies. The original Chromeboys had finish cracking and bubbling issues do to wood expanding and contracting with seasonal changes, the follow ups had bodies made of lucite not wood. So I did the next best thing - bought a load of mirror vinyl wrap online and found a friendly auto wrapping firm to do it for me after my own attempt failed miserably. The reflection isn't 100% sharp but only really noticable when you are standing closer than 5 meters. I'm planning on using the guitar for a show coming up on Jan 11. The good thing of vinyl over paint is that I can get it re wrapped if it starts to look a little worn.

To better appreciate this event, I would refer you to a previous post here, where the 'back story' is quite fully related, so doesn't need repeating here. Skip it if you're in a hurry, but you'll be missing out. Soooooo... I've just, in the past few days, taken delivery of a new (to me, but not quite...) guitar that has been on my 'bucket list' for over half a century. A fellow member of our sister site (Basschat...) passed me a link to a site where this quite rare guitar was for sale, in Sweden. After looking up my finances (it was not cheap...), I contacted the Seller I 'bit the bullet', and, after some tractation over acquisition of a hard case for shipping, it finally arrived, safe and sound, snuggling up nicely in a brand new case. 'OK', I hear you ask, 'but what guitar is it..?' You'll have guessed if you'd read the post in the link above; it's a Hofner President Thinline E2 Florentine, from the late '60s, the same model that I foolishly 'let go' in my stoopid youth. Yippee..! Here's the photos I hastily took as it arrived... Pleased..? You betcha; pleased as Punch. I'm now struggling to get back to where I was, all those decades ago, trying to play a chord-melody version of 'Misty'. By a horrible coincidence, I had trimmed my nails, on both hands, and will have to wait a while before playing that way, as I have done since year 'dot', with only fingers, so I'm struggling at the same time with the use of a plectrum. It's all good, though, albeit extremely slow going. I have a Chromebook for displaying a Pdf of the version I'm using (from a Sandy Sherman YouTube video; just about the best and most accessible I've seen...), but as soon as I think I've assimilated a few bars, I turn the page to continue, but have forgotten it when I turn back again. I'm using my usual method of learning the 'outro' first, so that I'll be working into 'known' territory as I move forward, but, for now (it's been only a few days, but...) I'm finding it quite a job remembering only these dozen or so bars. It'll come (it has to..!), and I find the neck of this guitar to be exactly fitted to how I play (perhaps 'muscle memory' from all that time ago, when I learnt on that first President...). Anyway, enough rambling; back to the Chromebook for another session. I'll see about better pictures if/when the weather picks up, for outdoors lighting. Bye for now... Douglas

Son(16) is a fan of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Cheap Squier Bullet Strat from Cash Converters and a Most-Marvelous Inter-Fret Job by @Andyjr1515 fella who sits (slumps!) at the bar in the BassChat Arms... (Blah! Blah! and Pics in a BassChat Tech&Repair post) https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/496955-microtonal-fretting-microwhat-but-sorry-not-on-a-bass/?do=findComment&comment=5264843 When 12TET and 20 or so frets just arn't enough... go 24TET and over 40 frets to play with!

Thanks everybody for your answers and contributions. Made some interesting reading, and some great model photos. Just before Christmas, I privately bought a Marshall amp. The owner asked if I would also take his old black and white Strat off his hands too for a meagre £30.... It was an exact double of the one in my original post with identical headstock and weight. Well...you can guess the rest! Cheers again for all of your input.

I think HB are great value guitars and worthy of modifying too...here is a Youtube video showing what I do to them:- Infinity Mirror Guitar v3 with hot rail pickup.

Quick update to say I pulled the trigger on the Thinline Godin. It's new, coming from the States and even with delivery and taxes will be £300 cheaper than the best price I could find in the UK!

After a bit of work with fine wet and dry and a polish up with brasso, it transpires it's a Coxx Classix.

What a palava. OK so GC has been offline for a few days due to a mix-up in transfer of content from the old server (which was upgraded due to email notification issues on BC) to the new server. The old server subscription cancelled last week taking GC down with it. Then we had issues trying to get things set up on the new server. As you can see, we have managed to restore GC but the only back up on the old server was from January. Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry to any of you who had made the effort to post detailed or lengthy replies during that time, I've personally lost at least one lengthy post as well. If you need to flame, go ahead. We had to unravel a whole load of secondary issues to do with databases not working quite right, upgrades not installing quite correctly, DNS and nameservers not being what they should be. However, thankfully, we have made it through the other side and GC is faster and more stable than ever. I don't expect this perfect storm to happen again and thanks in advance for your patience and understanding.

On Saturday we had a work party where we provided the entertainment. About six weeks ago I rounded up a bunch of colleagues and proposed we do a song together. Below is the result: 52fb7b34b4790dbaf517c3d5cce802d3.mp4 It was my first time performing on guitar and I used the instrument mentioned here: All sorts of technical issues that I won't bore everyone with but the band had no right sounding as good as this recording suggests. I originally rehearsed with a 4U rack containing my beloved Triaxis and MPXG2 into a Marshall 20/20. But there were 60Hz hum and phasing issues so I swapped the rack for a Kemper and used a profile of the Triaxis instead with only marginal improvement (no more phasing). The Kemper went into two Hotone Loudster Class D power amps sat on a pair of Joyo 1x12 cabs loaded with Celestion Neo Creambacks. The speakers struggled to disperse, but this shouldn't have been too much of an issue if we had been given PA support. Unfortunately the video stops just before I move up front for the solo guitar breaks. I did the thing though - one foot on the monitor. No hair in the wind unfortunately.

Hi there! I just joined a new band called Sons of steel. This is one of our singles: Let me know your opinion about it. Thanks!!

This year a Joyo "Oxford Sound" pedal. So far I'm very pleased with it - lets me go straight into our PA without lugging an amp around.

When singing a melody through, in your head or out loud, try to pick out the highest and lowest notes, when you get to them. That's when to pick up the guitar and find those notes, and only those notes. That'll determine where on the fingerboard the rest of the melody lies, so, having established the extremes, now find the initial, starting note, keeping in mind these extremities. Does this help..?

If you can afford it and it will make you happy then do it. I personally am a tight arse and even if I could afford a Gibson (I can't) I'd never buy one because I'm a klutz and it would be an expensive thing for me to damage, same goes for a Ferarri, I'd have door pockets full of crisp packets and I'd no doubt kerb the wheels parking it.

There is a chap on Instagram named Ohms in Hawaii and he posts beautiful guitars on the beach like this photo: There are hundreds of posts just like this one, these photos really warmed my winter mornings.

What about selling it and buying a nice gift for the donor, or explain to him that you aren't getting on with it and ask if he would mind you selling it. You could offer him all or some of the money minus any expenses.

Here it is, about to get treated to a good clean and some new strings. Setup seems spot on but I’ll check it all and set the pick-up heights to suit. The overall finish is superb - not just for the price but for a guitar of any price. The binding is lovely and clean with no gaps or flaws that I can see and the fret ends are super smooth (the frets need a good polish though). It needs a good clean up and some oil on the fretboard and I may swap the volume and tone knobs for black ones at some point but I do think I’ve blagged a real bargain for once

Apologies for the two months absence - super busy with life stuff! I hope anyone who's still around from last year are keeping well & have had a good start to this year! On my front.. bad news is I didn't have time to record updates or really progress much through modules... However.. good news is I still managed to put in circa' one hour practice pretty much every day which has just helped me further cement the early foundational stuff as well as the new things learned in the first module of grade two, which I've now completed between the start of Jan & now... in the next module I'm about to start I (finally) start taking a first look at the F.

J. Bright, The Law Suit, late 1700s: There truly is nothing new under the sun...

Or are your fingers too big?

And it's done. Had to do a lot of routing to get the bridge located properly including plugging and redrilling one bridge post 1mm further way. The wiring was a challenge, I spent three days of eliminating possible causes to arrive at only one conclusion, the pickup selector switch was faulty. My midboost preamp didn't work and I wasn't going to spend a week trying to troubleshoot it, so I bought one only to discover that the guy who build it didn't include separate earth and -9v wires. So had to jury rig something up to provide the output socket with an earth connection, the boost is definitely warm but it lacks the glassiness I expected. So I have on order a genuine Demester Fat Boost (Tyler style) and at some point I will probably wire the switches so they are series, phase and parallel. Although they were fiddly to solder as well. However, after a fret levelling and proper set up, it plays very nicely and has more sustain than my other two strats. I have no idea why. It's quite a warm and loud sounding guitar as well acoustically. More aging is needed on the sides and back but I have other things to attend to in advance of being in the UK next month.

A common mistake is for folk to stick to the minor pentatonic when improvising, whether the key or chord is major or minor. Try and make sure you’re complimenting the chord by emphasising the 3rd note. A lot of players tend to play through the scales from one end to the other. Stand out from the crowd by making some interesting, intervalic jumps (Carl Verheyen is the king of this, check him out). Don’t be in a hurry to show your chops too early, build to a crescendo and release (the solo from Stairway is a great example of this).

Steady on, it's not like some of them need extra reasons to slap a premium on a five quid set of parts.

Hi,everyone, I'm new to the site so thanks for having me,my wife made me join so I bore someone else,Sorry.

There are posting settings saying you need 5 posts to be able to post in general. Seems a bit high, but otherwise, you probably have enough post count to now do it!

Hi All, there has recently been an issue with posting which might have meant that you weren't able to create new threads or post. I believe that issue is now sorted and everything should be working fine. If you find you have any issues with posting, please feel free to report it either by selecting support on the menu above and making a new support request, or by messaging me directly. Thanks

I totally agree with this; my Takamine is fitted with these ... ... I have 'etching fingers', which rapidly turn steel or nickel-steel strings to red rust; these 80/20 bronze strings suit the guitar perfectly, with the added advantage of being the same gauge as my electrics and semi-acoustics, all fitted with nano-web sets. They last, for me, much longer than any other make of strings; I previously had to change in less than a year, but these were fitted over a year ago now, and are as good as when fitted, although I admit that I don't play my acoustic every day. It's a joy when one finds the right set for any guitar or bass; I'd even extend this to establishing the best heads for an acoustic drum set..! I used Remo Ambassador heads for decades, but the later choice of Evans Genera and G2 heads made a world of difference..!

If, as you say, it's minimal, I wouldn't worry about it at all. There are many guitars (even acoustics...) that are not symmetrically balanced anyway, so even if the wall mount was 'plumb', the weight could well be offset. I've never heard of a guitar neck being affected by being hung this way; they are pretty solidly constructed. If it's only an aesthetic thing, I'd leave it alone. It would be possible to redress things a little, without taking the wall mount down, by winding a piece of cloth onto one side of the mount, as packing, to have the guitar 'plumb'; I'd surely not bother. Hope this helps.

I'm not sure that there are any guitars that are excluded from playing 'metal', but if I take that to mean roughly Strat-shape, with a pointy headstock, I'd start by looking at the Thomann B-stock offers. 'B-stock' means that someone ordered one, then sent it back, normally, but they are perfectly sound, and carry the same guarantee as others. It's a way of getting a bit off the price. Here's a link to some I'd suggest fall into your criteria (between £200-£300...)... Thomann 'Bargain' ST-type guitars, with no vibrato, UK prices ... Feel free to play around with the filters on the left, to see what else is on offer. There's nothing wrong with Tele-style, Les Paul-style, SG-style etc guitars either for metal (maybe avoid archtop though, as a beginner...). All of these guitars hold their tuning, and can be used in any style, including metal, of course. There are many other suppliers than Thomann, but this is an easy way to see and compare what's on the market, from the comfort of one's own home. Nothing beats trying out various instruments at a music shop, once one has an initial idea of what to try out. My personal choice would be a Squire Affinity Tele Deluxe (I prefer humbuckers...), like this one ... Thomann Squire Affinity Deluxe ... ... or this one ... Thomann Harley Benton Fusion T-HH ... Spoilt for choice, now, eh..?

SRV by Eric Johnson. Took a me ages to get the main parts down and I don’t have the chops to nail the main solo. Still revisit it occasionally, which then becomes also a feat of memory, as alluded to by @Dad3353.

I agree with this too. I have had both US and Jap models as well a custom shop one too, but get bored with instruments quickly so have always had a high turnover of buying and selling. I defaulted to Mexican in the end. I found the build quality just as good and to be honest I found it more consistent too. I have found some USA (and MIJ) built shockers and passed on them, but not found any poor instruments in the Mex range. Again, my suggestion is just choose the one you like the look of. The electronics can be changed easily and cheaply if necessary.

In all honesty, I haven’t actually played a jaguar before! But I have numerous guitars both electric and acoustic that have similar or even shorter scale length (which all suit me well since I’m not a very tall person) so I’m confident I’ll enjoy the feel of a jag. One of my 2 main guitars on tour is a Mexican tele and it’s brilliant. It’s got bare knuckle pups and electronics as well as better tuners but build quality and woods are just as good as my vintage and custom shop strats. But I do definitely prefer the classic jaguar with lead and rhythm circuits and individual pickup switches as opposed to the new stripped back player series ones. If I found a Mexican one for sale with standard layout I would really consider it

I'd have to have friends and the ability to socialise to do that also frustratingly I can't drive which limits my location options a bit. This is something that makes me want to find people I can play with, support, encouragement, and some accountability to keep practising when I want to give up. I think that is something that would really help me. This gives me pause for thought. I do have a few physical restrictions that I've taken into account, but keep thinking I might be able to overcome to a degree. I've never really thought about not trying to play in every style. I kinda felt that in order to be good and happy with what I can do, I'd have to be good at every style and know all techniques, etc and not just a few. @Dad3353 I'm having weekly lessons and he is a good tutor, teaches in schools, which probably helps him deal with me as I have the intelligence of a small child. He has played professionally in the past. The last two lessons I've bought up that I'm getting worse and struggling more and he had noticed so we went through some different bands that I like to find songs that I may enjoy learning and I was given the tab for them to practice. I've also download yousician in the hope it will give me a bit more structure to my practice. Thank you for the help and for taking the time to read through my post. I really do appreciate it.

Everything that @Dad3353 says above. It happens to everyone, whatever their skill level. Sometime, just taking a week off really helps. For some reason the brain digests everything when you aren't even playing and suddenly you make a jump forward without even realising it.

Just as an update after pricing up the different options. I have decided to just leave it alone and not improve (butcher) a nice guitar just for the sake of it. I will clean the pots and sell it as is to let someone else enjoy it. I will buy a gift for my benefactor and get another guitar with the money, which will then hold a more emotional attachment and something I would actually play. Maybe I will go looking for a new acoustic or even a tele with humbuckers (heresy)... who knows.

Some of the Guitars cluttering up the house...

GAS is a cruel mistress, but she's a lot of fun

Thanks for the suggestions. I have experimented with the Ultrabass setting on my Behringer V-amp and it does drop the lower strings without seeming to affect higher notes. It is an octave divider by another name. However the sound coming out of the octave down strings is pretty much a fart, if you’ll pardon the expression. I think I’ll just live with no bottom end.

Well, that went to plan. Not. I was all set to get me a nice little Revstar when our local guitar shop advertised a new (well, NOS strictly speaking) Cort CR250 for £299. Other than being a bit dusty and needing some new strings (thrown in as part of the deal), it’s immaculate. Nice weight (well under the weight of a Gibson LP), beautifully made and sounds epic. It’s now mine. I still want a Revstar, mind.

UPDATE: my Behringer SF300 has arrived. Does the job just nicely! Really useful having the three modes, too: I can see myself using the more "vintage" sound of Fuzz 1 the most, but the scuzzier tone from Fuzz 2 has been quite fun to play with so far. Popping the guitar into drop D with Fuzz 2 certainly gives a nice All Them Witches-type vibe! Thanks again for the recommendation!

That is a Fazley Midas FLP318GT. Fazley is Bax Music's own in-house brand of guitars; they are pretty decent guitars for the money, and that one sounds great. Mahogany body and neck, poplar fretboard. I was considering swapping the P90s on it when I ordered it, but when I plugged it in, the P90s surprised me with how good they sounded, so they are staying. I will be putting some Grover tuners on it though and I might stick some upgraded wiring, pots and switches in, but for the moment it's doing okay as it came.. Considering they are 143 quid new (I paid a 126 quid for that one because it had a minor blemish on it), you can't really go wrong with them. I paid a ton for a second-hand plywood Columbus Les Paul copy with a bolt-on neck nearly forty years ago, so it just goes to show how far we've come these days in terms of bang for your buck. :

Good evening, Shawn... Good to see these videos continuing, and your progress, too. Well done, for both; neither are simple. A couple of remarks, if I may..? I see you naming the notes as you play them; try to sing the note at its proper pitch as you name them, so that you're singing 'E', 'F', 'G' etc at the same time as playing the note. It will help train you ear to hear notes in pitch for years to come. No great singing voice needed, just get the pitch right, corresponding to the note you're naming and playing. It will become easy and instinctive very quickly, although the first sessions may not feel comfortable. Try it for a couple of weeks, maybe, to see..? Next remark : when strumming the 'big G' chord then the 'D' chord, try not to play the lower 'E' string with the 'D' chord. That note ('E'...) does not belong in the 'D' chord. An option is to try to 'mute' the lower 'E' string, but it's best if you can train your right hand to only play relevant strings. Just a thought, something to have a look at and be aware of, that's all. Lastly : with those oddly-named 'stuck' chords, it's less important to memorise the names (although that's useful, too...) than to listen to, and understand, what's actually happening. You're playing the 'G' on the lower 'E' string, then a 'C' on the 'A' string, followed by a 'B', then the open 'A'. The overall effect is a descending sequence of notes; if each resulting chord has to be named, it's always possible with all of these '#', 'sus', '11' etc, but the musical reason, and the important bit, is the descending line, not the chord names. Just sayin'; don't get hung up on the names, just listen to what the notes you're playing sound like as you play them. Again, you're doing fine, but be sure to hear the music you're playing as well as the technique. Oh, yes, there is another thing... Listen to the Pink Floyd track a few times played by the maestro, and play along to it, you'll find that your timing is slightly 'off'. The single notes are fine, followed by a little shorter 'strum' than you're playing. Just a detail that listening to the original will sort out. There, that's enough abject criticism from me; now go an make a good pot of tea. You've earned it. Good Stuff, keep on keeping one; meanwhile... Have a wonderful day. Douglas

No they are not, they are just not posting clips of them playing badly. For all you know, the clip of them playing it well which they put online, might have been the 400th take.

It's just practice and experience. I can assure you it will all come good if you keep it up. But one very important thing with practicing stuff to remember, is that what you are aiming for, is to have things down so well that you're pretty much on 'autopilot' when playing. The key to this happening with any song, chord shape, picking pattern, strumming pattern or whatever, is to have the thing so ingrained in your muscle memory that you literally could not play it wrong unless you actually made a conscious effort to do it wrong. You won't be surprised to learn that the trick to that, is to practice at a speed which is slow enough for you to become really accurate with your finger placement and movement, then when you are accurate, pick up the tempo a bit, rinse and repeat. If you do that, when you speed it up, your fingers retain the muscle memory of the movements and you remain accurate. Conversely, if you practice sloppily, your muscle memory will then be sloppy and it will be hard to 'undo' that, so in short, concentrate on getting it accurate and worry about the tempo later. Honestly, it's nothing more complicated than accurate repetition which is the key to progress.

Ah, excellent; well done for replying so clearly. It sounds as if you're on the same track as all of us, when starting out. Obviously you should address these concerns with your tutor; he/she will have doubtless heard much the same from many pupils. Meanwhile, if you're not doing it already, I'd recommend playing for short periods, as often as you can, but regularly. Two 15-minutes sessions, each and every day, no exceptions or excuses, will cement the 'information' very quickly. Far better than an hour once a week. I will assume that you have exercises, routines, to practise, from your tutor..? Do these, religiously, in your practise sessions, plus any other stuff you want to do from other sources (method books, U-tube etc...), but avoid playing for too long at a time, especially for the first few months, as this can seal in bad habits and damage your hands. Depending on the complexity, it's normal to have to refer back to the partition (be it tab, notation or chords charts... whatever...) at first, but much will become 'ingrained' over time, as long as you keep plugging away at it assiduously. There is no 'silver bullet', but be assured that every guitarist, whatever their talent, started out with your level of competence. It's only the practising that makes the difference, and it's not overnight. Speak to your tutor, then, follow their advice and method, and trust me; it will all come together, and all the faster for being patient and doing things slowly. I'll end with my usual tongue-in-cheek encouragement ... It's the first forty years that are the hardest, after which things sometimes tend to get very slightly easier.