Leaderboard

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

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.

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.

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.

Coming from the light side (basschat) and after having a friend of a friend show me how to get the most from my hx stomp, the other week I picked up an electric to try and learn… it’s from 1990 weighs less than 3kg and has switches on both knobs that makes it sound different- learning needs to happen !

Hi! It seems I joined a while ago but forgot. I started playing guyitar when I was in my teens back in the early/mid 70s the moved to bass. Now bandless on bass, I am about to pick up a guitar again for the first time in many years and have a few questions. I have had a Mexican Fender Telecaster for some years, stashed away in its case, and just recently bought one of these for a few quid at a bootsale which now sports a Tonerider PAF pickup and some new tuners. Hope to find answers to questions!

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

I missed the electro bit Yamaha Music London do the FX310A for £235

Yes to both, not helped by intermittent focus in my eyesight and a reluctance to take my reading glasses everywhere in case it brings on mid life crisis.

Or are your fingers too big?

I blame the advent of GPS. ...

We're stoked to announce that we've launched some new multipacks... https://www.rotosound.com/blog/product-news/new-rotosound-multipacks/ These offer our most popular sets in 3- and 10-set boxes for cost-saving and convenience. Starting from £21.95 for the triple pack and £69.95 for the ten-set multipack, they're available now from UK dealers!

Hah! Lucky I'd just swallowed my tea when I got to "Rickenwaffe" - not heard that one before! Yeah, they are more on the ball than anyone I've ever seen about their marks. Ric copies of any serious closeness only exist in Japan that I've ever seen... the very occasional one on ebay disappears almost immediately. I'd love a Ric solod body - a 4003 bass even moreso, but I'm resigned to the fact I'll never be able to afford one (and even then I'd struggle to justify the spend, tbh). Part of me wishes they'd do a diffusion line, A Rickensquierphone. They'd surely sell well, given their absolute nixing of the market for any other options if it's a Ric you want. (The Harely Benton options are about the only ones I've seen, and they're so deviated from the original - even if nice instruments in their own right.... you'll not see a Beatles tribute act playing them the way I've seen them use a Squier to recreate Rocky, let's put it that way...). Another part of me rather respects Ric for deciding they're happy as they are rather than just chasing the lifestyle brand market, or otherwise squeezing their property for every last penny. It was a remarkably late registration attempt by Fender - real stable door / bolted horse stuff. Trademarking a shape wasn't an issue for them in 1951 -or 1954 - as it wasn't until 1960 that you could trademark a shape in US law. The first registered US trademark shape was the Coca Cola bottle, a shape they'd been using since 1916, so I doubt Fender would have had any trouble registering The Tele, Strat, and other shapes then. As memory serves they had the foresight to at least trademark the shape of their headstocks, though.... Similarly, they were behind the curve in the UK as well, where shape-based trademarks became an option under the Trade Marks Act 1994. Gibson seem to have been more effective here, though from my casual awareness of their legal efforts (not least the PRS case), most of their real protection falls in the zone of lawfare.... i.e. Gibson can afford to spend a lot more than most of those they go after, and fighting a lawsuit will most of the time be far more expensive than just tweaking your design a little to make it go away. Smoke and mirrors to some extent once you see the eminently sensible decision by the Appeal court in Gibson v PRS.

If anyone is interested there’s a massive guitar, amp and music memorabilia auction on 10th June in Corsham, Wiltshire spanning 5 days. Imagine owning 500 guitars!! https://www.easyliveauction.com/catalogue/5abe5b32c7710c2b409b15545ad1d718/0af8d24542e81eb9357e7ef448a6646f/the-guitar-sale-five-day-auction-including-the-gordon-gi/?currentPage=1

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).

Or, pretty much, exactly the same.

Wouldn't surprise me. The older I get, the more I realise 99% of the electric guitar market is about selling branding an intangibles far over the actual, physical product. It does seem to vary by location, though: players in the US on average still seem to be much more likely to be emotionally invested in the idea that a guitar made in the USA *must* be superior, or is somehow otherwise "the real thing". Which I suppose shouldn't be surprising given that's where the electric guitar boom started, and so there's a sense of "loss" that those aren't dominant in the market any longer - as opposed to being "only" another import product as they are for us in the UK.

I am a musician and teacher based on the west coast of Ireland. I teach online lessons across Ireland, the UK and the rest of Europe. I play electric, Acoustic and Spanish guitar in a variety of styles. My influences are diverse, from Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd to John Williams, SRV, Rory Gallagher and Tommy Emmanuel. Music was my 2nd love, but it's the one that never left me. (a good line for a blues).

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

Gordon Smith, although better known for their Gibson types, also do a very nice Tele - https://www.gordonsmithguitars.com/shop/stock-guitars/blaggards/ TBH, though, I'm not sure that's how I would go. Clearly you're not looking for a more affordable alternative to Fender's US or CS ranges if you're thinking of spending that sort of custom money anyhow. Now, this is only a personal opinion, but.... for me it would depend a lot on what you want. A tele is such a utilitarian design that if what you want is the standard set-up Tele, it seems to me madness to spend custom-built money on it. If that's the only way - you want something really offbeat like the Jack White signature, or a Trussant Steelcaster, or you have an original 52 that you want to clone so you can leave the vintage piece at home and play a facsimilie out.... then, sure. But if what you want is "just" a Tele, it seems to be it's hard to justify spending vast sums on it.... I'd buy whatever MIM / Tokai / whatever you like and maybe rewired if you want, or track down a CIJ Fender that's good to go as is. (IMO, the top end Japanese Fenders are as good as anything form the US, typically wired the same with the same specs, and usually cheaper - nut much harder to find.) Unless you want something that's just not available otherwise, imo having a custom built Tele is a bit like having a Saville Row tailor copy a pair of 501s for you. They'll be an exquisite example, but....

Many thanks for the feedback both. Seems that what I want to achieve isn't quite in the remit of my amp. I might just go back to my comfort zone of 90s solid state.

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

I have friends that bought some Mosky overdrives and they're good. But I can only attest to owning the Mosky Pure Buffer and it's a good buffer, so good that I moved my two VHT Valvulator 1's to my rack. My friend bought the Golden Horsie and it is just as good.

here is the current board with some diys and some stock pedals. More diys kicking about and more Boss to add on a new board for part of my rebuilding the rig of my youth

I had already pre-empted Christmas in offering to myself my bucket-list guitar : a Hofner President E2 thinline, Florentine cut, having foolishly traded away the first one I had, late '60s. Half a century later, I got this one from a Reverb seller in Sweden. The Christmas gift..? Our Daughter, thinking (rightly...) that it would be difficult to find something I'd want/need that I didn't already have, posted a sum of money into my bank which covered the cost of the hard case and shipping of my dream guitar. Much appreciated, and a Very Nice Surprise. Here's a (bad...) photo of the delivery and unpacking of the guitar...

I’d love an L5, or an ES175 at a pinch, but I’m quite attached to my kidneys.

i used one continuous oak board (easy cuts) to make this: lots of sanding, some stain, etc. I used the scraps to create supports for the bottom side (given the stomping): i used a 1 3/8" hole saw to cut an opening for wires. i then took that plug and split it in half to make posts, to wrap the excess wire: on the underside, i used wire ties, tacked into the wood, to secure the power lines: in the far corner above, you can see i velcroed the transformer onto the underside. then, velcro on the top, and on the pedals, and a $6 leather handle: then, rubber feet on the bottom, and wire it all together. PS this is not representative of my pedal setup, this is just for testing! i'll post the actual rig soon. it's made it through 6 gigs. hopefully more to come (we have about a dozen lined up!). what i'd change- it doesnt stand on it's side, probably because of how heavy pedals are. to put a stand plate on one side would mess with the aesthetic. what i'm thinking of adding- maybe a shoulder strap so i can make one trip from the car to the studio. i can send plans if anyone wants.

A few years ago I bought a Blue Ridge 12 string with the confidence that I would soon be able to remove my finger picks and apply my scruggs style technique to the 12 string and be able to emulate the one and only Leo Kotke.......... Well, it did kind of sound like him, if he flipped his guitar to lefty and played it with his bare feet. just had to get that off my chest. So sad

Off the top of my head, Keef, Dylan when he's in that mode, Joe Strummer, Johnny Ramone, Elvis.

So... My Thomann box arrived a couple of weeks ago. Got around to opening it today. And looky what we have here...

Anyone know any guitar teachers in the Bethnal Green area of east London and how much I should expect to pay for an hours lesson?

They seem to be doing well enough to stay in production. They're not going to fly out the door as a cheap alternative - there's very little price difference. But I wouldn't be entirely surprised if they did start to catch on more broadly. It'll be interesting. I suspect there are a lot more ofc them out there being used on the road than we're aware of. You know the drill - established acts / operations who've had enough of the weight / hassle of a tube amp on tour, these look close enough the average punter isn't gonig to notice.... (on some scenes, the look is as important as the sound. I've seen acts get dismissed on certain scenes for not having the right look - can be especially so on the rockabilly scene where a lot of acts put out vinyl because some of their fanbase won't buy CDs). Younger kids now seem to have come up with a range of new bands that have gone beyond the "tube good, else bad" mindset, so we'll see what they go for. If that's amps at all, that is. We've speculated on this elsewhere on this site as well, but it's not unthinkable that amps as we know them could be out-evolved by alternatives. PAs now are better and cheaper than ever before. The old, macho idea of The Big Amp comes from the days hen you needed that be heard and PAS weren't great. That's no longer the case. I've seen a number of acts recently who used pedal format pre and power amps on footboards, and plugged right into the PA. In the West End musicals in London, a lot of the guitar players have been using stuff like Line 6 Pods for years (when Buddy was last in town, they had empty cabs out front for the look, and were all hooked up to Line 6 pods out of sight). Maybe if younger bands and their audiences get past certain visual expectations, we'll see bands arrive with pedalboards under their arms, and set-up / tear down becoming vastly quicker for everyone. If it still sounds great, I'm not at all opposed to it. My own next move no is, I think, gonig to be a small pedal board with pedals for reverb, gain, preamp, into an A/B box that leads to a headphone pedal amp and a Mooer Baby Bomb preamp. Thinking of tying one of those tweed JHS Vintage 1x12" cabs at about £100 with that, could end up being a solid rig for me as a home player. In the unlikely event I ever played out again, the cab could then go or not depending on availability of monitors. I could see that becoming a norm. The tech is already there - it just needs to convince guitar players who have a tendency to luddism.

This looks to be a 335 copy, fitted with Artec 'filtertron-type' pick-ups. Probably a little more 'chimey' than standard humbuckers; not particularly outrageous as a choice. Your ears will judge. You may find some info inside the body, using a dentist's mirror or such; sometimes there are maker's marks or pencilled information. Worth a look..? To strip the paint from the headstock, the simplest way is to rub it down with sandpaper. You could, of course, merely paint over it, if it's the finish you want to change. There's unlikely to be any info beneath the paint; this was probably, originally, just a cheap copy from the Far East, or maybe bought as a kit. Worth spending some time on, but not worth spending too much money on. A nice project, and a Good Find.

About ten years ago I'd have said Fender MiM and PRS SE were good there, though increasingly their new price is pushing higher and pulling up the used price with them. The new Fender Standard series have been much-mocked by people keen to write them off as rebadged Squiers, but that's grossly unfair. The Guitar Geek did a video comparing one directly to a Squier CV Series Strat, and they are different beasts - different factories, different innards. Now whether somebody wants to pay the extra for them might be another matter, but.... They've clearly been introduced for a specific target market, that being players who can't stretch to the price of a Player Series (street price, I'm very rarely seeing those new for under £600 nowadays), but looks down on a Squier. I have a feeling these could be a sleeper that will be a great buy when they start to filter onto the used market. While made in the Far East, the specs are basically a rerun of the pre-2018 MiM Standard Strat that was replaced by the Player Series - poplar body, 21 frets, 9.5 radius, 42mm nut, slightly hotter pickups, full size pots. If they did a left hander I'd be seriously considering one of the 'Candy Cola' models with the maple board... as it is, if one came up used stupid cheap, I'd buy and Hendrix. I wish they would do one of these with a six-screw trem and a big headstock... then I'd *definitely* be looking for a Hendrix project. Harley Bentons I love.... but would be wary of buying used. I've seen one too many "optimistically priced" on eBay, at well over the new price. Those that do sell seem to go for so near the new price that unless it was a model that was out of production (like the 25th Anniversary limited edition Jazz Bass I really wanted, but lost the chance to buy when our then dog needed her tail docked after she bit the end off it, bless her), I don't think it's worth going used. Squier are always worth looking at used, especially the Classic Vibe series - which, yeah, I'll stick my neck out and say are Fender's purest realisation of Leo's concept of an affordable, giggable guitar that can be cheaply maintained and repaired. Not the very *best* *guitars* Fender have ever made, but in terms of VFM as a working player's tool.... I've seen very good deals on the 2xxx series Gretsches used. They tend to be just a *little* more generic in sound, a little less the distinctive Gretsch difference than a 5xxx or especially the Professional 6xxx series, but they are great guitars in their own right, and they have that very cool vibe going on - immediately different from yet another F or G style. JHS's Vintage brand tend to go surprisingly cheap used, and for the money are an excellent buy. If you like the Gibson styles, their earlier models tend to be just a little closer the "real" shapes, especially the SGs. Their SG style ones are a real hidden gem. Their Fenderalikes tend to look much more like the real thing in the body, though if you can try before you buy as the necks aren't for everyone. They tend to favour a US-style 43mm nut over a more vintage 42mm nut. Some folks find that matters, others don't. MiM quality, selling used for Squier money. The 'Icon' series can be a nice option if you like the relic look buy don't want to pay out the big money. Up close they're not the same as the Fender relics, but thy have the general look from a few feet away, and if you like the relic vibe, they're a bit of fun, affordably. As long as you're not left handed you're gold - they're as piss poor as Squier for lefty provision.

Just kidding, we’re just not like that here. After 25 years in office tech and all that binary ones and zeroes, it’s either right or wrong baloney, I know it isn’t actually like that. S**t happens, normally for no good reason. Good to have GC back. Sorry about the conflagration at the beginning of this post, please accept this for balance -

Manhã de Carnaval (Black Orpheus) is often played in slow bossa nova. I wanted make solo version of this song with little bit more groove in the rhythm. I've played this for some times in my gigs and added more improvised solo parts to it. I think it works nicely and it's fun to play. Video Tabs Cheers, Mikko

Welcome DoaA

Hi! It's fun and actually mind opening to compose without key. This is something I do in many cases. Sometimes for little portions inside the composition and sometimes for whole piece. Check out the video and tabs. Maybe there's something that helps you find new perspective in your composing and playing. Cheers, Mikko

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!!

That is a great idea. I dabbled with mandolin but struggled with the string and fret spacing due to fat fingers!

Here’s some new builds I’ve been working on recently…..

I too that there’s a lot of fuss over tight neck pockets. Yes they’re good for stability and alignment, but once set up, as you’ve done, I think it doesn’t effect tone, YMMV. I had a 1963 P Bass that had gaps around the neck heel you could drive a bus around (excuse the hyperbole) and it sounded magnificent.

I would say if you don't want to learn it, don't. I'm in a similar position to you. I had an acoustic for years but never really did much other than strum a few chords or play simple songs from books. I got an electric guitar about 5 months ago and know a few scales and a bit about chord formation. I pick up bits and pieces of theory from books and videos, but it doesn't always sink and and stick. I'm thinking about taking lessons, but don't know if I would get into the theory side.