darkandrew

That is indeed a lovely example - would it be rude to enquire how much of "really silly bargain price" you paid for It?

I'm always amazed at how many guitars for sale on eBay have been "professionally setup".

Back in my "Brit Pop" gigging days (when I was still a bass player), I would gig regularly with no spare - but having said that, I was meticulous in my preparation. I would check everything thoroughly before it went in its case and strings would be changed regularly and wiped after use. The way I thought of it was like a car - if you look after it and service it regularly, it shouldn't let you down, and in 3 years of almost constant rehearsing and gigging, my bass never once let me down. However, these days when I do the occasional gig (mostly school events), I would feel extremely exposed without a spare bass or guitar, spare strings, spare lead, spare batteries and a box full of spare picks, but I've still never so much as broken a bass or guitar string on stage in over 30 years of gigging - so I agree, it's probably as much an emotional safety net as anything else.

That is a lovely colour combination. I remember seeing a peacock blue and natural maple Spector Euro 4LX for sale in a music shop quite a few years ago - it was a thing of beauty and I've always regretted not buying it.

They're quite good guitars, although the current ones are made in Indonesia I believe and I'm not sure how they compare to the Korean ones. As I mentioned earlier, I was never really a huge fan of the stock pickups which were a USA made Atomic / Black Canyon combo but, again, these have changed too in recent years and I think are now a Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates+ / 59 combo. Apart from the sharp fret edges, which were easy to sort out with some masking tape, a fine file and some wet'n'dry, everything else about the guitar is really good. I've also got a couple of ESP Eclipse, Les Paul style guitars, but I would say that this Tele sounds more like a typical Les Paul than either of those.

Ok, it's Tuesday so here's my Tele. It's a 2004 Korean Tele Custom FMT, again made by Cort for Fender (as was my Showmaster in the Strat thread). It's got a chambered mahogany body with a maple top and a glued in mahogany set-neck with a rosewood fret board - so a bit like a Tele shaped Les Paul but with a Fender scale neck. The original pickups were a Fender Atomic 2 in the bridge and a Black Canyon in the neck but these have been replaced with a Bare Knuckle Nail Bomb Set in brushed nickel. The chambered mahogany body makes this guitar naturally very warm and resonant, and this works really well the Nail Bomb's metallic hairyness in the high frequencies to create a really good sounding, versatile guitar. Apart from the so-so stock pickups, the only thing about this guitar that I wasn't too impressed with was the sharp fret edges but this was easily sorted.

Following on from and inspired by the "tele tuesday" thread, I thought I'd start a similar thread for Strats. Now I know it's not Saturday but since this isn't strictly a Strat either, I thought I'd probably get away with it. So here's my Fender Showmaster. It was made in Korea (by Cort for Fender) about 10 - 15 years ago, and as far as I can make out is one of quite a limited run. I can't be 100% sure on some of these details, due to the lack of information out there but I think it has a solid basswood body, maple set-neck and a rosewood fretboard. The tuners are Fender branded locking tuners and the trem is a two point floating type with a brass block. The electrics are a single volume pot, a single tone pot and an Ibanez style 5-way pickup selector. The only mod it's had is to replace the stock pickups (USA made Fenders - not sure of the exact model) with Bare Knuckle Cold Sweats, which suit the guitar really well giving it equal amounts of bite, warmth and aggression. It was a bit of a pain finding the right pickups for this guitar as it has a very soft attack and naturally sucks up all the high and low frequencies. The Cold Sweat pickups, on the other hand, have a scooped frequency response and a fast attack which together address the guitar's weaknesses. All in all, I've grown to quite like this guitar over the years and use it whenever I want something a little bit more "metal".

The odd thing is that although D'addario are my first choice for guitar strings, I've never really been won over by them for the bass where I prefer DR Silver Stars / Black Beauties coated strings (except for my EBMM Sterling which has EB Slinkies on it because I couldn't get the coated strings to grip onto the tuning posts).

I've tried quite a few brands and lines over the years but keep coming back to D'addario for their feel and tone. I find the EXL range gives a nice, harmonically bright tone while the newer NYXL range are fuller and purer but have less high frequency harmonics and so are great for taming and giving more richness and body to bright guitars or pickups (e.g. they sound great on my ESP Eclipse with Bare Knuckle "Mule" pickups).

Harley Benton (available online from Thomann) probably have one of the best reputations for producing decent kit at the budget end of the market.

Let's get this out in the open right from the start - I don't like the larger headstock that appear on Strats and much prefer the smaller, narrower headstock that you find on the Tele. Now seeing as the Tele came first, why was it changed on subsequent models? Is there any real benefit of the larger headstock, eg. Does it help the tone or balance of the guitar?

It depends what you're comparing against, I suppose. For example, a Fender will generally have wider spacing than a Gibson. I have both Fender guitars (Tele Custom and a Showmaster) and Gibson L.P. style guitars (ESP Eclipses), and the wider spacing and longer scale on the Fenders despite being quite small on paper is actually quite noticeable.

I was watching an 80s special on TV last night and noticed that pretty much everyone was playing a Yamaha SG of one sort or another. Given the Yamaha SG's popularity in the early 80s, I was wondering where they all are today and why they don't pop up more often?

John McGeoch (Magazine, Banshees, PIL, etc) is without doubt my all time favourite guitarist due to his endless creativity. Other guitarists that have been an influence on me are Nile Rodgers, Robin Simon, Geordie Walker and Andy Taylor - you can tell I grew up in the 80s can't you.