randythoades

Very nice. I also like the idea of a classical guitar after a few years of playing and loving the ukulele, but have been put off by the wide nut. This looks like a nice compromise. Enjoy!

Fantastic. Good job.

That's a good point really. At those costs, you can upgrade all the hardware and electronics if you want to, and get some good experience at the same time. I have looked at the HB but don't have one myself. Do you get people turn their noses up when you bring one out or are people a bit more accepting during our times of austerity?

Sounds very familiar! Welcome to the forum. Plenty to discuss here. Sounds like you have a nice collection there too.

I had one of these (just sold it recently on ebay actually). They work really well if you prefer the amp 'feel' but not the weight. The sound great (if you want that tweed Fender tone - and who doesn't?) and will output into PA too for larger gigs. But you do have to treat it like a valve amp. The louder you get, the more gain and adjustment you need etc. It doesn't react like a solid state amp in my opinion. I let it go purely for the reasoning in my previous post. I wanted a consistent sound into PA or active speaker that I could have at any volume with no knob twiddling. Although I don't gig much any more, my home setup is now the same as my live setup, I have a Yamaha active 12" PA speaker and my rack effects that I can use for both bass and guitar (and ukulele etc). I can use this as a standalone, or leave the speaker at home and use IEM as required. So I now only have a small Fender frontman amp for small 'front room' type jams with friends.

As someone that has played digitally live I can say that @ezbass is right. The modelling solutions do lack a little bit of on stage 'feel', they sound too polished almost, as if you were playing a produced guitar track off cd. However, the convenience and consistency really wins the argument for me. Whether I am playing on a reasonable venue (with in ear monitors you can't hear your own amp anyway, you hear the microphone in front of it), or a pub with no foldback, I can always get the same consistent sound by plugging in, no knob twiddling except overall volume in a mix. I don't worry about stereo, you don't really get any stereo effect from a single amp anyway but I can output the stereo feed from my rack mount into 2 channels on the PA if I wanted to (I actually use an old Behringer V-Amp Pro which still does the business live). I set 5 different tones (actually the same tone with various stages of gain and reverb) and just click the appropriate preset button between songs, the rest comes from the volume on the guitar or a boost pedal, but you can get midi switching pedals to control all sorts of things. I would say that if you have the budget the just go with the Kemper. I know that it isn't 'new' tech, but it is well known, reliable and well supported, you can get good value buying used and the resale value is good. My suggestion is to get an older Line 6 pod or similar and give it a go at rehearsals, you might be surprised. If it works for you then get the Kemper and keep the Pod as a backup, if it doesn't just stick with the amp. If you want to keep the modelling even simpler, then just use the Tech 21 FlyRig or Sansamp GT2 straight into the PA, only a few choices, but all fantastic. Put it this way... I can go to rehearsals on a motorcycle with top box. All my cables and the Behringer in the box and guitar on my back. And then live I might take a powered speaker for on stage fold back, so use the car, but if we are IEM then I can do it all on a bike. Can't do that with a valve amp...

I will do a build diary to document this when i get started, but am going to do a neck only p90 build. Going to use a humbucker size p90 so I don't need to increase the size of the rout on the body I have and to keep it flexible for the future. Will keep you updated.

I am now thinking that this might be an interesting build to do. I have come to the conclusion that I just don't really like my strat and have a spare tele and hardtail strat body that I haven't used yet. Rather than do yet another Esquire build I might try this first and see how I like it. Just need to decide whether to use a strat sized humbucker for a little extra body like the photo, or maybe even a p90 instead of a normal strat neck pickup. I have most of the parts and will use the neck of my current 1979 Aria strat so that I can re-instate the original body if required.

Welcome and a nice collection there. I have a real fondness for the Korean Squiers and definitely the best colour...!

Yes, makes a real difference when you get good service and good advice. Goes a long way. And a lovely looking guitar. Good purchase.

I have also heard that. I did have an Encore very similar to the one in the original post and it was very nice, certainly for a beginner guitar. I carried on playing it even after I had progressed onto a Fender, it was just as good to my inexperienced ears. I only sold it because I became embarrassed by playing it instead of my Fender. I am not as worried by that image now and take a great delight in playing my homebuild Strat with Squier neck and a couple of Vintage VZ99 Zip guitars from the mid 2000s, one like a Danelectro with lipstick pickup, and another the same but with a humbucker. Brilliant guitars, irrespective of price and I love it hen people turn their noses up at it and then I play it with the band and you get a grudging shrug of 'it's actually pretty good...'. So to sumarise, the Encore and Vintage brands are good quality overall and perfectly nice guitars.

I agree with @Dad3353, this seems like an overly complex way of switching and definitely a danger of switching everything off by mistake and causing an issue. It would be a much easier job to wire in a fresh decent 5 way switch, or even one of the fancy 7 way 'Gilmour mod' switching options that give ability use bridge and neck pickups together etc with a push pull pot. There will be wiring diagrams online and it can't be that hard to do (or just buy a replacement harness that will also then upgrade the Squier control pots)

Ah, it is a fine balance between looking cool and being comfortable. ... there is a reason that a stratocaster has been around for over 50 years.

That is it exactly. I love the Esquire, much prefer it over a standard Tele. And I love the shape and look of the Strat but struggle to get tones I like from it, so I took apart my Hank Marvin Squier and used the neck on a hardtail strat body which I sprayed satin Fiesta red, no laquer so that it will age more and get dinged. Love it. Although, now I see the prices that the HM squier are up for on eBay, I often think that I might have made a mistake, but I love the neck to pieces, so comfy...!

I know exactly what you mean. I have a lovely LP junior type with lipstick pickups. I love the sound of it for almost everything, but some things don't work under my fingers on it. But grab the StratoTele (in my avatar) and all fits into place for some reason. And the same in reverse. Must be something subtle about the size of the neck, the radius, scale length that just suits some tracks and not others. Although I have to say that the StratoTele covers far more bases than any of my others. If it had to be one it would be that one.

I think it is, yes. Been a long while since I last played an LP, but this is the way I remember it !!

This is a repost photo from a version I found on a Jazz guitar forum when I was trying other genres to help me fall in love with a strat. This one uses a single coil humbucker in the neck for a more rounded jazz sound, but I think it looks fantastic without the dummy coils.

Most physical shops will already have looked at an instrument and made sure it didn't have any issues with action etc before putting them on display. An online service where they are just shifting boxes will be different and minor remedial action may be needed, but most new instruments are decent from the factory and only need minor fettling to get them right for personal preferences. But any reputable shop will sell a good instrument off the shelf (if it wasn't, they would have sent it back). As Douglas says, if you see and play it in person, you shouldn't need to do anything to it. If it feels right, it feels right. If something feels off then it isn't the one for you. Feel free to negotiate about anything, the smaller the shop, the more flexible they may be about including soft case, spare strings etc but don't pass up a nice instrument just because you don't get a case.

Welcome to the forum and congratulations. I tried to get both my children interested, but not really happened. Biggest piece of advice I can give (that I am sure will be echoed by other members too)... Take it SLOWLY. I know it is difficult and you want to jump straight in and be amazing in a short space of time, but keeping it slow and going over the same exercises will really help with muscle memory. Precision is much better than speed in the early stages. Speed will come with time once you have the basics nailed. Do short 'lessons' of 15 minutes at a time and then make a noise if you like, but shorter more frequent sessions are better than one long session in a week.

I like it - it's different. Did you have to make the body for it?

Several people have converted their strat to a single pickup setup, both just bridge or just neck (including myself on occasion - and I like the idea myself of just middle as I rarely use bridge or neck pickups), but I am not sure I see the point in your case.. If you are going to just leave the other pickups there as 'dummies', just leave the switch in neck position and everything functions as you want without modifying the wiring or functionality. If you want to make a real point of it, just rout out a blank scratch plate without the other pickup holes and a single volume and tone so it looks like a single pickup version (neck in your case). If you have the other pickups in place no one would know the difference.

Yes, just like that video. Each pickup had a volume and tone knob so that you can set them differently and the swicth does exactly as you say, upwards is for neck pickup, middle activates both so you can have a blended sound, and downwards activates just the bridge pickup.

Agreed. You can't go wrong with any of the Yamaha's. Consistently good guitars across all the price bands.

Not attempting to be argumentative, but if you are looking at attaching a tube amp into a transisitor amp, why not just either use the tube amp you already have, or get one that you can use at a lower volume? Seems that actually your Yamaha isn't actually doing the business for you, so just move it on and get something that does. There are plenty of small power valve amps for not a lot of money. I actually prefer to use transistor amps so would be inclined to just use a pedal if that was the sound I needed. As mentioned above, I have got a couple of the Joyo character pedals (the Tech 21 clones) and they do the business when that sound is called for.

It's the same when a friend comes round and asks you to play something... or even worse, when they bring their child round who also plays...'Hey, you guys can have a jam...' I sound like complete toilet...