EliasMooseblaster

Couldn't agree more - I have a 1W Blackstar hybrid at home and even cranking that feels like risky business unless I know the neighbours have gone out! There's definitely a lot to be said for amps on the scale of the Blues Junior for the size of gigs most of us would have been playing pre-pandemic. Speaking of preamp pedals, that's exactly the route I've gone down for live-streaming while I've been unable to gig in a conventional fashion: no "normal" amp, just a Joyo American Sound running out to the desk. Sure, it won't respond quite like a real Fender amp, but it sounds close enough, and once the sound's been through the interweb tubes, and compressed through Facebook's streaming software, is anybody really going to hear that much difference? ...and on a note more relevant to the @RicLytham's OP: the Joyo British Sound pedal is supposed to emulate a handful of "classic" Marshall amps, and can be had for £30-40. You'd need something to amplify the output (another practise amp / small mixer with headphones / powered speaker / get creative) but if the "Voice" knob is as flexible as the one on the American Sound, it may be a good way to play with a range of tones and see if you can find the GnR tone you're looking for. Also worth doing some research into competing pedals which might get you there - there's quite a big market for pedals that emulate those tones on a budget.

Great amp - I have one myself! I haven't tried to connect it to a PA, but I have found it has enough power to do small gigs by itself. Depends on the size of the gigs you're doing, I guess, but there's a DI out on the back which should keep the sound engineers happy if you wanted to hook it up to the house PA. The tone of the amp is nice, and the built-in reverb is also pretty good. There's a chorus effect on there as well, though I've never found much use for it. Also turns out - after I lent it to a friend for a few gigs - that it sounds really good for amplifying a violin, too.

I've been doing a regular series of livestreams since the UK first went into lockdown. More recently I started combing the videos for highlights, and found this version of BB King's classic, which I wanted to share with you:

Love what you've done with the contouring! If you're putting it to a public vote, I prefer the less "busy" look of the separate bridge and pickup surround - not that I have a strong dislike of the other option. Looks like it's shaping up to be a really beautiful instrument.

I've not bumped up against it myself, but I did pick up a little anecdote when I was shopping around for a resonator on Denmark Street. There was a Dean in one shop which really looked the business - tri-cone, all-metal body, etc - sadly, it was about double my budget at the time! The chap in the shop told me that a guitarist had been in a few months previous and absolutely loved it, but then he said he wouldn't be allowed to use it. Apparently said guitarist played in Jools Holland's band at the time, and the word from on high was that if he wanted to play a reso on the show, it had to be a National or a Dobro. Which, if true, struck me as a bit ridiculous: the only thing which looked noticeably different about this Dean was the badge on the headstock, and would viewers really write in to complain if there were a different maker's name on the head*? * Actually yes, yes there is probably someone sad and bored enough to write to Auntie Beeb about something so trivial...

'afternoon. Is this still available?

"...before being placed into hot oil for 3-5 minutes."

Glad we could help! I hope your search for your ideal humbucker guitar is fruitful and, above all, enjoyable!

Not wishing to be obtuse, but it sounds to me like you might just be looking for a couple of humbuckers. Switching two single-coil pickups into series effectively gives you a very wide-field humbucker, and the tone will be very similar: a bigger output, but with more emphasis on the mids than the highs. (Yes, it technically gives you a boost, and if your amp's close to saturating then it will produce more grit when hit with the series/HB signal...but it's quite a different tone. My own experience of using the coil-tap on my Tele to go between cleaner and dirtier tones wasn't a particularly successful one!) You can get hold of twin-humbucker Strats, which I'd expect to sound pretty similar to a standard one rigged in series. Are you interested in using the single-coil sounds at all, or were you mostly looking for the sounds of the two in series? I'd be surprised if you couldn't get a twin-HB with a coil split, which would add neck and bridge single-coil sounds - you'd be missing the middle position, I realise, but it depends how dispensable you consider that one!

Very interesting reading - thanks for the link! I take your point about the inlays: I know the holes were already there, so they (probably) had to do something with them, but I expect a wood inlay would have looked nicer. But I guess it was an artistic decision to make a "feature" of them. Looking at some of the photos, I certainly wouldn't have guessed that they joined half a dozen pieces for the top. But yeah, selling them for upwards of seven grand...feels a little bit cynical. I know you're paying for a lot of expert workmanship when you buy a Taylor, but to fork(-lift) out that much and know that it was made from discarded pallets just makes me feel like you're partly paying for the novelty of it.

^ I second Mr Marlowe's comments! (Though I hadn't heard about the Taylor palette guitars - I'm intrigued now)

You might be onto something there - I've not paid it much mind, as I know Fender, Gibson, and their devotees often fetishise all things "retro," but I did briefly wonder whether the new "Vintera" range might have been driven partly by the success of the Squier Classic Vibe series.

Yes indeed - guitarist in my other band has a rather interesting Deluxe Tele as one of his main gigging guitars, which is fitted with a pair of P90 copies (Duncans, I think). Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's not a Fender, but a Squier. (And still sounds bloody good)

There's also a chance you could save yourself quite a lot of money here: could these limitations be fixed with a good setup? Yamahas come with a pretty good reputation across the board; I do wonder if a few professional tweaks from a luthier/guitar tech might unlock the rest of its potential. (Unless you just want another guitar, of course - I don't think any of us would judge you for that!)

Those basses look gorgeous! (Not sure how I somehow missed the build threads over on BC...) I'm looking forward to seeing how the new guitar comes out - those piano panels polish up a treat.

You'll probably find most guitars have their pickups wired in parallel to one another. There are a few exceptions which are series-wired as standard (I'm led to believe Brian May's Red Special is one famous example), and quite a few guitars which come with switching to allow you to go from parallel wiring to series. Fender's Baja Telecasters are notable for having an "S1" switch, which does exactly this! As for pickup types, you're best sticking to single-coils for series wiring: two single-coils in series will tend to attenuate higher frequencies and emphasise mid-range - essentially, you've created a very spread-out humbucker, and the guitar will sound as such. Typically, humbuckers already have their two coils wired in series, so there's probably not much to be gained from sticking two of them in series with each other. Unless you're aiming for an unfeasible amount of lower-midrange woof, of course...

Isn't this basically the setup that Gibson/Epiphone use on the triple-HB Les Pauls, SGs, Flying Vs, etc, that occasionally crop up in the hands of various metal guitarists? I believe the 3-way switch gives you the options of neck+middle, bridge+middle, and...middle solo? Or possibly neck+bridge? Not sure about the third position. But in any case, this makes me think you could probably get a wiring diagram for one of these and apply the same layout to your Strat-style concept.

I couldn't agree more. I dare suggest I like the tone better than that from my "real" amp! I took my JF14 its first "gig" last Friday: livestreaming on my FB page via a small powered mixer. Previously I was taking a feed from my amp's "Emulated Output & Headphones" socket; I felt like it was much easier to get a satisfying sound from the Joyo. The only thing missing was a little reverb, but I could easily get a pedal to cover that job. It may just be that Blackstar (my "real" amp) isn't quite the sound for me: I still quite like its tone, but it seems to work best for people who like a clear demarcation between "properly clean" and "obviously overdriven." Whereas I think what I was really after was an amp I could run close to breakup, and then kick a bit harder with a Tubescreamer. But Fender didn't offer a tiny 1W valve-hybrid for home use, so the Joyo is filling that niche quite nicely. Thanks also for the comparison with the Line 6 equivalent. I tend towards the philosophy that I'd rather have a bit of kit that did one job well, so it's good to know I've not missed out on too much by going down this route! Now, before common sense and my credit card catch up with me: anybody know how well the Joyo British Sound does for a '60s Marshall sound?

Thank you! I've been in two minds about Line6, as I was quite impressed with the POD Farm amp sim package...but fairly horrified by some of the Spider amps I've played through on "toilet circuit" gigs. I decided to plump for simplicity and try one of the Joyo preamps, so now I'm sporting an American Sound pedal, which I must admit is giving my real amp a run for its money!

That HB does look the business, especially for the number of options. I might propose an alternative setup - one which I use myself, and may work out cheaper: Amp sim pedal & computer or phone playing youtube track -> Small powered mixer -> headphones Amp sim / preamp pedals which do a single sound can be picked up fairly cheaply, especially if you go second-hand. I recently acquired a Joyo American Sound for less than £30, and it does a pretty good approximation of Fender amp voicings. Mooer and Donner pedals do similar things at similar prices. Certainly cheap enough that you could always try a couple, and re-sell any you didn't like. Small powered mixer: I use a Behringer Xenyx 502. Again, could probably be acquired for under £30 s/h. Some of the fancier models (1002 onwards) have inbuilt effect like reverb, but may cost a little more. The key thing is that they have line in sockets which will take the feed from your amp sim pedal, a CD/Tape stereo input which can receive the youtube track from your computer's speaker socket (or smartphone headphone socket), and a 1/4" headphone socket to deliver the mix to your ears. Headphones: Sony MDR-ZX100. Maybe £20-30 new? And they sound astonishingly good. (I mixed my first EP on a pair of those, and whilst they're hardly flat response, they were more than good enough for the job.) You'll need an adapter as well, to go from 1/8" to 1/4" stereo jack, but that can be had for a couple of quid. All in, you could find yourself set up for silent practise while still south of £100. Biggest decision is probably reading up on the amp sim / preamp pedals and deciding whether you're after more of a Fender/Marshall/Vox/other kind of sound...but as I say, you could probably try a couple without breaking the bank!

Hello! Happy to offer a few suggestions: if you're looking to buy new, the Squier Classic Vibe series tend to come in south of £400, and are very well regarded guitars for the money. (And even the bog-standard Squier Affinity series are a bit more dependable these days - worth trying it out in a shop if you can, though!) If you're willing to go down the rabbit-hole of second-hand models, there are plenty of Fenders floating around eBay, and it's worth keeping an eye on the marketplace boards, both here and over on Basschat (indeed, I bought my own Tele from a feller on Basschat). You can probably get your mitts on a Mexican Fender within the £400 limit; a US one might be more of a long shot. It's also worth considering other brands' knock-off designs - some of them are thought to be better than their Fender namesakes! I see eBay has a couple of Tokai copies going in the low-300s, which have a good reputation. There's also a Schecter sitting at £239 right now - if it's anywhere near as good as my Schecter bass then you could be onto a winner there!

As opposed to the old-fashioned process of buy amp -> fiddle with sound -> get frustrated at gigs -> sell amp to fund purchase of a new one which you're sure will sound better, I see a few companies now have a line in preamp and/or amp simulator pedals. Certainly, I remember being impressed by the sounds that a friend achieved years ago by turning up with just a Boss FDR-1 and plugging that into the PA, but I see the various models from Donner, Joyo, etc are at a price point where I could take a punt on one or two and not feel like it was too much wasted investment if they were a disappointment. So: who else has tried these? Any particularly good or terrible models to watch out for? Do they play nicely with other pedals* ? And are they a good option for going amp-free, and/or silent recording at home? *I play a lot of Blues, and Blues-Rock, so of course I already have a Tubescreamer clone and Tremolo pedal...

Good lord, I remember buying an Arion compressor back in the early 2000s. Construction seemed rugged enough, looking back, and quite a range of controls...but I seem to remember it being a little too easy to get unpleasant tones out of it. (I do attribute this largely to my being a bit inept with compressors, mind...)

Anyone else chanced across this oddity? Friend of mine sent me a link yesterday: https://www.raingerfx.com/product/minibar-liquid-analyser/ Apparently, it's a simple overdrive circuit with a twist: you pour a liquid of your choice into the capsule on top, and the gain and EQ settings are determined by its conductivity and opacity, respectively. Doesn't sound too shabby from the demo videos - who fancies sharing a pint with their pedal?

Big fan of slide guitar myself. Open D's good, as is open G - sometimes it's easier to retune than start faffing with capos halfway up the neck! I believe there are even a few masochists who keep their guitars in standard, but they tend to be lead guitarists like Joe Perry or Ritchie Blackmore, who just use it for the odd solo here and there. Are you learning slide on acoustic or electric? In a bid to get the hang of it, I invested in a second acoustic guitar which I could slap some heavy strings on and leave in an open chord tuning (D and G are good for counteracting the extra tension from a set of .16s) - as luck would have it, it turned out resonators were available at a similar price point to mid-level standard acoustics. Conversely, if you're learning on electric, open E and A are worth exploring - the extra tension can help stop the slide knocking on the frets!