EdwardMarlowe

It's very true. Of all my guitars, some I bonded with, others I didn't. Typically, the latter are ones I bought as part of 'widening my palette' - i.e. bought with the head, not the shrivelled, black little thing I call a heart. My two most special guitars I currently own re my Fenders. The 94 US Std Strat I bought new. It had to be ordered in from the US because neither the local shop nor Arbiter in London had a lefty in the configuration I wanted in stock - three tone burst, maple board. Went for rosewood back then because the maple was untinted and looked well aneamic. It's aged nicely since, though. I remember the day I picked it up, walking out, one of the guys in the sohp saw me and said "So you finally got it, then?". Shout out to Matchett's in Belfast; they were always incredibly tolerant of a lefty kid hanging around and asking all sorts of questions about their Fenders. THe other Fender is a 71RI Telecaster. What makes this special is that I wasn't looking for it. I saw it in a window of Guitar Guitar in Reading when I was down visitng a firend, and (she being a lefty too) we went in and spent a pleasant hour playing that and a matching white CIJ 68 Strat. THe Strat was lovely and money no object I'd have bought it too, but there was something about that Tele.... Six month later, I had some money and wandered in just to see... It was still there, and now it's mine. That wasthe first and to date only guitar that I ever bought that I didn't go looking for, somehow it just found me. I love it. Best neck of all my guitars. The Strat is still lovely, though it's always been just fractionally wider at the nut than I'd like.... somehow thatUS 43mm as compared to the Mex / Japan / Squier 42mm makes a huge difference in my paws. One guitar I bondedwith surprisingly is my Steinberger Spirit. Bought it on eBay from someone who had imported it privately when I was looking for a travel guitar (before the clamdown on cabin-carry-on instruments which limited them to violin-size, curses). Took a while to find as at that point MusicYo wouldn't export to the UK becasue they had a UK Steiberger stockist, and the UK stockist didn't stock the sole leftymodel they did. IT's ugly AF, frankly - could only be uglier if it had the paddle shape body - mine is the one that tries to look like a guitar. I hate the headless look. The bridge is ugly. It has the absolute worst pup arrangmenet for me - HSH. I hate humbuckers. And yet.... there's just something so wonderfully practical about it for carrying about, nevergonig out of tune, it's sonice to play, thatI love it inspite of itself. I was at one point halfway tempted to start a Steinbergers-only punk band..... (andyeah, I know it's only a budget version and not the real thin,g but SFW).

Oh, certainly, if they were mere 'tools' few of us would have call for more than one.... I mean, my desire for a second Strat probably wouldn't happen so much if I had bought a blue one with a maple vboard back in 94, but I love my old Fender far too much to part with it in favour of the configuration I now prefer. And I'll stick my neck out and say that, all other things being equal, probably the only person in our house holdwho could hear thedifference between rosewood and maple is the dog. And I doubt she much cares so long as Daddypig is happy and givesher lots of fusses...

Yeah, I'ds do the string change first too. If it feels fine, then I wouldn't change anything.

Can't help there, I'm afraid - though it certainly looks from my screen like it's had a lot of work put into it. By any chance is this a custom guitar someone has had built to their own specs around an Ibanez neck they really loved?

I'm interested to hear about why those who are primarily basssists havearange of basses - or not. As primarily a crap guitar player who also enjoys playing bass badly, I find the only bass I really am interested in is a P bass - the traditional, one-pickup job. If I was to play bass out, i'd probably pick up a 51 style P bass configuration, and *maybe* one or to others, though TBH mostly when I think about it the alternative basses I'dl ike to have would be all variants on the P Bass - like a P bass with a Firebird shaped body, that kind of thing. Interestingly, with guitars my tastes have narrowed over the years also as I've figured out what I like - Im' selling off a whole bunch of guitars in order to replace them with a couple of Gretsch Electromatic semis, a second Strat (with a maple board; my old US Std 1994 is rosewood), and an LP DC JUnior type. Truns out I'm just not a fan of humbuckers, and no matter mow many of my guitar heroes played Gibbys or LPs in paticular, I'm just so over those. I think it's a natural pattern of eperience, finding what I want - and not being able to justify a hugecollection for the sake of collecting. Inmy experience, bassists always seemed to be more satisfied with a smaller number of specialised basses than would be the case for guitar players, but I wonder if I'm wrong on that?

Very nice indeed. Bravo! I'm always impressed when anyone builds their own guitar, but acoustic isreally something else. I like the headstock design especially.

I bought Guitarist for years until they stuck a CD on the cover and massively upped the price. It also got a bit Old Fart for me (they went through a phase of being weirdly obsessed with Brian May and Paul bloody Weller). Total Guitar and Guitar Techniques I never really got into - expensive, plus I never got into the tuition side of it. TBH, when it came to the mags I was mostly interested in the gear news and reviews. Guitarist lost me a bit there too as it started covering mostly stuff I could never have afforded, though it was still nice to read about some (not all - fancy flamed maple and all that just isn't my bag) of it. I still see guitarist on the shevles in Sainsburys; occasionally it has articles that look intersting, butg I'm usually put off by the cover price of around six quid, and the fact that.... well, how many more articles can I read about Hendrix and *still* fidn something new? I know that guitar ain't as popular as it used to be in new music, but damn are the mags stuck in the past! My default these days is usually "The Guitar Magazine". It's much better now than it was in the early 90s (it was a bit, eh... ITV in those days. A bit Melody Maker, if you catch my drift - no NME (RIP)). The best ones for me, though, were both UK mags that sadly didn't last long. There was Guitar Buyer which ran for a coupel of years arounsd 2000/2001, which was all gear - the odd interview, but it focussed on their gear very specifically. Then there was What Guitar?, which was really good on multiple tests... instead of getting a review of the latest Fender Tele variant, you'd get a review shootout of ten different Tele type guitars of roughly equivalent status. Was a great way of finding out what was available in your pricec range and narrowing to two or three to actually go out and try. The worst bit about Guitar mags for me was always the almost inevitable line in the spec on anything both interesting and affordable: "No Left Handers." I remember reading several issues of Guitarist where not a single instrument was an option for me asnone were available left handed. Not their fault, granted.... and they did briefly in the late 90s do a nice little column where a left handed player reviewed a let handed guitar, though it didn't seem to last much longer than doing the obvious stuff (Strat, LP, Tele....). I do miss having a mag I could get every month, though. The internet has largely taken over from a lot of hobbyist publications, but it's not entirely the same thing. Youtube is useful, but only to an extent. It's a pity something like Guitar Buyer doesn't come out even just as an annual thing. Some one of the American mags used to produce an annual guide to All The Gear on the market, but that was pre-web, and of limited use in the UK market where everything was less avaialble and more expensive.

Back in the Summer of 1993, I bought a copy of the then widely available book "The Fender Stratocaster" by A R Duchossoir. A deceptively slim but inofrmation-dense history of the development of the Strat from 1954 right up to the initial run of the American Standard Stratocaster in 1988. Had a forward by Clapton. While saving up for my own Amercian Standard (which took a further year), I devoured that book. It was an absolute font of knowlede and detail - down to the levle of the month(ish) they changed logos, pickguard screws, pickups, single /multi ply / mint guards, body wood..... It was from that book I learned the significance of a 57 or a 62 Strat, what the "Fender-CBS corporate buyout of 1965" (Qutoe: Wayne's World) actually meant, and so much else. I've long been keeping an eye out for something similar but up to date (ideally at least up to the launch of the Player series in 2018). The Duchossoir book is still fantastic, but I would like some more recent information. I do have the Haytnes manual from 2012, but nothnig more recent than that. Im' speciofically intersted in a dedicated Strat book rather than Fender more generally. Any leads?

I love how Fender produce these 'could have been' series.... Aesthetically, my tastes mostly cuts off at 1959, but there's something about these very sxitiesish 'what ifs' that really wiggles my wire. Maybe it's the fact that they remind me so much of a lot of the wild and obscure guitars a lot of my punk rock heroes wielded. It would be interesting to see a relic version of a guitar like this - have the Custom shop produce a few and then have Fender put them out there as a "long lost" first batch of a new guitar that was stolen on the way to market - do it as an April Fool..... but an interesting experiment to see whether they could make people think that one of these designsreally was from that period. Wouldn't take much to photoshop one into the hands of Dick Dale or Link Wray.... and it's the kind of thing I could imagine Link especially playing. This 66 would look fantastic paired with a nice burst J bass.... I'd love to see them have a go at the old Squier Supersonic in this Fender vein... I remember badly wanting oneo f those, but they never came left handed, and the neck was just too smallfor comfort. Put a maple, 70s-style Strat neck on one of those, switch out the bridge HB for a really ballsy Tele pup (like a Tele Bridge sized p90), and that would be quite something....

Ha, I hear you: I too have a Higher Power who has decreed that I need to play more and sell off everything I'm not using beofre I can buy more.... makes sense, really. The first pedal I bought - my green Sovtek-EH Big Muff Pi is staying - it's in great nick and still has the original wooden box; I think it's the only thing I have which has turned out to be an "investment", though I see my old 94 US Std Strat, at 26 now has a used value notionally more than I paid for it (though without adjusting for inflation!). I've beocme a huge fan of cheap mini-pedals, it's amazing how much fun they can be. I'd adore a Hendrix model fuzz face, but it's hard to justify that when cracking soundscan be had for twenty quid. I still fantasise about one day playing out again, just for fun.... the Joyo American Sound I've heasrd of folks using in place of an amp, as a basic tone.... I'm downsizing my home amp (a Vox AD120VT with the VC12 footboard and an extra 2x12"!) cause it's just too much now.... I'll probably buy a couple of cheapie 5watt tube amps now (got my eye onthe Harley Benton Tube 5, and the little 5 watt Joyo based on the Fender Champ) for home use - my sound desires have.... I was going to say simplified over the years, but I think the truth problably is more like they have focussed more on a specific sound rather than wanting "all the options". (I've gone the same with guitars.... better another Strat I'll play than the LP I don't...). When I clear out some gear, I'll buy at least one of those tube amps first, acouple of mini pedals (I still "need" a spring reverb and a tape echo sim, and I'd like one of the Joyo ones that can flick between a TS9 and a TS808 spec), but then it'll be all about the guitars. And some lessons....(!)

Good pointg re BT.... radio, I guess it would have to be.... course, that's already done for wireless connections between guitar and amp, seems no reason that couldn't be adapted to incorporate an earpiece? By twinning them, are you essentially looking at making it 'two channel'? I've been very impressed by what I've seen from Joyo et al. Sure, a lot of it is copied, but so is most guitar stuff by this point.

I doubt it'll have the earbleed volume that an AC30 can produce, but if it's close to all the other Vox Hybrids I've experienced, it'll likely be fine for smaller gigs, and easily pa'ed for bigger venues, as long as you can hear yotrself over a drummer.

Unless you'tre particularly sentimentally attached ot it, I'd be looking into what it might be worth as is. Soundsl ike it has its problems, but it'll still have an appeal to the folks who want to buy a "vintage Gibson" - like Fenders, the once sneered-at 70s models are slowly going up in value as the earlier stuff has become unbuyable for most mortals. Potentially worth seeing whether spending a couple of hundred getting it 'right;' would be realised in selling it too. I wouldn't mess around with it myself; the sort of customisation is, imo, best done to an instrument that isn't likely to have any realvalue that could be 'ruined' by it.

Looks like two Tele-stylec neck pups to me. I like it - seems a bit more thought has gone into the design here than the usual "Oh wow, we built a Strat that has a body outline the shape of a Tele!!"

THat Joyo American Sound pedal is interesting; I've heard of folks successfully gigging thorugh one of those for an amp sound, straight into the PA...(!) I'm surprised that these days nobody has yet come up with an amp-in-a-stompbox that connects to a Blutooth earpiece for IEM. That would be quite the kit (especially popular with roadies!).

Yes, it's going to be something along the linesof the Fender two-post trem, probably a Wilkinson - doesn't have the gouge out of the body I'd associate with a Floyd. That carve along the bottom route is pretty distinctive, though - assuming somebody didn't add it custom...

One Brandoni with Fender bits, 62 spec, P type in three tone burst with rosewood. One Squier P Bass Special, black with rosewood. One Westone Thunder IA, rare early Mk I version. All left handed, will in due course sell the latter two to buy a Fender Player P in tidepool.

Check out eBay for those min-pedla types that typically go for around £25-£30. I've generally found them to be pretty good, and cheap enough to play with different types and voices. Electro-Harmonix have several variations of the Big Muff in their range, all at around £50 to £60 that will get you a good fuzz too. I'd love one of the round Hendix fuzz pedals myself, but they seem vastly overprice at over £100; for me, fuzz is such a basic effect I don't think it's worth outlaying to big bucks on it. As long as a cheap fuzz pedal is solid (durability), it's really not an effect that requires a lot of finesse...

The Revstars look more akin to LP Special or Melody Maker types to me, whereas the Yammy SG types were more of a pointy-horned LP Std.

My first electric was a Marlin Loner (a sort of Jackson style Super Strat) flipped over lefty. Pointy headstock which then had the machined heads on the bottom. Actually made for much easier tuning in my experience - felt far more natural to have the hand on the underside, though notably less aestherically pleasing than a right-way-up one on the likes of a regular Strat.

Interesting - and wipe-clean!

I stumbled across this place via basschat. Primarily a gyitar player that also plays bass. This site being uk based is a big plus for me. Posted at Harmony Central for years, but they hacked the site about and it went crap. UK market is also very different than US, so a UK site is better for me. A reviews section could be cool. But I'd rather it grow organically than get huge fast for the sake of it.

I switch from 1mm to 1.14mm tortex picks purely because I preferred the colour.

The Epi isn't available left handed, tho, so it's out of the running for me. Interesting they changed the Epi headstock, though why they don't just use the same one as the Gibbys, I'll never know. I mean, if you had the advantage of that option, yet instead you went with a shape farther from the original than many copies??

I've always wanted a basic, single p90 type in my arsenal, and now I'm selling my surplus I should have a bit of cash to spare. Not interested in the Gibsons; somehow it seems counterintuitive to spend that money on such a simple guitar. I was keen on one of those Antoriast can be had for £325 new, all Wilkinson hardware. Now I see Thoman do one in their Harley Benton line for £185... No chance to try either, so anyone got any experience of the HB? Rationally I expect the Antoria to be the superior one, but it's enough of a price difference that, well... we all like to spend less, don't we? Obvs whichever I buy will get a tortoise guard in short order....