maroon barchetta said:

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Saw this consignment guitar at a small music store in College Station. Not sure if I have seen a painted pickguard before.

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Looks great!! Hope that pickguard has a couple layers of shellac, clearcoat or something...

It does not.

Pretty guitar!

BTW, who is Neil? I might need someone good to do some magic setting up a small travel guitar.

Also, what is the best way to find a solid vintage Telecaster these days?

ravingfans said:

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Pretty guitar!

BTW, who is Neil? I might need someone good to do some magic setting up a small travel guitar.

Also, what is the best way to find a solid vintage Telecaster these days?

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Neil Sargent is a guitar tech/luthier in Houston, off Washington. He has reasonable pricing for someone so experienced, and always checks things out for me. You're generally looking at between 1 and 2 weeks to get something back because he is always so busy. He also will talk your ear off while you're there, so don't be in a rush.

https://www.yelp.com/biz/neil-sargent-guitar-repair-houston

As for vintage gear, that's not a market I'm actually very knowledgeable on. Not a bad investment, but not something I've ever been ready to drop $10-20K on.

Personally, I think much of the custom shop guitars can outdo a vintage guitar. I would love someone to A/B blindfold test a vintage and Custom Shop guitar to see if they can really tell a difference. If you are looking at it as an investment, then that's something else.

That ugly ass Tele in the background of my picture is my Custom Shop Tele. It is the best guitar I have ever played, though I hate how it looks, lol.

Where is Custom Shop? Is the Tele a fender or an off brand?

I'm more interested in sound actually. Would like a standard tuning and also the 5 string Keith Richards version as my next two. As always, my hobbies are a bit expensive. They always take time and money and I never have both the same time...

I'm referring to the Fender Custom Shop. The team built custom shop guitars can be found anywhere used from $2,600-$3,600, and new for $3,500-$5,000.

The master-built custom shop guitars from Fender are even more expensive, but completely built by one guy.

Stupid Deal of the Day is a box of Martin strings.

Anybody use these?

https://www.musiciansfriend.com/stupid?source=3TPBA1BD&dtm_em=c68f5d8da5f25bc8f30d2939207fc911

This video blew my mind. I've always been a purist when it comes to point to point soldering for guitars and amps (if i wanted to pay the money). But this is a huge difference in tone. I'm guessing it's because higher frequencies require more conductive surface area, and the traces in the PCBs Gibson uses don't have as much as the braided wire?

DallasTeleAg said:

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This video blew my mind. I've always been a purist when it comes to point to point soldering for guitars and amps (if i wanted to pay the money). But this is a huge difference in tone. I'm guessing it's because higher frequencies require more conductive surface area, and the traces in the PCBs Gibson uses don't have as much as the braided wire?

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You might have better hearing than me--I didn't notice a difference. The YouTube guy said he didn't either and the pots were lower quality than the original. To each his/her own...

Are you serious? The difference was massive, to me. The PCB sounded muddy and dark. I have seen many comparison videos and differences were very small, if even there. I would be willing to accept it could just be me thinking I should hear a difference.

On this one, I was immediately surprised with all the higher frequencies I could now hear.

DallasTeleAg said:

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Are you serious? The difference was massive, to me. The PCB sounded muddy and dark. I have seen many comparison videos and differences were very small, if even there. I would be willing to accept it could just be me thinking I should hear a difference.

On this one, I was immediately surprised with all the higher frequencies I could now hear.

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Like I say, your hearing must be better than mine. My high frequencies measured ok on my last couple of hearing tests, but this tells me I'm missing some.

I definitely hear a big difference. The PCB sounds very nasally, like it is 100% mid-range maxed out to 11 compared to the hand wired. Sigh....My old Carvin is like that Best playing electric guitar I own with the worst sound. Despite active/passive EQ controls, coil spliting, phase switchig, etc, you can tweak a ton of tones out of it but the ultimately all sound like a buzzsaw with a sinus infection. Fun to play but I don't play it often because I get frustrated with the tone.

Back on the topic du-jour.

The hand-wired breathes more, has an airy quality too it in a good way. Like there's a fine line between the highs and lows that is the perfect cut. Not EQ cutting the midrange but something else. Twin parallel racing stripes always look better than 1 big thick stripe. Like a bikini its what you don't see.

My adjectives are probably very wrong - I've had a million pedals tone chasing, but I'm not a tone chaser in the real sense like several on this thread. My pedal quest has usually been about wanting that specific boop, be-bop, or flurbubblespace sound. Because I've never spent a lot of time messing w/pickup swaps or cycling through amps on a regular basis, I often don't understand some of the terminology when people are getting into the minutiae tone. That's not a knock on those that do, I'm jealous of those that can articulate what they hear and want.

It can be like wine or whiskey - read 10 reviews of the same bottle from 10 people and you'll hear every fruit, wood, and herb associated with any beverage

Sober posting I promise. F'ing insomnia has become a once a week thing the past few months.

Had to jump into the Sweetwater site and update my wishlist to get it close to $5000 since their "win your wishlist" contest closes today.

I had started it a month ago and never came back to it. That list is loaded up!

Musician's Friend has Stupid Deal of the Hour today. It can be an interesting look.

https://www.musiciansfriend.com/stupid?source=3TPBK3BB&dtm_em=c68f5d8da5f25bc8f30d2939207fc911P

If anyone is looking for a nice nitro finished Strat and like Lake Placid blue, this guy just dropped his price $200. He may be open to $1,500-1,700. I think $1,600 is a more than fair price.

I have the same model in Sonic Blue, and it is a fantastic strat.

https://reverb.com/item/61398106-fender-dave-s-guitar-shop-limited-edition-62-reissue-stratocaster-2020-lake-placid-blue

That's a really nice guitar.

Thin skin nitro with no poly undercoat. You can't really find something like that without finding an old American Vintage Reissue or get into the custom shop. I think these are the best Strats you can buy, outside of the custom shop. But obviously is personal opinion, there. I love vintage style guitars.

Anyone have any good pedalboard recommendations?

How many and which pedals?

There are so many ways to build one.

Thinking angled board. Not at home but off the top of my head...loop pedal, blues drive, wah, distortion, tube screamer, fuzz, chorus...probably missing 1 or 2. I would say 9 or 10 total.

Something with dolls. Alex would approve.

https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/the-dolls-on-alex-lifesons-pedalboard.1911778/

The notes I would give are:

• Make sure you have a nice power supply with the correct connections. If you miss on this, then the entire build is done. Do your best to provide each pedal a direct power connection, or you can end up with noise interference.
• Think about about doing a loop switcher. You don't want to daisy chain every single pedal, because signal loss will start to happen. I use this on my board, which is great. Then you can choose which effects loops to engage, or pre-program different combinations. I also love that this one has a Mute switch, which cuts the signal to the rest of the board, but sends it to my tuner: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PatchKom--hotone-patch-kommander-4-channel-loop-switcher
I bought mine used.
• Buy lots of velcro and zip ties for cable management.
• But kits to build your own patch cables to the size you need. They have some great solderless kits which work very well

With the board, the power supply, a loop switch, the patch cable kits, and the peripherals, it is not cheap to build a decent board.

Much appreciated. I'm sure I'll have some more questions as the time comes.

Which brings me to my next question...we have lots of new guitar pics but where are the rig rundowns? That could be fun...

On the pedal board question, a couple of recommendations that I have are Holey Board pedal boards, they're lightweight, strong, and super easy to use/expand. If you don't need a flight case type board, I recommend those. Here's their website:

https://holeyboardpedalboards.com/

For cables, IF you want to go solderless, I've had good luck with 3 Monkeys solderless cables. Easiest and excellent quality. Have tried all the others, George L's, Evidence Audio SIS, etc. I'd say Evidence Audio SIS would be second, but takes time to learn how to make the ends properly. If you don't want to go solderless (which I'd probably recommend on cost alone) get good quality cables and you'll be good to go.

https://www.3monkeyssolderless.com/

Gracias

Another tip... you don't need as much velcro as you think. I personally line the board with long strips of the loop side of the velcro, but only use two small 1x2 strips of the hook side of the velcro on each pedal. That is more than you need.

This listing (first spotted on Reverb) doesn't seem correct.

Can you spot the problems?

https://www.toneshopguitars.com/products/prs-se-angelus-acoustic-alex-lifeson

Looks like it may just be an SE Angelus.

I'm not up on my PRS acoustics, but I'd certainly expect Tone Shop to be. What are your concerns with the guitar?

TequilaMockingbird said:

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I'm not up on my PRS acoustics, but I'd certainly expect Tone Shop to be. What are your concerns with the guitar?

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It's not a Lifeson model. That back and sides aren't Dao. The fret markers are birds, not Birds In Flight. Not a thin line. And no way is it new since they haven't produced these in several years.

Fender released their American Vintage II series. As a vintage guitar enthusiast, I think these are awesome. Going through Anderton's video to verify if the finish is true Nitro, or if they have a Poly undercoat.

maroon barchetta said:

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TequilaMockingbird said:

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I'm not up on my PRS acoustics, but I'd certainly expect Tone Shop to be. What are your concerns with the guitar?

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It's not a Lifeson model. That back and sides aren't Dao. The fret markers are birds, not Birds In Flight. Not a thin line. And no way is it new since they haven't produced these in several years.

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Interesting.

The actual Lifeson model

Dao back and sides
Birds in flight instead of straight up and down the fretboard
The inlay around the sound hole is different
The model number features an AL in it for Alex Lifeson

Maybe they just got lazy and copied and pasted from the last time they sold one. I was lucky to find mine so cheap on consignment but they get listed in the $700-800 range pretty often.

It's just odd for them.

Is there anything in this "hidden amazon prime guitar sale" that is worth looking into?

https://www.guitarworld.com/news/these-are-the-6-best-prime-day-sales-for-guitar-players-that-arent-on-amazon

Completed another little mini project, I thought some may be interested in (also, it's never a bad thing getting to show off this Lester's beautiful top). So, my ES-330 and ES-335 both have ABR-1 bridges and my LP Standard has always had a Nashville style bridge. I really love as vintage as possible, so have always lamented having to use the fat Nashville bridge instead of an ABR-1. Do I buy that an ABR-1 has less pieces and provides better contact with the body, thereby providing better tone and sustain? I don't know, but I still always preferred the ABR-1.

Well, apparently Faber has a conversion kit with their ABR version bridge, so I placed an order. Great customer service from Faber because I immediately got an email telling me I probably ordered the wrong ABR from them (They have 3-4 different versions) based on the conversion kit being part of the order. He said to go with a different SKU that was made for this kit, which I did. Love when a company actually cares, like that.

It all arrived today, and I installed it during lunch. First, took off the strings and did a quick fret polish, brush off, and oil:



Next, took off the Nashville bridge and unscrewed the threaded posts you set the bridge on:



They provide a simple long screw with a wing nut end to screw in there and eventually pry the anchor bushings out of the body. Here's a look at the Nashville bridge (top) and the ABR with conversion kit (bottom):



Something I had read about this kind of project is to always check the depth of your mounting routes. Mine were 2-3mm too shallow, causing the new posts to stick out just a bit. I didn't have a drill or anything, but I was able to get a small flathead screw driver and basically chisel just enough wood out of the hole to allow the posts to completely install. However, the posts were not as snug as I would have liked. They could easily be pulled in and out, causing a little bit of wiggle. Luckily, I had some 3m aluminum foil tape from a home project I had done, and wrapped a little strip around each posts to help them fit nice and snug:



From there, just had to drop on the bridge, install the strings, check neck relief, sting height, intonation, and I'm done!



Big difference? Couldn't confidently tell you. I know I prefer it, so that's all that matters. I would have to A/B both options and really listen closely for any differences. For anyone interested in going with an ABR-1 style bridge instead of a Nashville style, this was a very simple conversion kit I would highly recommend.