Guitar talk: acoustic, bass, classical, twelve string? You name it! Pt III

[cutting42]

I posted months ago about the Fearless Flyers, they and Vulfpack are incredible. Highly recommended.

 

[Tony L]

The Great Guitar Build-Off 2020 is shaping up to be rather amusing and a good way to pass time on YouTube. Ben from Crimson has sent various people in the guitar industry kits of various types for a charity competition/auction. Its only just starting now with folk getting their kits last week. Texas Toast Guitars are characters for sure, they are certainly winning the pre-contest ‘shitposting/wind-up’ category so far! I’ve not found all the channels yet, but will certainly be watching as it all progresses.

PS I do like the idea of building a kit, but the cost puts me right off. To really do it right puts you in decent second-hand US Strat territory, I just don’t see how you could build one with a really good body, neck, pickups, trem, tuners, finishing products etc etc for less than £800 or so, and you can get a nice fairly recent US Standard Strat or whatever for that with a bit of shopping around, and that likely comes with a nice hard-case too!

 

[matthewr]

£800 puts you in Vintera level of Fender's range which is firmly in the gig bag not hard case territory. I assume that building yourself means you get a level of parts more like the Professional level which is basically the USA built "standard" strat and comes in at a whopping £1500-ish. You do get a hard case though

 

[Tony L]

I was thinking second-hand, e.g. I only paid £1k for my ‘82 Dan Smith, and that’s a proper ‘collectable’ Fender (you see folk asking more than twice that) and it has its rather beat-up original moulded plastic case (it has a crack, which takes some doing with that stuff!).

I’ve seen a lot of bog-standard but very nice US Strats going in the £600-800 range, check the closed listings on eBay. Just recent ones e.g. <15 years old, so ‘used’ rather than ‘vintage’, but lovely guitars. They can be a real bargain IMO.

PS Did you buy a Tele? If not why the hell not?! ;-)

 

[Tony L]

Making some progress with the fuzz ‘clean-up’ thing. Now everything I write on this thread needs to be prefaced with the following disclaimer in bold: I do not know how to play a guitar. This is not fake modesty, it is a hard cold fact. I’m firmly in the ‘here are three chords, now go form a band’ era DIY/new-wave etc and I just don’t have the attention span or discipline to do any lessons/theory etc. I’ve stumbled across quite a few more chords in the past 40 years, but really that’s all, and I certainly don’t know what they are called. As such I thought the ‘clean-up’ thing was just the volume control, I hadn’t figured out how much (actually most of it) was playing technique/pick dynamics, and just how astonishingly responsive to touch a good fuzz is. I assumed you could still thrash the shit out of it 80s grunge-style! Lesson learned and a whole new door opens. I also figured out that just backing the fuzz knob back just a little (maybe ‘5 minutes’) kind of compensates for the Yam’s high output whilst still having plenty of fuzz left on tap with the guitar’s volume wide open. I’ll dig Fat Lester out for a try at some point as that’s higher output still. It will be interesting to see what humbuckers do.

Really liking this pedal anyway. May actually be all I need with the analogue echo.

 

[Johnjo]

I think the majority of guitar and bass players are in the same boat regarding ability and technique,I certainly am and yet there’s just something in me that needs to do it, a sloppy three chord blast can be very satisfying.
The cold hard truth is a very small number of people are born to it and have a natural ability and by implication the rest of us aren’t/don’t but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t enjoy it.
I like bass playing most of all but to play even a simple root, 5 country song with the correct timing, feel, note length, string muting etc. to RCA Studio B standards is extremely testing.

 

[Tony L]

Its raining, I’m bored, so I weighed everything I had within reach:

Fat Lester (2005 Les Paul Standard): 4.1kg
82 ‘Dan Smith’ hard-tail Strat: 4.00kg
78 Yamaha SC1200: 3.6kg
78 Shergold Masquerader: 3.4kg

05 AVRI ‘76 Jazz Bass: 4.4kg
81 Shergold Marathon Bass: 3.8kg
81 Shergold Marathon Bass (fretless): 3.75kg

Just cheap scales that read up to 5kg that I use for weighing records. They seem reasonably accurate as I don’t get charged extra at the post office!

I always thought that Dan Smith was bloody heavy, and it is, though it balances well on the knee so I don’t notice it sitting down. It’s obviously heavier than the Yam, but not unbalanced like the Les Paul. I’d love to try a really light Strat. As I understand it you can knock anything up to a kilo off the Dan Smith with a good one.

Judging from Google my Les Paul actually seems to be a really light one! They can go up to an astonishing 5.5kg! Surprising as it doesn’t feel light and it pre-dates the CNC weight-reducing carves which apparently came in the following year. Might be a good selling point!

 

[gavreid]

Fat Lester (2005 Les Paul Standard): 4.1kg...

9 lbs or so is pretty good for a brand new Paul these days as you say. I've seen the closer to 10! The custom shops are lighter but who pays that kind of money (except for investment.) It's interesting how Gibson compares 50s/60s instruments with today's mass produced items on price plus inflation, but they really should be comparing custom shop quality - I guess some of it comes down to the cost/scarcity of the best timbers, that simply don't exist in the quantity needed for the production line.

 

[Tony L]

There are also substantial construction differences as I understand it, vintage LPs being solid, modern ones having all manner of internal chambering to reduce weight. Mine being a 2005 lacks the CNC routing, but I think it has some form of weight relief rather than being full solid. I remember reading up on it when I bought it and 2005 was the last year of what some class as ‘proper’ LPs, i.e. before all the CNC stuff. You can only really tell by x-raying them, which some people have done!

Anyway, I found digging it out for a play again interesting. Basically I just don’t connect with it. In fairness it sounds great; really big and fat clean, you could certainly play jazz on it, plus it does that full-tilt rock distortion thing perfectly, but I just don’t enjoy playing it. Its heavy, uncomfortable, really doesn’t balance on the knee at all etc. I think I’m far more a Strat person, plus even lighter single-coil guitars like the Bronco. I’m actually perfectly happy with the Yamaha. I would definitely swap Fat Lester for something appropriately nice with a trem! I’d love to try a 3kg or so Strat.

PS Odd how heavy 10s feel now I’m used to 8s! I think the Strat has 9s. I really should keep the empty string packs in the case as with the exception of the Yam I can’t remember what strings are on what guitar!

 

[gavreid]

Anyway, I found digging it out for a play again interesting. Basically I just don’t connect with it. In fairness it sounds great; really big and fat clean, you could certainly play jazz on it, plus it does that full-tilt rock distortion thing perfectly, but I just don’t enjoy playing it. Its heavy, uncomfortable, really doesn’t balance on the knee at all etc. I think I’m far more a Strat person, plus even lighter single-coil guitars like the Bronco. I’m actually perfectly happy with the Yamaha. I would definitely swap Fat Lester for something appropriately nice with a trem! I’d love to try a 3kg or so Strat.

There is no weight relief on the current Standard - apparently. The 'Modern Collection' has the 9 hole weight relief declared in the specs. There's no chambering apparent in the new 'Process' video (3min 10s) series on Gibson TV either (but who knows what we're seeing) so the weight is what you get.

https://www.gibson.com/Guitar/USAUBC849/Les-Paul-Standard-50s/Heritage-Cherry-Sunburst

The lightest I've had was the Crimson 'Tele'. Must have been 6lbs or so, you'd have loved it I reckon

 

[Tony L]

I’d love to play a Crimson. Their fretwork looks stunningly good.

 

[gavreid]

I wish Crimson could still sell them at £800. James sorted out the company finances

 

[-alan-]

PS Odd how heavy 10s feel now I’m used to 8s! I think the Strat has 9s. I really should keep the empty string packs in the case as with the exception of the Yam I can’t remember what strings are on what guitar!

Have had that problem too. Sorted..

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01EI89LWC/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

Under a tenner in Lidl when they come around

 

[Tony L]

I wish Crimson could still sell them at £800. James sorted out the company finances

I don’t think they are expensive now for what you appear to get. I’d actually be half tempted to commission one, but I’d need to play a couple first to see how it balances sitting down etc. I’d rather like a basic ‘Raw series’ with a nice grain pattern but spec’d with a single P90 some where between the bridge and neck and a vintage Strat style whammy bar. Something really simple to give an alternative to the SC1200.

 

[gavreid]

I don’t think they are expensive now for what you appear to get. I’d actually be half tempted to commission one, but I’d need to play a couple first to see how it balances sitting down etc. I’d rather like a basic ‘Raw series’ with a nice grain pattern but spec’d with a single P90 some where between the bridge and neck and a vintage Strat style whammy bar. Something really simple to give an alternative to the SC1200.

You'd have to go to a show I suppose, and assault your ear drums in the process

 

[Johnjo]

4.4kg is good for a jazz bass.

I had an original blond ‘77 with bound neck, block inlays etc and it weighed 4.4 metric tons....we’ll just over 13lb.

Sounded and played fantastic though but you just couldn’t wear it for any sustained length of time.

 

[Tony L]

I’m so used to the Shergolds, which are consistently light due to the obeche bodies (which are also the reason the finish cracks!) that the jazz feels very heavy to me. Another instrument that whilst superb I just haven’t connected with, though that is mainly down to the ultra thin neck width at the nut. I just prefer playing the Shergold even if it is far less versatile sonically (it just has one sound, but its a perfectly decent one). I also have a Steinberger Spirit bass which I bought cheap as a travel bass and that weighs about 3.2kg, which is actually surprisingly heavy given how compact it is!

 

[Johnjo]

I’ve never heard of the Shergold basses, new one to me, looks a bit like an old style Ibanez.

I wouldn’t mind a go on that Jazz but I really don’t need it, I have a very nice Ibanez SR which is super light, stable, good intonation and sounds great, especially in passive mode.

The more I work on cleaning up my bass technique I think a narrow nut might be a blessing when jumping between strings.

 

[Tony L]

I’ve never heard of the Shergold basses, new one to me, looks a bit like an old style Ibanez.

They have a very long history that can be traced back to Burns in the early ‘60s. As I understand it after Burns went under two of the luthiers, Jack Golder and Norman Houlder, still kept on making instruments for various brands e.g. Hayman, Rose Morris and others and finally under their own Shergold name. There is a lot in common between the very early-70s Hayman models and models later released as Shergolds, some just having different pickups and trim. To my mind they are the classic UK punk/new-wave instruments. They were cheaper than Fenders and very much their own thing. The Hayman/Shergold designs definitely pre-date Ibanez, Yamaha etc doing ‘their own thing’, which wasn’t until the late-70s/early-80s. To my eyes the Hayman and Shergold basses really look like Wals, but again pre-date them by many years. The body shape is a dead ringer. Mine at 1981 are right at the end of production and were part of Jack Golder’s estate sale as I understand it (they were pretty much NOS). The fretted one having the final striped laminated body which I think was done to add a bit more rigidity. I bought them both over 20 years ago now. I’d always wanted one because of the Joy Division connection.

I really like them (the basses more so than the guitars). They are light, have superb necks that never seem to need adjusting, hold tuning great and just sound like a bass guitar. Nothing flash at all, kind of a slightly less muscular P-Bass. The neck is kind of P-Bass like too, just the right size for me, not too fat, not too thin and very nice fretting with a bound fingerboard. You can set a Shergold to play nice and low and fast.

PS Wikipedia entry here, and for the Marathon Bass here (though it is riddled with errors!).

 

[Johnjo]

Very nice, love the multi-laminate body and the body shape is very nice too., as you say very WALesque.

I take it that’s a humbucker?