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

myrman said:
I think that the similar looking G-8V appealed more to the metal heads. The G-5V is surprisingly versatile with some great single coil tones. Great for funk and jazz stuff. It's always been a bit of an allrounder for me.
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I suspect all of them are really great guitars, its just the aesthetics that scream ‘80s hair-metal. I bet it would be a great studio guitar that could nail any genre as well as its stereotype.

FWIW I’ve never understood the logic of the ‘beak’ headstock as most Japanese designs are pure engineering based and make huge sense, yet that loses Leo Fender’s perfectly straight string pull across the nut. I know the locking nut negates it to some degree, but even so. I guess it initially came from Jackson/Charvel rather than Japan, which may explain it. The JEM gets it right, but that is an amazingly logical design throughout IMHO. Unquestionably a design classic and I secretly rather want one even though I really don’t like heavy metal. It is just so well thought out design-wise!
 
Tony L said:
I suspect all of them are really great guitars, its just the aesthetics that scream ‘80s hair-metal. I bet it would be a great studio guitar that could nail any genre as well as its stereotype.

FWIW I’ve never understood the logic of the ‘beak’ headstock as most Japanese designs are pure engineering based and make huge sense, yet that loses Leo Fender’s perfectly straight string pull across the nut. I know the locking nut negates it to some degree, but even so. I guess it initially came from Jackson/Charvel rather than Japan, which may explain it. The JEM gets it right, but that is an amazingly logical design throughout IMHO. Unquestionably a design classic and I secretly rather want one even though I really don’t like heavy metal. It is just so well thought out design-wise!
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Surely from the Gibson Explorer? Super Strats are the perfect companion to a mullet? Party on top, business on the bottom?
 
I absolutely LOVE the look of a Moderne. I remember seeing one in the window of a shop in Charing Cross Road for £750 in 1984. I didn't have the cash and a guy who I worked with (a former pro musician) was in exactly the same situation. It got more painful when the shop reduced the price to £675. I consoled myself by buying a Tokai Les Paul to add to the Tokai Strat.

The Moderne is certainly a unique design which is always going to stand out. The headstock is to my mind a stunning piece of original thinking even if it is probably at the wrong angle. Ok so Gibson used additional pieces of wood to get the "width" on the headstock but the string rollers are very clever even though they apparently have a tendency to break the strings. I have never played one although I did have a cheeky feel of the Moderne in the John Entwhistle estate sale. Having owned an Explorer, I know that the Moderne is not going to be guitar that you can play sitting down. One day, one of those beauties will be mine.
 
Agreed, the Moderne does look really cool, it is however entirely form over function, as are so many Gibson guitars. It doesn’t balance, doesn’t stay in tune, breaks strings etc etc. All the things a guitar should do it doesn’t! Leo Fender by comparison managed both form and function to a simply staggering degree, his designs being true timeless classics as a result. That he was able to do this and facilitate such strength and low-cost ease of production just places him at a whole other level. The Strat really is just about perfect IMO. I rate Leo Fender as one of the true greats of design, up there with Rams, Eames, anyone.
 
I never liked the look of the moderne. If I was ever going to buy an 'odd' shaped guitar, it'll be an Ovation Breadwinner for me.

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Fat Bob had one too.
 
Tony, I have to agree with you about Leo Fender. The Esquire/Broadcasster/Nocaster/Telecaster is such a cool design. Everything that you need and nothing more. He got it so right at the beginning. The Stratocaster is another timeless design. Must have looked otherworldly in the UFO obsessed 1950's. I had the privilege of owning a 1951 Precision (serial no 0011) and it was by far the best bass I have ever owned. The neck is absolutely perfect. I would argue that Fender is one of the most influential people of the 20th Century. I think that Gibson just did not take Fender seriously in the early days and thought that electric guitars did not have much of a future - they messed Les Paul about for several years until they realised that the upstart from California was onto something.
 
Great episode, I just wish they’d hit a couple of fancy Sonic Youth style open chords as well as lead and power chords as that’s what really sorts fuzz/distortion out for me. So much just farts-out in that scenario. Everything does lead well!

Winners for me were the Creepy Fingers, which was kind of RAT-like to my ears (I bet it does chords good), and the Reeves Black-Hat which is just rabid screaming mentalism in a box.

PS I actually bought a Reeves 183Sound a couple of weeks ago when the email went out as I just couldn’t resist getting in early on something that I suspect is going to be seriously collectable, I have serial #5 of that and #47 of the 2N2Face. They are different enough to justify having both, the 183Sound being a mid-70s one-knob Coloursound type thing that sputters and cuts as you dial back the volume, the 2N2Face being a bigger and fatter sounding Fuzzface type thing. Surprisingly they sound quite good stacked!
 
Tony L said:
Great episode, I just wish they’d hit a couple of fancy Sonic Youth style open chords as well as lead and power chords as that’s what really sorts fuzz/distortion out for me. So much just farts-out in that scenario. Everything does lead well!

Winners for me were the Creepy Fingers, which was kind of RAT-like to my ears (I bet it does chords good), and the Reeves Black-Hat which is just rabid screaming mentalism in a box.

PS I actually bought a Reeves 183Sound a couple of weeks ago when the email went out as I just couldn’t resist getting in early on something that I suspect is going to be seriously collectable, I have serial #5 of that and #47 of the 2N2Face. They are different enough to justify having both, the 183Sound being a mid-70s one-knob Coloursound type thing that sputters and cuts as you dial back the volume, the 2N2Face being a bigger and fatter sounding Fuzzface type thing. Surprisingly they sound quite good stacked!
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I've not seen it yet, I saw Dan had his Paul out again - always a good sign. Did you think Josh made a mistake calling one of his the 'Bender'? That was always an extremely derogatory term when I was at School - short for gender bender. I don't know if it's still used that way...
 
gavreid said:
I've not seen it yet, I saw Dan had his Paul out again - always a good sign. Did you think Josh made a mistake calling one of his the 'Bender'? That was always an extremely derogatory term when I was at School - short for gender bender. I don't know if it's still used that way...
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Dan was making a damn good noise with his Lester. He’s a really good guitarist IMO, I watched an ancient TPS about P90 pickups a few days ago and he launched into a beautiful bit of jazz playing on a 1950s Gibson hollow-body. He seems rather wider genre-wise than Mick, though by saying that Mick can do all that fancy country picking stuff.

I also remember ’bender’ being a derogatory word as a kid, but I suspect it was very much a UK thing and the robot character in Futurama will have long killed that anyway. I have a feeling Josh will be selling bucket loads of them.
 
Tony L said:
Dan was making a damn good noise with his Lester. He’s a really good guitarist IMO, I watched an ancient TPS about P90 pickups a few days ago and he launched into a beautiful bit of jazz playing on a 1950s Gibson hollow-body. He seems rather wider genre-wise than Mick.
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Dan's been upping his skills re Jazz chords for a while - maybe it'll rub off on Mick at some point ;) Did you see the episode with the iPad app from a couple of years ago?
 
Tony L said:
Great episode, I just wish they’d hit a couple of fancy Sonic Youth style open chords as well as lead and power chords as that’s what really sorts fuzz/distortion out for me. So much just farts-out in that scenario. Everything does lead well!

Winners for me were the Creepy Fingers, which was kind of RAT-like to my ears (I bet it does chords good), and the Reeves Black-Hat which is just rabid screaming mentalism in a box.

PS I actually bought a Reeves 183Sound a couple of weeks ago when the email went out as I just couldn’t resist getting in early on something that I suspect is going to be seriously collectable, I have serial #5 of that and #47 of the 2N2Face. They are different enough to justify having both, the 183Sound being a mid-70s one-knob Coloursound type thing that sputters and cuts as you dial back the volume, the 2N2Face being a bigger and fatter sounding Fuzzface type thing. Surprisingly they sound quite good stacked!
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I thought they spent way too much time exploring low-bias gatey sputtering noises that would be totally lost in a band context.
 
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