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

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Any of you knowledgeable people any good with Gibson serial numbers ?
There’s a guitar up for sale (private) that I’d love to buy but I’m having a problem tracking the serial numbers to verify it’s legit
I’ve played it this evening and all seems well with the guitar and the guy seems genuine as far as I can tell but the usual serial number check sites are coming back with “unrecognised number”
It’s s 2013 model ES335 made in Memphis , the headstock and COA all match up but it niggles me that I can’t find the related serial info online
Any suggestions appreciated

Ps . The guy has given me till lunchtime tomorrow
To get back to him
 
Any of you knowledgeable people any good with Gibson serial numbers ?

I suggest that you look on (international) ebay for 2013 335s. There are reputable sellers showing good photos of the backs of the headstocks. There were different specs to look out for and the serial number style will vary between them.

With Gibsons you always want to know if the headstock has been broken/repaired. The action is important too, to check that the neck angle is satisfactory. I would also ask about finish quality around the sides of the neck and the binding, and the top of the binding where it meets the fingerboard (from my own experience).
 
Woke up and realised it’s yet another day I didn’t want to kill myself
Wrote a lyric around it, hook, riff, riff2, chorus, middle 8.
Bashed the chords out
Put it down, 3m:20s exact - perfect.
Thats another song written
I love punk.

Got most of the pedalboard sorted. I doubt I will be all prissy and secretive and paint all the pedals black like the bassist part of Royal Blood did. Pix in a bit, on a train heading to rehearsal.
 
Soloists? **** off... they get a middle eight, i’m Not wasting a x2 Chorus with key change on soloists. What are you on... Prog?

Speaking of which, the pedalboard 80% there... the Alpha/Omega and Microtubes b7k Ultra get a shootout this week and the Torpedo Captor eta: this week. Both are CAB sims so I can take the Trace Stack Impulse Responses into the PA without needing to lug about amps and cabs. Win.

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Before you start bitching about this being a bassist thing this enables me to play the guitar parts as well, on the bass. Pop punk, Natch.
 
Indeed! The indie band I was in back in the ‘80s very seldom went over 2:30 or so, and that wasn’t even punk!

PS My allegedly still current fake-Krautrock band obviously aim at 30 minute songs with absolutely no changes or defined structures. I was planning to have a wind up alarm clock set to 30 minutes and no one was allowed to stop for any reason until it went off!
 
SSpeaking of which, the pedalboard 80% there... the Alpha/Omega and Microtubes b7k Ultra get a shootout this week and the Torpedo Captor eta: this week. Both are CAB sims so I can take the Trace Stack Impulse Responses into the PA without needing to lug about amps and cabs. Win.

The Captor is mostly for use as a reactive load though right? In an ampless setup would you not be better off with the Torpedo CabM which offers power amp modelling as well as an IR loader?

https://www.two-notes.com/cabm
 
Returning the Strandberg to the store for a refund, its a lovely bass, it is still probably “the one” — but I feel I don’t deserve it. Its also three fukken grand and that would go towards either throat surgery abroad to deal with my voice dysphoria or a facelift after my facial feminisation surgery procedures are completed and healed from.

Beautiful instrument, it’s going to be hard to go back. At least I have the pedalboard streamlining my punk band duties and I shall invest in better pups, tone and luthier work on preexisting mid-weight basses.

EDIT; Refunded. No quibble. Nice. I’ll get the basses I own upgraded.
 
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Yesterday: inspired by this thread to pick up my SS Jaguar bass for half an hour.

Today: arthritis giving me gyp in the fingers of my left hand.

Are these related? Sadly, yes. Another of the joys of ageing.
 
oh dear - given you can obviously play then I should feel very guilty about my guitar collection (defo don;t deserve it based on talent)

I have a touch of arthritis and playing seems to help rather than hinder - sorry to hear yours is the other way, as you say the joys of ageing
 
On the continued hunt for a Tele - following on from the less than uplifting experience with the loaned Baja, I went into Jimi's Music Store - the only big guitar emporium in Ireland I'd never yet visited. Big mistake. The place is like an Aladdin's cave of desirable electrics and basses of every shape and hue. Not a massive store, but most of the guitars in it definitely fall into the I-want bracket. I tried about half a dozen Teles, all solid bodies, excluding the very desirable but not for me semi-hollow Thinline models.

What became abundantly clear is that many of the more modern Teles don't actually sound anything like what you would imagine a 'proper' Telecaster should sound like.

I asked the main man there what had happened, why the difference? He said that in his opinion, most of the mid=priced Tele models had been 'sanitised' sound wise, for a less extreme tone with the result that soundwise they are now almost indistinguishable from most of the mid-priced Strats out there. He said in his experience, most working musicians nowadays aren't looking for guitars with a very distinctive tone - but rather something that covers a broader range of sounds reasonably well. That definitely ties up with my first impression of the Baja in the rant upthread. The only difference between the Baja and its fellow mid-range peers I can see is the distinctive phase-switching circuitry they use to try to give it the traditional Tele sound in one of the pickup configurations - but which doesn't really cut it, imho.

Anyways to cut a long story short I eventually came across this thing below - and in Claire's words above, decided this was the one/life's too short - fkit. I did sell a couple of other guitars in the house recently - but this was never part of the plan (honest dear wife) ...





A used 2016 '52 model Tele. In a manner reminiscent of the Judaen People's Front - not the 1982-97: *U.S. Vintage Reissue ’52 Telecaster" mind, nor indeed the "American Vintage Reissue ’52 Telecaster" that ran from 1997 to 2012, but your actual genuine "American Vintage ’52 Telecaster” that ran from 2012-2018.

Supposedly the last model was a more accurate copy of the original 52*, and the clear varnish on the neck stays whiter than the orangey hues on the earlier reincarnations, and the pickup design reverted back to an earlier Alnico 3 magnet design. - but who gives a d@mn when underneath it just sounds exactly like a proper old-school twangy Telecaster. Whatever they have done in terms of type of woods, bridge saddles, design of pickups or anything else, it just makes this thing sound like a pure Nashville twang-monster. Way over budget - hell there never was any budget in the first place - couple of chips in all the usual places (Nitro finish), and a fancy case. Even with the dodgy intonation, it still feels and sounds so damn nice to play that you have to forgive it. Don't think I've put it down much most of the last week.

So much for the axe-rationalisation programme :)

*For any fellow Tele anoraks, see below:
https://areyouexperiment.wordpress.com/2017/05/20/fender-52-telecaster-reissue/
 
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That looks great, a proper colour for a Tele too.

I’m convinced having ‘the one’ that you want to play all the time is the key. For me it has turned out fairly humble so far, I far prefer my Yam SC1200 and Shergold Marathon bass to the far more expensive instruments I own. I definitely need to rationalise at some point as I just don’t seem to need the Jazz Bass or Les Paul, and whilst I do quite like my Strat I’d far prefer one with a whammy bar, so I suspect I need to start advertising them! Maybe swap all three for a serious Strat, say an early-70s?
 
Never got on with Fender necks. Love the guitars. Love the sound But I have quite caustic sweat. Those varnished Fender fingerboards? I could melt them. Seriously. Close grained Rosewood (preferably Brazilian) all the way here.
 
Not even rosewood Fender necks? I have no issue with varnished maple myself, though my Strat and Jazz Bass are both rosewood.

I have to admit I don’t think I even notice fingerboard material, e.g. my Shergold Marathon is maple, the Jazz Bass rosewood, and all I notice in playing is the Jazz Bass is crazy narrow at the nut, the Shergold more of a handful and lighter in weight. I feel far more comfortable on the Shergold, but that is likely just familiarity and everything about profile/shape. Same with guitars, e.g. my Shergold Masquerader is maple, the Yam ebony (apparently with stainless steel frets), and again it is the profile I notice, not the materials, though here both are very comfortable.
 
Never got on with Fender necks. Love the guitars. Love the sound But I have quite caustic sweat. Those varnished Fender fingerboards? I could melt them. Seriously. Close grained Rosewood (preferably Brazilian) all the way here.

I'd have thought the hardened varnish would stand up to sweat/oils better surely than an untreated fretboard, given that paints and varnishes are normally used to protect the underlying surface - no ?
 
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