Guitars, basses and other noisemakers (1 Viewer)

But how do you feel knowing that the instrument in your hand is a Cremona violin from the 18th century? It inspires the player beyond what another violin might.
I was involved with one of those experiments where players from around the world played 'blind' either one of three Strads (including the famous Red Violin) and other newer instruments. Much like players of vintage Sunburst LPs, the participants claimed to feel a higher level of inspiration due to the feel as well as the reverence toward the legend of the instrument.
When it comes down to what we hear, a professional can pick out an older more valuable model by ear less than 40% of the time; lay people, people in the audience, they don't know or care who made an artists instrument.
When it comes to guitars, as soon as the drum and bass line kicks in, there's no way to distinguish between two humbucker guitars or two single coil guitars.
In defense of Lester, he invented the concept of "sound on sound." The layering of one sound from one tape, played in correct pitch and time over the sound on another tape, in conjunction with the playing that is being done live. Looping is a natural innovation on this concept.
He also got involved in the concept and design of the electric guitar long before his model was released in 1952, before Leo came up with his broadcaster, but MJP is correct: Rickenbacker/Bigsby came up with the first electric guitar. See Rickenbacker's frying pan, also see Les Paul's "Log."
 
I was involved with one of those experiments where players from around the world played 'blind' either one of three Strads (including the famous Red Violin) and other newer instruments.
How did they do that? I wondered about that, because I'm pretty sure I could feel the difference between a '58 Junior and a 2014 Junior without seeing them. I know I could smell it. Old Gibsons have a very distinctive aroma.

I like old instruments, don't get me wrong. I just think our own preconceived notions and prejudices create a lot of their value, when objectively, I'm not sure those differences are so great. Stradivarius violins didn't get their reputation because they're old...if I'm not mistaken they were prized instruments when they were new. And you can fall in love with a cheap instrument too. I suppose all instrument preferences are subjective on about a hundred different levels.
 
I remember reading about that blind study. They actually accounted for the sense of smell by taking some measures (short of smearing salmon mousse all over the Strads and the new instruments). I can't remember what it was. And yes, I have a fairly cheap Made in Mexico Fender Jazz that just feels perfect in my hands; as good or better than a '63 jazz that has 1,000,000 miles on it that I played a year or so ago at a local store. The '63 looks much cooler, though.
 
Behold the Bundy Selmer, designed by Vincent Bach. Made in the good ol' US of A.

It's a mighty fine root-tooter.

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Now that's cool, baby!

Do you know how to play that thing, or do you just carry it around to get chicks?

In grade school I played a B♭ coronet, which is similar but not as loud. That's my technical comparison of the two instruments anyway. I could probably still play one, but any music reading ability I might have had is long gone.

We should start a band.
 
I play it badly. But it gives me an excuse to wear a beret and grow a soul patch. So....
 
Behold the B9 Organ Machine from Electro-Harmonix:


I'm not one for subtle effects, so that thing is right up my alley.

I used one of the first Electro-Harmonix LPB-1s back in the 70s, the one that plugged right in to your amp input jack - ha. I've always liked the oddball shit they do, but I really have to thank them for this:

HumDebugger.jpg


If you have a guitar with buzzy, fuzzy, hummy single coil pickups in it, this thing will kill the noise. And I mean eliminate it completely. It works spooky good.
 
So is that electro-harmonix stomp box a filter that removes all of certain frequencies from your sound, or does it just reduce the hum from a 60 cycles or other hum-generating frequencies? In other words, is it Dolby-esque or a truly cool hum eliminator that doesn't mess with your low/mid/high settings?
 
So is that electro-harmonix stomp box [...] Dolby-esque or a truly cool hum eliminator that doesn't mess with your low/mid/high settings?
It doesn't change your sound at all, that's the spooky part. They decline to say exactly how it works, but the prevailing speculation is it does some sort of analysis of the line voltage (you have to plug it in to a wall converter, you can't run it off batteries) and removes the hum (by removing harmonics) based on what it finds there.

Every other method I've tried to filter 60 cycle hum over the past 35 years has had a negative effect on the sound (if they worked at all, which many of them didn't), but this thing is really transparent. There are reviews (this being the Internet after all) that say the thing is awful, and created some sort of "robotic" overtones. I don't hear that at all, and I was listening for it, based on those reviews.

Jordan heard it last time they were here, if he sees this maybe he can give his opinion. But to my ears there is zero signal degradation.
 
How did they do that? I wondered about that, because I'm pretty sure I could feel the difference between a '58 Junior and a 2014 Junior without seeing them. I know I could smell it. Old Gibsons have a very distinctive aroma.

I like old instruments, don't get me wrong. I just think our own preconceived notions and prejudices create a lot of their value, when objectively, I'm not sure those differences are so great. Stradivarius violins didn't get their reputation because they're old...if I'm not mistaken they were prized instruments when they were new. And you can fall in love with a cheap instrument too. I suppose all instrument preferences are subjective on about a hundred different levels.
Absolutely true: there is no accounting for taste. So many excellent guitars are being made today. But for me: the feel of a vintage instrument is instantly familiar; they feel comfortable, broken-in, natural, while the new re-issues have those sharper edges on the fret ends and the "fit and finish" just makes you aware that they are perhaps not constructed with as much care as they once were.
I admit to being a vintage guitar snob. But only because I've been lucky enough to play many of the finest models from the golden era, while owning only re-issues of the same guitars. In my experience it was a revelation; like night and day, and whether or not the older ones sounded better, I couldn't care less. To me the feel in my hands translates to my ears through my fingers and the way I feel I play when using an older instrument. I traded all of my reissues for one vintage Gibson and never looked back.
You nailed it with the smell. There is nothing quite like the vintage smell. They can make very good forgeries, but anyone who knows that smell will never be fooled, unless the forgers figure out how to replicate it. As soon as you open the case on a golden-era Gibson or Fender, you get that sweet aroma instantly.
The Strad test I participated in was done at Cooper Union about five years ago. As far as I recall, the players were not the control group because they were aware (by the sight and feel of each violin) which ones they were playing. I believe the control group were some of the attendees. These people were also music professionals and were supposed to determine by using only their sense of hearing which ones were the Strads.
We have had this done at the LPF with Gibson guitars. I will find the link and post it here.
I remember reading about that blind study. They actually accounted for the sense of smell by taking some measures (short of smearing salmon mousse all over the Strads and the new instruments). I can't remember what it was. And yes, I have a fairly cheap Made in Mexico Fender Jazz that just feels perfect in my hands; as good or better than a '63 jazz that has 1,000,000 miles on it that I played a year or so ago at a local store. The '63 looks much cooler, though.
Those MIM fenders are some of the best ones being made today. I've heard nothing but good things about them.
 
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the new re-issues have those sharper edges on the fret ends and the "fit and finish" just makes you aware that they are perhaps not constructed with as much care as they once were.
There isn't a lot of fit and finish to the Gibsons that I like (the slabs - Juniors and specials), but I did have an '06 Junior that I had to file the fret ends on, but I also have a Special here that's only a couple of years old that didn't have that problem. Or any problems, really. It's a great guitar and I think I paid $550 for it. Maybe when there's no fret board binding the fret end finishing kind of goes out the window at Gibson. No reason for that except speed, I suppose. They are sending 1000+ guitars out the door every day, and it's a miracle to me that they can even do that, so...

There's also the fact that in the not too distant past - before guitars were commodities like microwave ovens - few guitars ever went directly from the factory to the player. Every shop had a guy and a bench and they usually tweaked the guitars that came in before they went out on to the floor. So it could be that some of these issues have always existed, we just never noticed them.

When I was playing a reggae band in the late 80s I kept trying to get the singer/rhythm guitar player to use my 1960 Junior when we were in the studio. And every time he'd say, "Nah man, I'm afraid to touch that thing!" Which in retrospect, the way he abused guitars, was probably a good thing. But it just goes to show you that some people think they are just valuable relics that shouldn't be used. Like many of those violins or Les Paul bursts that just go from collector to collector, rarely being played.
 
i've been resisting posting in this thread for weeks now, and i'm breaking my self-imposed moratorium on posting to add my two cents to this discussion.

i've never really spent any significant time with a vintage guitar, although i did play a few when i worked at guitar center (the store i worked at had an impressive vintage department). my issue with vintage instruments is that my taste in guitars is so particular that i'd end up changing a bunch of stuff, and the guitar wouldn't be vintage anymore. i'm no great fan of either gibson or fender as brands anymore - the quality is just too hit-or-miss, even on premium instruments. i played my favorite production guitar at guitar center recently, and the intonation was way off - plus, the fret edges were really sharp, and one of the pots felt loose. this is on a brand new guitar that's one of Fender's nicest USA models, too! i prefer companies like G&L or Music Man - did you know you can call Music Man and give them your serial number, and they will tell you when your guitar was made and the name of the tech that signed off on it? I think that's neat. And G&L's facebook page is full of pictures documenting guitars as they go out the door, at least creating the facade that they give a shit about the instruments and don't just ship them out by the truck load.

since i played an SG for so long, i always thought of myself as a gibson person, but i'm really just a humbucking pickup person when it comes down to it. i guess i like the shorter scale, but that's only because i'm used to it, not because i prefer it. one of the things i like about my new guitar is that it doesn't really have any value to anyone but me. there's no famous brand to give it history, no famous player has ever used it, and i don't think i could resell it for even 25% of what i paid (and then, only to someone who was harvesting its organs). so whatever history it gets will be due to my abusing it, not some ascribed mythology based on a bunch of things that may or may not be true in the first place.

PS - i remember than hum eliminator, but not anything specific about it. mjp has a better ear than most, though, so you should trust him.

okay back to exile (except, maybe, from this thread).
 
I think if it was your job in 1958 to sit at a bench at the Gibson factory in Klamazoo and do the pre-boxing finish and set up on guitars, you might have done 40 or 50 a day. But I suspect the same person sitting in Nashville today has to do more like 150 guitars a day, which is probably why many of them get to us they way they do. 10 minutes of attention vs. 3 minutes. Or whatever the real numbers are. That and the disappearance of the old-school music store setup.

There's no difference between the quality (or lack thereof) in Gibson and Fender, I think they both churn out the same number of guitars, though I believe Gibson makes more of theirs in the U.S. these days. I guess those little details never bothered be since I'm a tinkerer anyway and I take apart (and usually re-assemble) almost every guitar that comes into my hands, just for sport.

As for intonation, who cares. I'm ripping those strings off the minute I get it home anyway and putting on my own, and that would change the intonation they did with the old strings. Everyone knows how to do that themselves anyway, right?
 
...I'm a tinkerer anyway...
Same here. Mind you, don't leave me alone with a soldering iron or I'll have a melted pile of rubbish on my hands. But wood, frets (where applicable), hardware, etc. all get looked over.

Regarding set-ups; I'd prefer to do it myself anyway. I can't tell you how many posts I've read on instrument forums about "basses being set-up wrong, with nut slots too high, action too high, blah, blah." Well, you can't unfile nut slots once they're too low for someone's preference, can you? Being a double bass player, I like high action on my basses and an over-slotted nut is a piece of junk to me. So it's not wrong, dumbass, it's set-up so everyone can use it and tailor it to their preferences. It may take a bit more work for some of you, but get your head out of your spoon-fed ass and learn how to set-up your damn instrument.
[/rant]
 
The best guitar I ever owned was a 1958 double cut TV junior. The single P-90 was a barking flamethrower. In the fifties the juniors were the "student models" but they were made with the same materials as the good stuff: Honduran mohagany, Brazilian rosewood, horse-hide glue (which dries into a crystalline glass-like substance that enhances tone), nitro finish without all the tone-killing plasticizers they use today.
The best bang for your buck in the guitar world is a vintage junior for around $3k. Those "student models" will give you better tone than any guitar made today with any pup configuration.
The best vintage PAF humbucker tone for your buck is a '58-'64 ES-345 for $9-12k.
Get one of those now and name it "burst killer." Soon, they, too, will be out of reach financially.
 
I'm always threatening to get a semi-hollow, but I'm not man enough for a big jazz box like that.
I know you're a Gibson guy, but I picked up a really solid 1967 Guild Starfire V today. It's been modded (Bigsby removed and the pickups replaced with P-90s; at least one of which appears to be of vintage similar to that of the guitar) and this baby is really tight. I put a set of 13s on it and it's quite a pleasure to play. The D'Angelico is fully hollow, but the Guild has a large center block. So, they're two very different animals.

I plugged the Guild into my '64 Princeton amp (these amps are well-known for being very clean, even at full volume; perfect for the D'A) and the P90s sounded filthy.

Aren't there any drummers around here?
Nope; just us musicians. :rolleyes:
 
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I put a set of 13s on it...
Now I know I'm not man enough.

Even without the original parts that must have set you back > $1500. There's a solid market for those U.S. made Guilds. The aesthetics of the Guilds never clicked with me. Most of these guitars are pretty similar, they all use a handful of the same shapes. But some brands hit those shapes and some miss. To me. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

And yes, it matters to me what they look like. I can make them all sound equally bad, so I have to dig the lines.
 
It had been languishing in a very nice, but primarily acoustic guitar shop in the bastion of liberty that is Lexington, MA. Asking price was $1,800. Scored for $1,400. The bad news is my offer was accepted straight away. I should have said $1,200 and haggled.

It's funny about aesthetics - I'm primarily a Fender/Rickenbacker type, and Gibsons never have really done it for me. I would consider the Guild to be far more like a Gibson than a Fender, but yes, there are some subtle differences.

DSC02046.JPG
 
If someone is primarily a bass player, it's no surprise they wouldn't spend a lot of time in the Gibson pond. The only semi-decent bass Gibson ever made was the Thunderbird.

It's a good thing we don't all have the same taste, or we'd never get to see gems like these...

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And of course...

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what is the little knob next to the pickguard for?
That's a stock item - a Master volume. Part of the mods included removing that from the current wiring setup. You can control volume and tone for each pickup with the four knobs near the input jack. This fifth knob was a way of changing overall volume without changing the blend of the pickups. Not a critical feature in my book. As is typical, I'm giving some thought to bringing this axe back to stock (OK; close to stock - the P90s are staying), but I'm not very confident of finding a '67 Bigsby for less than a kidney and an arm.

Regarding Thunderbirds, the problem with them is that if you look at them funny, the headstock falls off. I played a Ripper years ago that was pretty nice, but I didn't like the nearly flat radius of the board. Of course, the Guild is similar, so I suppose I'm getting more tolerant with age. No, that can't be.
 
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That (almost) flat fingerboard radius is often what separates Gibson and Fender players. I learned how to play on a Spanish guitar that had an absolutely flat fingerboard, so aside from looks, I gravitated to Gibson because the Fender fingerboards just feel overly rounded to me.

I tried Fenders - I played a 69 Strat in the late 70s and an 80s Tele in the 80s. I ended up giving away the Tele (well, more of a loan that never came back) and sort of kinda smashed the Strat. Not because I didn't dig it (though I really didn't) but because it was out of tune.

The Strat wasn't a great loss at the time, since it was only a 10 year old guitar. I think I paid $700 for it. Now, of course it's probably a $10,000 guitar. But I would have never kept it this long, so it's not like I could have ever "cashed in" on it.

I still like the way Telecasters look. One day maybe I'll make one at Jordan's place with a neck with a nice flat fingerboard and a couple of P90s...
 
that would be an amazing guitar - you should do it! especially since you can do the assembly and wiring yourself, so you won't have to pay a tech a bunch of money to do it for you like i did.

you could also have them add a forearm contour to the body, the lack of which is the main thing i don't like about fender telecasters. the body is too thick and has too hard of an edge, which means you have to twist your wrist at a really awkward angle - especially if you're palm muting. i don't know how the guy in nofx does it - i know their music probably isn't too popular around these parts, but to palm mute that fast on a vintage tele requires some crazy skills.


(as a side note, i've always thought it was interesting how little gain NOFX plays with compared to other punk bands. i mean, they were popular during the age when it seems like every band had a les paul (or worse, a PRS) through a mesa dual rectifier, and here are these guys with barely overdriven boogie mark 2s and mark 4s who rock 100x harder.
 
I'm used to the hard edge after playing Juniors for so long. Half the time playing reggae you're palm muting, so I guess I just took it for granted. Or got used to it. But if we're designing, then what the hell, yeah, shave that edge off!

I never played with a lot of gain when I was in punk bands. Then again, we didn't really have much choice where preamp/gain was concerned anyway, because most 60s/early 70s amps didn't generally have that option. That's why everyone lost their shit over Randall Smith's little hot-rodded Princetons (which grew into the Mesa Boogies) in the 70s...it was a new era of volume control while retaining overdriven tone in a small amp.

I really wanted one of those original Boogies (despite the idiotic name and chair-seat-wicker speaker grille), but a 1x12 would have cost twice what I paid for a 50w Marshall 2x12, and the Marshall wasn't exactly cheap. I think I paid $1200 for it in 79, and a Mesa Boogie was closer to $2,000.

For what it's worth, I didn't have an amp with a preamp control until I got that Marshall. I was playing through Ampegs and occasionally a Sunn before that. So maybe it's just a question of old habits and preferences. Those Sunns were fucking loud, eh. Loudest things I ever heard.
 
The Strat wasn't a great loss at the time, since it was only a 10 year old guitar. I think I paid $700 for it. Now, of course it's probably a $10,000 guitar.
Maybe not $10,000, but it's ridiculous how high prices of certain Fenders (and many other guitars) have gone.
that would be an amazing guitar - you should do it! especially since you can do the assembly and wiring yourself, so you won't have to pay a tech a bunch of money to do it for you like i did.
You must have missed this post of mine:
Mind you, don't leave me alone with a soldering iron or I'll have a melted pile of rubbish on my hands.
The problem I see is that the replacement tailpiece is screwed through the top and into the center block. The Bigsby wouldn't cover that area and I'm wondering how terrible the two screw holes would look (I'm leaning toward very). I suppose some plugging and refin could be done, but then the money starts flying around. I'm also having trouble figuring out which Bigsy came stock. Some research indicates that it's "similar to the B-70." But the B-70 has four mounting holes and the cover that was added when the Bigsby was removed has three.

One option that is becoming more of an apparent reality is for me to realize that it is an amazing guitar as it stands right now (it really does play well and the wear on the neck is fantastic), so just play the crap out of it.
 
oh, i was referring to MJP's prospective warmoth telecaster. personally, i leave all modifications to guitar techs - i'm good with a bike(cycle) or a book... not anything with wood or electronics.
 
I'm also having trouble figuring out which Bigsy came stock. Some research indicates that it's "similar to the B-70." But the B-70 has four mounting holes and the cover that was added when the Bigsby was removed has three.
Looks like a B-70 has three holes, and a B-7 has four.

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It also looks like there were two different Bigsbys on the Starfire in the 60s. This one:

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Which you can buy for $260.

And there was this one, which from what I can tell is correct for the 67:

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I would plug the stop tailpiece holes though, even if you don't refinish over them. But it's probably more of a cosmetic thing than structural.
 
Thanks, mjp - I've been suffering from sensory overload on this. You're right on the B-7 vs the B-70 and the latter Bigsby on the Cherry body is the correct piece, but I can't be sure what model it is. Regarding holes, actually, I was referring to the number screw holes I need. The way my body is drilled, it's something like this:

x...................x
..........X.........
...........x.........

The large X represents the strap knob. So I haven't found a Bigsby on their website that matches all I'm seeing. The first example you posted (likely used up until '67) might do the trick (but that's a vintage model that appears to be no longer made - of course and it doesn't have the second bar closer to the bridge from where the string ball ends are housed).
 
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as tremolos go, are bigsbys even that good, or is it more the iconic look and feel of them? i can't believe they wouldn't murder the strings. floyd rose for me! i dive bomb like crazy!!! (i had a guitar with a knock-off flyod rose when i was in high school and that thing was such a piece of shit it put me off tremolos forever.)
 
Well I don't go for tremolos myself, so it's not something I'd do. But if the goal is to make the thing stock, then I suppose it has to go on there. The Floyd Rose coincided with the dawn of the super strat and Sunset Strip hair metal, and for my money those days are best forgotten.

Tremolo isn't really the correct term for WHAMMY BARS anyway (technically they should be called vibratos), but I think it was Fender who started calling them tremolos and it just stuck.
 
Yes, it was Leo Fender himself who coined the misnomer. I've pretty much decided to leave my Starfire V as-is for now, anyway. I've never had a whammy bar and I get the feeling that I'd spend most of my time flipping the handle out of the way.
 
That's where the Fender whammy bar is superior: you can just unscrew it and stick it in a drawer somewhere. ;)

Which reminds me that we do have a Strat here that I'd forgotten about (because it's stashed away in a gig bag and not hanging out in the open). First thing I did when we got it is remove the vibrato arm and tighten the screws in the spring mount all the way down to the wood so the bridge can't move. When I had the '69 I completely removed the springs and used a small hardwood block wedged in the back to hold the bridge still.
 
Getting back to Gold Tops for just a bit, Henry McCullough used a Gold Top to record his iconic solo on McCartney's My Love (which, by the way, is really a jazz ballad played in the rock idiom; no mean feat to pull that off). Apparently, McCartney had composed a solo for that bit (as was typical) and they were doing multiple takes with a fairly large orchestra, so they needed to get things right in as few takes as possible. Somehow, the solo wasn't working for McCullough, so he asked McCartney if he could wing it on the final take. McCartney was his usual reluctant to release control self, but agreed. McCullough admits he had no idea what he was going to do and it just came out. McCartney's response apparently was "fucking great."

What makes that solo for me is the slide to F# on the secondary Dominant D7. The tune is in Bb Major and that note just sticks out - not like a sore thumb, but like a ray of sunshine that never looked quite like that before. In completely unrelated useless information, it is apparently also McCullough who can be heard saying "I don't know, I was really drunk at the time" near the end of Pink Floyd's Money.
 
Speaking of Les Pauls, the Les Paul world is losing its mind today over (supposed) changes to the 2015 models.

All the furor is based on that article in the second link and the (now deleted) Amazon page the information comes from. No one seems to have picked up on the fact that the text from that page sounds like it was written by someone not at Gibson (and not a native English speaker).

The only "official" word I've seen from Gibson is a response to an email that said, in effect, "Calm down, the 2015 model specs haven't been finalized yet."

But even if the pictures are just prototypes, it looks like we're in for a year of fugly Gibsons.

gibson2015-1.jpg

Most of the shock and horror centers around the new "Les Paul's 100th birthday" (wait, I thought he was dead?) logo and brass zero fret nut.

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I don't really care about the logo (it actually grew on me after seeing a thousand pictures of it today), but a brass zero fret nut? Egads. Not that I'm buying a new Les Paul next year or anything.
 

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