jimmarchi1's forum posts 8022

If you don't enjoy a visit to Boston you're insane, its a helluva town, warts and all. A lot like my hometown, Philly but with a distinctly New England spin. Like Philly, its a lot larger than one would expect and it will take a solid week to really experience it as a tourist. I still haven't done Boston the way I want to, I always wind up there on business and I squeeze in a little tourism in my free time. Also, southern New England is home to this reat chain of music stores called Daddy's Junky Music. Great deals there, ice staff... all USED. Got my strat at a daddy's in New Britain CT about 12 years ago... good times...

South Carolina is a beautiful state with friendly people and a distinct BBQ style that blows my mind every time I am down there. Once you are in SC you might as well truck down to Charleston's sister city, Savannah GA. What an amazing town. I have had some great times down there, lemmee tell ya.

Oh the memories.

They got my name from Reverb.com (I think) and spam me monthly... their spam mail makes their company seem way cooler than it is and they make you think you can really tailor a bolt-on to be incredibly customized for very little scratch when in fact they have a dearth of non-upcharge options and even for an upcharge don't have a ton of variety in pickups, bridges, trems etc. And all the cool cosmetics they offer are a MASSIVE upcharge... you just don't get a lot for your money from these guys despite how they have been pitching themselves.

So Duke, I would rather build it myself or buy off the shelf. Ha, that rhymes. But seriously, for $1400 US? You can get lots of guitars that will meet your needs plenty well and probably have great resale thanks to brand recognition and generic-ness while your customized Moniker will not be worth $1400 to many folks thn you!

take your time... try to find one that suits your hands BUT also has a nice smooth feel to the finish where you don't feel any 'grain texture' through the lacquer whether you can see grain or not. The ones that are sanded better wear better and if it were me I would setup a makeshift spray booth this summer and get a few aerosols of gloss clear coat lacquer and hit her with a top coat to protect her. Just be careful, the nicest store clerks are the worst for pawning shitty examples of pricey guitars off on guys they consider to be newbies. Try not to seem to eager and make sure you talk the talk. These guys can be sharks. They are commissioned, remember, and handing a guy a bunch of dogs instead of the nicer examples of a model and preying on their strong lust for any Gibson they can afford is common practice. Its what puts food on their tables.

nothing wrong with getting a 'metal amp' as a non-metal players if you want a lot of gain on tap... You can always roll the gain back and you can always pin the clean channel and drive the power amp for vintage tones. You can also use the metal channel for a singing lead and then use the clean channel as a clean rhythm and get rhythm OD and distortion from pedals. World's your oyster if the base sound is to your liking.

also, you mentioned the casino s an epi design, it is not... before the Casino there was the ES330, a Casino with a Gibson headstock... Gibson continued to produce the 330 in small number through the 60s but mostly made the casino as epis flagship thinline hollowbody as the rest of the epi line was either adapted frmom the old epi catalog or were also rebranded ES models... the Riviera and Sheraton are kinda obvious, rivieras are 335s with minihums and the Sheraton is a 355 but both got epi headstocks and inlay designs. The Kalamazoo Epis by Gibson are universally nice axes. Much better than most NYC epis, but they have less of their own character after Gibson created the minihum to fill the slot of the old NYC epi pickups when Gibson ran out of Epis stock of them.

They seem like a cool product from a cool company but I am weird about 24.75" "Gibson" scale bolt-ons. There are very few guitars with this scale that sound okay to me with a bolt-on. Just the old Mosrites, 90s 1st gen Fender Cyclone and the Earl Slick Framus signature model. Its probably more about what I am used to though and the fact that almost every other bolt-on Gibson-scale axe is low end.

If Michael's impression of them is good I would roll with that and get n their site and start designing to see if their options fit your needs. They are a very affordable bespoke guitar without being a kit/partscaster and that's cool.

EDIT: I just went on their site and designed up a basic $1400 guitar with their little program (yes I made it silver, yes I let my son help pick everything else about it LOL). I would NOT be happy doing a Moniker. not enough options for what they charge. If you go silver they even upcharge for silverburst... everything cool is an upcharge from a base price that is only a deal if you don't enjoy putting a parts guitar like this together yourself... is there even a way to select a neck profile? HRRRM I guess you can call one of their partscaster "consultants"... I would probably call and get an assembled, well-setup guitar without electronic components. Maybe they would pull the price down enough that I could consider bursting and/or binding, or maybe racing graphics... they don't give me pot value and taper options, no cap value and brand options, no switch style options, no wiring scheme options... their pickup choices are so banal and vanilla I couldn't be bothered to do the ucharge pickups, I would just gut the moniker brand and dig into my stash of nice spares.... it seemed like more band for buck before I started assembling my dream bolt-on.

I don't know dude, I have seen some with three humbuckers and a Bigsby tail, but not a black and white neck thru and that tail piece. If you find one send me a link for sure.

I see blue and white from time to time, I see that crazy tailpiece. It was in production but is currently discontinued. If I see anything I will heads up you ;-) I am always shopping for guitars!

1st experience: I generally prefer Taylor acoustics to current Gibsons. They sound better and play as well or better depending on the guitars in question. I will take an old Gibson acoustic any time though. Anything up until about 62 is hard to beat. I am NOT a Martin guy. I want to be but I think they are stiff guitars and always have been. I have played a good 100 years worth of Martins over the years and I don't get it. 1930s? stiff, 2010s? stiff. Martin has a very consistent feel. Too consistent. Can't find one I like at ANY price! Current production Taylors are very consistent too. Older Taylors less soo. My dad's friend has an early Taylor I love. I have tried to find a similar model from the 80s for myself but every time I play one its not as good as this dude's tonally or in feel.

2nd experience: the SG specials with humbuckers are an odd duck in the Gibson line. For a while they were Gibson's most affordable USA guitar that was available every year. At first it was a nice guitar for the buck, but as the 90s progressed I liked them less and less. I would describe the neck feel as "incomplete". It feels like all the SG specials made since the late 90s got their rough carve on the CNC machine and went straight to sanding and finishing with no further hand carving by a skilled worker (which is the way non-custom-shop Gibbies get done and is the reason why Gibson has such a wide variation in neck feel even within a model that is available with only one of the big 3 Gibson neck profiles). I have had a number of friends get SG specials since '99 and all of them got returned or sold quickly. They just feel clunky and bad. I do not defend Gibson for letting so many junk examples of their entry-level model hit the shelves. When I say I don't approve of their business practices, that's one of them/ Oddly enough I had a very low end LP special in TV yellow that was a fabulously made guitar that was actually cheaper than the cheapest SG special. They only made that cheap P90 special for a year or 2 about 10 years ago. They were all pretty good and a lot were fantastic guitars for under a grand, so they CAN make a good entry level guitar. They just don't bother every year and that's bullshit. Comparing my SG standard, just a basic SG model made basically the way Gibson has made them since the late 60s is like a completely different guitar than the SG special. At a glance they are the same, but the level of craftsmanship and attention to detail is like they came from 2 different manufacturers. Same goes with the 2 nicer LPs I own/owned versus the late 90s LP studio I briefly owned. That studio felt like they didn't finish carving the neck right or put her together properly, whereas my 80s standard and my fancy platinum edition studio are STUPID nice guitars with perfect neck joints, refined neck carves, perfectly manicured frets etc... the SG special is just consistently bad example of a Gibson and they should fix it up or stop making it as an affordable alternative. Same goes for the entry level LP studio.

3rd experience: epis haven't been made by Gibson since before I was born. Its not a Gibson. The same epi model is totally variable (even in APPEARANCE) depending on who Gibson corporate jobbed the production run out to. Since china got involved they have been universally bad. Or at least EVERY single one I have picked up has been a poor player, muddy, had a bad neck angle, and the frets felt like they needed more dressing etc... theyare a lot like squire. There are periods where there are keepers if you get a magic model from a year when a new far eastern subcontractor was trying to impress the corporate brass who hired them, but in general? A beginner's guitar that is not even as good as a no-name copy (sorry Liam). I know you said your shreaton2 was recent in another thread. The quality on the Chinese semis is PISS poor. They release lots of cool colors so I pick them up once in a while hoping they will be serviceable backups but they just suck a rat.

I am not backing down from my assertion that gobs of players have played or still play Gibson USA guitars and that the Gibson vibe is both a standard and influential. Thanks for adding BC Rich to my list of Gibson influenced guitar because Neck thru BC riches owe a lot to the firebird ;-)

I am not a dyed in the wool Gibson man either. I own 3 fenders I love and some non-Gibson set-necks, 2 of which have no corresponding Gibson model they rip-off. They riff on a lot of Gibson ideas, but are NOT Gibson clones in ANY way. On the pickups in your Sheraton, maybe they accidentally swapped the bridge and neck buckers at the factory during installation. We are talking about cheap far est pickups anyway. Also, if they were meant to copy vintage PAFs then they may not be calibrated (calibrating pickups to position was invented til the late 70s, thanks Hamer!)... original Gibson buckers from PAF to T-Top are speced to be fairly low output and the bridge can sound pretty fender if they come out on the low side of the winds specs. If that's what the far-east bastardizers cloned then you ould get a boomy neck and shrill bridge. If they sued poly wire and bright A5 or ceramic magnets? That will compound the shrillness and boominess in a poorly calibrated set. Not all 50s PAF pickups are so great despite their fearsome reputation and pricing. I have played mid 50s gibsons with early PAFs that had very single coily tones. Very low output, twangy bridge and a boomy neck that ahs that glassy strat neck quality. I rather like these guitars, but they are not what one is looking for from a humbucker guitar these days. I wouldn't seek to reproduce those sounds in a current production instrument. Old guitars with the low output buckers are more of a fun curiosity for guys with money to burn!

I just have trouble with guys in the rabidly anti-Gibson camp who discount their lasting influence, especially when they aren't cinverted Gibson-players like some older anti-Gibson guys are (the Norlin era pissed a lot of old heads off as did the massive price jump after Slash repopularized the LP). Its weird to me that someone whose Gibson experiences consist of 2 models at the extreme end of the spectrum that he did not own and 1 non-Gibson student guitar jobbed out by the parent company has such a strong opinion. I've owned and played scads of gibbies and I have a really mixed opinion, but I definitely do not discount Gibson's HUGE influence on everything since that's not a bolt-on.

someone needs to create active bass electronics that run on phantom power...

I agree with boom overall. But I think most of the playing you'll do will be more rosewood oriented. SO get rosewood, be frugal all year and get a blonde next year ;-)

Why not buy one of each? Go rosewood first, its most versatile... next year get one with a maple board

hey, I have seen those oddball GT SGs around now that I saw a pic of that poulsen guy. You can find 'em, they probably have some with bigger necks too given the GT supposedly has the 61 neck carve. Should be cheap too, the GT is NOT popular as fancy SGs go for some reason. I would think you could get one for about $1500 thru ebay. Buy from power sellers with a no questions asked return policy. You may lose a few bucks in shipping if the 1st oe isn't a fit for you, but you'll get a good one eventually. Youa re not going to find on in person though...

originally epis are nothing to write home about before the Gibson takeover apart from the emperor... in my opinion anyway... theya re valuable and they have cool sounding pickups whether theya re in 3rd party winds or done in-house, but their QC and playability was not in my opinion up to vintage Gibson standards. They fell in with the other set-neck also-rans like Gretsch and Guild. They COULD be great guitars, but only certain models and only if you got the right one. the value of some of these old guitars from the "other 3" as I like to think of them pisses me off because you have to sort a lot of dogs to find good vintage examples.

Also, I feel like you are going to take a total bath on this faded finish LP studio you want if you buy it new. Play a lot of them so you can be sure you get one you'll keep forever.

I will warn you though, Gibson guitars have a totally different feel to them. I personally hate them.

A totally different feel than what? They are one of the big 2. One of the oldest guitar manufacturers in the USA, period. Everyone plays fender and Gibson, Boom. Except for shredders and thrash metal types, but virtually everyone has played lots of gibbies and considers them to be the norm in set-neck electrics. Whether we love them or loathe them, that's the truth. This is not true in basses where Gibson has always kinda bit the big one, but in guitars? Gibsons feel pretty normal. Gretsches, Guilds, Hamers, PRSes... so many guitars borrow Gibson ideas and the feel for so many of their models. I am not telling you to like Gibsons, but you run around the site acting like no one else likes them or even plays them (or that theya re uncommon and no one tries them in a store to know what the Gibson style is all about) when pretty much everyone who doesn't play in a hair band or slayer tribute band has owned and gigged at least 1 Gibson model.... it would be more accurate to say rickenbackers are a 'totally different feel' as they are not like Gibsons or Fenders and though they basically invented electric guitar their company has never had a the market share even during beatlemania when their 12 strings dominated the airwaves. That's a different feel for ya.

Seriously I am not sure where you get this stuff.

I am not saying Gibson makes a universally great product, but since the 20s Gibson has been a standard for jazzboxes and since the 60s a standard in solid and semi-hollows (which they INVENTED). I am not sure what your yardstick is if Gibson is "different." This is for better or for worse. I am not a universal Gibson lover and their business practices have been, and even under modern management can be, deplorable.

Gibson custom's vintage RIs are close but not quite. There have always been guys building copies of vintage Gibbies better than Gibson does, but if you've never played an original you would not know which is right. I am not saying vintage is better though. I feel a modern SG standard schools any of the SGs made before the neck joint change as well as a lot of the 70s and 80s ones from the dreaded Norlin era. But you see what I'm saying. Gibson is not the Gibson they were. Different location, difrent equipment, different methods and different people. Depending on if you want something old school or a modern model YMMV with small luthiers who work with Gibson designs. Keep in mind that the famed D'Angelico jazzboxes were just improved, one-off Gibson copies. D'Angelico admitted many times he admired those designs and just wanted to take them and give them a master craftsman's attention to detail and some up-market touches... or look at a guy like Slash. The appetite guitar was a small builder's careful copy of a particular 59 LP. It was more accurate than anything Gibson was building at the time.

But if you want a modern SG with a big neck, get a Gibson. You don't have to go crazy. They are around. You will pay about a grand. If you want something to vintage spec (piss poor neck jint and all) with a big 50s neck they are also around from Gibson Custom, but harder to find as most SGs had medium or slim-taper necks and the custom shop makes most of the RIs with the more common neck shape. They make them though. I played one in a sam ash of all places. Neck was huge, total 61 spec. Nice guitar, but I thought 2.5k was steep for a used SG with the wweak neck joint. See, only SOME of the early LP branded SGs had thick 59 type necks and none had 58 baseball bats if that's what you want. You would have to contact the custom shop and spend a lot to get that.

But I am rambling. To me an RI is a cone anyway. I don't get precious about this stuff. Give me a guitar that does what I want and I will buy it if the price is right! I think some vintage designs were in need of improvement anyway and the SG is one of them. New SGs are better designed guitars, its just the electronics, mahogany and rosewood thata re inferior

that's right, the junk finish Gibbies don't come with lifton style cases, just gig bags... I forgot that my special was caseless and I ahd to get one as a gift from my bassist at the time. Its a shame you live in the UK, I have scads of Gibson, Epi, Gretsch and 'Gibson style' cases in my walk-in. When I sell to stores I usually keep the cases. I have fender type cases too, both vintage rectangular and modern molded plastic. I have SKB cases, Gators, you name it. More hard cases than guitars. I would sell one to you cheap but the shipping would defeat the point.

The JB is way too hot and humbuckery to use in brian may wiring.

my SG has an enormous neck... they are all variable and have been since their inception in 61. I played a lot of SGs, various submodels from various years to find one that had a 59ish neck, wide string spacing, good balance and had a loud and pleasant tone unplugged.

Or you can call Gibson custom if you have 3 to 5 grand you are not using. They will make you EXACTLY what you want. Of course at that point you could call a small builder who does Gibson clones.

Good for you. Be wise about resale when borrowing money to buy a guitar.

My queen mod is basedon the GFS brian may strat mod with a custom pickguard based on theirs. I went with a mix of 2 custom made strat pickups, A2 stagger pole neck and A5 flat pole middle with different wire types and gauges that are well calibrated and one of the hot bridge position GFS brighton rock strat pickups. I added a fralin baseplate to the GFS to enhance its tonal bigness and great low end even further. I bought six mini sliders from GFS that are in their brian may kit and in the end wired them basically like GFS did, but on middle and bridge I wired up alpha push-push pots between the phase and on-off switches for mid and bridge to be individual series/parallel switches so you can get ANY combination of strat and Queen inbetween tones. Pots are wired Brian May style as master vol and tone. Mixing all 3 pickups with different combinations of phase and series/parallel can yield some insane sounds that are beyond normal strat quack or queen's out of phase weirdness. The best sound to my ear though is neck and bridge out of phase in series. Wild harmonics but still pretty full.

this is child's play... keep the 250k volume and just use stock wiring, 250k volume and no tone control will not load the JB down any more than two 500K pots for volume and tone.... this is traditional fat strat wiring and it works fine.... OR you could get a couple noise cancelling Dimarzio strat pups that work better with 500K and justrun all 2 pickups through 500K master volume and master tone and then make the spare tonecontrol a blend pot to mix in the humbucker when in neck position...

or you can try my "queen of the strats" mod... I have 3 singles, all differently flavored singles, 3 phase switches, 3 on/offs, 2push/pull pots to switch the middle and bridge pickups between series and parallel so you can mix up quack tones and hot buckery sounds... straight bridge pickup ina custom pickguard...

http://images.equipboard.com/uploads/gear_photo/image/2529/m_20150616_112539.jpg

yeah, around '95 Korea finally got their act together (especially the sammick plant) and by 200 Korea was cranking out some universally great isntruments as long as you don't mind really thick urethane finish...

Haggis is rare in new England too. Even Boston, home of the Celtics. Haggis is really Scottish and up here we have more Irish folks. The Scots are a lot thinner on the ground (though I am Scottish and French on my mom's side, this is not a common lineage). Haggis may be more prevelant in the Appalachians, a lot of those coal miners are of highland scots descent. But there aren't really many restaurants there and the ones there are cater to tourists along the skyline drive and blueridge parkway...

I was kinda grossed out the first time I tried new York Disco fries but they were awfully good and it prepared me for the delicious aberration that is poutine! Most of Canada is a culinary wasteland, but there are a few spots I've been that had some interesting food. Mostly Canada is a lot like the USA in resturants though... you have to DIG for the really uniquely Canadian stuff.

up here in the northeast we also don't usually make beef pot pies unless its at a restaurant that pecializes in colonial era foods (most of our older cities have these resturants, some are better than others, Philly actually has the ebst one I've been too with a really renowned historical-chef who actually has a TV show... come to think of it my home town has quite a few celebrity chefs including Jack McDavid and Marimoto of food network fame, but yeah, up here a beef pot pie is generally a colonial novelty item and then tis called a "pasty").... you will still see frozen, factory beef pot pies in markets but no one buys them up here. Even as far west as Ohio Beef is not popular in pot-pies. I don't know why. It can be quite good, but I guess its just a cultural thing.

All this talk about Canadian fries and the search for Haggis in the states is making me miss travelling around. I can't wait to do a crazy road-trip vacation with my son when he's older...

you didn't give him an misinformation, but you didn't teach him much either. I am not going to attempt to. There's too much. Read a book is my advice. Its what I did and what everyone I know did.

I've herd okay things about this, the book I had as a kid is apparently out of print now.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0615165419/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_3?pf_rd_p=1944687682&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0711902321&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1B08JPHFRV4568AXADT3

we joke about haggis but do not make it or eat it.... having toured in England I know you guys have gotten a lot of American specialty dishes in resturants, though your versions are poor imitations usually just like your take on coffee.

Boom is either more provincial than I ahd imagined he was or he hasn't eaten in every state of the USA hes been through. I have been in 46 states and parts of Canada, wait, or was it 47? Everywhere is melting-pot region these days. There may be large, random immigrant populations in any major city that mutate the local fare, even in the mostly whitebread Midwestern states.... the states Boom mentioned are most notorious, but even a city like St Louis has some really odd, hybrid cuisine. The USA is wild with food.

also, the secret of brisket is to take a page from the jews and brine it like pastrami and corned beef prior to smoking it on the BBQ... I go with a brining, then dry the outside, rub with salt and coarsely cracked pepper and let that soak in for a few more hours, THEN commence smoking, indirect, low heat, usually best with a really big chunk of fragrant wood instead of wood chips which fail to "go the distance"... usually yields a solid, juicy brisket that needs miimal sauce and also cooks so long the fat melts out making it less greasy than what Boom describes.... I had very hit or miss experiences with brisket in texas despite the fact that BBQ brisket is one of that state's signature dishes.

Texas talks a lot of smack about everything. I am not sure why we let this giant, loudmouthed state (that was mostly wasteland before the discovery of oil) founded by rebellious Mexicans and American expats who couldn't get by within our border into the union, but its too late now to kick them back out. I know we (the rest of the USA) at least gave them a really hard time about becoming a state. Once in a while Texas contributes something fun and amazing like SRV or ZZ Top.... most of the time not so much. We get stuff like fracking and GW Bush as president. I am not saying anything against the people of Texas in general, but somehow when they all get together they can be kinda troublesome....

argh.... do you even know what a potentiometer does? what resistors and capacitors are? wait, you would have to grok resistors in order to understand pots... before I start explaining it would be good to know WHERE to start.... is this just more of your usual stuff or are you really unable to find decent electronics books somehow?

we've had menu warnings and warnings on supermarket packaging for ground (aka "minced") beef since I was a teenager about cooking it until its ridiculously dry and flavorless... no one gives a shit...

Nah, the USA is like that too... I am in the border-area where we can't handle a lot of snow but can handle SOME snow well enough that everything is open most of the winter and people just get in a lot of car accidents LOL Your country I one of the few itty bitty European countries that does not have fairly homogenous weather.... you guys are lucky that way I guess....

I on't know where you get the idea food and cars and such are unregulated here, they are. Food is even more heavily regulated here than Europe... we can't even get legit camembert unless its from a specialty dealer because the edible mould on the outside is against FDA regulations and you're not allowed to make it in the USA or import it in large quanitites and to do so requires special licensing and exemptions, etc. But once a product is deemed SAFE our government could give a shit if it works or lasts. In those departments its caveat emptor.

I am quite a home cook and only eat out at work or on special occasions. I literally cook 4 to 7 nights a week, some breakfasts and lunches.... and I am known to make Lucian a second meal if he throws a fit about the dinner I made 1st try (hes getting picky as her gets older, he used to be easier with food... I blame his mother). When Lucian is with a sitter so I can work I make sure to have a mess of kid friendly leftovers and prepped fresh mealsin the fridge from waffle batter to pre-steamed vegetables.... par cooked hamburgers, you name it.

we get a good blizzard every few years.... we are NOT lucky. You want snow all the time so your local government is ready to handle it OR you want it so seldom that when you DO get it everything shuts down for days...

In the usa we are brought up to believe budgeting means doing without luxuries completely. If you are going to purchase luxury items you should avoid throwing that money away on cheap junk. If my parents could not afford good stuff that was made to last they just waited and saved... I do the same thing. If i don't feel i am buying something of quality or at least something i can luquidate easily if i want or need to? I just do without!

I am rolling my eyes at you for answering my question by essentially repeating your overly broad question. I should tell youtodoa google search, but here goes...

Assuming your guitar was made before like 96? You have a low endmodel. The lower the # the less it costs in old yamaha guitars. Anything beliw 700 in the 70s is usually meh when it comes toelectrics. Anything under 1000 in the 80s is not always so hot. It can depend on the seriesthough. Others have irregular numbering on a few models. Some were built at better plants than others. Yamaha's SG, SF and SA series are the collectible guitars as long as they are models from 72 to 85ish. Not just because a lot of famous guys have used them either. They are genuinely nice electrics. FG stands for folk guitar i think and designates a yamaha dreadnaught acoustic. These are variable quality guitars and not very collectible like the more popular electrics. What year is your FG and i will see what else i know... If its newer than 1990 i have no clue Yamaha changed the numbering of their guitars in the 90s and also really fucked with their whole line... Thats when the strat like guitar became the pacifia for instance... They also stopped sending the good guitars to the usa then and focused on our student market.

Edit: A 5 second google search on my fucking phone revealed your guitar was made between 68 and 72 at which point it was revised a bit and rebranded as an fg150 which is from the same series as the popular fg180. Your guitar is not from yamaha's best era but its probably better than a mid 80s one and definitely better than anything they have put outsince the 90s. Its a lower end acoustic but not botyom of the barrel. If you like, it keep it because even assuming its in excellent shape its still not worth more than $500 on a good day. If you don't like it or its a fixerupper i might consider buying it from you for 3 or 4 hundred. I could use a spare mij acoustic to knock around on.

I think elliott smith favored a higher end model from the 72 to 85 fg series...

I cannot recall the last time I saw this much snow pile up in person.

I am not trying to be a dick. Its just that you guys in the uk worry more about budgeting gear in whereas when times are good i buy and buy but make sure i am buying stuff to turn a fat profit on when times get tough on me. And i almost never say I won't sell or trade something for sentimental reasons. Fuck it. There are economic realities at play that trump my feelings.

Stay away from any PCB marshall designed and released after the jcm900 series. Marshall started board mounting the preamp tube sockets after the 900 series in anything that wasn't a reissue. The heat is bad for the pcb. They also switched to cheaper board material and the traces aren't as thick as they were either. The modern designs also have more 12ax7es too and all these things compound to give you an amp that goes down a lot after the 1st year.

I like 70s and some 80s Yamahas... What do you want to know about it?

no I couldn't because I live in America.

Once it was shipped I would take a bath. I could get a used one for that here and play it first.

I am going to be blunt. You English kids are terrible with money and commodities. You all seem completely out to lunch about the value of gear, currency, etc. Maybe its because you have all sorts of socialist programs in your country so you don't have to be as sharp to survive as working class American young people. In my country you gotta have a lot of hustle, business acumen and charm just to keep a roof over your head and food on the table and it takes luck, unscrupulous behavior and/or a real opportunistic streak to get ahead unless everything goes right for you as a teenager. Or unless you're an immigrant who comes here with useful job skills.

The government is not here for you in the USA unless you are a minority, PERIOD so you need to rely on your wits when thigns go wrong (and anymore they constantly do, thanks Republicans, way to deregulate the economy and let the wallstreet demons destroy my future)... for instance, I applied for my nationally run unemployment insurance 2 years ago when my employer started canning everyone prior to selling off their business piece by piece (unemployment coverage which I have been REQUIRED by federal law to pay into since I got my 1st job in the 90s and have never used until now). I am still arguing to get my back payments for the 6 or 7 months I was out of work even though I am now on my SECOND job since then! When my baby boy was in danger of going homeless the state tied me up in red tape even though I have paid into this program my entire life. Only being wise with my savings accounts and making profitable guitar investments kept us afloat until our lease was up and we could move back to Philly for cheaper housing and a better job market in my field. Even my lazy wife bothered to work part time a little bit while we were trying tog et my unemployment entitlements. That's how bad the state fucked us.

Back on topic. The old JCM2000s are just as bad as new ones. Its the design that is inherently unreliable. I actually only know the Chinese ones by their bad reputation, all my experience with JCM2000 amps failing is the UK ones LOL. Stop trying tog et something versatile and buy something that does 1 or 2 jobs REALLY well... and something that is rising in value so as inflation rises you stand a chance f turning a pofit when you inevitably sell or trade-up.

Oh, see only gloss finish USA gibsons hold value nd appreciate here... unless you get a worn or faded and NEVER play it, baby it completely, then it will stay CLOSE to its retail value.

I'm not sure how the resale on the satins is overall, but the 2014 tribute LPs have gone up and I was regretting not getting a 50s tribute when it was new when I saw them resell for $200 more than they were at release. I kind wanted a P90 50s tribute to mod into a Neil Young tribute, but they were done well enough that they became desireable! So now that the satin-finish 50s neck is back I plan to buy one even though its buckers and not P90s.... I can still get clever with her... I remember that at the end of 2014 the original P90 version was getting cleared out super cheap from retailers to make way for the 2015 guitars. I was looking at the discoed mdoels like that LP and the 2014 SG jr RI and the original Gibson idtown with P90s, but the wife wouldn't let me get ANOTHER guitar even for cheap :-( Maybe I can make that work next year though and get a pile of different mid-grade discontinued gibby models. They change the Tribute guitars every year so assuming the 50s tribute LP studios don't sell out by then they will be cheap as heck.

EDIT: total ramble there, whoa.... anyway, be careful and make sure that resale in the UK is steady for worn and faded finished studios before you shell out for one.... satin you are probably safe with....

yeah, if you need me to look at anything I have skype, you can show me what's going wrong. Me and Lucian are hanging out at the computer puttering around our favorite respective sites right now.

Its actually been really warm here until now. Unusually warm. It didn't even get down to freezing at night until after x-mas! But the last week it got damned cold and the ice started to show up.... now we have a nor'easter slamming us with 2+ feet of snow since I got home from work last night.

don't get a faded finish or worn finish because in a year of part time gigs your sweat will turn it into a "no-finish"

one labeled as 'satin' has no clear coat and minimal buffing, but unlike "faded" and "worn" finishes from Gibson the wood is properly primed before application so the finish wears better and also can be clear coated any time you wanna sand it and hit it with a couple cans of Color-tone clear lacquer.... If you want an authentic vintage look you can buff a satin finish up to a nicer sheen than it ahs stock and it will wear off in a few spots over the 1st 5 years in a way that will look like a shiny nitro finish that's worn down for decades.

If you need to keep costs down buy used. New set-neck guitars are a crap shoot anyway. Its brand new and you don't know if the neck is done settling, if there will be a rise at the heel.... a 5 year old Gibson has dried, contracted, expanded and contracted again so may times that anything that was going to happen to the neck joint has already happened. You don't get a warranty, but the guitar will be done breaking in (so to speak) and you aren't going to need a warranty.

I am really considering getting this 80s Burny black beauty copy to try, there are a couple similar mid-to-high end Burny Customs on Reverb right now for under $600 because they're beat on, but this guy has the best features at a ridiculously low price. Even if I need to put work into her she will probably be okay.

https://reverb.com/item/1585224-1985-burny-les-paul-custom-black-beauty-vh1-pickups-made-in-japan-mij-cij-bb-super-grade-rlg-flg

I have the DC Greco LP type guitar from the 70s, I wantone of their 335 copies, I want to try a Burny LP and then when I can afford it a Tokai 335 and LP...

oh, wow, he got depressed about being himself and checked out before his wife got tired of being married to a one-hit-wonder, cartoon-metal front-person. But seriously, the whole thing is quite sad. I do however respect someones' right to call it quits when they just cannot go on physically or even mentally as long as they discuss it with their nearest and dearest and do not leave anyone in the lurch who doesn't have it coming.

I am thinking Wayne didn't discuss his suicide with his wife.... though maybe she drove him to it and then couldn't live with the guilt. Wives can be quite horrible, you know.

Duncan is Black Hot/Positive, Green Negative, Bare is Shield (tied to negative and ground buss), White has to tie to Red to get series, in phase humbucking, so when you tap the wiring should leave Black as +Hot and make White -Ground tied to bare as the shield, or to favor the South coil Green would be +Hot, while Red would stay -Ground tied to bare/shield

if you need help this weekend I got snowed in and its STILL coming down on us in Philly like you wouldn't believe, so I will be playing with my boy and puttering on the web. I will be more than happy to answer electronic questions if you're working on projects this weekend.

I agree with Boom about Squiers being a mod-platform for a lot of intermediate players. Personally I always believe its better to save and wait to buy a valuable instrument you like that has good resale than it is to purchase a cheapie to modify bcause when you tire of said guitar you will NOT recoup all the upgrades you needed to make to get it useable. A guitar that was good out of the gate and is a popular model from the USA, Japan or somewhere that's not despicably bad at manufacturing? Will hold some value, not NEED to be modified and IF you decide to mod it to suit your personal style it should not hurt the resale as long as the mod doesn't effect the cosmetics or make it sound incredibly stupid, like putting EMG active pickups into a vintage reissue P-Bass or something that you would only do to customize a guitar you would never sell...

My opinion of squire is generally pretty poor these days, though MIJ squiers from the 80s and VERY early 90s can literally outplay a lot of American fenders of that era (though not more recent USA fenders now that the Japanese retrained Fender to build like they used to). MIK squiers are okay. The earlest ones stink but you don't see too many around. Later 90s MIK squiers are universally decent guitars. Indonesian ones are spotty, I feel like Indonesia didn't really get their strat/tele act together until they started making actual Fender branded guitars, and then not right away. That leaves us with Chinese squiers which are generally awful. Only decent Chinese squire I have played is the "classic vibe" series.

haven't tried one yet, but on my way to work yesterday I read a glowing review of the new 50s Tribute Studio-T... next time Lu is hanging with his mom I will make sure to hit up a guitar store and try one out and report back on fit and finish. Apparently the 50s spec one comes in a honey burst, goldtop and like one other color, has a biggish neck, TOM and stop bar, 490R and 498T buckers, traditional construction but it weight relieved a little like a non-traditional standard or a lot of the epis.

I told you, financing is the bomb. I did that with furniture, instruments, you name it before my ex-wife damaged my credit playing games with my cards on Amazon (and then I made it worse leaving her).