jimmarchi1's forum posts 8022

I mean, have you looked at the apes that work in a lot of guitar chains doing repairs and set-ups? You seriously think you can't do a better job on your guitar than those people? Its your guitar, You are a human of reasonable intelligence with enough small motor coordination to play the guitar in the first place, right? What separates Joe the guitar center repairman from you? Experience! How did Joe get experience? By working on his own guitars.

I briefly took a repair job at a sam ash at one point. Do you know that they just took me at my word that I knew exactly what I was doing and just let me have at it?! They trusted me with all these kids' (and some grownups) guitars doing set-ups and repairs (mostly easy stuff, but still possible to screw up), their PAYING CUSTOMERS I add... on a promise from me... why? Because the people who hired me didn't know enough to ask me any questions or test my skills! I turned out to be a good bet, but I have had a lot of guitars come to me after being butchered by the repairman at a big box store. Friend of a friend stuff. Sometimes I feel so bad for the unwitting owner that (assuming no new parts are needed) I do his work for free since he has already paid the store to make his guitar play and sound worse.

Great topic... sadly after so many years my peeves are too numerous to list, plus I know I will sound like a dick if I put certain ones in writing! Unless its affecting the project I tend to keep my mouth shut even as people are doing these thngs....

however, I will do this one: Home-body players who do not ever play to a metronome (any instrument really).... these guys will show off their amazing chops and then when you try to play as an ensemble they fall apart. Also, its typically everyone else's fault they can't lock into the groove or break out that amazing riff or fill they had down just fine playing alone. It couldn't be them.... oh no!

You know, I remember someone who referred to a tele he had as a Parts Telecaster. I never understood until recently what I think it means. I think the saddle and pickups were replaced, hence the name Parts.

Unfortunately, I don't have the skill to build a guitar from scratch (I'd love to, though. I probably have the tools). I've always relied on a local shop that does repairs as well as the Guitar Centres' around the area.

it takes no skill to build a fender from parts... all fender USA and licensed parts work together flawlessly, always have... all you need is a screwdriver, a soldering iron and the knowledge to do a very basic setup from scratch (read a stewmac.com article)

the first time I set-up one of my guitars I had NO idea what I was ding, but I referenced a Dan Erlewine book, imagined how I wanted the guitar to play vs how it WAS playing, and got down to it... its all just basic applied physics, the hard part, designing a system that works? its already done for you, even with a kit or a pile of fender parts

1. I do NOT recommend anything Gibson or Epiphone. I hate their products and the company as a whole. Their necks are thick and brick like and the tone is nowhere near what you pay for it. I played a 1000 Taylor once and then immediately played a 3000 Gibson acoustic. The Taylor won in every way.

I would argue that, while the Gibson baseball bat or 50s Fender U shape is a lot for a beginner or intermediate player (or maybe some pros), that an overly slim neck is also discouraging because modern Fender slim necks and some variations of Gibson's slim taper (not to mention the vile Ibanez wizard) feel easy at first but are actually very fatiguing to maintain a good hand position on unless you have really tiny hands. Remember you are talking to a guy who played tons of long shows and rehearsed for 2 hours at a clip in a band setting before taking a 5 minute cigarette break on lots of different guitar necks... and I did this literally for years. The bigger necks were less tiring. My deep, soft V strat and the LP standard with a medium-to-fat foundback I had at the time were the least fatiguing. My Carvin and LP Special with more of a slim taper were tiring.

A smaller nut width is a good thing for folks with stubby fingers (assuming they don't have fat fingers as well, then its bad), but slim necks tend to lack shoulder and cause hand cramping. Hand cramping will lead to shorter practice sessions and a failure to progress. I think an intermediate player ought to get a neck shape they have to grow into technique-wise. A guitar that is not somewhat challenging at first is not a good guitar for someone who is still developing their touch.

You may not play your best on a medium neck with a lot of shoulder, but you will find you do not tire. As I got into bigger necks I admit I experienced some cramping in my muscles just like you get when you hit the gym and increase your reps or weight on one of the machines, but just like after a workout you will experience the fatigue hours after you are done playing... again, like the gym, a little stretching alleviated this (maybe I'll make a video with the proper stretches, a friend in LA who is an orthopedic surgeon explained the cramps to me and gave me this wonderful solution).

If you are getting carple tunnel (sp?) playing some necks, consider that you may fret too hard most of the time and that you may be applying the pressure using leverage from the back of your hand against the neck rather than using pure finger strength. Hard to explain, but there are very different ways to put pressure on the string.

If anything, I suggest people go the EVH/SRV route and start vintage-big, then work your way down to something a bit more slim and maybe asymmetrical if you have short fingers and need better reach. You definitely should always have a good amount shoulder under your rear-palm and thumb to prevent wrist cramps and fatigue over time.

Also, thicker necks are inherently more stable, especially in double cuts like the SG where the neck attaches further down the fretboard. That HUGE heel on a PRS is designed to help the stability of their thinner necks, but I wonder if it does. It certainly negates the fret-access provided by 2 cutaways. But I digress...

WOW, this got long! Sorry.

I of course agree with Boom's point 5 in full. As to his comparison of Taylor and Gibson acoustics? Taylor just makes a better acoustic these days. They also offer lots of variation in neck shapes if you search through a lot of them. The ones at big box stores are slim because that's what church players want, and praise and worship guitar is Taylor's main market. Gibson is much more focused on electrics these days (and they can't always get that right anymore). Play a pre-war or early post-war Gibson acoustic against a current Taylor and you will sing a different tune. Unless you are in a praise band on sunday, then the Taylor still wins, LOL

again, you guys are on the ball

neat

you guys are on the ball

If you didn't leave for the road yet, for what you're doing I would recommend a tele with traditional tele single, a keely compressor or similar, a tubescreamer or similar OD/boosty type thing and a Matchless DC30 or similar amp. The whole AC30 thing is really huge in modern country. I did a similar gig maybe 5 years ago (things went horribly wrong with the business end, but I was just a for-hire guy) and I made it work with a strat, an sesquire, a ts9 (I think), some slapback echo and a DC30 set clean.

Did anyone else just glance at the forum and notice that a couple of topics disappeared?

Okay Narcist, on to Teles...

If you want a good tele, just build one... I put my best fender together from high end parts for about 700 bucks 5 years ago... I would not buy an off-the-shelf tele again unless I got a good price on an early JV serial 52 RI made by Fender Japan in the 80s.

The FMT set-neck tele you listed is currently made in Indonesia and has been since its 2nd year of production, but older ones were made in Korea and were pretty good (as was the MIK spalted maple top tele of the period, I played quite a few of these guitars when they came out but did not buy)... they are nice guitars but have scrawny necks and sketchy bridges.

I used to have a TV yellow special DC and played the shit out of it.... there are a lot of lemons in affordable DC specials though and I advise people against buying online... I bought mine new at a big box store about a decade ago and played about a dozen before I found 3 good ones (2 in TV yellow)... I bought one with a rounder neck but the pickup switch took the piss in about 4 hours at a rehearsal so I drove abck to the store and swapped it for the only other good one in yellow (I had marked down the serials of the good ones)

I also ignored DC specials because Narcist is looking for Humbuckers and likes warmer-toned buckers at that. I love the P90, but I think the that soapbars will have too much stringiness and bite for him in the bridge position. A lot of the actual gibbies I picked for him will have Tim Shaws or 490 series humbuggies which he will probably like a lot.

some affordable Gibson USA models from (mostly) good years at your price point:

https://reverb.com/item/885641-gibson-les-paul-studio-1992-black (good year, good price)

https://reverb.com/item/59249-1997-gibson-sg-black (good year, probably a nice bare bones SG, price is fair, if you sell it you probably won't make a profit)

https://reverb.com/item/670629-gibson-sg-special-1997-ferrari-red-w-case-free-shipping (the later in the 90s an SG w/o binding is made, the less I like it, but this SG is probably still okay, the price is RIGHT considering the cosmetics are meh, this guitar is definitely better than a 2000s SG special but I doubt it will ever attain much more resale value)

https://reverb.com/item/687337-gibson-1998-les-paul-special-electric-guitar-s66801 (probably a decent instrument, price is fair and it should be able to be resold for a profit in a year or two)

https://reverb.com/item/692730-1998-gibson-les-paul-dc-studio (this is a real winner, I have come close to buying one of these on 2 different occasions... the price is REALLY good and these are becoming highly collectable)

https://reverb.com/item/354284-gibson-les-paul-studio-1999-black (not a great year for Studios, low end gibsons really take the piss around this time but this guitar might be okay and the price is very good)

https://reverb.com/item/605998-gibson-les-paul-studio-1996-wine-red (good year, good price, good for resale or trade-in)

https://reverb.com/item/265526-1981-gibson-firebrand-the-paul-deluxe-goldburst (might not be great, the 'firebrand' period of Gibson had a real range in quality control as Gibson recovered from the period that Norlin owned them and almost tanked the company, but 'the Paul' was a forerunner to the studio and the humbucker equipped specials which are becoming more and more collectable... so I think that even adjusting for inflation this guitar will have very good resale or trade-in)

https://reverb.com/item/321030-gibson-the-paul-les-paul-firebrand-deluxe-1981-silver (this "the Paul" just looks amazing and I am tempted to buy it out from under you just to have 2 silver les pauls from different eras! I guarantee that with such a cool finish this guitar will continue to rise in resale value at a rate that outruns inflation... though because a solid-silver Gibson is a really specialized market I wouldn't expect it to be a better trade-in instrument than the guitar I listed above it)

Also, I have always done a lot of set=ups, repair and electronic work for people I know (and occasionally as a job), so lots of guitar pass through my hands on a regular basis and I am taking them apart anyway so I make notes on any off-brands, weird models or abnormal specimens of famous guitars (generally just the act of writing down my observations and measurements commits them to memory for me). Then I do some internet research and learn everything I can if its an instrument that impressed me.

And pretty much any piece of gear I touch I will take apart if I can do it non-destructively. To see what makes it tick, you know?

obsessiveness... I could tell you crazy shit about just about any guitar brand... ya gotta know this stuff if you want to internet shop, or even to know what guitars to pick up when you walk into a used emporium like Daddy's Junky or Atomic

I joke with buddies that the really good but affordable guitars just find me and stick to me, but I actually am constantly trolling online and dropping into stores, sifting the dogs out.

https://reverb.com/item/882964-tokai-love-rock-1984-black-mij-les-paul-made-in-japan-cij-vintage-tokai-57-paf-pickups

https://reverb.com/item/884563-burny-super-grade-les-paul-sunburst-mij-made-in-japan-cij-vintage

https://reverb.com/item/885530-burny-les-paul-custom-super-grade-vintage-white-mij-made-in-japan-cij

https://reverb.com/item/880696-ibanez-artist-ar50bk-1980-black-les-paul-killer

https://reverb.com/item/659266-1981-ibanez-artist-ar-100-polar-white

https://reverb.com/item/833880-yamaha-sg-600-vintage-great-shape-low-action-great-tones

here are some winners:

https://reverb.com/item/831470-greco-eg-900-made-in-japan-1977-8-w-duncan-pus

https://reverb.com/item/635787-greco-les-paul-eg59-1983-turquoise

https://reverb.com/item/504069-nearest-rival-of-tokai-ls-greco-eg-700-1978-tobaccoburst-w-gibson-57classic-pus-and-esp-gigbag

The last one is a great guitar, but if you look you can see its been refretted and that's why its so cheap for a 700 of that era. it should have low frets with binding nibs and the guy who did the refret cut the nibs off (most people do even on vintage gibbies) and put jumbos on it and they go right OVER the binding, which is poor attention to detail but will not affect playability unless they aren't dressed well.

The 1980 EG500 has fret-nibs, nice.... the Maxon U1000s use high-output Alnico 8 magnets that have the compression of A2 and more of a ceramic output. U1000s sound really good.

The 1978 is not one of the better low-end grecos. Its semi-hollow. It will be light, but feedback-prone and will not sound like an LP.

One thing about pre-82 Grecos is they have the 70s Gibson Norlin-era low-wide frets that are not to everyone's taste.

The 1980 is a nice specimen even with the glue repair and WILL bid up substantially.

Greco pickups were made by Maxon up until 82. they are all very good. they tend to be warm and sparkly without thumping lows or harsh highs. On the lower end models they tend to have higher output and stronger magnets to drive a tube amp easily and have more natural compression that makes them forgiving for intermediate players. EG500 guitars are just great, but they don't have fret-edge binding (those Gibson nibs) like their big brothers and are not lacquer finished, but the poly is thin and well-applied. No Epiphone LP, even an MIJ elitist, has these features.

Also look up Edwards (ESP's current-production, clone brand for the Japanese market). These can be had cheaply and are wonderfully built. 80s Burny LPs are good too.

You can get a whole lot more guitar for 500 to 700 USD used than the Chinese, Korean and Indonesian guitars you are considering.

If you must buy new I highly recommend a current-production Reverend. These are the best guitars coming out of Korea at this time. http://www.reverendguitars.com/

Also, check out Axl guitars and Hanson guitars. Great and affordable instruments in the Gibson vein.

The Duncan 59 is a great pickup, but may not be as warm as you want. Its very sparkly do to its moderate windings and bright Alnico 5 magnet. You may like it in the enck position, but the bridge may not be to your liking. Also, if you are not a great player, these vintage PAF style humbuckers are VERY unforgiving. Weak fretting will translate through fairly heavy overdrive. You may prefer something a little stronger and warmer at the bridge like the Duncan "whole lotta humbucker" which is in the 59 camp but rounder and hotter. It all depends on the guitar you are putting these pickups in though. A maple-topped guitar will sound inherently brighter than an all mahogany guitar like the SG.That said, the Pearly Gates is great, really. Don't go by the website clips. Listen to a ZZ Top concert. Any bucker equipped guitar is either a Pearly Gates or a TV Jones Powertron. Very similar DNA in these pickups I might add!

Anyway, some good used guitars to look for that might fit your needs are without breaking the bank:

Greco EG500 or lower, any year after 1977 (these are great value guitars if you don't care about tiny details and just want a wicked player with great tone out of the case, if you raise your sights over the $600 mark you can score an eg700, which is a really nice Les Paul with good resale that is 90% built like a 70s Gibson and will play and sound better. If you can spend a bit more then think about an eg800 or higher from the 70s, these guitars are built exactly like a Gibson of the era only better)

Gibson Les Paul Special w/humbuckers (mid '00s, discontinued, great value for $$$, solid resale)

Gibson SG1 (early '00s, an SG Jr with a humbucker, great if you can deal with 1 pickup)

ANY early 90s Epiphone that was made in Korea

Hamer XT series Sunburst or Studio (90s Korean low-end Hamers that are pretty good copies of real ones, all things considered)

I could go on and on. I would not buy a new guitar that retails under a grand other than the aforementioned reverends.

since you seem to be on a budget... DO NOT BUY A NEW GUITAR AT RETAIL IF YOU HAVE SECOND HAND OPTIONS!

here's why:

1) they don't dry the wood the same anymore 2) so many guitars come from overseas on container ships and are exposed to lots of humidity, then dry out rapidly on trucks with no air conditioning headed to the store (even if there's a QC facility in the USA where they get set-up and checked, I know guys who worked at Ibanez right near my parent's house and they are ordered to pass guitars that should fail as long as the problems caused by shipping are not immediately obvious. These problems with neck joints and fret boards will quite likely worsen over time 3) a used import may have been exposed to all these dangers, but its had time to stabilize (or not), if a used import is a player then the guitar is probably fine for life if you keep up with basic maintenance... and you can get a lot of vintage import guitar for your money, not to mention how much more sued American guitar you get for the retail price of a Korean or Indonesian model new 4) if the guitar you want (like an Epi SG) has shitty electronics stock, the previous owner will probably have taken care of at least SOME of that during his time with the guitar and this will save you pouring money into a guitar with poor resale. The idiot selling it to you already did some of the work and will take some of the loss!

y'know, it might be a good idea to categorize the forum... even if tis just by instrument type, so the "Humbucker" thread I posted would go into guitar/bass instead of general and then that guy who posted "Old school vs new school gear for beginners" would have posted it in synthesizers (or some similar category) so that I knew what sort of rig/home-studio problems I was going to be interrogated about before I even read his original psot.

Yeah Simfonik, it was trying to move my gear into a semblance of order like the pro pages that got me wanting drag and drop in the first place.

"fighting back the submissions" -- I like that phrase, Boom... I have been a moderator on quite a few sites over the years and the workload is unreal and you do it all for free... NEVER again. It got overwhelming when I was an irresponsible young man aged 25, at 35 it is just unthinkable. You guys on Equipboard do a bang-up job. I understand people's frustration at the apparent slowness, but EB is more complicated than a BBS. Its like editing an encyclopedia of technical data and statistics with thousands of contributors who don't always get their facts straight or check for typos. I am surprised everyone is managing the work load as well as they are.

Cheers

Nah, you delete with the little tiny 'X' next to the move arrows... I have sold and traded stuff since joining in June (I'm not strictly in the gear acquisition business!) and I promptly delete it from my board in a spirit of full disclosure.

Love the ESQ1. They are still cheap. Hopefully no one catches on to this little gem, but the fact that it made a Reverb.com article tells me that if you don't score one soon you will not get another chance.

Don't hold it in, man! You have to vent your EB frustrations so you don't explode behind the mixing console one day....

Because May's is for 3 single coil Trisonic pickups, has only a master volume and tone and the switches are Fender Jaguar style sliders, not push/pull pots... etc

http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/21307-mod-garage-inside-brian-mays-red-special

http://www.premierguitar.com/ext/resources/images/content/2014_09/Blogs/Oct14_ModGarage/Oct14_PG_CLM_ModGarage_image1_WEB.jpg

The Page wiring is Jimmy Page's personal Les Paul wiring (duh) and covers a little of the same ground... enough for my taste I hope. There's a real May-ness to my washburn I want to exploit a little better. She aready has some push/pull pots so I know there is space for this junk.

I still have my Queen-strat project going too, I am just so sick of soldering on those tiny mini-slider switches that I never finish her!

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

I spent a lot of time inventing my own hum-cancelling system when I was prototyping it and I just kinda petered out on the whole thing for now. My wiring is really off the hook compared to May's, but owes a great debt to his guitar.

Each single coil pickup has a matched dummy coil in series with it to cancel hum. The dummies are hidden under the pickguard. There's a cap strapped across the hot and ground of each dummy, the cap values tuned to prevent the dummy from affecting the pickup's top end. I couldn't eliminate all the hum while keeping the loading from the extra coil sonically transparent so I had to sacrifice a little bit of sparkle to de-hum my circuit completely... which I then recovered by switching from 250k to 500k pots that pass more treble.

Like May's Red Special, the top row of switches on my strat handle on/off, the bottom three do phase. The pots are push/push pots that switch the middle and bridge pickup to stock strat parallel wiring (quack tone). This also allows you to get the tele neck/bridge parallel sound. This wiring scheme gives you LITERALLY every combination of the 3 pickups in the guitar.

I just wish I had the sense to use good parts in my prototype version, but the thing was a hodge-podge as I tried out different ideas and tuned the hum cancelling by ear... now I am building from scratch again and I am totally having trouble getting motivated.

The washburn will be easy by comparison and should only take me a day to get right, even if I am sloppy about it.

okay, I should state that I get electronics and have never been shocked by my own work (though I have received many (un) healthy jolts courtesy of morons who should never, ever wield a soldering iron). I f you don't know exactly what you are doing or have the attention to detail to slavishly follow a wiring diagram and KNOW that at least all your ground joints are well soldered then hire a guy like me to do your work. Hell, I will usually throw in a free neck adjust and setup.

So the jimmy page scheme is designed to let you coil tap each pickup, flip phase on the bridge in either mode and master switch both pickups from parallel (stock) to series wiring win middle position on the selector. If your pickups are reverse magnetic polarity and you combine the right 2 coils you will have access to the 'bohemian rhapsody' solo sound, single coil neck w/single coil bridge, out of phase hum cancelling...

I am thinking of gutting the chintzy (and poorly modified) wiring in my 80s washburn Falcon and it has room for push-pulls. Usually I am such a traditionalist, but I was thinking of trying the jimmy page wiring with a pair of matched Duncans. Anyone tried it?

http://www.neighborhost.com/images/Jimmy_Page/JP_wiring.jpg

I wish I could easily drag and drop the stuff on my equipboard to change the order it appears in. I have so much music junk that the arrow system is becoming a PITA...

If you like it, then its worth working on it. If it doesn't have a lot of sentimental value then hang it on the wall or sell it on flea-bay and get something that is more to your liking. There are some guitars I can never bring myself to sell, but many have passed through my hands the minute they gave me any hassle.

If it were my guitar I would do a Duncan Custom/Custom or 59/Custom hybrid in the bridge and something unconventional but tamer in the neck slot (like one of those dual blade type of things), make both tappable via some alpha push-push pots, put in a oaks grigsby 3 way switch and turn the toggle into a phase switch for one of the pickups... or a master series/parallel. Its a shred guitar so you need to keep it high-output and maintain the cock-rock cheese factor!

Given its looks and the Floyd copy I would guess its mid-80s at the earliest. Its got a real Charvel/Jackson thing going on. The switch may have been rewired by a previous owner or it may just have gone bad. When the switch is on do you get any single-coil humming? If so it means that the switch is only getting 1 coil of the pickup giving you the slug coil only in full humbucker operation and nothing at all when you tap to just the screw coil. This is a common problem with cheap, old toggles.

Is it a bolt-on, set-neck or neck-thru?

If you live anywhere near Philadelphia I would be happy to take a look at this guitar for you and fix her up. Rewire with quality components and some nice sounding 'shredder voiced' humbuckers, full set -up including neck adjust and servicing the Floyd to work perfectly, etc etc.

depends on Aria's serial #ing.... could be... or it could be an 84? I don't know the Aria system. You could also date it by the codes on the pots and pickups.

Its tough to know what's up with early Aria guitars. They were like the oldest Ibanez's, all jobbed out to different factories. Pre-80s Aria Pros have a really huge fluctuation of quality and specs year to year within the same models. Aria is one of those companies that gave Japanese guitars such a mixed rep.

https://youtu.be/Qi6UYNoCYoU

These are my favorite bucks in my current favorite guitar, check out the video:

https://youtu.be/Qi6UYNoCYoU

Thanks, man! I can't promise that it'll be a definitive article, but I can cover more bases than the article has so far and fill in some real-life applications for every string type so guys walking into the big box guitar store will have an idea what they are looking for. I will also talk about coated strings like Elixers.

aww hell, the JP8000 and 8080 were so great!

I'll do it if you can give me a week to pull it together. There's a lot left out here like 80/20s and such... also there's no discussion of application. I use different trings for recording than I do for open mics for instance, not only material but also gauge. Light strings record well and sit in the mix for tracks with lots of arrangements, but when the guitar is solo most of the time there is bandwidth for heavier stings and a needfor a stronger fundamental that heavies provide. Also, Brass is great in light gauge to maximize jangle where you want the acoustic guitar to do double duties as a shaker like in an early Bowie track, whereas Bronze or Phosphor Bronze is sweet with heavy gauge for a round, bluesy tone when you just have guitar and vocal. Mating a body size to a string gauge/formulation and microphone/preamplifier is an art in itself. If a guitar has a pickup in it, the type of pickup influences my choice of strings too. Piezos like Bronze strings, at least to my ear, while a magnetic pickup like Kurt Cobain's Nirvana Unplugged Martin or Lennon and Harrison's P90 equipped Gibson Jumbos would do better with 80/20s to get more sparkle out of the magnetic pickup.

Also, while you can string a Martin with Nylons (though only Willie Nelson makes this sound good), you will ruin a guitar designed for Nylons if you put metal strings on it....