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The Guitar Pron Thread


Celery Man

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1 hour ago, locodos said:

There is a lot to that sentiment.   I just can't get past the marginal return issue.  Especially when you are taking about a teen.  A guy I went to school with given an early vintage strat (pre CBS blah blah).  Even back then it was worth more than his car.  He only got to play it when he went home because it was too valuable to take to college.   He is in a "Dad band" now and you know what?  He doesn't play it there either for fear of loss.  Plays a PRS instead.    Not quite the same thing, but now imagine a teen who might want to drag the guitar to school, friends houses, and later to a dorm, put stickers on it, garage relic it... you know act like a teen 

Now consider the kid might not even play it after 6 months.  I budgeted $600 for guitar and $250 for a practice amp for each of my teens.  It didn't stick with my daughter, but my son is playing off and on and just getting into music.  If he keeps playing and enjoying it a gift down the road might be a nicer American made guitar and tube amp, by then he'll know more of what he wants and probably appreciate it more.

 $1500 for an American Strat and $1000 for an amp is not a huge deal...  but man I got to be true to my Scottish heritage

 

I don't disagree.  For the first guitar, I spent $72.  But it's a better guitar than the price.  I'm not talking about my buying a teen an AmStd or the like.  But I have instilled in that teen the aforementioned maxim.  So for his first guitar that he bought, he bought a 1988 American Std. strat.  He looked at a lot of them and paid under market value for it.  He now has something that plays like a dream (best strat I've ever laid hands on) and that he can sell for more than he paid for it most likely.  If it gets dinged up, so be it.  But he takes really good care of it because he paid for it.  And he won't be putting stickers on it because he knows what that does to it valuewise (and he paid for it). 

 

As for the amp,  I bought him, it's well cared for and I don't think I could do much better for $350.  We'd bought him some little practice amps before that, but they all were garbage and failed within a year.  I might have saved $100 on that item, but he has taken care of it and still uses it. 

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42 minutes ago, Goredho said:

It has a more modern C shape neck than 50s thick neck despite the 50s era target.

That was my next question.  Grab that one.  It's cooler looking.  But maybe some bee stickers instead of a sharpie.

 

Edit:  Also, you can get those "Fender" waterslide decals pretty readily.  As long as you're not trying to pass it off to a buyer as the real deal, I think they look better on the headstock if you want to replace the Squier decal (or just go naked on the headstock).

Edited by dcbc
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14 minutes ago, dcbc said:

That was my next question.  Grab that one.  It's cooler looking.  But maybe some bee stickers instead of a sharpie.

Yeah, I took a look at some comparison videos this morning.  This one at this time in the video shows (from L to R) the neck thickness of a Squier Bullet, a Squier CustomVibe 50s and a Fender Player.  The Fender Player has the thickest neck.  Wildwood sells the player series and has neck thickness at 1st and 12th frets for all their listings, the Fender Player's are around .83 at first and 0.90 at 12th, give or take 3/100s.  The neck she's playing now is .82 to .88, so the Squier VC and Player neck will both probably feel ok to her.

One thing I think this video shows in its tone comparisons at the start (around 1:40), there is a significantly "better" tone in the classic vibe and player than the bullet.  I also think there's a "better" tone in the player than the classic vibe here, though not as stark.
 

 

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4 hours ago, Goredho said:

Yeah, I took a look at some comparison videos this morning.  This one at this time in the video shows (from L to R) the neck thickness of a Squier Bullet, a Squier CustomVibe 50s and a Fender Player.  The Fender Player has the thickest neck.  Wildwood sells the player series and has neck thickness at 1st and 12th frets for all their listings, the Fender Player's are around .83 at first and 0.90 at 12th, give or take 3/100s.  The neck she's playing now is .82 to .88, so the Squier VC and Player neck will both probably feel ok to her.

One thing I think this video shows in its tone comparisons at the start, there is a significantly better tone in the classic vibe and player than the bullet.  I also think there's a better tone in the player than the classic vibe here, though not as stark.
 

 

Stick with the C shape.  I have the U-shape "baseball bat" neck (roughly 0.84--0.96) on my 52 AV and it takes a lot of getting used to, even for a player who has no problem with Gibson 50s necks.  It's thick and wide.  The ultimate solution for me was to switch to 9 gauge strings on that guitar alone, at which point, the hand cramps stopped, and I fell in love with it.  Before that, I was wondering what I got myself into.  I want to try 9.5s at some point.

Edited by dcbc
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2 hours ago, dcbc said:

I learned a few lessons early on about buying guitars that weren't precisely good and, later, taking a bit of a bath when I realized their quality wasn't what I was after and trying to sell them.  Nowadays, there are examples of getting more for less in the guitar market.  But in the end, the maxim, "Don't buy crap and you'll never have to sell crap," holds.

The lower end stuff is so much better today. Buy a Classic Vibe for $400. If you end up selling it, you're out $100. Buy an American Tele for $1800, and you take a bigger loss when you go to sell. I wouldn't be forking out too much on a kid until they prove they are sticking with it.

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24 minutes ago, dcbc said:

And he won't be putting stickers on it because he knows what that does to it valuewise (and he paid for it). 

In other inadvisable actions, I also sticker the shit out of my guitars.

3 minutes ago, Deej said:

The lower end stuff is so much better today.

Truth.

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13 minutes ago, dcbc said:

Stick with the C shape.  I have the U-shape "baseball bat" neck on my 52 AV and it takes a lot of getting used to, even for a player who has no problem with Gibson 50s necks.  It's thick and wide.  The ultimate solution for me was to switch to 9 gauge strings on that guitar alone, at which point, the hand cramps stopped, and I fell in love with it.  Before that, I was wondering what I got myself into.  I want to try 9.5s at some point.

Yeah, I'm not a fat neck fan.  Have owned a couple guitars that were excellent, but had fat necks, and I always felt major hand fatigue in a bad way.  Painful, if I played too long.  A thin modern C is my ideal, a medium 60s C is good.  I don't think I would buy anything else anymore.

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Isn’t it funny how things change? When I was a kid, my dad who was actually a guitar player and my inspiration for playing, said no money from me for a guitar for you. You want it you buy it. So I saved and bought a sears special for $89, then a Fender Bullet, then an 85 Les Paul Custom all before I was 17.

Totally agree with JJ, the goal is to keep them interested. But my dad didn’t gaf if I had a guitar to play and I’ve been at it 44 years now.

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1 hour ago, Goredho said:

Yeah, I took a look at some comparison videos this morning.  This one at this time in the video shows (from L to R) the neck thickness of a Squier Bullet, a Squier CustomVibe 50s and a Fender Player.  The Fender Player has the thickest neck.  Wildwood sells the player series and has neck thickness at 1st and 12th frets for all their listings, the Fender Player's are around .83 at first and 0.90 at 12th, give or take 3/100s.  The neck she's playing now is .82 to .88, so the Squier VC and Player neck will both probably feel ok to her.

One thing I think this video shows in its tone comparisons at the start (around 1:40), there is a significantly "better" tone in the classic vibe and player than the bullet.  I also think there's a "better" tone in the player than the classic vibe here, though not as stark.
 

 

Just for clarification, the Bullet is not in this video. But it may have the same body thickness as the Affinity, I don't know.  The bullet has string through the body like the classic vibe and Players.

My main grip about the  Bullet was the unfinished look of the neck, almost like a fresh piece of lumber where you could hardly even feel any lacquer. Frets, of course, are a bit rough, but get better with playing. Not perfect, but certainly good bang for the buck. 

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5 hours ago, Goredho said:

Yeah, I took a look at some comparison videos this morning.  This one at this time in the video shows (from L to R) the neck thickness of a Squier Bullet, a Squier CustomVibe 50s and a Fender Player.  The Fender Player has the thickest neck.  Wildwood sells the player series and has neck thickness at 1st and 12th frets for all their listings, the Fender Player's are around .83 at first and 0.90 at 12th, give or take 3/100s.  The neck she's playing now is .82 to .88, so the Squier VC and Player neck will both probably feel ok to her.

One thing I think this video shows in its tone comparisons at the start (around 1:40), there is a significantly "better" tone in the classic vibe and player than the bullet.  I also think there's a "better" tone in the player than the classic vibe here, though not as stark.
 

 

Classic Vibe and swap pickups. It's what I did and they sounded fantastic and still came out ahead. 

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1 minute ago, G650 said:

Yeah I feel you. I guess the charitable view is they are really doing a very conscientious job.

Yeah, they're built in-house, and it's the holidays.  I've gone this long with the 490s and the circuit board in my SG.  I can go another few months.

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9 minutes ago, dcbc said:

Yeah, they're built in-house, and it's the holidays.  I've gone this long with the 490s and the circuit board in my SG.  I can go another few months.

For sure. I'm still waiting on the PAF repros my guy here is winding for my '77. Roughly a month behind schedule lol. I am antsy to A/B them with the original PAFs in the 58.

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5 hours ago, noharleyyet said:

Wish I'd taken a polaroid of my first guitar. It was awful but it was all I could barely afford and I didn't know any better. Our lead player loved it and ended up using it while I sang hands free. It was the least damage I could do.

Goddam that was fun. 

I still have my first acoustic, which my Uncle gave me.  It's a 1962 Gibson LG-0.  Not the easiest thing to play, the top is a bit blistered these days, and the bridge is hanging on.  But not bad for 60 years old in the same chipboard case.  He also gave me an old 60s Japanese import strat copy with a single foil pickup.  I eventually sold it because despite being cool, it was pretty much unplayable. 

Looked similar to this one.

 

kjbfitqgz3hakg6wdovb.jpg

 

My first guitar that I got once I'd been in lessons for a while was a used 1978 Lawsuit Ibanez LP copy (PF230) 3-pickup.  This would have been around 1990 or so.  It's like the one on the left.  Kind of wish I still had it, but I have a real LP now, which sounds better and stays in tune reliably.

 

28064910518_93442c8ea9_b.jpg

 

 

Edited by dcbc
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Yep. Epi. Lots of good things. I played one this week and was sold. Gibson specs on the wiring and pickups. Long neck tenon. Just a nice axe. The one I had played as well as my 60's Standard, for almost 2k less. 

 

Have someone who wants to buy my Plus Top Pro, so I figured I needed to keep an LP in the stable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, Fastbreak said:


That has humbucker also

Yeah, the neck humbucker is the version they call bluesboy. The Plecentia models don't get the reviews as the previous ASAT import versions that were very popular. But still tempting at the stupid deal price point.

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