This was just delivered on Tuesday, picked it up off reverb. It's the Charvel San Dimas Joe Duplantier model, but he had a pair of Lace Sensor, Bill Kelliher Divinators put in for the pickups.
Plays great and rips. Goes great with my Brend Hinds Flying V...........I'm a big Mastodon fan. Need to buy a few more so I can keep multiple tunings all ready to go.
I just my daughter this: https://reverb.com/item/2384699 for her 9th birthday in a couple of weeks.
It's a Rise by Sawtooth 3/4 scale Strat copy with a baby amp and all the other "learn to play" goodies. I looked into all of the starter brands (Indio, Gleery, Yamaha) and stumbled on these guys. I have to say I am impressed with all of the instruments they make and am looking into this one: https://reverb.com/item/36114712-sawtooth-es-series-electric-guitar-players-pack-with-25-watt-amp-case-tuner-picks-cable-stand-strap-sunburst for my own birthday the same week. It's a full-scale Sawtooth Strat copy with a bigger amp and the fixings. I have never played a guitar before and need another hobby like a hole in the head, but I have been lusting for an electric guitar for years.
In reply to Javelin (Forum Supporter) :
Awesome. I always say, if Kurt Kobain could be a rock star, anyone can learn to play guitar.
In reply to Javelin (Forum Supporter) :
You should buy a bass instead...
z31maniac said:This was just delivered on Tuesday, picked it up off reverb. It's the Charvel San Dimas Joe Duplantier model, but he had a pair of Lace Sensor, Bill Kelliher Divinators put in for the pickups.
Plays great and rips. Goes great with my Brend Hinds Flying V...........I'm a big Mastodon fan. Need to buy a few more so I can keep multiple tunings all ready to go.
Good Lord that is awesome. Love it!
In reply to z31maniac :
I'm a huge fan of humbucker tele's, nice!
In reply to Recon1342 :
Drum set for my son...
My daughter's birthday present arrived!
It's a Rise by Sawtooth 3/4 scale and I did my first lesson on it already. I think it will work well for what I think she'll do with it and it's much nicer than you would think $94 would get you.
I so want their real setup for myself now...
For those looking for a project guitar, I picked up a Squier Bullet Tele on a black Friday sale. Cleaned up the fret ends, rounded the fret board edges, and refinished the neck and headstock (removed the Squier logo) with Tru Oil. It's a great player and makes me wonder why I didn't try a Tele earlier, just feels right. I'll probably end up putting in some better pickups and a 4 way switch down the road, but I couldn't be happier with a $150 guitar as is. Also recently rebuilt a Kahler tremolo with new hardware on an old Ovation solid body and need to make a new nut for it as well.
Roughly 6 years ago this week, I spotted this bass in a local antique/junk shop:
It's an Epiphone Thunderbird Goth bass from the 1st year of production when they were still made in Korea. I had always wanted a T-Bird bass, and the Goth series looked cool. I found it literally hanging from its removed G string from a nail in the ceiling as a "display piece". I asked if it was for sale, and they tossed out a ridiculous number, so I passed. A month later, it was still hanging in the shop, and it happened to be my birthday, so I asked if they would sell it for $100. They did, and I brought it home.
It's a little rough around the edges with some scrapes and dents, and needed a deep cleaning, restring, and some neck tweaks, but I brought it back to life. It sounded great, but it was so uncomfortable to play that it's largely spent time on the rack or in a case. Thunderbirds tend to neck dive really bad, and even though I had a wider strap on it, the thing hurt my back and shoulders any time I tried playing it.
Last night, I was sitting on the couch and in a fit of Gear Acquisition Syndrome my mind wandered to thinking about that bass. I have been thinking for years about trading it in on something else, but I always hesitate because it sounds so good and looks so cool. How could I make it comfortable to play? Then, I had a thought. What if I just moved the strap button somewhere else, like the neck plate? So, I did.
I had to enlarge the strap button hole slightly to accept the screw, but it's on there. And that fixed the whole bass! No more neck dive and it now has a much more comfortable playing position. Why didn't I do this 6 years ago?
Another thing: I cannot stand that "Goth" logo. Always gives me cringey vibes; glad my Epi Explorer Goth doesn't have this logo anywhere. So I dove into my sticker stash and snagged this:
It's better, but I might replace it with a different Screaming Chicken later on that matches the theme of this metal machine. I'm just happy for now to finally have this thing comfortable enough to play that I can use it for more than a couple minutes!
My birthday present guitar arrived! Sawtooth ES Series Player's Pack with 25W amp. I'm hooked after one lesson!
In reply to Javelin (Forum Supporter) :
Nice!
Finally got around to swapping the switch on my Explorer.
While it works better than the old switch and does switch things, it did not solve the low output problem I'm having. The volume pots seem like they only start producing volume when the knob is almost maxed, and the tone pot barely does anything at all. Looking at the pots, no one has messed with them. I can't tell if all three pots are bad, the pickups are bad, or all of the above. I guess I have an excuse to try out some new pickups.
In reply to Tony Sestito :
Wiring issues can be frustrating. I finally got around to wiring up my Tele partscaster. Printed out the diagram from the Seymore Duncan website (they are Duncan Tele stacked pick-ups), bought new pots from Stewmac. Soldered everything up. Plugged it in. Nothing. WTF... So now the head scratching begins. It's a Tele, so not all that complex - two pickups (no splitting or anything funky), one switch, V pot, T pot, output jack.
In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :
The next step before I buy anything else is to make sure all my grounds are good. I've read that if something is grounding out that shouldn't be, it could cause low output.
That said, I'm probably going to be replacing these pickups anyway. I'm eyeing up some cheap Ebay pickups that are basically the same as the GFS ones that everyone loves. I'm still split on whether I want to go with Alnico V or some high output ceramics. This will primarily be playing heavy stuff.
I tried to sell it and no one wanted it bad enough so yesterday I pulled it out and set it up in my office, maybe now I will try to learn to play it?
In reply to Tony Sestito :
Which ones? Artec? I tried one of their rail HBs and its not bad at all.
I usually like hot PAF sorts of pickups, GFS has the VEH which I really like, concussive palm mutes too. I use ported cabs always so YMMV there but they are probably my favorite pickup
In reply to Antihero (Forum Supporter) :
Yeah, mostly Artec ones.I've also considered some of those "Invader-style" pickups that I keep seeing.
Those look cool and might work well for my needs.
In reply to Tony Sestito :
The Duncan designed Invaders are actually pretty cool and cheap.
I'm not a huge invader fan because they always sound brick walled thru my stuff but the Duncan designed is just a little less hot and better imo
In reply to Antihero (Forum Supporter) :
I used to have a Washburn V that I had swapped in those DD invaders and a bigsby trem. It was strangely amazing.
I miss that fiddle. Pawn shop impulse buy, and subject to all the modifications.
In reply to barefootskater (Shaun) :
That's pretty cool!
In reply to Tony Sestito :
I did a quick test to first bypass the switch and go straight from the pick-up lead to the output jack - works. Then did a second test from the switch output to the jack lead - also works. So it looks like something is wrong with the Vol pot. When I roll the pot up, a hiss comes out, but no pickup signal. I do have another old 250K pot, so I guess the next step will be to swap that in.
In other guitar-related news, I dug out my Ampeg combo amp to do these tests, but it looks like the input transformer is dead. So now I get to figure out how/where to order a new one. Fortunately, it doesn't look too difficult to replace assuming I can find a replacement transformer, which is proving to be difficult...
In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :
What amp is it?
In reply to Antihero (Forum Supporter) :
Ampeg J12R Jet II from the 90's. Neat little amp with a cool sound. Low power, so you can crank it for awesome "Neil Young" like sounds without blowing your eardrums out. But from the research I've been doing so far, they were not the most reliable amps ever built.
I removed the jack plate looking for weird grounding issues (stuff hitting the body, wires touching, etc) but it was all good (see below, it was not). I mean, what are the chances of all three pots being weak? They feel fine and have no crackling going on, and I've never had one fail without physically falling apart. The pots are decent quality full-size ones too.
EDIT: I FIXED IT! FOR FREE!!!
After reading an excellent article on Seymour Duncan's website, I ran out to the garage and grabbed the multimeter. I first checked for ground. Had ground out the jack, so that was good. Then I checked for pickup output, and I was only getting 1.5k out of each one cranked. Not good. So the next step was to check what the pots were doing. That's when I found this:
That bottom-most pole on the pot was touching the body. I re-adjusted the pot to center it, and BAM! Full output! Bridge pickup outputs 14.5k and the neck does 8.5k. And the volume and tone pots actually do what they are supposed to do! All this guitar needs is some fret polishing and a little more setup and it will be a shredder! It does sound pretty good as-is now, so I'll shelf the pickup replacement for a while, but that 1st fret buzz needs to be fixed.
You'll need to log in to post.
