Let's see your guitar and bass gear!

I need to build some sort of case storage. I'm moving from a house where I rent a pretty huge bedroom with room to store all of my guitars, to my fiance's house where we have 1 small bedroom, a small living room, and a small dining room. There is literally no room for them in the bedroom or living room, so they'll have to go in the dining room. I could just lean all the cases against the wall, but I'd rather have a moveable rack for all of them. Something like the above, but with room for 6-8 acoustic cases.

I really should get one of those.

Oh, and I've been wanting to get a 80's-style shredder guitar, until I realized I already have one. I have a 1990's Korean Jackson Performer PS4, but it's seen better days. It needs a new volume pot, one of the Floyd Rose saddle screws replaced, and a set of new tuners. Oh,and the pickups are garbage.

I've been thinking of rehabbing it lately, and I busted it out a few nights ago. I'm not sure how far I want to go with it, but it needs a real going-through to be a nice, reliable instrument. If I get something else, I may hand it down to my nephew who I rehabbed that Squier HSS Strat for (who is a little shredmaster BTW ).

In reply to SilverFleet:

Not sure where you are, but I'll probably unload the Japanese Charvel I bought (go back a few pages for a pic) at some point. I like it well enough, but I still play my Strat more and I'm planning to get a Super-V locking bridge for it, which would negate why I bought the Charvel. And eventually I'll finish rebuilding my ESP Horizon, which also has a Floyd.

Case storage is definitely an issue. Right now I have three stacked on top of some book shelves I recently installed.

1989 Korean vintage Gibson/Epiphone Les Paul and Crate amp donated to me by a friend in return for cage building prowess and race car setup.

I haven't touched a guitar since I was 12 (34yrs ago!?) but I used to be able to sight read music and have always regretted not following thru with learning how to play anything beyond the theme from Bonanza.

Anybody got advice on where to begin? Right now I'm just practicing basic chords to build calluses and make sweet distortion noises by twanging on the low E and working the pedal

In reply to Giant Purple Snorklewacker:

That is a nice Les Paul! I have a 1993-vintage Korean Epiphone(Samick-built) Les Paul Standard. They are pretty nice guitars with good build quality. I've had mine for about 14 years, and it has been a good, reliable guitar.

I would keep practicing what you know and maybe look at a few Youtube videos for some tips. I am mostly self taught, and I just listened to Classic Rock and Classic Metal songs and tried to figure out what they do on record.

Learn the pentatonic scale and go nuts.

In reply to Ian F:

I think I'll stick to the Jackson I have now, mainly because rehabbing it will be cheaper, sorta fun to do, and I like the 3-pickup setup, although they do need to be upgraded.

BTW, there's a really cool music store I stumbled upon a few weeks back called Music Go Round. It mainly deals in used gear, and they are in no shortage of awesome 1980's and 1990's pointy metal guitars. The one I went in had all sorts of vintage Kramers, Jacksons, Charvels, and Ibanez guitars from the age of big hair and double locking tremolos. Great prices, too. it took a lot of will power (and my wife) not to walk outta there with something new.

In reply to SilverFleet:

No worries. Just throwing it out there. I don't really want to sell it, but my lack of space may force the issue.

I know what you mean about finding a new store. That's sort of how I ended up with the Charvel. A combination of perceived 'need' and newly 'flush' feeling (I had written a check paying off my mortgage 30 min prior) made me vulnerable.

FWIW, Music Go Round is a chain. We have them in Chicagoland (or at least one). I've had good luck there when looking for a good "beater acoustic" (your typical Asian made Yamaha or Takamine laminate that plays good, sounds ok, and only costs $75-$150)

In reply to mtn:

Yeah, I know they are a chain, but they have that independent shop vibe, kinda like the old Daddy's Junky Music stores here in the Northeast that are sadly defunct. One cool thing they did was they had used amp cables for $2 each, no matter the length. I picked up a 25' cord that works fine.

Random question: On that Jackson I have, someone replaced one of the saddle screws (the ones that hold the strings in on the bridge) with this stupidly long screw that hits the body, so you can't dive bomb with it. Anyone know where I could get a replacement? It has the Jackson JT500 Floyd-Rose licensed bridge. It's also missing its tremolo arm as well.

SilverFleet wrote: In reply to mtn: Yeah, I know they are a chain, but they have that independent shop vibe, kinda like the old Daddy's Junky Music stores here in the Northeast that are sadly defunct. One cool thing they did was they had used amp cables for $2 each, no matter the length. I picked up a 25' cord that works fine. Random question: On that Jackson I have, someone replaced one of the saddle screws (the ones that hold the strings in on the bridge) with this stupidly long screw that hits the body, so you can't dive bomb with it. Anyone know where I could get a replacement? It has the Jackson JT500 Floyd-Rose licensed bridge. It's also missing its tremolo arm as well.

I'd go into my luthier and say "I have this screw that is too long. Lets find one that fits", and he would find one and put it in for me. My guy wouldn't charge for that since I bring enough work his way.

2008 Schecter Banshee. I like the sound, but don't spend enough time with it.

^Looks pretty neat. How does it sound with just that lipstick coil on the neck?

In reply to SilverFleet:

I found an arm for my Charvel at Guitar Center. It was a bit too big, but after a bit of emery cloth to sand off the anodizing it fits ok. IIRC, it's a standard Floyd replacement arm.

In reply to Ian F:

Good to know! I'll have to stop by there and snag one. The one I bought there for my nephew's Strat stripped out his bridge, so I'll be careful.

In reply to SilverFleet:

Huh? Floyd arms don't screw into the bridge. They slide in and there's this sort of compression fitting you tighten down to adjust how much free swing there is in the arm.

Speaking of tremolo arms, when I had my Strat in the shop, the tech said "oh yeah... I replaced the arm spring that was missing..." The what? Arm spring? "Yeah. It goes into the hole before you thread the bar in. It puts tension on the threads so the bar doesn't swing too freely." Well I'll be damned... swing the bar into position... and it stays there... Nice. I've had that guitar for 20 years and never knew that about Strats.

I went on a tube amp binge: 1952 Magnatone Melodier

Very basic insides - getting new caps

This monster arrived yesterday: 1978 Fender Twin Reverb

New caps and a reverb squeal

Canoe alert!

Anyone looking for an acoustic 12 string? My price is flexible:
http://chicago.craigslist.org/nch/msg/4426556679.html

In reply to Apis_Mellifera:

Do guitar amps care if they have matched tubes? Because your quad of 6L6 don't look like they match...

The tubes are just there to light up the inside of the cabinet so you can find your picks and chord encyclopedia. That's how tube amps work.

I bought it Wednesday afternoon on eBay and it was on my door step (somehow) Thursday. I may do the half-power mod so those two oddball 6L6s might not be necessary... despite being coveted "Ruby" brand tubes all the way from China.

In reply to crankwalk:

surprisingly good. can be a littly twangy, but makes it good for sort of a retro sound

Nifty Magnatone? Does it have the awesome magna tone tremolo?

And I'm guessing you were joking above... a Twin Reverb does want matched pairs. Pretty sure.

With only a single speaker it wont have the Magnatone "true Vibrato" It modulated them from right to left.

I had a 260a and a 280a Magnatone back in the early 90's. LOVED the things but never really used the vibrato feature. It was cool but as an aggressive "fist picker" type player it was pretty useless.

With the 280a the factory speakers couldn't cope with the stock output of the amp. I blew all of them over the course of a month.

The dirty secret is that almost all vintage amps of that era had speakers that would blow if you looked at 'em funny. At least they're not the goofball 6x10 Rolas they put in the Gretsch (valco) amps.

Sneak peek of what I've got coming....