mcnach

I like it, but not £2500-like it

Uli!!!! I love that guy!!! I only saw him live once... he was fantastic.

Nice, a Gordon Smith! I had a couple, the first being a simple but wonderful GS-1(single humbucker, double cutaway). I found it used in a guitar shop in 1993 in Cambridge. I was after a Squier Strat at the time and I walked into this shop... they had no Squiers. They showed me a bunch of Peavey stratocaster style guitars. I didn't love any of them. Then the guy said "you know, I know you said your budget is £200, but there's this guitar here which is much better than any of those you tried..." and he fetches a guitar I had noticed as soon as I walked in. It was a 1986 model and they wanted £225. I walked out of there with the guitar and a hard case. What a great guitar that was. I then bought a Graduate 60 in 2001. I sold both in 2008. The GS-1 was such a great guitar...

whoa! I had never seen one of those. I can't decide whether I like it or not... it's attractive, for paisley (not a fan typically, as you've gathered). I think I like it! Am I ill? In my case, I forgot to mention... not only I wanted a Stratocaster with a proper humbucker at the bridge (it's a DiMarzio H8 on mine, which seems to be some kind of model made specifically for Fender but based on the PAF Pro) and a Floyd Rose... but I had a thing for white/cream strats too. I blame Ritchie Blackmore for that. So when I found a white Sambora model in Rose Morris in London (pre-internet days, I had to phone many shops) I went there to try it (I was in Reading at the time). They had the one I got and a black one. The black one had a nicer setup but I had wanted a cream strat for ages so... that's what I got. I struggled a bit to set it up just right (the joy of floating bridges eh?) but it was a good one. They also had a USA cherry sunburst that was very nice, but not being a fan of sunbursts or the stars as fingerboard inlays... meant I saved a lot of money. ESpecially because I don't think my girlfriend would have bought me the USA one, but when she saw the price of the MIM one I got, she said "that's ok, I'll get this for you"

If they cease trading, I see a few of them becoming housing at least here in Edinburgh. It's a trend that has been going on for a few years. Once a venue goes, you don't get another in its place elsewhere. This can potentially change a lot the whole live music scene.

Well spotted, it is indeed. The Mexican version, got it new in August/September 1996. I liked the maple fingerboard on the USA more, but not the star shaped fingerboard markers. Not that I was a fan of Sambora (I don't dislike him, but I'm not a fan either). I just wanted a Stratocaster with a humbucker on the bridge position and a Floyd Rose. In the mid 90s, when guitar magazines were full of guitarists claiming not to know anything about guitar and shredding was out of fashion, it was not easy to find a guitar like that unless you went with Ibanez... and I did want a Stratocaster, HSS. So I got this. Well, my girlfriend at the time bought it for me. I modified the wiring so that the middle pickup tone control is now for the bridge pickup instead, and replaced the switch because I never used the middle pickup alone, so I get neck, neck+middle, neck+one coil of bridge, middle+one coil of bridge, full humbucker. That way I get the classic positions 2 and 4 strat sounds, plus other interesting ones. I ended up buying an Ibanez RG548 too, years later. It's essentially an RG550 but with natural finish, and with the same slightly disappointing V7/V1/V8 pickups, but it was a joy to play. Unfortunately, when I had to downsize I decided to keep only two guitars and a bass, and the RG548 went, because I just love the Strat too much. edit: I'm using it to play reggae/ska with it at the moment... not what you expect to find for this style

ok ok... here's the strat

As far as my bands are concerned, we're hoping we'll still get some gigs this year, but we're focusing more on building up new material for next year. We are busiest with festivals etc, and this Spring/Summer is a complete write-off.

+1 I suspect that most music venues and pubs will take a bit longer to get back in business, and because it's never going to be 100% safe (the virus will still be out there in the population) I imagine a certain % of the population might be reluctant to get back into crowded places anytime soon.

I'm down to just two guitars now. A Stratocaster with a fat humbucker at the bridge and Floyd Rose that I've owned since 1996 from new, and a cheap but lovely SX Les Paul style with P90 pickups. I should have kept the Telecaster... I had a Japanese E-series Squier that was covered in dings but played and sounded fantastic. I sold it in 2008 together with most of my equipment when I needed to downsize quickly (I was going to move to Canada, but then didn't). I regretted it ever since. I still want a Tele but I haven't yet found one that appeals enough at the right price (I don't play guitar as much these days, and when I do it's the strat, so I don't want to spend 1K on a Tele now).

I have the Squier one, but I am not sure if they're any different in dimensions to the Fender one.

I suspect most people will recommend what they use... and I'm no different I play mostly ska/reggae/funk. The combination I've been most happy with is my current Mesa D800+ plus a couple of Barefaced Two10 cabs. The combination of voice/HPF/bass control on the D800+ is a veritable reggae secret weapon that works very well with those speakers. But I've also been very happy playing with a Trace Elliot 210 combo + 115 extension... however that was muuuuch heavier.

Of those, Hi Beams will be the stiffest. edit: if you like halfrounds, maybe try Ernie Ball Cobalt Flats? They're stiff, smooth (of course), but a lot brighter than any other flats (and indeed halfrounds, in my experience). They're more like mellow roundwounds, in sound. It sounds like you'd like their sound and feel.

This. Find a way to ground the polepieces and you'll be ok. If that is complicated (magnets being in the way, or epoxy or whatever), a little clear nail varnish on the polepieces will fix that too, but I'd try grounding them in the first place.

Yesterday I discovered this band from Barcelona, much in the same vein of the New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble...

I've been using a Line6 G30 since 2009... can't fault it.

20 Hz??? And I thought 40 Hz was already a little too low 😲 It seems a really odd choice, considering most if not all cabs out there roll off the lows quite a bit higher than that. I'd definitely want an HPF with that.

For anyone who missed out on the sale, I think the blue SC-02 at £26 is still a steal. I paid a little more than that a while ago and I don't regret it. To be fair, I don't think I have ever used the additional functions over the red SC-01, but I'm glad I have them, just in case.

Hmmm, not sure about that rule. I avoid open strings in general unless I specifically want their sound (open strings sound different) or it's integral to the feel, like on Slither by Velvet Revolver, for example. Playing a note on the 5th fret, you have two ways to mute it, and they all sound slightly different. You only have one way with an open string. Use each position of any given note depending on the context. Open strings have their uses, but so do their equivalent on the 5th fret of the previous string.

Of course it isn't. But let's not get facts get in the way of a good rant

Ha! I hadn't noticed that! 😍 I *love* it!!!!

I think the protocol is not interfering *publicly*. It's not your business. But feel free to contact the person if you feel they've been misled about the value of their item. However, it is THEIR item and can price it however they feel like it. Contributing to their thread just to say it's overpriced is tacky.

Nice! Red baron?

We tried JamKazam but we're all using WiFi and found that it's not good enough. We can't all switch to cabled connection right now, so that's it.

The Seymour Duncan one is not really a clone, and it is substantially different. Not bad, just different. I didn't love it when I had one on an OLP. I have no experience with the Aguilar one. John East also makes one based on his own '76 Stingray which is very nice and comes as a 2-band, or 3-band (not the Stingray 3-band, but the 2-band *plus* a semiparametric mids module), which are very nice.