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TB Guitar Thread....No Basis Here...

S

Stumbo

Guest
Feb 11, 2008
23,453
29,523
#1
Some want one. Use this thread to post your rants,raves and ropinions(Scooby doo talk...).

Good luck.

I have a modded(some say effed up) '83 LP Studio(kahler trem, dimarzios,locking nut,coil taps). I bought it like this. It can get some great tone but needs the switching reworked,some shielding,and a fret job. Probably some other stuff. The middle stacked humbucker will be removed as well. Good action.

Note: all the fretboard note lettering has been removed. :eek: I may have JohnK_10 take a look at it.

It gets played through a tube Alamo Fury: 30 watts, 1x15 combo and old/mint TubeWorks distortion pedal. Or through a Sunn 2000s (w/master volume) into an Ampeg 4x12 half-stack (new Celestian 75's). Mostly I play it unplugged around the house.

I also have a '65 Fender 6 string Acoustic that I've beat on regularly for a few decades. Mostly experimenting with chord progressions and attempting to write some tunes.

Listening to a lot of blues/jazz guitarists. Joe Pass, all the Kings and anyone else that shows up on Pandora or Sonic. I bought "Chords/Progressions" Grimoeire(sp) and a couple of other books/cds. Lots of interesting things to learn.
 

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#2
I play my strat much more than my basses while I'm at home. The guitar stays at home, though. It's too hard to find people who play bass, and I'm a mediocre guitarist at best. My band is better off with me on bass anyway.

'06 American Stratocaster through a Super Champ XD. This amp sounds great. Unfortunately, too loud for my apartment and too quiet for use with a drummer. What's the point? I'm thinking about the Vox AC4TV. Switchable from 4 watts to 1/2 watt!
 
#5
Good times!

It blows my mind that multi-instrumentalism is frowned upon by way of ill founded "jack-of-all" type arguements.

Regardless, I play a 2009 Fender MIM Roadhouse Strat in sunburst with a Laney GH50L + GS 4x12 setup. I am planning on hardtailing my strat OR biting the bullet and buying a nice Tele.

In terms of bass I now play a sunburst Fender Geddy Lee Jazz - I'm a single coil kinda guy it seems!
 
#7
Here's my Heritage with a Roland synth pickup, sitting in front of my fairly rare early 80's Fender 30 tube amp. This amp was Fender's first tube 2 channel switcher, and naturally I've modded it a bit. The clean channel sounds very similar to a blackface Vibrolux Reverb, which I A/B'ed it with extensively while I was doing the mods. The lead channel is more or less Rivera/Soldano/Boogie-esque, but with a few of my own twists. Good times...:bassist:

I run a rack sampler with the GR-09 guitar synth on Passing Wind gigs, and at the last one I used my Thunderchild cab and the aux channel of my DIY bass preamp to run the synth through on stage. That cab kills as a stage monitor.

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#8
Passinwind said:
Here's my Heritage with a Roland synth pickup, sitting in front of my fairly rare early 80's Fender 30 tube amp. This amp was Fender's first tube 2 channel switcher, and naturally I've modded it a bit. The clean channel sounds very similar to a blackface Vibrolux Reverb, which I A/B'ed it with extensively while I was doing the mods. The lead channel is more or less Rivera/Soldano/Boogie-esque, but with a few of my own twists. Good times...:bassist:

I run a rack sampler with the GR-09 guitar synth on Passing Wind gigs, and at the last one I used my Thunderchild cab and the aux channel of my DIY bass preamp to run the synth through on stage. That cab kills as a stage monitor.

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Nice rig. Must sound great!
 
#10
OK, I'm in! If for some reason I could only have one musical instrument, it'd be a good acoustic guitar. My guitar stuff includes...

A. Guild A50, a small rosewood bodied flat-top similar to a Martin 000 body. Ebony fingerboard and bridge, with a nice wide fingerboard. It's a wonderful finger-picking guitar and very cool for the few hip "jazz chords" I actually know how to use. Mine was made just before FMIC bought Guild (which happened way back in November 1995) and is the third A50 they made.

B. Guild F47CE Big Guild body laminated mahogany with solid spruce top. I got it because I needed a good acoustic to play in a loud band, but it turned out to be one of my favorite acoustic guitars of all. Nice rich sound without being boomy. Love it!

C. Guild Starfire 4- Guild's version of the ES-335, except in my experience the SF4 are more consistently great and Guild has THE most stable wooden guitar necks I've ever seen. I wanted a guitar like this since I was 14 and saw the picture of Eric Clapton jammng with Steve Winwood using a 335. Add in B. B. King, Alvin Lee, Buddy Guy, Lary Carlton, Elvin Bishop, Robben Ford (with the LA Express), and I was hooked on a semi hollow double cutaway electric thinline. And when I was 46 I was in a position to take advantage of a great deal on a new one from the Fender/Guild sales rep's samples. LOVE IT

D. Fender Strat- MIM Classic Series '60s Strat. It's Burgundy Mist with a slab rosewood board, vintage style trem and tuners, and has that wonderful ringing sound a Strat needs to have. I played it at the store while testing out an amp, and wound up buying the guitar instead of the amp. I had to replace the trem block with a stainless steel one after the trem arm threads stripped in two of the zinc blocks. And I put a matched set of Duncan Alnico II Pro pickups because they perfectly translated the natural sound of that guitar.

I play the electrics through a simple pedal board with a Vox wha > Boss CS-3 compressor > Reverend Drivetrain OD > MXR Carbon Copy analog delay > Ernie Ball volume pedal. The tuner out goes to a Boss TU02, and the volume pedal out goes to either a Fender Blues Jr (12 watts, 1 12" speaker) or a Peavey Delta Blues 210 (30 watts, 2 10" speakers). The acoustic goes through an Ernie Ball volume pedal to a Peavey Ecoustic 112.

I also still have my Yahama FG-160 I got in 1973. It was my only guitar for a long time (even though I managed a guitar store), and my only acoustic until I bought the A-50 in December 1995. I gave it to my niece years ago, but my brother just told me he still has it at his house and asked if I wanted it back.

I also used to have Frankenstein Fender Jazzmaster. The body, bridge, trem assembly, pickguard, and pickups were from a '66. It had no neck, the body was stripped and primed, and the whole thing was literally in a basket when I got it. I got a Mighty Mite Strat-style neck the week the lawsuit over Fender's headstock was settled (for $15 or so as MM was flushing out all their Strat style necks), and put it together. I played it for about ten years with just the primer over the alder. Eventually a friend of mine refinished it. We painted it gold like a Gibson Les Paul Goldtop, which looked great with the original tortiseshell guard. It had no collector value by then and even though I really liked the guitar, I was offered a trade even up for a '65 Twin Reverb reissue from a local surf band. Shoulda kept the guitar because it looked cool, and the Twin was too loud and clean for anything I ever played...

John
 
#12
I read the title as saying "No Bassists Here" and thought to myself, "Heh, that's gonna be a busy thread!"

Yes. I'm a dumbass.



Anyways, I do play guitar a little, this being my axe.

P180411_1420.jpg


I have two others in storage, but this is the one I play, a cheap as chips UK brand called Richwood, but sounds and feels like a million bucks, and looks pretty tasty to me. I can't imagine me needing any other guitar(in stark contrast to my pretty large bass collection), unless I want something with a trem.

For a rig, I'm using my bass's setup. A Genz Benz Streamliner 600, and TC Electronic 1x12 cab. Sounds surprisingly good, though sometimes I drop a dirtbox and delay in front of it.
 
#13
JTE said:
OK, I'm in! If for some reason I could only have one musical instrument, it'd be a good acoustic guitar. John
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Agreed. Though it would be very very hard to put down the bass.

No pics here at work but I have a Yamaha CG131 classical guitar. To me a nylon string guitar played fingerstyle is the epitome of gorgeous sounds, though my playing has a long way to go before it even gets to passable. When it does I'd love to get something like an Hernandez.

It blows my mind that multi-instrumentalism is frowned upon by way of ill founded "jack-of-all" type arguements
Click to expand...

Me too. Especially since one of the most revered bassists around here, John Paul Jones, is a multi-instrumentalist (including guitar).

I was telling my wife last night that I'd love to also learn to play mandolin and cello and really learn to play piano, instead of hacking it as I do now. Already spend an hour a day on bass and another on guitar. There aren't enough hours in the day...........
 
#14
I'm not sure there is such a thing as a great bass player who doesn't also play some other instrument, even if it's just "arranger's piano".

Bass came first, but I'm as much of a guitarist at this point.

I mostly play older Guilds (T-100 or Starfire III, from '60-'66), a Premier Bantam from around '60, and a more recent Rickenbacker 330. Sometimes a Kustom K200 or a modified Magnatone or a Danelectro. I have another Premier being restored right now which I hope will get a lot of use. It is a solidbody with a carved scroll and a one piece brazilian rosewood neck (!) and two Fransch pickups.

I like vintage amps, especially old JMI Vox amps and older Ampegs with 6V6 or 6L6 power tubes. I use a '65 Bassman for most of my guitar gigs, with the positive feedback network removed for a more open sound and a changed cap on the bass knob for less low end in the right channel.

I've been feeling the need for a couple more acoustic guitars, one larger flat top and an archtop. I have a couple in mind, but it would take about a year or a little more to afford both of them.
 
#15
I came to bass after first learning organ (not piano!), acoustic guitar, and tenor sax. Although I work/gig mainly as a bassist, I normally play guitar at home and write almost all my songs on guitar, even basslines.

My main axe is a Gretsch Electromatic with a Bigsby - I can't get used to playing electric with the tremolo now that I have it!

I also have a 70s Ibanez doubleneck 6/12 SG that i got in high school ... crazy guitar but it's not much use to me these days.

Ampwise I've been using a Vox Valvetronix 212, and I have a nice Korean knockoff of a Peavey classic 30 combo - both great amps for my purposes!
 
#16
Pictures...

2619658550_a9dbb54de3.jpg

The Guilds, left to right it's the F47CE, the Starfire 4, and A50. Bass content is the Pilot (on loan to my niece), and the Ashbory in front.

2619658572_2250578f80.jpg

The only photo I have of the Strat, along with her more sophisticated sisters, the Sting, the VS '62 Precision, and the "What Used To Be A Jazz Bass Special Fretless"

John
 
#17
I have a well worn Acoustic an 80's Epiphone that you could remove the neck from its MIJ and a big Texan copy I think. It has super low action and great low end and I paid 100.00 for it used. Its my go to guitar and I wouldnt sell it for the world. I can play so much better on it they way its set up, much better than Martins ,taylors costing thousands more. To me, it sounds almost as good.
 
#18
I learned on and played acoustic guitar for a few years befor picking up bass. I still have the $60 completly beat up squier I started on (take camping, to the beach, ect) and I bought a slightly more expensive one, Parkwood, around $400. I also picked up an Ibanez 12string acoustic from a place that was closing for around $100, it doesnt get much use though. No electrics for me yet, Plan on picking up a white epi les paul standrd and swaping some SD jazz pickups in it.
 

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