guitarcapo

I had a 1990 Gretsch White Falcon I bought new that played nice but sounded like crap. It was one of the thinner ones with a double cutaway. Anyway back in those days there was no TV Jones so I sold it. I got a good price for it (the same $2400 I paid for it 8 years earlier) but now I just wish I hung onto it and replaced the pickups. Anyway I might buy one again if I can find that same model used and less than 2 grand.

I usually remove them and install a basic 3 prong grounded cap. Whatever reduction in hum you are going to hear is eliminated that way anyway. They weren't installed to eliminate hum...they were installed for safety reasons. The reverse polarity switch was invented to reduce hum. The death cap was installed to provide safety for reversed polarity situations before grounded electrical huose wiring became common.

The reason for giving something a name is so that it will come to you when you call it. That's why you should bother naming fish in a fish tank, plants, objects etc......

They seem to have 3-on-a-plate tuners: Stewmac golden age tuners?????????? They aren't exactly the same but maybe the post spacings and screw locations match up..the fellow on this link says they match perfectly: http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=145311 http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tuners/Guitar,_solid_peghead_tuners/Golden_Age_Restoration_Tuners_for_Solid_Peghead_Guitar/Golden_Age_Restoration_Tuners_for_Solid_Peghead_Guitar_with_Square-end_Baseplates.html

Usually I only value old instruments when they have features that you can't find in new instruments. For example take this "budget' Harmony acoustic, the 1260 model: These were made in the late 50's, 60's and early 70's. They would be impossible to make today. The neck is solid one piece Hondran mahogany. The back and sides are solid Honduran mahogany. (by "solid" I mean the back is a single 16" wide slab of quartersawn wood unlike Martins and Gibsons. The top and all bracing is solid split billet red spruce. The fingerboard and bridge are Brazilian rosewood The finish is shellac spirit varnish The glue used is hide glue. Built in America. Adjustable truss rod (don't laugh, Martins didn't have one until the 1980's) This was the acoustic that the baby boomer generation grew up on. It's acoustic guitar that Jimmy Page used to play the most famous acoustic guitar piece in the history of rock and roll: the intro to Stairway to Heaven. Lots of famous rock stars learned their first chords on a Harmony Sovereign on both sides of the Atlantic. What a newly manufactured would one cost to buy today that is perfectly accurate? Probably over 2 grand retail I would imagine. They sell all day long for around $500 on the internet. Less if they need work done. My point is that THAT is the definition of a "VINTAGE" guitar. Something you seek out because they don't make them like they used to. Some plywood Japanese guitar? Get out of here with that crap.

Another observation: All guitars will change in sound and have a "peak" where they sound their best. Sometimes this "peak" can be just a year after the guitar is built...sometimes decades depending on how heavily it's braced. A guitar that's heavily braced will just take longer before it sounds good. Also some guitars will start to sound bad after they have peaked. This can take decades and might be rectified by new bracing...but an old acoustic past it's prime can sound bad if the top gets played out without a luthier maintaining it.

Reward $ is kinda low. I bet he spends that on room service. I clicked on "like"

Zappa should be in the top 10. I think it's cool Ry Cooder made it. I'd have Keith Richards and Chuck Berry somewhere in the 20's at best. Robert Johnson only made one album. You don't make the top 10 of all time playing for 40 minutes. Sorry. Some of these guys are songwriters who just happen to play guitar....yea I'm talking about YOU, Cobain. If you get to be #12 then Bob Dylan gets to be #7 or something because he plays better than you and also writes better songs.

He'd have a career similar to Santana or Jeff Beck etc.....a great guitar player but just another great player.

Lately I've been going nuts over Magnatone amps. So easy to get a good sound without fighting it.

Probably worth 2 grand at least because it's Brazilian rosewood.

Other than changing the strings or bridge material I don't have much to advise that would have an effect. One thing I do know. A guitar can sound a LOT different to the player than it does to someone standing 10 feet in front of him. Try it sometime. Play a guitar and then have someone play it FOR you while you stand 10 feet away. Things like the overwhelming bass that you hate when playing the guitar yourself might sound perfectly balanced to the listener. Another angle is that guitar that sounds fantastic live might be an absolute bitch to record...while a dead sounding plywood guitar sounds very balanced and refined into the mic. Really resonant expensive hand-made acoustics might feedback like crazy once you put a pickup in them and try and use them on stage...while again, a dead department store Harmony plywood box becomes the perfect tool converted to electric/acoustic for stage work. Bottom line: Every guitar will have strengths and weaknesses, it's up to you to find them and exploit them.

What I meant is that it had the "flecks" that you see in Lacewood...but it was more orage in color and the flecks were a lot larger.

There are some exotics out there that are gorgeous for sure. Snakewood is one, but it's hard to find big pieces. I have a back and side set of "mysterywood" that looks kind of like lacewood. It came from South America and I can't figure out what species it is. I really need to take pics. Maybe someone here knows.

In my opinion koa varies a HUGE amount compared to other species of woods. Not just in figure...but in density and tap tone. It can be really porous a soft, more like mahogany....and the color is all over the place. I would even postulate that the working and tonal properties between Brazilian and Indian rosewood are smaller than the entire spectrum of how koa presents itself. A few years ago, really figured koa sets were actually rarer than Brazilian rosewood back and side sets. I've always been of the impression that the back and sides really don't contribute much to tone anyway....But very figured koa has GOT to be the most beautiful wood on earth. I usually lump koa in with mahogany in working properties and deal with it more in terms of looks than anythng else

An all-koa HSS Carvin strat. I would probably have lots of wiring options going on for lots of different sounds. Maybe a Duncan Hot Rails as the middle pickup which could be split, as well as the humbucker. Four mini-toggles...One for each pickup and maybe one the reverse the phase of the neck single coil for instance.

Buy local junk at "estate sales" Sell the stuff on Ebay. More profit less work. Another nice approach is to buy weird obscure vintage guitars (like 60's Japanese stuff) ...and sell the parts.

I don't have any tattoos. If any of my 3 kids plan on getting one, they better count on marrying someone rich. There's a clause in my will that states that after I die, all three of them have to have an examination by two independent dermatologists who have to certify them tattoo free. Any heirs determined to have a tattoo(s) will be written out of the will and the money gets split by those who don't. If all 3 have tattoos, the money is placed into a trust for their children if they ever have any, to which the same rules apply. It's an amount in the low 7 figures so a bit of a motivator.

I'd hand him a strat doused in lighter fluid and a zippo... and ask him to torch it....because quite frankly I'd love to own a million dollar guitar.

I heard his apology at a concert and I assumed from that that what he said in the interview was a lot worse. I think this is all just media manipulation to get his name back in the headlines. Music is a really difficult way to make a living as a superstar these days...it isn't any easier when you don't have a hit record. He's just trying to get press. I mean during that concert apology I heard him actually crying.

I like a guitar with dual humbucker's sound...but I don't think I could live with it being my only guitar. I'd need something with single coils in it for sure. A Les Paul sound can be too thick and get lost in the mix playing with other instruments in a band setting sometimes. I'd need a telecaster or strat to cut through the mix. A Les Paul does have a nice sound in my opinion...just not EVERY sound.

Here's the closest I ever came to stealing a guitar: I was selling a Ludwig drum set with Zildjian cymbals that was used only about a month (I bought it for my son who changed his mind) I bought the set new for $600 and was selling it for $400. A friend of a friend of a friend says he wants to buy the drums but has no money. He wants to take the drums immediately and leaves a 1992 Les Paul Standard as "collateral" and says he will be by in a month or so to pay for the guitar. In the meantime the guitar needed setup and intonation (and I work on guitars) so I said I'd do it for him. The guitar was definitely worth well over $400 even though it had some nicks, dents, scratches...so I thought it was cool. In the meantime I had a cool Les Paul to play. Anyway...about 6 months go by and the guy says he wants to return the drums he's been gigging with and just get his guitar back. I tell him that it wasn't a "rental deal" and that after his playing the drums for 6 months I don't want them back. He can have the guitar for the agreed $400 He's a bit upset but agrees to come up with the money. This goes on for the next THREE YEARS. Every few months he calls me asking if I still have "his guitar" and making promises that he will pay me in the next few weeks. Then I don't hear from him again for several months. I finally came to the conclusion that he was a drug addict who never could scrape together the $400 without buying drugs. Anyway after one of his phone calls I finally put my foot down and said that he had I month to pay me the $400. If he didn't pay me I was going to sell it on Ebay. I really didn't want the guitar. The guy agrees...and of course the month goes by without hearing from him. I sell the LP on Ebay for $1,400. The guy calls again a few months later freaking out. "Dude...DO NOT tell me you sold my guitar!" At which point I told him to {censored} off. If he wanted to deal with this any more he could see me in small claims court. That was about 5 years ago and I never heard from him again. I had worried that possibly the guitar was stolen to begin with but the "friend of a friend" met up with me in a bar and told me that he had a rich old lady as a girlfriend who bought it for him as a present...which is hilarious because he told me it was a present from his "grandma" Some people might say the honorable thing to do would be to take my $400 and give the guy the rest of the money. Some people say I should have taken a little extra for my trouble..... But {censored} that. Like I said: I stole that guitar.

How about that reverse V piece of {censored} Gibson just came out with?

I can't believe no one has jumped on THIS

I sold all my Gibsons over the past few years. I don't miss any of them.