KVR Audio

hibidy · Post by **hibidy** » Fri May 13, 2011 7:50 pm

YAY! The place I emailed in folsom can do warranty/replacement on my Charvel, so probably not this week but maybe next week I'll take it over and hopefully they will have some solutions/answers.

Uncle E · Post by **Uncle E** » Fri May 13, 2011 8:12 pm

tapper mike wrote:I'll ask the obvious at this point. Why not one of those Korean James Tyler Variax guitars?

Because the tremolo model is hideous.

The Fender VG Strat was pretty nice, too bad they killed it. They should've made a VG Tele.

susiwong · Post by **susiwong** » Fri May 13, 2011 9:13 pm

Uncle E wrote:
susiwong wrote:Nothing wrong with the classic, I guess :
http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/prod ... sku=423687
I played one of these recently and, while it seems stellar on paper, I really found it to be totally underwhelming. It's got 11 tones on tap, all of them bad.

Strange, not my experience at all.

Some local colleagues play them, various years (the newest is maybe 3 years old), and I always feel completely at home whenever I pick one up.
It's not the vintage, hendrixy Strat sound, granted, I'm more a fan of the slightly "produced" tone anyway, but every single one I remember had a nice acoustic resonance to it ...
The Deluxe is a Standard with noiseless PUs, locking tuners and compound radius, correct ?
Maybe the new PUs are the problem ? The ones I'm familiar with range from Lace Sensors over Vintage Noiseless to SCNs, slightly different but all cool in their own way, never played the current versions though.

My only gripe was that they changed out the Pearly Gates+, wonderful bridge PU.

Good you posted your experience

, this used to be one of the perfect no-brainers in my book, well, maybe with upgraded HB, the Atomic is decent, maybe a bit too teenage hard rock for some (i.e. me

).

Ymmv,
susiwong

skipkent · Post by **skipkent** » Fri May 13, 2011 9:24 pm

I want one of those old, eighties Ibanez Destroyers that weigh a ton.

Otherwise, there are a bunch of cheapo $99 guitars out now that play great. Might get one to drag around for trips and jamming on the go.

Most likely, though, the next purchase will be one of these:

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.js ... Id=4109178

I've got a pair of 5-y-olds who are looking to do some serious rocking. One of them can already strum his $10 toy guitar like Townshend!

GaryG · Post by **GaryG** » Fri May 13, 2011 9:40 pm

skipkent wrote:Most likely, though, the next purchase will be one of these:

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.js ... Id=4109178

What a smart idea, those protective covers over the tuning pegs.

I can think of times when I could have done with a set of them...

hibidy · Post by **hibidy** » Fri May 13, 2011 9:47 pm

skipkent wrote:I want one of those old, eighties Ibanez Destroyers that weigh a ton.

Otherwise, there are a bunch of cheapo $99 guitars out now that play great. Might get one to drag around for trips and jamming on the go.

Most likely, though, the next purchase will be one of these:

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.js ... Id=4109178

I've got a pair of 5-y-olds who are looking to do some serious rocking. One of them can already strum his $10 toy guitar like Townshend!

@kids: haha! That's great!

@ibby:

jonnyG · Post by **jonnyG** » Fri May 13, 2011 9:54 pm

Uncle E wrote: ...Anyway, a little triangle file and some sand paper is all you need to work nut issues out. File out the back of it - that's not impacting intonation or tone, anyway, so it can only get in the way - and then sand the rest. Like everyone else said, a good repairman can do it quickly and cheaply but I personally enjoy fine-tuning my guitars, especially when something like this is so easy and can be tailored over time.

I just saw your post and I'd like to recommend a set of welding nozzle cleaners as a really useful addition to the guitar hacker's toolkit:

http://www.techweld.co.uk/index.php?act ... ductId=613

Basically they're a set of round wire files of different diameters and they're really useful for minor nut work on plastic and bone like relieving, groove widening, height adjustments etc - all the simple jobs that you can't really justify the price of a set of nut files for.

Eek, I'm sounding like an infomercial. As you were folks.

Uncle E · Post by **Uncle E** » Fri May 13, 2011 10:07 pm

susiwong wrote:Some local colleagues play them, various years (the newest is maybe 3 years old), and I always feel completely at home whenever I pick one up.

I'm only referring to the latest version, although we do have a 50th Anniversary American Deluxe Strat in stock (the model that introduced the SCN's) and that one's a dead dog, too. In the case of the one here, it's dead sounding both acoustically and electrically. Anyway, back to the American Deluxe Strat HSS I played recently, I compared it directly against a '52 Hot Rod Tele and every one of the Tele's three tones were brighter, louder, and livelier than all 11 of the Strat's tones. The PRS Starla and SE Custom 24 I played that day also blew away that strat.

It's not the vintage, hendrixy Strat sound, granted, I'm more a fan of the slightly "produced" tone anyway, but every single one I remember had a nice acoustic resonance to it ...

I would describe this one as dark and dull sounding.

The Deluxe is a Standard with noiseless PUs, locking tuners and compound radius, correct ?

Yes. On paper, it seems like a perfect instrument!

Maybe the new PUs are the problem ? The ones I'm familiar with range from Lace Sensors over Vintage Noiseless to SCNs, slightly different but all cool in their own way, never played the current versions though.

Yeah, I'm starting to think you're right about the pickups. Even in my #1 Strat, I like the Vintage Noiseless in the bridge only, which actually benefits from the softer sound, but the neck and middle are way too dull sounding to use. Kinman's are much better in the neck and middle. I bet the Dimarzio Area 67 would be cool, too.

btw, check out Dimarzio's new site, it's sweet!

www.dimarzio.com

susiwong · Post by **susiwong** » Fri May 13, 2011 11:50 pm

Your description reminds me of the dark ages maybe 15 years ago when they used poplar or something for Standard bodies ...

US Fender guitars after that desaster seemed to be pretty decent to me on average, hope they're not losing it again.

ymmv, inevitable with guitars,
susiwong

susiwong · Post by **susiwong** » Sat May 14, 2011 12:09 am

Yes, the new DiMarzio site is cool, thanks for the heads-up !

I like how the pickup picker remembers your last settings so you don't have to start from scratch again.
Also behaves well with Opera's zoom, this is a winner !

Cheers,
susiwong

hibidy · Post by **hibidy** » Sat May 14, 2011 12:55 am

I miss the old dimarzio site

susiwong · Post by **susiwong** » Sat May 14, 2011 7:14 am

Uncle E wrote:The PRS Starla and SE Custom 24 I played that day also blew away that strat.

The Starla and Mira sound pretty good imho, I've seen a few with very pronounced dead spots around the 12th fret though, so be aware of that issue when trying one out.
Cheers,
susiwong

nix808 · Post by **nix808** » Sat May 14, 2011 9:37 am

hibidy wrote:YAY! The place I emailed in folsom can do warranty/replacement on my Charvel, so probably not this week but maybe next week I'll take it over and hopefully they will have some solutions/answers.

What's wrong with the charvel?
Sorry I've missed it man

Cordelia · Post by **Cordelia** » Sat May 14, 2011 5:21 pm

Thank you Eric and Susi for all the links!

Nothing strikes as THE guitar for me, but you never know. The American Special Strat looks cool, I have never heard the "Texas Special" pickups, and I wonder how long that Atomic humbucker would stay... reviews are pretty mixed.

The American Standard Strat has Tex Mex single coils and Diamondback??? humbucker.

I wish for more choices. I had my eye on a Reverend Double Agent at a local store, but it sold and I understand they are discontinued.

I need to go play these Strats. The thought of a Fender doesn't thrill me, but I really need to go from two guitars to one guitar if I can do it.

Uncle E · Post by **Uncle E** » Sun May 15, 2011 12:01 am

Your options will open up quite a bit if you don't mind upgrading pickups. For example, you could replace a neck humbucker with a Dimarzio EJ Custom to get more of a single coil-type sound (this is something I'm interested in myself and that seems to be the best option). Alternately, you could replace a bridge single coil with a Seymour Duncan Little 59, which makes my strat sound almost identical to my Les Paul (which itself has upgraded pickups so that's quite an achievement). The nice thing about this last option is the Little 59 is made to work with 250k pots, so there's none of the compromise of using wrong pots that almost all HSS guitars suffer from (Suhr is the only company I know of that manages the issue properly).

Your next guitar?