What guitar gear have you bought/are you buying/will you buy?

[thecontrolcentre]

Arriving on Tuesday

[Uncle E]

Got to play a new J&D S-style guitar @£68 wow!, they even get multi-point check before shipping. https://www.musicstore.com/en_GB/GBP/J- ... 014734-000

J&D used to be an OEM for Squier. I think we've discussed them before? I've been to their factory and met both J and D.

[The Noodlist]

Got to play a new J&D S-style guitar @£68 wow!, they even get multi-point check before shipping. https://www.musicstore.com/en_GB/GBP/J- ... 014734-000

J&D used to be an OEM for Squier. I think we've discussed them before? I've been to their factory and met both J and D.

Thanks for the info, are all Squier instruments outsourced?

[Naillerz78]

Got to play a new J&D S-style guitar @£68 wow!, they even get multi-point check before shipping - playability - electronics - visual checks. https://www.musicstore.com/en_GB/GBP/J- ... 014734-000

I'm shocked how well it plays and the build quality, the fretwork is perfect, the sound could be improved with better electronics, bone nut and bigger tremolo block. The pickups sound a bit thin.
A nice mod platform. It puts the higher priced Fazely guitars I've tried to shame.

I gave it a look over and the only issue (not an issues at this price) it has 2 pin prick sized white spots of undercoat coming through the black finish. No complaints, only praise. (Except not a fan of the headstock shape.)

I've played an acquaintances new £1200+ American Stratocaster that didn't play this good, and the action could be lowered some, the radius was set. This guitar is asking to be played.

Hmm.
I’ve owned a few J&Ds and played others in stores.
Not sure if recommended those guitars tbh.

And it’s not all about playability,
The American strat prob just needs a setup and will smoke that J&D in every dimension

Like you said.. upgrades would require electronics , bone nut, Trem block(!) and 3 new pickups.
How much £ for all that ?
Upgrade all of that it’ll still sound just “ok”

Because the base materials of the guitar does not change. Ie the wood is sh1t on those.(it really is I’ve inspected) And the wood does matter trust me.

Owned 2-3 Lp styles and a few odd others in a strat and Tele vein, LPs in particular were terrible.
The others - meh, cheap and cheerfuls. Not worth an upgrade to me.

Save money and effort and just buy a better guitar on the used market IME.

[The Noodlist]

Hmm.
I’ve owned a few J&Ds and played others in stores.
Not sure if recommended those guitars tbh.

And it’s not all about playability,
The American strat prob just needs a setup and will smoke that J&D in every dimension

Like you said.. upgrades would require electronics , bone nut, Trem block(!) and 3 new pickups.
How much £ for all that ?
Upgrade all of that it’ll still sound just “ok”

Because the base materials of the guitar does not change. Ie the wood is sh1t on those.(it really is I’ve inspected) And the wood does matter trust me.

Owned 2-3 Lp styles and a few odd others in a strat and Tele vein, LPs in particular were terrible.
The others - meh, cheap and cheerfuls. Not worth an upgrade to me.

Save money and effort and just buy a better guitar on the used market IME.

It all depends, if you are a beginner, or a modder, this is fine. These are checked for playability before shipping.

I've paid a lot more for worse. I've also heard great guitars made from plywood and MDF. Even for a practice guitar, I've needed many refrets (when I used to practice daily and rehearse once a week and gig on weekends) at £200 a shot, why not practice on something cheaper than your main guitars?

The build quality is up there with a new Vintage V75 ReIssued Electric Guitar @ £450 which I have access to. It only has £100 better hardware and electronics.

For the J&D sub £60 alnico pickups and trem. Fleor pickups are OK for the price and I have experience with Seymour Duncan, Di Marzio, Toneboosters and Wilkinson pickups.

Having played a lot of guitars over the last 38 years, including owning Japanese guitars, including Tokai lawsuit models. The worst was a new F branded a 1990's MIM Strat, someone, somewhere would have got a stellar one. Times have changed, consistency with computer automated manufacturing has since evolved.

Manufacturing has come a long way in recent years, with the ability to repeatedly reproduce quality instruments with tolerances, the one I received is a dream to play out of the box. YMMV

[Naillerz78]

Hmm.
I’ve owned a few J&Ds and played others in stores.
Not sure if recommended those guitars tbh.

And it’s not all about playability,
The American strat prob just needs a setup and will smoke that J&D in every dimension

Like you said.. upgrades would require electronics , bone nut, Trem block(!) and 3 new pickups.
How much £ for all that ?
Upgrade all of that it’ll still sound just “ok”

Because the base materials of the guitar does not change. Ie the wood is sh1t on those.(it really is I’ve inspected) And the wood does matter trust me.

Owned 2-3 Lp styles and a few odd others in a strat and Tele vein, LPs in particular were terrible.
The others - meh, cheap and cheerfuls. Not worth an upgrade to me.

Save money and effort and just buy a better guitar on the used market IME.

It all depends, if you are a beginner, or a modder, this is fine. These are checked for playability before shipping.

I've paid a lot more for worse. I've also heard great guitars made from plywood and MDF. Even for a practice guitar, I've needed many refrets (when I used to practice daily and rehearse once a week and gig on weekends) at £200 a shot, why not practice on something cheaper than your main guitars?

The build quality is up there with a new Vintage V75 ReIssued Electric Guitar @ £450 which I have access to. It only has £100 better hardware and electronics.

For the J&D sub £60 alnico pickups and trem. Fleor pickups are OK for the price and I have experience with Seymour Duncan, Di Marzio, Toneboosters and Wilkinson pickups.

Having played a lot of guitars over the last 38 years, including owning Japanese guitars, including Tokai lawsuit models. The worst was a new F branded a 1990's MIM Strat, someone, somewhere would have got a stellar one. Times have changed, consistency with computer automated manufacturing has since evolved.

Manufacturing has come a long way in recent years, with the ability to repeatedly reproduce quality instruments with tolerances, the one I received is a dream to play out of the box. YMMV

But did you plug it in?

I hear what u are saying with tolerances and repeatability dude (CNC precision etc.etc)
But the fact is that £68 guitar is made for about £25 unit cost. Or maybe less. Maybe £15. So every piece of it is low-low quality right down to the frets and the ‘tonewood.’

But if it’s just purely playability and practice u need it for buy it
Just don’t ever plug it in.

[Naillerz78]

Hmm.
I’ve owned a few J&Ds and played others in stores.
Not sure if recommended those guitars tbh.

And it’s not all about playability,
The American strat prob just needs a setup and will smoke that J&D in every dimension

Like you said.. upgrades would require electronics , bone nut, Trem block(!) and 3 new pickups.
How much £ for all that ?
Upgrade all of that it’ll still sound just “ok”

Because the base materials of the guitar does not change. Ie the wood is sh1t on those.(it really is I’ve inspected) And the wood does matter trust me.

Owned 2-3 Lp styles and a few odd others in a strat and Tele vein, LPs in particular were terrible.
The others - meh, cheap and cheerfuls. Not worth an upgrade to me.

Save money and effort and just buy a better guitar on the used market IME.

It all depends, if you are a beginner, or a modder, this is fine. These are checked for playability before shipping.

I've paid a lot more for worse. I've also heard great guitars made from plywood and MDF. Even for a practice guitar, I've needed many refrets (when I used to practice daily and rehearse once a week and gig on weekends) at £200 a shot, why not practice on something cheaper than your main guitars?

The build quality is up there with a new Vintage V75 ReIssued Electric Guitar @ £450 which I have access to. It only has £100 better hardware and electronics.

For the J&D sub £60 alnico pickups and trem. Fleor pickups are OK for the price and I have experience with Seymour Duncan, Di Marzio, Toneboosters and Wilkinson pickups.

Having played a lot of guitars over the last 38 years, including owning Japanese guitars, including Tokai lawsuit models. The worst was a new F branded a 1990's MIM Strat, someone, somewhere would have got a stellar one. Times have changed, consistency with computer automated manufacturing has since evolved.

Manufacturing has come a long way in recent years, with the ability to repeatedly reproduce quality instruments with tolerances, the one I received is a dream to play out of the box. YMMV

Yeah good idea.
Replace the electronics and pots and the jack too.
Then replace the neck on it,
And then the body.
Like Triggers broomstick if you know that analogy
Just messin.

But not really.

Danelectro and co are great guitars made of different cheaper wood materials sure afaik.

Which guitars do u mean from MdF and plywood.

J&D are plywood more or less.
I checked out the inside of my ‘mahogany’ J&D Les Paul copy, the wood inside the body was white . And lots of little bits all compressed / glued together! Plus it had a massive box cavity under the pickups. It was almost a semi hollow!

[The Noodlist]

Which guitars do u mean from MdF and plywood.

The guitar is only one part of the puzzle......
Here's a MDF bodied guitar, playing at 43.45.

[Naillerz78]

Which guitars do u mean from MdF and plywood.

The guitar is only one part of the puzzle......
Here's a MDF bodied guitar, playing at 43.45.

I like that guy Simpson. He has big amp stacks in this front room. Good player too.
But when in the video does he say it’s MDF ???I scrubbed through couldn’t find it.

I’ve owned/modded heaps of cheapies also.
The thing for me is - aside from the woods (flat out lies tbh about wood varieties, all those MiC guitar brands btw)

These cheapies usually seem fine at first - then over time of playing more and more little annoying issues I start noticing usually .. going out of tune, intonation problems across strings between 0-12 fret, probably caused by fret crowning quality, or soft frets and bumps and divots (or ?mystery causes) issues that can’t be fixed by 12 fret and saddle setting I mean. String warble on the E and A, string buzz on certain frets.Then I notice the neck profile or radius is a bit off Vs the bridge or I don’t like it etc etc

It’s hard to notice these things (for me anyway) in the honeymoon period

It’s still quite hard for me to give a guitar an objective look over and a full inspection /test now even after heaps and heaps of buying cheapies.
It’s weird. The gear lust or GAS overtakes me.

I am always blinded by impulse and initial playability / action mainly.


I just don’t have the same experience with better quality /midrange guitars eg squier classic vibes or made in Mexico fenders for example playing then over time. I just play them and don’t have to fuss w fhem.they just play better for me usually,

Squier Classic vibes are very nice for the money imo. Cv Pickups not great tho, on the strats imo.
a pity re the p/ups for me.

Re 2nd hand Japanese guitars
These have huge variances in quality. iME.
some real dogs being sold for 4x what their worth at my fave 2nd hand shop,
Just cos they say “made in japan”.

I did snag a charvel 90s strat MiJ which was killer,
Should not have sold it, (due to covid belt tightening )
A lot of my midrange guitars I either had to sell or choose to sell to drop down to budget models as I thought they weren’t much different and it’s all in the player more or less …but wish I hadn’t now.

My Fender Mex Nashville Tele most especially. One of the best and most useful guitars I’ve ever owned that one.

Or that musicman silhouette HSH strat had 10 years ago w dimarzios .. but that was high-endish 2nd hand . ( killer axe)

Anyway that’s my entire life story aka War & Peace part II lol.
It was good to get it off my chest and thanks for listening cathartic,

Just my 2 cents on cheapies I guess.I still keep buying em!
YMMV peace and all that.

[The Noodlist]

But when in the video does he say it’s MDF ???I scrubbed through couldn’t find it.

My mistake, it's ply that is dense like MDF @4.52, we'll leave it that, we can chase opinions all day.

[Uncle E]

I did snag a charvel 90s strat MiJ which was killer,

I recently sold my #1 MIJ Ibanez Prestige 3120. That was absolutely my desert island guitar, it was a jack of all trades while also being a master of all. Imagine a Les Paul and a Strat rolled into one, with a shreddy neck and Floyd Rose.

[Naillerz78]

But when in the video does he say it’s MDF ???I scrubbed through couldn’t find it.

My mistake, it's ply that is dense like MDF @4.52, we'll leave it that, we can chase opinions all day.

Ok u mentioned MDF guitars can sound great so I was just following that.
Sounds pretty good that strat we are in agreement,
But Note(!) is a 2nd hand guitar and well played in and dialled in probably re “playability.” And by that I mean smoothed out from playing.
(The edges certainly were ! )

I would always go 2nd hand and older then give a setup. Older guitars just sound better usually somehow to me these days ( wood has all settled in maybe). I like buying old 2nd hand guitars that have been preloved with stickers and personality also. It’s like buying a story.

I don’t buy new cheapie MiC anymore myself (obvs)
Due to quality of all materials used and also .. also ..(!) the possibility of ‘wood-warp’ as wood is settling.
Those guitars especially are not left to ‘season’ and dry out properly for any time at all in production they are straight off the prod line asap.

Wood warp with guitars is a real phenomenon,

Just IME and my 2 cents of course,
It’s your money.

Btw how much did Simpson pick up that plywood strat for in the video I did not pick up a price when scrubbing through.

Also do u know what Dano guitars are made from .. reso fibre or something?

Thanks , Naillerz

[imrae]

I like that the pickups are the weakest part of a Classic Vibe, because they are easy to upgrade and there is a lot of upgrade choice to take things in a personal direction.

Whereas with a Vintage Modified the pickups are usually good relative to the other parts, so they are worse value to upgrade. (In that you are likely "wasting" a good part and still held back by other limitations.)

[The Noodlist]

recently got an acoustic fender guitar it looks great actually

Care to elaborate? Is it from the Paramount Series?

[Uncle E]

I like that the pickups are the weakest part of a Classic Vibe, because they are easy to upgrade and there is a lot of upgrade choice to take things in a personal direction.

That's a great point, especially when there are so many great pre-wired pickguards available.