Recommend me a guitar

[PaulG]

Oh, no, re: clean & singles - I am totally with you.

I've got an EMG humbucker in the neck and I can't get any good clean/bright/chorusy tones out of it.

But then, that's where the trade-off is.

I think you just have to get the guitar that best fits the type of music you play most often.

I'd love to get a strat with singles for some of the really clean or even low-gain bluesy stuff, but it's not the type of stuff I normally play so it doesn't make too much sense right now...

[Lunch Money]

Regarding EMG: I'm having a custom guitar built... it's not at all to everyone's tastes (fanned frets, headless, active electronics), but the compromise I made was to put an 89 in the bridge (would've preferred an 81) along with the middle SA and the neck 89 (which I would've chosen anyhow) so that I could basically flip a switch and go from an HSH to a SSS configuration. The EMG-SAs have a good clean tone, which is why I picked the 89's... they contain a true SA inside. There's also a piezo-loaded bridge with blend, so I can roll some of that "quasi-acoustic" tone into the magnetic tone.

Many apologies to deastman for derailing his thread. <lol>

[guitarzan]

Besides his use of the mini-humbucker...

He doesn't generally use distortion pedals, but he has been known to cascade one entire amp into the next. LOL He's a madman.

And even when not, there's the aforementioned love of chaos and noise....

And finally... Young's sound, while raw and untamed and distorted as hell, still isn't high gain.

Cool old GP interview with Neil Young about his rig, etc: http://www.thrasherswheat.org/ptma/equip.htm

[guitarzan]

Many apologies to deastman for derailing his thread. <lol>

Yeah, me too...we really need a dedicated guitar forum here at KVR, seriously.

[ew]

Actually, I read "Shakey" Neil Young's biography, it just didn't occur to me that's who you would mean. I agree that he's a guitar icon, but for some reason I didn't see many others instantly picking him. His most famous guitar (Old Black) has a Firebird-style mini-humbucker in the bridge. I don't know how often he uses the P90 in the neck.

And the other guitar he's associated with is a White Falcon with Filtertrons (think CSN&Y and the first few solo/Crazy Horse albums). Filtertron is the old Gretsch humbucker, which was developed just about the same time Seth Lover designed the PAF.

ew

[PaulG]

Hey, Lunch,

Don't apologize! I think it's good education for someone to hear what other people do with their guitars. I wouldn't have known to remove the tone control (wiring, at least) if I hadn't read Eddie Van Halen doing it.

Or scalloping a neck like Yngwie does.

Or even refinishing.

So now I've turned a yucky looking tobacco-sunburst Ibanez Iceman into a one-of-a-kind screamer with EMG's, a scalloped neck, and a white with purple polka dot finsh that is something that people drool over.

So I think that the sort of hijacking that is happening here is very healthy for the OP to see that mods and other craziness is just his mandatory next step...

[robogone]

Another option if the single/humbucker choice isn't easy to make is something with coil taps. Not sure what's out there right now though.

[guitarzan]

Actually, I read "Shakey" Neil Young's biography, it just didn't occur to me that's who you would mean. I agree that he's a guitar icon, but for some reason I didn't see many others instantly picking him. His most famous guitar (Old Black) has a Firebird-style mini-humbucker in the bridge. I don't know how often he uses the P90 in the neck.

And the other guitar he's associated with is a White Falcon with Filtertrons (think CSN&Y and the first few solo/Crazy Horse albums). Filtertron is the old Gretsch humbucker, which was developed just about the same time Seth Lover designed the PAF.

ew

Check out some classic early Neil Young with Buffalo Springfield here:



It starts with part of "For What It's Worth" but then Neil stands up and kicks out "Mr Soul". He even gets in some early shoegazing action

[EDIT: I always wanted something with Filtertrons - forgot about those. Those humbuckers have plenty of clean chime! Anyone know of a good Gretsch budget model?]

[Chuck E. Jesus]

[EDIT: I always wanted something with Filtertrons - forgot about those. Those humbuckers have plenty of clean chime! Anyone know of a good Gretsch budget model?]

i've been lusting after one of these:



i tried a solid body Reverend with the "revtron" PUs, really dug it...they have a variety of PU and body styles here:

http://www.reverendguitars.com/reverend/guitars.html

[Lunch Money]

OOooo... I like that.

[Chuck E. Jesus]

Check out some classic early Neil Young with Buffalo Springfield here:



It starts with part of "For What It's Worth" but then Neil stands up and kicks out "Mr Soul". He even gets in some early shoegazing action

did the bass player do something wrong? or did they simply run out of amps and chords to pretend to plug into?

(neil young is my hero, to bad buffalo springfield didn't stick around longer)

[deastman]

Many apologies to deastman for derailing his thread. <lol>

Yeah, me too...we really need a dedicated guitar forum here at KVR, seriously.

Not at all. I've already admitted not knowing too much about the differences between guitars, and this is all good information. I'm a technical kind of guy, so I'm soaking up every drop of info from this thread.

I'm going to order the Koa Stratocaster today, so the primary objective of the thread has been fulfilled. Feel free to keep talking... I'm reading all of this.

Two more questions:
I'm thinking about (eventually) getting some Fender/Schaller locking tuners. They look like an easy drop-in replacement, and might even make the crappy tremolo somewhat usable. Comments?

Second, -and this is a long shot- can anyone recommend a place in the San Francisco Bay Area to get my guitar set up? My friend only knows one good place in San Francisco that does expensive, top of the line work. I haven't called about a price quote yet, but I'd like to know if there are any other options. My friend just got his Les Paul worked on, and spent over $800. He's planning to take his backup LP in next month, and it'll cost about the same!

[beergeek]

Gryphon Stringed Instruments
211 Lambert Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94306

I don't know what it would cost but if you bought the Strat from them they would probably set it up for next to nothing. In fact, I think they set up all their guitars as a standard.

[Lunch Money]

I wouldn't spend the money on the locking tuners. Instability with the trem is MORE likely going to be caused by the trem itself (it's just a pair of springs, after all!) and the string binding up in the plastic nut. It'd be money better spent to install a graph-tec nut or a Hipshot Trem-Setter. Particularly the latter. That said, as long as any one point is a weakness in the string path (eg. keeping the plastic nut but buying a trem-setter), you're still not going to have stability nirvana.

Locking tuners are great, but out of the 4 points of weakness (springs, saddles, nut <including string trees>, tuners), tuners are the last thing I'd upgrade.

[guitarzan]

[EDIT: I always wanted something with Filtertrons - forgot about those. Those humbuckers have plenty of clean chime! Anyone know of a good Gretsch budget model?]

i've been lusting after one of these:



i tried a solid body Reverend with the "revtron" PUs, really dug it...they have a variety of PU and body styles here:

http://www.reverendguitars.com/reverend/guitars.html

Woah!
OK, I'll need one of those and one of these:

Three P90's! With these guitars I will be the greatest surfabilly bluesman to ever grace the planet!!