Recommend me a guitar

[whitecat.tv]

I'm way late in this thread, but the very best guitar I've ever owned is my Godin Solidac. I can play it better than anything else, it sounds great, it did require £100 worth of electronics work (bad pots) around its two-year birthday, but it was worth it, it sounds sooooo good.

a hundred quid can buy a LOT of friggin' pots!

yeah, had something to do with bad wires to the piezos too... plus London standard markup, I'm sure!

[deastman]

donkey tugger: Thanks for the pragmatic advice. My 20-year-old piece of crap Arbor really did need replacing or repairing though, and it just wasn't worth the money to repair. Hence my desire to select a new guitar which will last me the next 20 years.

dancerchris: I did consider spending some extra money on an American strat, but it just wasn't worth it for my skill level. The Koa strat is already almost too good for me!

The most important lesson I've learned from this whole adventure is that everyone has their own personal favorites, and you're just as likely to find someone else who hates that same guitar. I think it was Chuck E. Jesus who said that I should stop sitting on the fence and just f**king buy something already, and he was absolutely right.

What I ended up with was a style of guitar (Strat) that I'm already comfortable with, a well-constructed instrument which is easy to play and will last me a long time, a nice sounding set of pickups (for my tastes), and an attractive and somewhat uncommon guitar (as if that really matters at all) which begs me to pick it up and play with it.

I'm much better informed than when I started this thread, and I truly appreciate all your advice and opinions. And with all this talk about tremolos, I'm still learning!

[Lunch Money]

MW-- Floyds are still very heavily used, yes. <chuckle> Can't divebomb properly without a locking trem, after all, which leaves only Kahler and Floyd.

[deastman]

I got the Strat back from the shop today, and had my guitar friend check it out. He thought it sounded and played great. One thing I noticed is that the two lowest strings tended to buzz a bit at times. My friend didn't think it was anything to be concerned about, but I thought I'd solicit your opinions, just to make sure I shouldn't bring it back to the shop for further adjustment. The action is much lower than anything I've played before, which I like, and I don't know if buzzing strings is just a natural consequence of that. Alternatively, should I just try to raise the two lowest saddles a bit myself, or am I going to end up screwing up the nice setup I just paid for?

[Ian B]

Hi deastman,

You'll only be raising the saddles a fraction, so you won't mess anything up. If the strings are only buzzing at a couple of frets, maybe a bit of fret dressing is called for. In itself, this is easy to do, as long as you know what you're doing that is, so I wouldn't recommend you doing it yourself.

If the buzzing is really obvious, I'm surprised they returned your guitar like that. This happened to me the last time I had a pro setup done, but it was only at the 20th fret/top E string, so was easy to correct with my fret file.

Changing to heavier gauge strings may help (less 'play' in the strings) but the extra tension may well mean you have to adjust/lower all the saddles to compensate.

[hibidy]

I hate to sound to obvious, but play it for a while........start getting to know her.......adjust things AFTER you get some love going.........

[deastman]

I'm asking because if I just paid for a setup and the setup was no done correctly, I want to take it back as soon as possible so they can correct their mistake. The low E is the most noticable, and starts buzzing about halfway up the neck. Not being particularly knowledgable about these things, I don't know if its a big deal or not, or whether or not it is something that calls for me to complain about the setup job they did.

[kevvvvv]

deastman

I'm asking because if I just paid for a setup and the setup was no done correctly, I want to take it back as soon as possible so they can correct their mistake. The low E is the most noticable, and starts buzzing about halfway up the neck. Not being particularly knowledgable about these things, I don't know if its a big deal or not, or whether or not it is something that calls for me to complain about the setup job they did.

You can complain about this.

Your luthier will fix the bridge or the nut to solve the problem. He should be okay about this too. No need to complain too loudly. He should be happy to do it.

[robogone]

-- people have also been saying that Floyds also "rob" sustain for a long time.

i always just thought that was one of those things that went without saying. Do people actually recommend Floyd Rose units anymore?

I've been thinking of getting something with a Floyd Rose, but maybe buying a sustainiac kit to install it?

Anyone else done this? (or even used the Fernandes kit)

[Lunch Money]

You could probably complain, deast. Unless you pay to have a complete fret-levelling, you're always going to have to trade off action for buzz-free performance, but there's a point at which he should've said, "OK, I can't go any lower without buzzing." Myself, I can't handle action that's too low anyhow. WHen I bend, I like to push the other strings out of the way with my fingers, not have them slide against the string I'm bending. To annoying that way.

Greg