I’m a little thin in the gear dept, although I just got a bit thicker last night.
Last night, I picked up a VOX AC30, one of the newer ones, with the blue Celestion speakers. Damn, that thing is sweet, and louder than a cat in heat wanting to get out!
Appropriately enough, my main guitar is a Rickenbacker 330 in Burgandy-Glo. I have an older 330 in Jet-Glo. Rickenbacker and Vox go together like bacon and eggs.
Oh, and I use only the effects the amplifier gods provide. I’ve never heard a box that didn’t sound cheesy, but I admit I’m not trying very hard.
Very close to the design and look of my next Partsocaster. I’m going to likely get a pine Tele body with tortoiseshell binding and finish it in Gibson’s Heritage Cherry. Add a tortoisehell pickguard like the one on my current Tele (I will likely just grab that one and put a black one on my current Tele) and it will be basically a Tele / Cherry Les Paul Special hybrid. So of your two, no surprise - I like the cherry one.
I am going to build it with a Conversion Scale neck - a shorter Gibson-scale neck designed to work on a Tele. I want to hear how it affects the lows - I think it will tighten them up a bit - and the overall playability.
I think you and I have discussed this - I used to have one - picture here - beautiful cherry over birdseye maple. If the neck wasn’t so thin and fast, it was a keeper for sure (as I have mentioned before, I love a big, chunky neck to hang my thumb over). One note: I really didn’t like the V2’s - too hot. If it had been a keeper for me, I would’ve looked into 57 classics, or other low-output PAF clones like a Fralin Unbucker…
Whoo hoo, found some Fender Performer pictures mine looks just like this one. I could have gone with a sunburst but I chose a pink one with a nicer neck. It’s a fantastically versatile guitar if I could find another one I would snap it up.
I’m not too worried about the weight…our Bass player has an SVT head that’s heavier, plus I’m getting a flight case to ease things. Lugging heavy gear up stairs is good for the soul.
We’re really loud anyway (see SVT above and add maniacal drummer) and even in smaller rooms I’m pretty sure it’s fine. I was using a 50w Marshall head before. Also, you might be thinking about older Voxs, which didn’t have a Master Volume, which the newer ones do.
I will likely get some sort of overdrive-ish thingy for the .1% of the time I want a little extra push over the cliff, so I’m not THAT much of a purist.
Too funny - your link is from Alainlafrance’s online collection album. He’s a frequent poster to The Gear Page - the dude must be loaded, because he has a bunch of $20,000+ replicas (e.g., Clapton and SRV Strats, etc.) and a TON of limited Custom Shop guitars. Just extensive.
What the heck is a Performer? What’s the neck scale? What kind of pickups are those? What would you compare it to tone and playability-wise if you were forced? (this is me forcing you by the way… )
An Arky - I gotta hear you guys sometime. I will bring my earplugs.
Ibanez AS-50’s - yeah those early-80’s Japanese guitars rock. I sold mine to a guy in Ireland who loves it. I’ve had a couple of Ibanez’s and a couple of Burny’s (they made excellent Les Paul-type guitars). My only issue is the necks - too slim! That Burny Les Paul I still have is just this side of chunky but still mid-sized - and even it is feeling too slim for my tastes. I really have embraced the cult of the chunky neck…
Standard Fender scale neck, suits me, can do twangy.
Solid, not too skinny neck, fingerboard fairly flat.
Fairly chunky frets, fatter than you’d get on a normal Strat.
Four bolt neck joint with tilty thingy so the neck angles back how you want. Though I may have put a shim in there.
Pickups are fairly pokey potted humbuckers with coil taps - you can just make out the switch in the picture where a Strat’s third knob would be. Single coil sounds are fatter than a Strat - but then what isn’t?
The tone control actually does something, it has a neutral notched position half way round, turn up - more treble, back off the usual muffling. It’s passive but there’s some clever circuitry in there. I don’t remember if it has a bleed cap on the volume control.
Playability wise it’s more like a super-strat than a strat, the neck is wider and flatter. With the scale length and the huge cutout you can actually use all 24 frets. Not that I do these days. I don’t use the locking whammy any more either but when I was it worked perfectly. All the hardware is first rate, I’ve had it since 1986 gigged with it, never had to fix anything and it’s still gig-worthy.
It’s been tuned funny for a some time, I’ll put some sensible strings on tonight and give it a blast. Hmm 009s or 010s?
Yeah, that was a pretty Iby. I messed up on my refinish. It’s too plain and yellow. Maybe I’ll take some fine sandpaper to it one day and try to brown it up some. It would bring out the binding.
One of the modifications I made to that guitar was actually to change the neck profile. I got rid of some of the curve, so the whole thing sits flatter in my hand. That’s right…I made that sumbitch SMALLER. I’m not really sure why I decided to shredderize the neck of that particular guitar, but I love the way it feels now.
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I’m not really sure why I decided to shredderize the neck of that particular guitar, but I love the way it feels now.