The Great Ongoing Guitar Thread

Cafe Society
2162

I wouldn’t do the top - it has an acoustic function (the soundboard is, after all, what vibrates and makes a beautiful sound.) and a structural function (the bridge is one of the attachment points for about 90 - 100 pounds of string tension. The bridge is attached to the sound board, and the sound board has all the bracing). I have known acoustics to have little ‘doors’ for the battery on either the back or the sides. Retrofitting such a thing is something I’d send to a guitar tech rather than taking it on by myself.

It’s a good idea to change the battery when you change the strings, or every 2 or 3 sets of strings (I don’t know how often you change them, anyway - my rule of thumb is around every 100 hours of playing time.)

2163

Yeah, I’d already considered that, Le Ministre de l’au-delà (whew!:)), and I really DON’T want to ruin her looks just for my comfort, and from what you have written, I can see that such a thing would be stupid, and, as you write, this would be something for a tech, never mind messing up any of her resale value.

So what I will do is take her to my local shop and have them do all that for me.

This guitar has a HUGE amount of sentimental value to me.

Thank you!
Quasi

2164

I think chord books are pretty pointless, once you know the standard open cowboy chords and the E/A based barre chords a teeny amount of theory gives you sevenths, ninths, suspended forths, flat fifths, augmented… If you find a chart with chords with complicated names it had better show you the voicing to use. A couple of random examples, if you’re playing a Joni Mitchell tune or something by Johnny Marr the odds are that lots of the chords they’re using aren’t in the book, even if it’s the size of the phone book.

A more specific example, I have a Steely Dan book where at the top of the charts they’ve got the chord boxes for all the shapes used (some songs have about forty) often with three or four voicings of the same named chord, sometimes they’re pretty standard shapes but an awful lot wouldn’t make sense out of context - I’ll check lunchtime but I think some may just be two notes.

As for your B7 problem, why not give up on the cowboy version and barre it? It seems to be used a lot in beginner’s books – presumably because it’s not a barre chord and so it must be easier, it’s actually rather fiddily specially as you quite likely to be changing back to open E which means moving every finger.

2165

When I go between B7 and E, I’ve got my second finger as an anchor (pivot, if you prefer - a finger which stays on the same string at the same fret) and first and third fingers are parallels (fingers which change strings, but stay at the same fret). (The third component of this kind of thinking is a guide finger, which stays on the same string, but changes frets.) Go back and forth a couple of times thinking of it that way, and it might make it easier.

I benefited tremendously from the chord chart in the back of some K-tel ‘Greatest Hits of the 50s, 60s and 70s’ book, but it was mainly because it was wrong. There was a mis-print, and many (but not all) of the B chords had been printed a semitone down, so that they were actually Bb chords. I spent a week figuring out why they sounded like shite, figured out what made the other major chords majors chords and corrected the chart. It was a great exercise.

And yes, the voicing is actually more important than getting all the notes in - not many people will try to play all 7 notes that are theoretically in a C13 chord. C, Bb, E and A make for a much better sound.

2166

Hey, Quasi? Two things. First, why not consider moving the battery pack to the side of the guitar, where a soundhole would go. Then you have a soundhole when you don’t need batteries, and easy access when you do? It seems to be where most electro-acoustics have their setup these days.
Secondly, look who’s making acoustics these days.

I’m kind of interested in this one, myself.
http://www.guitarfetish.com/Cutaway-Acoustic-Electric-Solid-Cedar-Top-Bubinga-back-and-sides-_p_4318.html
And look.

Exactly what I was talking about insofar as kinds of access.
Also, I found a video demo of the Marauder’s pickups.

I am now more and more convinced that it will be mine. It will be mine. I’m pretty sure I want blue, not black.

2167

She’s a beauty, E! Let us know if she sounds as good as that video shows.

Also the battery back on top of the first curve looks cool as hell! I’ll have to find out how much it costs.

To my new friend CraneOp2: Man, you must think I’m a real shitty co-writer/communicator, but PLEASE don’t write me off (so to speak), okay? I have NOT forgotten our writing project - it’s here taped to my screen - and please forgive me not writing more. My brain is soup these days and I’ll try to get it together.

Thanks, guys!

Q

2168

I’m still getting settled with the Tweaker, but I just saw that you can swap power tubes in the Tweaker for EL34, 6L6, 5581, 6550, KT66 and KT77’s, plus EL84’s using an adapter of some sort. Is it common for tubes to be this interchangeable in a guitar amp?

I doubt I’ll explore swapping power amp tubes considering how much cash you could blow on multiple sets of tubes, but I’m curious what the possibilities are for changing the amp tone this way, especially given WordMan’s earlier excellent post about how amp groups tend to be evaluated by the type of power tubes they use. Would I actually get (for example) Voxier tones if I switched to EL84’s in Tweaker? Or is it Apples n Oranges because the circuits are too different? I don’t think switching power amp tubes would magically turn my Tweaker into an AC15, but how much of a change would be expected?

2169

I second the motion… I would love to hear your feedback once this is in your hands… I purchased a Telecaster model last year from Xaviere and am very happy with it… but an acoustic electric for under $200?!?

2170

Can’t talk long. Near as I can tell - based on what I have heard personally and what I have read on line and as someone who is NOT electronics-smart - it kinda depends on the simplicity/transparency of the circuit. Meaning: the more “stuff” in the circuit, the less likely you will hear big differences between tube changes. The simpler the circuit, the more likely you will hear the difference. Since the Tweaker has a lot of stuff, I would be inclined to assume that there will not be huge differences in tone - but who knows? Might be fun to get one set of EL34’s and try them out or something…

2171

Thanks for the thoughts, Wordman. I’m delving through the big Tweaker threads over at the Gear Page, and there seem to be lots of people trying different things with tubes.

Hey, Small Clanger, et. al., why is it that the Tweaker can take so many different power tubes? Is this common? Can I juice my Blues Jr with non-EL84’s and get new tone?

2172

Oh, no. I’m not getting that for a while, I’m saving up for the Fender Marauder. The acoustic’s going to have to wait till summer, if I wind up with one.

2173

I’ve already asked Santa (my wife) for that cutaway acoustic (well, the spruce one) for x-mas. Seems too good a price to pass up, what the hell. Or as I put it to my spouse, “at that price, you could use it for firewood if things don’t work out”. :wink:

2174

Welp.

I’ve got a gig this Friday, so I’ll be out playing my guitar with my band. I’m a bit nervous too, because it’s a new venue for us, and I don’t know if anyone’s going to come.

2175

Of course - The Gear Page. I am sure they have the skinny - what’s the general sense you are getting? Any specific tubes offer the biggest contrast?

**Kim **- tons o’ luck. What kind of gig? Jazz casuals at a restaurant? Playing at a club?

I have been debating about whether to “reallocate” some of my guitar assets and go after another old acoustic, but part of that would involve finding the time to network and engage the vintage guitar market, something I don’t have the bandwidth to do in earnest. Argh.

2176

I honestly haven’t distilled it yet. There seems to be huge interest in the Tweaker there, and there are many, many threads that have Tweaker in the title, many of which reference “that huge tweaker thread” which took quite some digging to find via Google. It turns out there was a big omnibus tweaker thread that started when the amp came out, and overflowed to another when that reached the board thread count. And there may be another and another, and I haven’t gotten far enough to find them, not sure. It’s like our “if someone else wrote Lord of the Rings” situation (ok, maybe not that bad, but big). I’m still trying to dig through all that to find the interesting bits. But TGP seems to have been/be on fire about the Tweaker, so it’s tough getting a read on the consensus about any aspect, including tubes.

2177

Well, it’s being billed as a “blues” weekend, so we’ve dusted off all the old blues standards – Sweet Home Chicago, Red Rooster, and a bunch of other ones like that. We’re going for the crowd pleasing stuff.

2178

Sounds like fun. Enjoy.

**squeegee **- ah, I hadn’t fully realized that the Tweaker went through a hype phase in the market. Shows you how close I am to amps these days. That makes things a bit easier to find but a bit tougher to sift through, since posters treat this thing like it is the second coming for a bit then the energy drops off. But it does suggest that there is something to these things - keep us posted.

2179

OK guys, can one of you tell me what kind of tone Telecaster vintage pickups will have? I am looking at a 2006 American Telecaster Deluxe 60th Anniversary and they have “vintage” pickups which are supposed to sound like the Tele pickups of '56 models

2180

I just raced to my local Guitar Center to use a 15% coupon good for today only. I had my eye on a Fulltone Clyde. Not only were they out of stock, and so were the other two GC’s within driving distance, but the coupon wasn’t even valid for that item. I just read the fine print on the coupon and here are the exclusions referenced online:

Bait & switch. I’m taking my $$ elsewhere.

2181

Sorry, GC is just legend for doing this sort of thing.