Count me in with the “less is more” crowd when it comes to fancy looks on a guitar.
My LP is the love of my life, but in stock trim it was way too blingy for my tastes. The pickguard and gold-covered pickups came off right away. 
I could totally see Prince making love to every woman on earth with the notes coming out of that guitar.
If there’s a dude who could pull of that instrument, it’s him.
I was struck by that thought as well: if anyone could do it, it would be Prince. He already played an all-gold-leaf Strat:
Ranger Jeff: I hate the Martin D-100 and all of their big-deal anniversary guitars, e.g., the 1,500,000th Martin, etc. I hate that level of inlay and crap.
Thought you’d enjoy some really good guitar picking this morning.
Jerry Reed and Glen Campbell burning up their strings on Guitar Man. The section starting at 2 min is incredible.
I wish they would have done an entire album together.
Quick question. Would guitar or bass strings age sitting on the shelf? Is there any concerns with buying a six pack of strings? That would last 3 years with semi-annual string changes.
That’s assuming of course they are stored indoors and in a reasonably dry environment.
They are a little cheaper in six packs. My Fender short scale bass uses a special lightweight string. I thought it would be a good idea
to get a six pack. Just in case they get hard to find.
This is what came Factory installed on my Fender Bass.
When my bassist broke a string, it was the first time he’d put a new string on his 1962 P-Bass in over 20 years.
Many players never change bass strings.
OK. I didn’t realize bass strings weren’t changed regularly like guitars.
I’ll just get a couple spare sets then. Just in case they get hard to find. I noticed Sweetwater carries the bass but they don’t sell the Fender 5250XL strings. Which are the ones that Fender factory ships on the bass.
Looks like I got mine just in time. Sweetwater no longer shows this bass anymore. I got the last one they had in stock. They’ve pulled all the web pages. It can still be found at other online music shops. I guess until the inventory is gone.
I like these extra light bass strings. A friend had warned me that heavy bass strings can really shred the fingers. I don’t need that kind of grief. I still want to play my guitar too.
I buy my strings in ten-packs. Many, if not most brands come in airtight pouches these days anyway. Never had any noticeable difference between new new strings and old new strings.
Good to hear OneCentStamp. I bought a bulk pack of Elixir NanoWeb Custom Lights (11’s) for my acoustic guitars. I go through those pretty quick because I have two acoustics that use them. I had wondered if they’d lose tone sitting on the shelf.
I may start using 12’s (Elixir Nanoweb Lights) on one of my guitars for drop D tuning. My E string gets pretty floppy in Drop D when I use 11’s. Makes sense to dedicate one guitar to Drop D and my other for general playing.
Re the Johnny Cash song. I’m guessing a guitar of some kind but I wasn’t able to tie it down to any particular kind. Anyone?
Sarah Jarosz’s unusual axes
I just watched A Prairie Home Companion (yes, watched! Video was streamed on prairiehome.org ). Chris Thile and the Punch Brothers were the house band tonight, with Rich Dworsky on piano as a 6th Brother.
Anyway, Sarah Jarosz was a musical guest, and she played two really unusual instruments. The first looked like a flat-top f-hole guitar, but it had 8 strings, paired like a mandolin. I suppose that makes it a mandola or a mandocello.
The other one was a banjo, with 5 strings on the peghead, and a 6th short string, where you usually see the short 5th string. The only 6-string banjos I had seen were simply a guitar neck on the banjo body.
I first learned banjo in C tuning. Later I switched to G tuning. The only difference is you drop the 4th string a whole step down to a D for G tuning. The chords are a little different. I guess with a 6 string banjo, you can be in both tunings at the same time. I wouldn’t pay extra for that capability, though.
There’s a style of banjo playing called “Melodic”. Maybe an extra string might make that easier?
I Googled her name + instruments and found this:
http://www.americansongwriter.com/2012/04/sarah-jaroszs-string-garden/3/
Octave Mandolin and a custom six-string banjo. Cool.
Fascinating, squabbling story about a guitar that Les Paul used and tinkered with - he tinkered with everything - and gave to his long-time Guitar Tech/Body Man who never got paid much and needs some scratch. But it is being marketed as a Holy Grail, so the clutch-my-pearls vintage guys are pointing out that it’s a Custom, not a Les Paul Standard which is what became the blues-rock Holy Grail.
Sigh - it will fetch what it will fetch. Heck, Colts owner and guitar-collecting douchebag Jim Irsay is interested…
Article with Ben Haggard. Currently the lead guitarist in Haggard’s band The Strangers. Interesting insight into Merle’s style of guitar playing. I think its one of the reasons his songs are so successful.
I’m gradually learning lead and will keep this in mind. I’m a little envious of Ben. Imagine getting advanced guitar lessons from Merle Haggard. That’s quite a music education.
I see that Roy Nichols was Merle’s lead guitarist for twenty years. He retired in 1987 and died 2001.
Big shoes for Ben to fill.
For anyone interested in what Eddie Van Halen might have to say about What It Means To Be An American, here’s a lengthy video interview with Eddie, conducted for the Smithsonian Institution:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXoHyiJUItQ
In the interest of fighting ignorance, maybe it should be noted that some of Eddie’s recollections after all these years are not actually supported by history (but hey, he only got sober a few years ago, so let’s cut the guy some slack).
Contrary to the popular mythology, Les Paul didn’t have all that much input on the Gibson Les Paul model guitar. The first time he saw one was when they had him check out the prototypes when they were selling him on the name/licensing deal. Itinerant tinkerer that he was, he had 6 suggestions for it.
- Slant the bridge/tailpiece so the treble strings were shorter than the bass strings to improve the intonation.
B. Tilt the headstock back 13° or so to keep the 1st and 2nd strings from popping out of the slots cut in the nut.
iii. A flat top instead of the carved top.
4th. Metallic gold paint, because that would look more elegant than those Fender guitars that people were willing to be put on waiting lists for rather than buy an instock hollow body Gibson that was just hanging on a hook at a dealers waiting to be sold. - Low-impedance electronics. Maybe those shielded cables were less likely to collect hum than the standard Hi-Z ones were?
[del]||||[/del] |. Not just black paint, but “Tuxedo Black” paint, because tuxedos were elegant. And with just a narrow spotlight oh him wearing a black tux and playing a black guitar, his dancing fingers would just stand out and amaze his audiences.
Gibson nixed beefs iii and 0101. Les said, well, you keep me supplied with these new fangled guitars AND pay me to play them and I’ll let you put my name on them.
Les cancelled the deal in 61 when the later renamed “SG” LP guitar came out. He didn’t like the double cutaway and mostly because he was divorcing Mary Ford then and he’d be damned if he’d let her get some of his money just because of his name.
They fired up the deal again in 67 or 8 and the Les Pauls were released again. Sometime, around 71 or so, Les managed to convince Gibson to release the LP Recording model, which had Lo-Z electronics and a flatter carved top. It didn’t sell all that well, as I recall.
How stupid is Bubbadog?
Well, did you know that Telecaster pickups won’t fit on a Strat pickguard?
I do now. :mad:
Back story -
I have an old Squier HSS Strat that feels great, plays smooth but has some obviously low budget Pickups. HSS, the mullet of the guitar world with humbucker leads and smooth Strat rhythms.
I decided to beef it up and started by swapping in a Seymour Duncan HB into the bridge. Loved it so much that I wanted to see what I could do to the Middle and Neck so I thought I’d see if I could get a Tele sound into it. I hand picked a couple of Tele PU’s and snatched them off Amazon.
Weird thing is the pole positions are the same. The only reason it doesn’t fit is the telecaster PU mounting holes are spaced closer together than the Stratocasters.
About an hour of attempting to engineer a solution I just said “chuck it” (OK yeah, maybe not quite that) and ordered a couple of SD Strat PU’s.
Who knows, maybe someday I’ll find an old used or forgotten tele and hot rod it.