Guitars... what you've got / what you want

thanks all for justifying all the money i wasted on this! it plays great, liked the neck from the very beginning. it's about as close to a "swiss army knife" guitar as i think i could get. all in, i think spent maybe $1100 on it? which i think it's too bad considering putting in the jazzmaster trem and the custom pickups

UMS if i can ask, how are the porter pickups and how was the process? i have a guitar where i could probably use some extra attention on how to improve the pickups and their ordering form and whole concept looks pretty interesting.

― call all destroyer, Tuesday, September 27, 2022 7:48 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

really great. i did the email form and the guy actually called me up to talk! we kind of went through the guitar and what i wanted and he made recommendations based on that (and the fact I wanted to coil split)

nice thing was that I really wanted those open top pickups but the PAFs didn't come like that, he made them with a different case for no extra charge. I think I paid $270 for the three? not bad considering. they sound great, loved dealing with the guy

sounds great! i will definitely give that some thought.

270 is great for three hand-made, custom spec pickups with a consultation! They look like superb quality too.

They are great not 100% on the price but it felt like a good deal, I know he didn't charge me extra for the custom covers

Considering Curtis Novak charges $180 for a humbucker you're getting similar attention to detail for half the cost, it seems to me.

Oh man, finally sold a guitar and went and finished paying for/picked up the Guild D-55.

It is the best fucking acoustic I have ever played. Tone is unreal. It's also loud as hell - I have 13s on it and I can barely even hear myself sing over it if I play full strength.

The guitar actually had belonged to the owner of the shop, and when I came to pick it up he came out and introduced himself and was like "You're the guy buying the D-55. That guitar is better than all those guitars in the back" (gesturing to a room where he has like $20,000 Martins and Collings and Bourgeois and all the high end stuff). He then took it out and started playing on it, and I honestly thought he might have regretted letting it go. He said he just never had time to play it and wanted to sell it to someone who would get use out of it.

daaaaamn, score! I have a 1985 K Yairi cedar top with a similar story, the store owner has asked me quite a few times if I'd sell it back.

Congrats man alive! Sounds magical

Squier's arrived and it's amazing. Like a gorgeous pastel ghost, almost doesn't look real. Plays beautifully - neck is slimmer but not skinny, midrange Fender profile, super glossy like some kind of polished stone, fretwork is superb. Sounds brassy and angry on the bridge (but not harsh, amazingly) and bell- or piano-like on the neck. Hardware is a little less convincing, but I switched in an inexpensive brass-saddle bridge when I put on my usual 11-49s, stock one seemed cheap with blingy chrome. The tuners are a bit janky but the ferrules didn't fit other ones I had to hand. Highly recommended.
https://i.imgur.com/wwDA2tk.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/mP3IMn0.jpg

Looks tasty. How is the fretboard radius?

The only thing I _don't_ love about my Squier Thinline is how flat it is, vis-a-vis my other guitars

It's 9.5, and I am 7.25 on pretty much everything, but this neck is *so* well made and finished I barely notice. I guess the honeymoon period will end - but I'm still crazy about the Squier 50s Precision above, too.

i want this
https://reverb.com/item/62598161-gibson-sg-natural-1972

i don't love the look of blade pickups but that is a gorgeous guitar

wish i had the dough for this

https://minneapolis.craigslist.org/hnp/msg/d/redwood-falls-gibson-les-paul-recording/7549667957.html

it's weird i don't really love les pauls but i'm hubba hubba for les paul style basses

super nice

price is waaayyyy out of the question but this is nice

https://minneapolis.craigslist.org/csw/msg/d/albertville-veritas-custom-portlander/7551830514.html

fender and gibson really nailed their headstock designs. so hard to make anything new that doesnt look cartoonish

Not that there are not some nice Norlin Gibsons, but there is some funky weirdness out there on some of them that really makes them not that usable in many senses.

I had a weird 74 SG special and the neck was more narrow than a Rick and like totally thin at the top. Neck was like easily bendible and it was connected pretty shallow. Kinda weird and neat to look at as it had some funky pickguard and was different but as a good sounding and playing instrument, kinda crap. They are worth lot more money than they used to be.

Only Gibson I own now is a '74 SB-450 bass. It's a weird one as it is mostly maple and has a Fender scale length with these odd pickups that were designed by Bill Lawrence. The bridge pickup is kinda f'ed, but it has this nasty sound when paired with the neck. I plug it into an old amp or Sansamp and it's pretty much instant fart of Doom Mel Schacter. I also have a Tech 21 XXL bass drive and it gets this awesome grinding sound. (Ex. look up Atomic Thrillride - 'Macho Magician' on the YT.) But that is it, there is no other sound. This one I bought cheap and it had been changed even back in the day as it has some old '70s (maybe early 80s) Badass bridge instead of what it came with.

All that said, 3 grand for that Les Paul Recording Bass...yowza got to be crazy. Maybe and a big collector maybe if was like store mint in original case with the tags, but I have heard those guitar pickups and they sound pretty awful. The electronics on those are also kinda oddball as I think it has like a full preamp built in. If dude bought that over 10 years ago, i bet he paid $300-400 bucks.

Guitar playas...you so crazy.

" purchased this brand new and it has primarily remained in the case with maybe 2 hours of playtime. I started a new job and haven’t had time to play it at all and have another custom on order that payment is coming due so listing a few things. I’ll keep this if I can sell other guitars first. "

It's a cool looking guitar, but 5 grand is 5 grand.

with the high boutique guitars i notice there's a big difference between listing them for multiple thousands of dollars and selling them for that price.

for example, this dude has literally posted this fucking guitar at the exact same exorbitant price for the last 3 or so years and never lowers the price

https://minneapolis.craigslist.org/wsh/msg/d/stillwater-ronin-palus-mourn/7551057214.html

and i'm sure that's what he paid, but i feel like you'll never get all the money back on a boutique small maker guitar, like you have to get one made thinking it's your forever guitar not and investment (as compared to putting the same money into an expensive vintage fender or gibson, etc)...people like brand names they know no matter how cool the guitar

it's truly crazy in the case of something like that veritas guitar--i took a look and that's a true custom shop that starts with a body style and offers infinite options beyond that. so you have to find the other guy in minneapolis who's looking for a t-style guitar with two humbuckers and a bigsby, is down with coffee table sunburst, and has 5 grand to spare.

I had a weird 74 SG special and the neck was more narrow than a Rick and like totally thin at the top. Neck was like easily bendible and it was connected pretty shallow. Kinda weird and neat to look at as it had some funky pickguard and was different but as a good sounding and playing instrument, kinda crap. They are worth lot more money than they used to be.

was going to say you have to be willing to ship something like that Ronin but he is - he just wants more (probably by close to $2k) than he get for it
https://reverb.com/item/35787336-ronin-palus-mourn

People really struggle with the realization that outside of a few cases fancy used shit is still only worth 65-70% of new (if you're lucky).

yes I love the ads which quote the purchase price, and stipulate that the selling price is not negotiable because it's very reasonable.

my fav is dudes that want to sell some mexican fender that they only "played a few times" for $50 the guitar center list price

Are there any industry estimates of how many guitars are destroyed each year? It feels to me like the price of starter guitars should be trending towards zero since they keep making more, and the ones that are out there don't magically disintegrate after your overzealous kid gives up on it. So unless first act and fender form an OPEC-like cabal to reduce starter guitar production, there will be an ever-growing glut on the used market...

Well a lot of dentists and sales execs are taking guitars out of the market by having like 50 of them on their walls.

i think they just turn into wall decor for most people

lol man alive otm

It used to bother me, but now I feel like there's such an abundance of cheap and moderately priced well-made guitars that I don't care if the "collectors' guitars" get taken out of circulation by people who suck at blues.

Yeah the entry level and especially the tier just above entry level have improved beyond belief in the last decade. Squier Classic Vibes and Paranormal Series are made as well as top line production Fenders of the 70s-00s, albeit with cheaper hardware.

I recall seeing an extremely satisfying video a while back of Gibson destroying hundreds of its stupid robot guitars

https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/gibson_destroys_hundreds_of_firebird_x_guitars_issues_statement_on_why_it_had_to_be_done.html

Generally agree that a $300ish guitar right now is light-years better than anything available to me as a kid. Yr Squiers and Mexifenders are pretty consistently dependable. Most bedroom players don't need anything else. Heck, even most gigging musicians would be able to get through a show without embarrassment on a reasonably well-set-up Epi or whatever.

Not sure about how to address Philip's overall economic point - that is, why do they keep making these perfectly adequate guitars if there isn't a continually expanding market. Maybe there is? Or maybe there are a just a whole lot of neon-colored Ibanezes sitting in suburban attics. When the insectoid aliens finally invade and take over, perhaps they will assume we worshipped a six-stringed god called Floyd Rose.

Surprisingly there are only 35 Squier listings on my Craigslist - not surprisingly they're all priced way too high when you can go get one from Guitar Center with a 10% off coupon pretty easily. So they'll sit in closets and attics forever until they end up at Goodwill or a garage sale and go to someone like the hoarder upthread who had a hundred beginners guitars in his garage.

13 years ago the Bass VI was unobtainable and I decided to try to make one by hacking a shortscale Jazz Bass neck and looking for a body. Then I decided it should be a "what if" Fender had made a Mustang VI. Then I abandoned the project (several times). After collecting bits in occasional bursts I've now finished hacking the neck and attached it to a Squier Mustang Bass body so it kinda exists now! Lots more work with pickups, pickguard etc and lacquering the neck. But darned if it doesn't play beautifully even in this rough state.
https://i.imgur.com/GT7Kh9w.jpg

that's really cool

Not quite yet! but thank you and I'm working on it. Insanely light due to the poplar body.

but that is really cool! i guess it lacks the killswitch that the vi has, but stick an eq pedal at the start of your chain and you're golden

loving all your cool projects mkkkk

well thanks you guys! and NickB it will have a killswitch of sorts, by analogy of the VI/Jaguar relationship I plan to give it the same threeway phase-off-otherphase pickup switches a regular Mustang has. Gotta get a wider control plate and figure out the pickguard properly tho.
https://i.imgur.com/nZesscR.jpg

oh fuck that's gonna rule! :)))

oh sorry actually i meant strangle switch not killswitch, so that you can knock out the bass frequencies

complete jelly brains here this evening

ooh maybe I should do on-off-strangle for the pickup switches!

altho strangle is a Jag thing, plus I actually bought a cheap used VI in the interim …

strangle on a bass vi is a very interesting idea

lol @ the price but damn what a pretty guitar

https://www.jtkmstudio.com/product-page/1963-64-fender-jaguar-surf-green

strangle on a bass vi is a very interesting idea

i didn’t realize that! i thought they just had the individual on/offs.

it's definitely their secret weapon and the thing that makes them such a killer guitar imo