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

De gustibus, calstars; rock the fuck on.

De gusta what?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_gustibus_non_est_disputandum?wprov=sfla1

Want a Kustom K-200 just for the sweet fretboard inlay choice

https://www.retrofret.com/images/9059_Guitar/xLarge/9059_01.jpg

get it refinished in that Ric's candy apple purple maybe

lol, respect to the brave soul who decided traditional inlay patterns just weren't cutting it

Fretboard inlays are such a waste of effort imo.

I play guitar tolerably often (I think) and my eyes are pretty much never on the fretboard of a guitar I am engaged in playing. Usually I am looking forward, and in any case I would have to awkwardly angle the guitar in order to look at fretboard markings.

From time to time I might look at the side of the neck. There are usually some dots there. But I would have to be in pretty bad shape to need them. Lost or drunk or completely disintegrating, musically speaking.

If I were to become so lost as to not know whether I was playing at the fifth or seventh fret, my ears would tell me way sooner than my eyeballs could.

I look at them all the time

Yeah, I’m an inveterate neck-looker.

The first time I played a show (as a 45 year old) I had no idea how much I looked at the side dots until I couldn't see them on stage. Front ones not so much apparently.

John Entwistle's basses starting in 1989 or so were outfitted with LED side dots. I thought that was pretty cool.

Are people tilting their instruments toward their face? Or tilting their faces into their laps?

I play a bunch of different instruments, and I perform regularly. I literally cannot understand simultaneously singing into a microphone, looking at an audience, and seeing the fretboard of an instrument I am holding. Sitting, maybe, standing, no.

In general I play sitting in front of a small amp, and my cats aren’t big on eye contact, so the fretboard markers are easily seen

https://i.imgur.com/2ywglEV.png

I play a bunch of different instruments and play regularly and just look at the fretboard a lot I think a lot people do. Sometime I move my head or my eyes and look and other things.

https://i.imgur.com/s4FBKOX.png

I play like this generally…on the back of the neck I put little nibs on the 3, 5, 7 etc so I can tell where I’m fretting

I’m a newbie guitarist and I sort of wandered into this thread and my overarching reaction to this most recent conversation is a strong despairing feeling that I’ll never be a real guitarist combined with an overwhelming desire to kick Ye Mad Puffin in the nuts so hard that my own explode

Even if you don't look at them, inlays are a decorative touch. A plain fretboard on an electric guitar would look lame 99% of the time and no one plays guitar to look lame. Except for people who buy headless guitars, I guess.

I literally cannot understand simultaneously singing into a microphone, looking at an audience, and seeing the fretboard of an instrument I am holding. Sitting, maybe, standing, no.

― iliac crestfallen (Ye Mad Puffin), Sunday, November 13, 2022 2:38 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

it's cool that you are such a natural and never had to learn the fretboard!

i agree that inlays are not particularly useful in many live performance settings but that isn't that big a wedge of the pie my dude

like, do you ever learn a new riff or part or is that also not applicable to you?

Okay sorry this clearly came out wrong - it is not that about skill but physics. My bellybutton faces outward. The instrument faces outward. My eyes face outward. To look at the front part of the instrument (for me) requires me to turn myself into a parenthesis or semicircle. It's just ergonomically difficult.

When at home, sitting down, learning something? I guess I can see the fret markers if I bend a bunch and tilt the instrument just so. It isn't comfortable but it is technically possible. Standing up, in concert, I just physically can't. Okay?

no i get it, my response was probably heavy handed but clearly they're there (along with the side markers) to guide us until the time when we're totally comfortable playing and singing and looking forward and playing things we've internalized through hours of practice

Milo speaks truth, and said it better than what I have ham-handedly tried to say. Decoration is cool, even if it isn't how one normally navigates. Merely wanted to say that I normally can't see the front of an instrument that I am playing.

Peace and love to you all; my apologies for offending.

what a fretful conversation, i'm already bored

sorry matt, we'll try to do better next time

i just wanted to make the pun, sorry lol

ill considered and bad timing. anyway this thread is good vibes and i like reading it. team fret inlays here.

call me crazy, but I kind of like the look of the Eastman Juliet

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0468/6148/4199/products/hj3-12818_2400x2400.jpg?v=1667594303

Might be the best looking Eastman electric to date. Until now their slightly cheesy look has been the sore spot for me about the otherwise incredible value of their guitars.

Body's a little too close to a Music Man but it's kinda cool

i feel like i have very different tastes in guitar styles than other people here but the kustom guitar that started the inlay controversy is gorgeous

oh it's old, no wonder i like it lol
but eastwood makes a fake one: https://eastwoodguitars.com/products/custom-k200-dlx

i love it too. love the inlays

i keep picking on this craigslist dude and his "collection" but jesus this might be the worst stratocaster ever made

https://minneapolis.craigslist.org/ram/msg/d/saint-paul-58-fender-super-strat/7557717045.html

Looks pretty shitty

I got a new toy.

https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?attachments/thumbnail_image0-jpg.780272/

New shelves?

Old shelves, but I do have a few of them. I pretty much use a comic book collection as sound control in my lair.

https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?attachments/thumbnail_image0-1-jpg.780278/

Sweet lair tbh, wish I had a cave like that

Drip edge Bassman is giving me feelings!

I don’t want another guitar right now so much as I want the feeling of wanting another guitar

https://i.imgur.com/4flWhMl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/hQcYT3C.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/0PsJ3Hl.jpg

More like a few hours ago judging from his inlay looking technique

I drape my guitars in black velvet so I can't accidentally see the frets, let alone the markers

I don’t want another guitar right now so much as I want the feeling of wanting another guitar

I've offloaded my desire for one of the new vintage ii Jazzmasters in lake placid blue for one of the new vintage ii Telecaster Thinlines in lake placid blue

I'd never buy the only new guitar I really lust for, one of the Pelham Blue Murphy Lab '64 SGs. If Gibson would just offer it on the '61 Standard w/ Vibrola I'd figure out something to sell to get one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P14NvoK7Ajo

The Guild D-55 is just the love of my life right now, it was so worth it. I play it more than the Martin.

It's an interesting instrument to learn - I say learn because it really has this crazy amount of sustain and volume and just sings when you touch it, to the point that it's actually really hard to hide mistakes and you have to control it differently than with other guitars I've played. There are certain notes where you can hit them and immediately mute them and you still hear them ringing in the guitar like the string is open, I've never heard anything like it before.

Can hear the way it "sings" a bit in this clip of a flatpicking tune I'm working on
https://www.instagram.com/p/ClNVu_kDuJ3/

Wow, that amazing instrument clearly found the right person to perform with! The “singing” quality sounds like you’re doubling with a Nashville tuning at times. I love a happy ending, what a gem.

beautiful guitar and great pickin

thx :)

Nashville tuning/doubling is a great way to describe it, it feels like there's this "voice" coming out of the guitar that sings along with what I pick.

and thanks to all who encouraged me to pull the trigger on it