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

I recommend you search out a Tokai “Hard Puncher”, they can be found cheaper occasionally and it is the most P bass I have ever encountered. Kills 70s Fenders dead.

i will! thanks for the tip!

Seconding the MIJ love. Nothing to add though.

UMS, I got an American Professional II Telecaster a couple of years ago and it is about the best combination of "easy to play" and "sounds amazing" that I have ever had access to. Anyone I let play it agrees. Not really a big gear person, I am probably not qualified to really speak to these things beyond being a guy who has played in bands for a lot of years, but yeah it rules. I imagine the Strats are great too.

i bet the tele is great too, i feel like this series hits the perfect mix of staying pretty traditional but with little smart improvements

The Dano 12s sound amazing, I have one-though it's not that balanced. very curious what the new humbucker one sounds like.

I went to this crazy store in Maryland called Chuck Levin's, which carries like every new model of every big brand. I played about 10 telecasters and the neck of the American Pro II was simply too good to pass up. About the best feeling neck of any instrument I have ever played.

For anyone “12 curious”, do NOT sleep on the Squier Paranormal Jazzmaster XII. Insanely well made and easy to play.

Grandavis, Chuck Levin's has been an institution basically forever. Given the amount of money I have spent there, I would like them to name a new wing after me (but they probably will not).

Glad you connected with an instrument. Hope it serves you well.

It was very nice to go to a non-Guitar Center-like environment and really get to try out the guitars. Much different experience than most stores like that I have gone to, and yeah that telecaster has been great so far. A real joy to play.

If you get down to Virginia try Action.

There are comparatively few independent stores put there these days.

*out

mattk thanks for putting that Squier on my radar!

I’ve heard mutterings that Fender is testing the waters for raising Squier’s price category, hence the stellar reputation-building quality of the Classic Vibe and Paranormal ranges. No complaints here, some of the best guitars I’ve tried for about half the price I would expect, but it can’t last.

I've also tried out the Jazzmaster XII and it's pretty nice and not too expensive. Jazzmasters without vibratos though.... eh. In a perfect world they'd just keep the last reissue of the standard Fender XII around though- that's a classic model on Led Zeppelin and Velvet Underground records.

The 80s Squires are very nice and if you were blindfolded, you simply wouldn't know.

Strats are awesome. There's only a tone attorney stigma if you have the SRV pickguard.

Quick update, my Tobacco Burst Epi Les Paul Standard 60s arrived this morning.

Can confirm it shits on my previous burner guitar (an atrocious plywood ‘AXL Tiger Pro’ pointy Ibanez clone) from a great height. Definitely wasn’t expecting the insane amount of sustain I’m getting out of it. V happy with it so far :)

As the tail end of purchase follies in 2023 I received a box of stuff in the mail earlier in the week. A fantasy baseball project, combining things I love:
- Jazzmaster bodies
- Tele Custom pickup configs
- Telemasters / offset Telecasters
- 70s black-on-black-on-maple aesthetics
- the necks and vibe of 70s Greco Fender copies.
Therefore: a Telemaster Custom as if Greco had made one in the 70s.
Ingredients: a used 2019 Squier JM HH hardtail, and a 70s Greco neck that was covered in weird gunk and so was about 1/4 the price they usually fetch. I was able to chip it off with a careful razor blade, which took a while. It came up pretty well except the area between frets 3 and 4 was scraped to wood sometime long ago.
Laying out some parts to figure how it will go:
https://i.imgur.com/uSghpUw.jpg
but maybe a Jazzmaster neck pickup to offer something different from my beloved Squier Tele Custom:
https://i.imgur.com/eNSa5CH.jpg
Maybe a black cover tho? Who knows, it'll take a long time to sort out a pickguard and a nicer bridge.

Looks great, Greco neck matches body well.

It's a little loose in the pocket, which I'm choosing to view as "authentic 70s Fender".

Shims.

Shims.

Lol. Two shims, I guess.

Bout to pick up this girl on my last day in Tokyo tomorrow
https://i.postimg.cc/GmhL5j6N/IMG-4426.jpg

125000 yen. Pretty girl, plays wonderfully, very excited

ooh! nice!

The Shims, one of my favorite bands. Chutes Too Marrow, right?

Haven't bought a guitar pedal for so long but I'm real tempted by this -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2Y61ZVGqzE

seeing the temu thread just reminded me - lots of decent enough chinese clone pedals out there now, and most are boringly-enough pretty standard fare, but here are a couple of really fun ones i've picked up recently off aliexpress for supercheap, both at the weirder/more interesting end of things while still being pretty useable:

Movall Falling Star modulated delay
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006162312833.html
Superb memory man clone with those lovely lightly-distorted modulated repeats, think of the sounds that the edge was getting in early U2 stuff e.g. 'A Day Without Me'. Really it sounds awesome, no tap tempo or any pattern options but maybe just maybe my favourite delay out of the ones i have atm

Ginean Ringmod Modulator
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005774060602.html
A clone of the legendary DOD Gonkulator from the 90s that Digitech themselves reissued recently for ~$100 more. Really musical for a ring mod, you can easily tune it to the key you're playing in and get some great metallic gong-like sounds. It also has a nice distortion circuit based on the DOD Grunge which you can blend with the ring mod or just use by itself

don't really get how Ali works but you might need to click about a bit to get the best price. i paid about £30 for each? both well worth it imo

https://i.ibb.co/hBF1Mpy/20240122-202810.jpg

not the ugliest things either which is very much a bonus

I needed a bridge and pickup for the project above, saw some apparently decent stuff from China on eBay, figured I'd give them a punt.
https://i.imgur.com/evRD4SL.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/NdpNnKH.jpg
They look absurdly high quality for a total of $37 US delivered. I'll be interested to know how they sound.

yeah looks very solid

I did a fun/cheap little thing, changed the pickguard on my Jazz bass from white to tortoiseshell to class it up a bit. cheapie from Amazon, looks good, but did have to take a metal file and grind it down in a couple spots to fit.

https://i.postimg.cc/pX2xDC48/PXL-20240112-045706209.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/0NLKQFt7/PXL-20240112-210459431.jpg

essential upgrade, first thing I did on my sunburst jazzmaster

xp that okko pedal is really interesting, i totally hear what they were going for and i'm not sure what other pedals are doing something similar.

xpost yeah the white always looks kinda cheap w/sunburst, i don't know why they default to that sometimes, even black would be way better

Tortoise is my fave

My younger daughter turned 18 this week and spurned my offers of vintage Japanese Fenders. Here she is stringing the Squier Contemporary Jaguar HH we ordered for her. It's a pretty wild setup and beautifully made in most respects.
https://i.imgur.com/1GyRYPc.jpg

(she's taking Contemporary Band and Songwriting this year, figures the blue sparkle will attract a good drummer to her band)

maybe it's just this guys playing but this drive pedal sounds amazing to me too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riOKrjz8RnM

Sounds like a calmed-down tricot

haha yes it does

matt it makes me happy that your kid inherited some of your guitar enthusiasm

She plays better than me in some respects, can sing like an angel and is hugely creative. I just see myself as a launch platform for my two gals actually.

Progress: nickel/brass bridge, vintage correct pickup, $37 delivered for both. Fit-up, alignment, redrilling etc. Then dug out some shitty used strings for the sake of it.
https://i.imgur.com/Ct4Orci.jpg
To my shock it lined up, tuned up, intonated, action set in a couple of minutes, it plays like it came this way from the factory. Insane.

Looks like a beauty, good good work there

took a flier on a second-hand shijie stratocaster in daphne blue that guitar forum dorks claim is as good as a suhr for a third of the price

it'll be here early next week, wish me luck lads

noiice!

the shijie arrived today and it is my grim duty to report that this thing plays like butter

nice!

my American Professional II might be my last guitar, still loving it

the "Gilmour mod" where you can use the neck and bridge pickup together was a nice little throw-in curiosity when I bought it but have been doing recording lately and it's probably my most used pickup setting

i’ve always wanted to try that, maybe i should break out the soldering iron and give it a shot

that shijie in full:

https://i.ibb.co/xqb1SSB/IMG-5376.jpg

that looks great

just as a visual thing they definitely figured out the biggest dealbreaker for me on alternate makers' versions of fender model - they did enough to make sure the headstock was different enough not to be sued by fender but still made it look classic and nice and not some goofy design

yeah i’m v sensitive to headstock cognitive dissonance, they did a good job of toeing fender’s LAWYER ALERT line

the neck is maybe the nicest i’ve ever played - perfect fretwork, rolled edges, lovely satin finish and the whole thing vibrates beautifully when you play