Leaderboard

Ya know that issue bubs_42 has with certain amps? Yeah well, I got the same problem with flashy Cail's. This thing is in transit as I type. Gon' be some anxious moments between now and when it arrives.

So, I bought Tombo’s penny-colored tele that he had on the for-sale board, I originally wanted a vintage white one but because he had searched through several to find a “good” one, plus the fact that he put the Gravelins in it and had it set up, and it would save me some money to boot, I decided to jump on his. And as it turns out the color is really growing on me, plus it’s a really sweet playing guitar. But the PICKUPS...WOW!! These pickups exceed my anticipation and expectation. The neck pickup is absolutely, ummm, drippy! I don’t know any other word to use. It is just super expressive and bluesy, it’s like it adds nuance to every note. I don’t have a lot of neck single coils to compare it to, but I’ve gone back and forth with the neck pickups in my TLE, my Daytona, and my T-51. The T51 comes closest to giving it a run for its money but the Gravelin is just sweeter. The bridge pickup is twangy and spanky, it’s bright like a tele bridge pickup should be but instead of drilling your ears like an ice pick, it sings. I love cranking it up and smacking open chords on those top 3 strings, it’s tele bridge goodness. I’ve got a tele with twisted tele pickups coming (I’ve been on a holiday buying binge, I really need to get back to work!) and I have a parts tele that’s just about done and it has EMG’s, so I’ll have a couple more comparisons I can make, but as it stands today, I can’t put down this guitar, and the pickups are the largest part of why. They are awesome, I look forward to trying some of his other models in the future.

So who needs a great 1991 Sunburst Archtop. This is a really nice one. Looking to clear $1300 for it shipped lower 48 states. More on shipping elsewheres. Duncans JB/59, few little dings to surface of back and a couple spots on edge from sitting on a stand. Photos of them if needed. No dings trough the finish and no chips. Thinish neck consistent with that time period. Nice HSC too.

Dude! Do you know how much cover you give me? Every time my wife pipes up, I just point to your latest NAD or NGD post. She mutters something about that bubs guy and I'm off the hook. Your addiction is a charitable service to the rest of us. I thank you for your service.

99% of all my CS orders were efforts to circumvent the limitations imposed by various brands. It started with my 08 Charvel CS Star- while my prowess and situation did not warrant one, my WTHYOLO attitude convinced me to get this made as few, if any of the Stars had 24 frets. It only served to fan higher the flames of CS GAS. And, as luck would have it, Hamer started offering more CS options including their Californian so.... that was a must! Looking back, I would have done a few things different on it but overall, it rawks! Then I ordered another Star, but this time, from Jackson CS (Charvel was no longer accepting orders) and with some notable difference from the first Star- neck thru and featuring a graphic I designed & drew up. Then, upon learning of Shane Huss' work at HEL guitars, I pulled the trigger on my own version of the Hamer Red Molly Standard- Long scale, mahogany, 24 frets, set neck, Floyd-ed (no shit) reversed head & custom HD skull fret inlay. It so exceeded expectations that it spurred me on to have him make me a Charvel-style Dinky. Charvel was no longer taking CS orders and even if they would, they wouldn't offer a few key specs I wanted so, I went elsewhere. Hence, the Spitfire came to life and remains the pinnacle of my custom orders. 7/8 size alder Dinky body, bolt on maple neck and board, 24 stainless jumbos, reversed Strat head, Floyd, 2 H, toggle, yada yada. This ax kicks the snot out of any Charvel I've ever laid hands on. Suffice it to say, I've had my grubbies and quite a few And as I made the mistake of not taking full advantage of Charvel and Hamer to get additional custom builds made, I've decided to have Shane build me two additional custom orders, a second Spitfire w/ a few variations and a truly unique amalgamation of two iconic Hamer models.

Posting HFC'er MannMade USA's pre-order link here in the FS forum for those who may not have seen it. Posted Monday at 09:11 PM Okay... here is a link for complete BRIDGES and sets of 6 SADDLES At this time it is PRE-ORDER only, but if demand is high enough, I will stock these on a regular basis. LINK to PRE-ORDER - https://store.guitarvaultusa.com/SearchResults.asp?Search=hamer&Submit= It was originally posted towards the bottom of the third page of this thread: https://www.hamerfanclub.com/forums/topic/83362-if-not-an-original-sustain-block-bridge-what/page/3/

And check the HFC classified page every 20 minutes 24/7. I recently got lucky buying @BadgerDave’s Ultimate which was delivered in person. TY Dave! It’s simply amazing (and 2 lbs lighter than the Custom Standard I sold).

Lindley used his own amps when recording despite Browne’s Dumbles being available. Yet when Rick Vito played for Jackson, he used a Dumble. I’m not the best Jackson Browne expert but Rick played the iconic solo on “Tender is the Night” and those great double stops on “Somebody’s baby”... in fact most of Browne’s 80’s stuff has Rick on it, just not “That Girl Could Sing”. Rick Vito used a Dumble for the masterful and epic slide solo to Bob Seger’s “Like a Rock”. Use these tones as a guideline for the “D” sound. picture in your mind a Vox’s crushed glass overdrive paired with a Fender’s clean sparkle and a Marshall’s detailed compression... you get an amplifier that can transmit the most minute of sonic details and deliver them with flair and authority.

Not that anyone wants to hear this, but I need to blow off steam. I'm in GC today killing some lunch hour time and playing guitars. I start playing teles because I only have USA's and I wanted to see how good/bad the MIM and Squiers are, just out of curiosity. Now, we all know tele's have the most slender headstock on a guitar, so WHY does GC still hang them on those archaic, fixed U-shape hangars with foam on them?? The U is nowhere near small enough to capture that skinny headstock reliably. So I play like 4 teles, they are all 4 in a row, and I hang each one of them back up. After the last one, I go to hang it up, and I must have induced the most perfect little bump or vibration, because the first tele slips right through the hangar and hits the floor. I am mortified, so I instantly reach to pick it back up, and as I'm carefully placing it back on the hangar, the second one slips and hits the floor, now I'm frantic so I grab it and go to hang it up, and it just wants to slip right back through so I start trying to hang it up REAL carefully, then that f'ing first tele drops again, so I go to hang it up real quick and then the friggin' 3rd one drops ON MY DAMN TOE, now I'm literally losing my shit, my toe hurts to high heaven, and finally, the 4th one makes its requisite drop, and I have to grab that one and hang it back up! This guitar hanging game of whack-a-mole continues a couple more times before they finally seem to stay put, and I back sloooooowly away (limping actually) hoping that I can make my escape before, with my luck, the entire wall of guitars comes crashing down. Thank god they were all on the bottom row. Now I understand where all the "scratch and dents" are coming from (one particularly light, nice Player tele had a giant chunk out of the bottom, now I know how that crap happens). You'd think GC would wise up. Hoping they don't hang my picture up with a BANNED symbol on it!

Some of these may have been seen before, but hafta show 'em again to answer the "motivation" part of the original post. I'd always wanted a two-pickup jazz box, and it was cool to get a legendary luthier like Dick Allen to make it. He threw in extras like bookmatched bird's-eye top and back. Seymour Duncan personally wound the pickups. That led to a sports-centric double-cut; green w/ gold hardware, also made by R.C. (Back the Pack; don't own this one anymore): Also wanted a pure acoustic w/ a floating pickup; R.C. made a prototype 18" model and surprised me w/ the fretboard inlay and other cosmetic amenities, like the quilted maple bookmatched back: I also ordered some solidbodies and semi-solids from Dave Wintz @ Robin. The Savoy is the only one that was ever made w/ a maple 'board. Ordered w/ "Mose markers" on accounta my vision problems, and parted with another Robin and a Metropolian 'coz I couldn't see the abalone markers on rosewood 'boards. The previous Savoy financed the order for this one. The Princess got a custom Robin Ranger in school colors for a graduation present, also w/ Mose markers: Yes, there is a bit of ego in custom-ordering instruments but I've supported smaller luthiers and companies when I have done so. May even part with these within a few years, as I sold the bulk of my collection about four years ago (noted on another recent thread)

Adding a tag @BassCowboy because enabling is what we do here.

Come on down, I'm sure I can fill your Amp needs. My wife would appreciate something actually leaving the house. My resolution is to stay married. I think I pushed it a bit in 2019, so i'm hoping for an upswing in 2020.

Got to spend a little time with the Bullitt Mustang and it’s owner back in October. Really excited to see how much it’s going to go for this week.

Sounds perfectly normal to me.

I got up and picked up a guitar just to find I cannot play any better this year than last year. 2020 sucks already.

Not much of an update since my last post. My original plan to trade my Hamers for what I thought would be 90% of the funds I would need for the property was unrealistic (big surprise right). That property had a whacky HOA and ridiculously high fees. In order to get something that is reasonable from a HOA $ perspective it requires more cash up front. I just turned 50.....there are a lot of affordable 55+ communities in the Safety Harbor area.I started a fund that I will contribute to over the next 4 yrs 9 months to help buy into one of these when I turn 55. i can’t figure out how my Hamers factor into the new plan....I still have the handshake agreement for the sale and I’m still unwilling to let them go at this point. Probably not the smartest financial move but I stand by my decision.

Hoping's for suckers. Get out there and make it a better year! Be ready to accept the sh* t you can't control, act on the things you can, and pour yourself a tall one of whatever you're drinking, for in between. Just my .02. Happy New Year and Rock on, Hamer-ites!

Nope.

Presents under the Christmas Amp!

The only "custom" orders I got were from Carvin, which in many ways is not really a "custom shop", more of a 'production line guitars made to order' deal. I had one guitar and 3 basses made. Mainly because I wanted a guitar that didn't have something I didn't want on it. I don't really like block inlays, and I like certain colors. I also don't really like bling. These are the ones I had made to my specs: The guitar: Carvin Bolt. Basic Hardtail Strat clone. Maple fretboard with an Electric Blue finish. Also a pearloid guard. It has the standard AP11 pickups which are really quite nice. Glassy, with a bit more bite than a regular single coil. They compare closely to the G&L MFD singles, with less output. This is one of my daily drivers, so much so that my G&L guitars will probably eventually go away. It's all the strat I'll ever need. B5 with Swamp ash body, rosewood FB, Sunsetburst finish and matching headstock. Also has abalone dot inlays. I had the original stacked humbucker pickups replaced with the Carvin J99A pickups, and haven't looked back. Just a great bass with a great sound. I also had a PB4, the Carvin Precision bass clone, made, with the extra bridge pickup added. Swamp ash body, blueburst finish with matching head stock. Ebony Fretboard. Pearloid pickguard. It's a great bass for when I need a vintage sounding 4 string. It is active/passive, and has a passive tone control, in addition to the 18V bass and treble cut/boost, so it's really versatile in that sense. This is probably the most "modern" bass that I own: an XB75 in "Translucent Pearl Blue". It's got Radiused humbucking pickups, an 18V preamp with mid sweep. It's a 35 1/4" scale, with a Hipshot A-style bridge. It has ash body wings, with a maple / walnut through body neck. Ebony fretboard as well. I have considered picking up some of the kiesel "radium" humbucking pickups for a bit more output, but the sound from the pickups IS very smooth. Time will tell.

Sometimes you seem 95% younger.

Yeah, this time of year always sucks for selling. I will say this though - Good pictures and writing a decent ad helps a lot. I've moved guitars when their were older postings for the same models for about the same price as those listings I think because I try to take at least OK pictures and actually bother to try and sell the guitar a little in my ad.

The problem with those methods are they attract dirt. Also if hands get graphite on them and it gets on the pickup poles, good luck getting the graphite off. The best method I’ve found, is using Crayola crayons. White and black for respective nut colors. Just scrape it into the slot, and voila, a nice slick surface the strings won’t bind on, and it won’t dirty up the slots by attracting dirt.

Wins; Pedals - Strymon Flint, JHS AT+, AND - not a pedal but an awesome book about - Pedal Crush Amps - Allen Old Flame (Allen built) head with 2x12, REVV D20 Guitars - G&L Doheny - So in love. I love the colour (Emerald Green Metallic), matching headstock, competition stripe, the MFD pickups are very versatile (Roll back that Treble pot a bit), I found the tone controls to be different than expected, but very functional (Bass and Treble cuts) especially for this guitar, pretty bright fully open. Oh and the G&L trem is so good! Misc - Mono M80 guitar bag. Came free with a Tick 2.0. Never thought I'd love a gigbag so much. But I really do. Fails - Strymon Riverside. My second attempt with one. Not enough lead boost for my needs. Tried to replace a couple of drive pedals and lead boost with just the one. Nope. Drive sounds are great, but the pedal is large and takes up too much real estate to just add a separate boost at the end. 1979 Hamer Sunburst. Kinda fell into my lap. Traded straight up for a 2018 SG Standard. So that's a win. Just didn't connect with it. Sold it for a good profit, bought that G&L mentioned above and a set of winter tires (wheee!!!). Not a total fail, but the guitar to me was. If you like it, the dude who bought it is listing it for 5k now. Was $8500.

I too was introduced to Rush by way of All the World’s a Stage: the local FM station (97.1 KAYD, “FM-97”) would play the live version of “Working Man” on a regular basis. (This was in the days when FM radio had no issue playing 15-minute songs in regular rotation.) I bought the album and was off and running as a Rush fan. I only got to see them six times; I wish it could have been more. 10/25/1977 - Beaumont City Auditorium, Beaumont, TX 03/04/1979 - Fair Park Coliseum, Beaumont, TX 04/05/1982 - Lake Charles Civic Center, Lake Charles, LA 01/15/1986 (or maybe it was 01/16/1986) - The Summit, Houston, TX 06/11/2011 - Frank Erwin Center, Austin, TX 04/23/2013 - Frank Erwin Center, Austin, TX -- Neil’s second book, Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road, came out in 2002. After his daughter died in a car crash and his wife died from cancer (“The doctors said it was cancer, but I knew it was of a broken heart”) in a span of about 10 months, the only way he could think of to deal with it was to get on his motorcycle and ride. He covered roughly 55,000 miles of North and Central America, trying to heal what he referred to as his “little baby soul.” Ghost Rider is a chronicle of that journey. Several years ago when I first got a Kindle, I downloaded it, kind of skimmed through it and thought it was an interesting travelogue. But I recently read it again from a paperback edition. As I’ve mentioned before, my wife of thirty years died in 2014. So this time I read it with a whole new perspective. Obviously, Neil Peart’s life and mine are (were) very different. I lost my wife; he lost his wife AND daughter. He was a successful, world-famous musician living his dream life and I’m…not. And I couldn’t exactly get on a R1100GS and check out from the world; I had a nine-year-old daughter to tend to and an 18-year-old son just out of high school trying to figure out what to do with his life. Not to mention I had to get up and go to work every day. But many of the things he wrote about really struck a chord – besides, loss is loss, regardless of your life situation. So I felt a bit of a kinship to him. “If the first is the year of sorrow, then the second is the year of emptiness.” How very true. As I read, I found myself wishing I could reach out to Neil and have a conversation. Obviously, that wasn’t going to happen, but there are many things I would have liked to have talked to him about – and none of them pertained to music or Rush. I was a couple of chapters away from finishing the book when the news broke that he had died. So even if I HAD found some way to communicate with him (which I never had any delusions of doing anyway), it definitely wasn’t going to happen now. So goodbye, Neil, from your longtime fan and brother in loss.

I've had this 1975 Strat for 25 years or so. It's stock except for Straplocks and a 5-way switch (still have the original 3-way and strap buttons). This spring it will be going on the block. Pictures are old and not very good, but until it warms up outside it's what I got, and it hasn't really changed in 15 years aside from maybe some more checking. Everything functions as it should. It's an honest not-too-messed-with '75 Strat, warts and all. I figure it's worth $350, I just need to know a ballpark on shipping. Opinions?

I played in a band a few years back with a guy who went to high school with Joe Walsh. I asked what he was like, and he said, "Well, he's exactly like you think he is. He's 100% himself. There's no act in any of it." National Treasure.

Name names. We have not had a good blow up on the message board in a while. No one has been banned in a long time. There has not been anything to tell the people who come back after a months or year long absence.

Might be the only pussy it attracts.

Best: Definitely the minty white Ibanez AS73 loaded with a set of Gibson '57 Classics that I bought from a local jazz box player. $250 with OHSC. Bought it to have a semi-hollow to play around the house; ended up in my gigging rotation that includes an Archtop Studio and P-90 Special. That Ibby is a tone monster in spite of its price and origin. Close second: A barely-used Wampler Pinnacle Deluxe V2. Pretty nice dirt box with a lot of tonal options tweakable to adjust to different guitars and/or pickups. Worst: Don't laugh...but my 2019 duds were all small-potatoes accessories. Bought a Dunlop concave pyrex slide in the "L" size that's supposed to fit my finger (I have an old one I got in a trade of parts that I love--it had no markings re: size). Turned out to be too large and not worth the effort to return. Also used an Best Buy gift card to buy a collapsible guitar stand for my daughter's Tele--a stand that's very compact when folded, but not very useful when set up. Again, small $$$ and not worth the gas or effort to return.

Yes, you do. Punkavenger's Les Paul does not duplicate anything you already have.

Your friend is David Crosby?!?

Vince’s performance was unintelligible but close to pitch... DLR was beating the shit outa everything but the note! I have to wonder if his ego is so big he see’s these clips and thinks he’s still good??? Sad... I’m in my mid 60’s and I know I can’t play or sing like I used too, So I let the young fingers do the walking and the young voices do the talking while I do the comping and harmonies.... But I can still nail a kickass polka... LOL!!

I think I saw that in an Abbott and Costello movie once.

Well @hamerhead aka "i'll skirt the rules that do not apply to me", I'll see your $350 and give you $125 to ship it to me.

I think I need to order a book.

If you've ever watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas", you've probably noticed his name in the credits. He wrote the lyrics to 'Christmas Time Is Here', in about 15 minutes on the back of an envelope, so the story goes. It's funny how often that seems to happen in music history: https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/lee-mendelson-dies-brought-charlie-brown-christmas-tv-67953331

If he offered $350/Hamer then you know he’s been here...

SOLD

I agree, Rodi. I expect 2020 to be an awesome Shishkov year here as well.

Shishkov #0070, take a Newport, Artist Custom, and a Duotone and put them in a blender.

Mike Portnoy going full fanboy and air drumming behind Dave is pretty great too.

I've had, at this point: USA Adrian Smith USA Soloist USA Fusion Japanese DK2M Japanese RR5 Should have kept the Soloist, but I may pick another one up. The Adrian Smith was cool on paper, but I never liked it as much as the strathead Charvels I have. The other two were fine, but just felt a little cheap. I'm one of those weirdos who likes everything from thin necks to 59 LP neck profiles.

My favorite part was realizing the referee was Andy.

Good and peacefull year for every one! My "good intent" for this year: Won´t buy a guitar which I don´t need ... o.k. maybe one or two.... ;-)

This one has always been one of the nicest tops with the best color. Good luck, not that you need it.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Festivus and otherwise Happy Holidays!

I think his facial expression is indicative and more a result of the fact he was an unmitigated and unapologetic asshole on the level of his talent. A character trait well documented and witnessed by me personally in one of the most awkward yet funniest backstage "star player" moments I have ever encountered. Yngwie Malmsteen has nothing on Gary Moore in the outright fuckstickery department. At least Yngwie always leaves the slight doubt in your mind that he may be playing a caricature.

I got this one (also an '88) eons ago from a guy selling gear for a "name player" in LA...he wouldn't divulge the name at the time.