diablo175

Seriously, that's nice work. If you can't find a top-notch cover unit with those chops 'n' tones, I'd be surprised. Good luck!

Never2late put a fine point on it- it largely depends on what type of music you play. Since we play a lot of different types.of hard rock and metal, I have to have tones that just can't be gotten from a tube amp exclusively. That, and I really like the sound my guitars produce when running thru the ME50 and into the JVM. Perhaps it's a subtle contribution that the JVM's tubes add but it is, IMO, the shit!

Yup. Vinnie wow-ed me with his speed and histrionics but Ace (along with Jimi and Jimmy) made me wanna play guitar, period. Game over.

In the simplest terms possible- I can't get the dirt sound I like from the amp. Had every intention of doing just that, using the amps' dirt, but had a "happy accident" wherein I stumbled on one of the presets on the ME 50 and haven't looked back since then.

My co-guitarist and I have labored to find the right distortion tonal package. He has gone to his 100W JVM thru a 1960 A cab to get his. I get mine from a distortion setting in a Boss ME 50 I bought used, running into my JVM and a M412A. It probably should be added that a lot of the sounds he gets comes from the Boss GT-100. But the distortion is purely amp generated. So, do you prefer your distortion tone to come from your amp or from the FX array?

Yup. Sorry but KISS is and always has been Ace, Peter, Paul and Gene. Not taking away from Kulick who did some tasty stuff with them but that was kind of a forgettable phase anyway. I can only hope that the crowd boos them off the stage.

No, ugly Jon Kammerer guitars. Period. Sorry. Not my style. I like my electric guitars to look like, well, like electric guitars- not a misbegotten union between a teenager's wood shop project and playable, non-representational art.

You can't go wrong with a Diablo Seriously though, for that price point, Diablos are your answer- alder body, maple neck, rosewood board, 24 frets, Schaller Floyd, 2 H direct mounted, 3 way blade selector (swapped mine out for a toggle) and if you want even more tonal possibilities, you can probably coil tap your bridge p'up and make the tone knob into a push/push or push/pull.

Yeah Dragan, the context I understood it to have and the one I intended, is the elitist mindset. Snobbery. Validating one's worth by possessing expensive things...

To be clear, Zorrow, I'm not dissing <1000 guitars or even imports as some of the ESP's, Ibby's and the MIJ Jacksons (back in the day) were every bit as high quality as their made-in-USA counterparts. And to further illustrate my point, I've owned a metric shit-ton of lower price point imports and used mid-lines, because frankly, it was all I could afford back then. Some of them just flat out fucking rocked! But when I compare the multitude of those to the relatively few "cork sniffing" customs and one-off's, there's little doubt in my mind which was better in my experience- I still own the superior performing, built ones.

Please allow me to disagree. For me it's pretty objective. Above the 2.5K barrier it becomes cork-sniffing all the way. As far as you have a decent wooden frame (which nowadays it's not hard to find in many import lines) you can easily have a quality instrument for less than 1K. Sure, you can disagree. But you're missing my point; as someone pointed out above- carefully hand crafted axes with superior build materials have a greater likelihood of being (and remaining) better guitars than mass produced, lower end imports. Slapping on a new set of pick ups or replacing the pots, or bridge will not necessarily make a lower cost guitar as good as say, a custom guitar. I never set a price point as a cutoff for what is high end and what is cork sniff-ery. However, since you wish to bring up price point, I'll agree with you that anything over 2.5 G's is likely not going to be markedly better than the >2.5 G model. Unless you want certain specs unavailable on a pro mod. Well, then it becomes more valuable to the individual by virtue of the fact that it has THEIR specs on it now and perhaps is worth the extra 500- 1000. Case in point- I absolutely CANNOT get along with the 3 way Strat style switches on Calis. To get a factory toggle style switch (and a 2 H config) I had to order it custom. Sure, there were other options: just don't buy the guitar or mod an existing one where in I end up dropping a fair amount of coin to have it done professionally (factor in a new finish to keep it looking original and shiny and you're talking close to the coin a custom order would run.) If THAT'S cork sniffing, I'm guilty. You gotta pay to have it your way. If that's important to YOU, you'll do it. That's the subjective part.

What I'm taking from all of this is that it's largely subjective, which is kinda what I imagined it would be.

Well stated, sir!

:lol:

A silly debate raged on another forum last week and continues still. The topic? That a lower-cost guitar can be made to be as good as any high priced custom or fancy-shmanzy high end production model. This debate is nothing new and it's been touched on here at the HFC. What makes this somewhat noteworthy is my shift in perspective. I have vacillated back and forth between pro and con on this issue for years but I finally took the position of: higher end guitars , in most cases, are superior and that it's not likely that you can mod a low cost import to be as good as or better than an comparably equipped high end. And if you can, it's likely you're spending as much as you might have initially spent on a new or used higher end ax. Lots of reasons behind this perspective and I'll state for the record that exceptions do exist. But I approached this debate from the stand point that the other side did, which was dealing in generalities. My general premise was: if you have superior materials and superior craftsmanship, you're more than likely gonna have a superior instrument. Discuss.

15 inches in Exton, PA with another 3- 6 " more on the way tonight. I shoveled out my walkway and driveway before the contractors arrived but did it sans music- just periodic breaks to throw the tennis ball for my Black Lab. At least one of us had fun!

I believe it. Technically, I have two practice amps- the Kustom and my Marshall JVM into a M412A. I practice on the Kustom up in my office (in front of the computer) using iTunes, YouTube and the like to fine-tune songs in our set list. But I actually spend more time down in the Pit of Despair going thru my Marshall set up for band rehearsals and to wank away on my own material.

Kustom HV/30. Built in effects, nice tube pre amp to give the solid state some serious balls, excellent gain settings and a jack for external audio input like a CD/MP3 player or a drum machine so you can jam along with.

If that had a toggle switch instead of the blade style, you might have been waking up tomorrow wondering where it had disappeared to...

Diablo is NOT pissed but perhaps just tad envious. DIBS!

This /\

Sure- it's gonna be based on a '89 Cali LE. That help?

Wha--???

FGJ- you'll like my next project Cali. Gonna be fun!

LOL- All yours, Steve. I'm a reverse head stock and boomers-only type. That and with a few exceptions, I'm not much of a maple neck/board person. However, my guess is that FGJ isn't going to be giving that up any time soon.