Jim85IROC

Correction: upon closer examination I can see a faint glue seam in the center bottom of the body and a slight (very slight) mismatch in the end-grain pattern on the bottom of the guitar. That said, this is about the best matched 2 piece top I think I've ever seen.

I know there's not a ton of love for the imported Hamers here, but I happen to be a big fan of them, especially the rebooted stuff from 2017-on. Every one that I've had my hands on has been surprisingly good. So, when I saw the ad for this with Bare Knuckle pickups, I pounced. Upon further examination, it turns out that the whole guitar was upgraded. Bare Knuckle pickups, CTS pots, some buugee tone cap, Wilkinson bridge and locking Gotoh tuners. It also appears to be a 1 piece body! I checked it over and it's definitely not a veneer as the grain patterns continue along the sides. I checked the bottom and sure enough, it's all one continuous piece of wood! The only drawbacks that I've found so far is that the pickups aren't the Mississippi Queens that the ad stated, but the War Pig models. These are the hottest pickups that I've ever measured! 15k in the neck and 21k in the bridge! Shockingly, they don't sound nearly as bad as I expected. They're more full range with way less mid honk than I expected, but they're still not my cup of tea. The only other downside is that the tuners are installed all crooked. But, since I got the guitar for less than just the upgrades are worth, I'm pleased as punch! I'll probably swap in the Guitar Madness P90 set that I have in my Schecter Tempest, sell these Bare Knuckles, and then play the crap out of it!

I have an older version of that guitar that I bought used. The action was beyond unplayable, but once I shimmed the neck and gave it a proper setup, it was a really fun guitar. I like the ergos and light weight. The bridge on the older hardtail models is an over complicated pain in the ass, but I imagine the trem style is too.

I haven't seen the Glyn Johns interview but I felt the same way about his interview with Rick Rubin. Good analysis in the Schon interview. Not Beato's best interview.

They gotta do something to compete with the $50 Joyo copies.

It was a good interview, but I really didn't feel like Beato was nearly as well prepared as for his other interviews. A lot of Beato's reaponses just repeated what Schon said instead of a response that showed his usual depth of knowledge.

I think he was doing just fine until he started going through his cancer treatments. After that he seemed to stop caring about shaving and hair dye so he actually looks his age unlike all the other aged out rock stars that are still trying to look 30.

Beato is one of those guys who I'll watch even if the person he's interviewing isn't on my radar because I know it'll still going to be a good watch. This was the first time I heard any Mammoth music. I'm quite impressed with Wolf and his music.

It's all a matter of preference. I like the overdrive tones that I get from my klone pedal, especially with humbuckers. I don't like it dimed, but the gain between 1/2 and 3/4 (depending on guitar) into a clean or slightly overdriven Fender seems like perfection to me. If I ran it into a Marshall I'd probably dial the overdrive on the pedal back a bit more.

Back when the Klone hype was at its peak, I picked up one of the Klones from ebay, along with a Joyo Tauren. I'd watched a bunch of klon comparisons where reviewers would set all the knobs at the same spot then endlessly compare the tone differences. I assumed that was all BS because most of these all use the same circuit, and most also use very cheap pots with very inconsistent resistances and inconsistent sweeps. In other words, they were just comparing the differences in pot values, not actual differences in the respective circuits. I bought my two, and sure enough with the pots all at 12:00 the pedals sounded different, but turn the pots a little bit and it doesn't take long to make them sound identical. Once I confirmed that, I sold off the Klone and kept the Joyo because it looked cooler and took up less room. It's still my favorite pedal.

No, from my phone.

I clicked your link, then opened the pic in the browser, copied the URL and Bob's yer uncle.

I really don't understand the appeal of this model. This is in used Gibson Special territory. I brought this up on TGP and got a bunch of pushback about there not being a comparable Gibson available. Between a Gibson LP Special or a Hamer Special, both of which are out there at around the same price, this is a hard pass for me. Hell, there's used Epi LP Specials out there for $350.

Just post the link to the actual pic: "https://i.imgur.com/5ycvurO_d.webp?maxwidth=760&fidelity=grand"

yeah, I saw that. That's when I noticed that this was a factory Humbucker Artist. All I'd seen (paid attention to) previously were P90 Artists.

cool. I'll have to pay more attention moving forward.

How common (or uncommon) are the humbucker Artists? I usually only see p90 models.

I bought a "King" brand Little Sister copy in what I assume is the same overall hardcase for like $200 brand new a couple years ago.

Welcome! I started my Hamer obsession with an imported model myself. I liked it so much that it didn't take me long to get into a US model, and another, and... But that said, I keep picking up the imports whenever the price is right too, and I'm consistently impressed at how good they are compared to equivalent imports from other brands. They really are great guitars. Enjoy your new bass, as well as your retirement!

Oddly enough, there was a bunch of squeeze-out around a number of inlays on my goldtop too. I had to scrape it away.

It's nuts how much variability I see in prices on these. The most recent one on Reverb was listed for $3k and sold after 3 offers. The one before that is the one I nabbed for way under half of that, albiet with a chip in the paint, but otherwise very nice.

The dark one is a MIC, lighter one is a US model. To be honest, I really wish the US one had the chunky neck profile that the Chinese one has. His name is Gibson. 😊

Seems too cheap to be true, but well worth investigating if you're local. The Special that I recently acquired was listed on FB for over a year at a steal of a price too, but it was legit and I bought it.

Me too. 😁

This is a cool video. This band "covered" the AI song. Not surprisingly, it's much better, but I think it also supports my point I made earlier about AI being a good tool. Think about the AI song as a "demo" for an artist to cut, or as a songwriting or song development (since you're not really writing it). In my own case, I took my own lyrics and fed them into Suno with a description of what I wanted, and it ended up spitting out a song with a much better, more melodic vocal melody than I could ever come up with myself. The overall vibe of the song was just what I was after, and some of the guitar fills are even good enough that I want to learn them. Anyway, here's that human remake: