polara

That is not up to the usual Hamer wiring spec, and agreed the pickup selector switch is in a very odd place and I've never seen a factory preamp on-off. I'd guess what you guessed is absolutely correct: someone went mad scientist on the electronics. I'd leave the selector switch and you can prolly get the micro-toggle hole filled and touched up so it will be visible but not glaring. I like having a pickup selector switch as I usually will have the neck volume lower or (if it has its own tone) the tone rolled down so i can cover three basic sounds without twiddling or looking down. I've had a B12S, a B12L and a B8S. Also an EMG equipped Godin and a Bartolini equipped Pedilla. Very hard to compare apples to hand grenades, but the EMGs have had a crispness that, on the Hamers, bordered on shrillness. The Pedulla was a fantastic bass in every way, and made me wonder if Barts aren't the way to go. The pickups in your bass now may be great though. I also briefly had an old Blitz bass and the Dimarzio P bass pickup was great. And welcome to our clubhouse!

I never got into guitar heroics much so I can't think of anything I bought "as a guitar player" per se. When I was a kid and Led Zeppelin had ended I got that record by The Firm and hated it, so I guess that was it. But I dislike it 'cos the songs were bad, not because of the guitar playing.

Good question. EVH might wig me out a bit too, or Page. As a rule I stay quiet around "famous" people, as they probably get way too much attention and as mentioned above they're probably as crazy as me. Just found their talent and worked it.

I played a Talladega once and it seemed basically perfect in every way. But I only buy cheap guitars.

Yes - there is video series where he talks about the rig he used, and plays the exact guitar through the exact amp: http://www.mr335.tv/index.html?channel=steely&videofile=mr335/steely/steelyrig SNAP! A great player's gonna sound great. A mediocre player's gonna sound mediocre. People get so hung up on names and mojo and start hearing what they wanna hear. Remember those Folger's commercials, where they served cheap store-bought coffee in "fine restaurants?" "I have to tell you that the designer boo-teek coffee you loved was really just freeze-dried, ground dogshit!"

I passed the ad along to my bassist. I should just get it and THEN sell to him. Damn.

If I found a '67 Stingray in a bard and could get it for five grand, I'd feel no shame in immediately reselling for market price. I once bought a pristine '74 Hagstrom Swede from a Sam Ash for $500 with tax and sold it a month later for near double. Supply, meet demand. This is capitalism. I haven't tried selling here often. The better prices I can get on Ebay make up for the fees.

Muse nailed it above about larger trends. Guitars are now one instrument. Not THE instrument. Really expensive handmade guitars have a very small market and a very small margin. Guitars don't wear out like cars or TVs. So they seldom need to be replaced. Do the math. Supply is greater than demand. Economics 101 tells you what happens next. Like I said, I'm just glad no one was laid off. They're making Guilds. Good.

Eh. As long as the guys at the factory are still employed... then no harm. Come one, admit it: We were all trading and selling and buying used Hamers 'cos they're too damn pricey for 99% of us new. Sad for those who had placed or wanted to place custom orders but how many of us have owned the Phantoglide, the Aceburst, the diaperburst Specials, etc? This is the Used Hamer Trading and Gossip Club. The factory could have been making pillows or fertilizer for the last several years as far as it affected most of us.They still EXIST. It's not like the ones we own just evaporated.No dealer is gonna go under because their bread and butter was selling USA Hamers.It's over. It was fun. We still have cool guitars. Enjoy them.

Ages ago I bought a Blitz from Wyldbill (RIP.) Drove all the way to Knoxville to the Barnes & Noble where he worked. Came out, and I had forgotten my damn checkbook. He said "No problem, take it home and just mail me a check later." That is pretty standard procedure around the HFC. I PIF'd it when HFCer Siap, in Lithuania, desperately wanted a certain white Standard. I was headed to Sweden in three weeks and had kinda wanted to go to Vilnius anyway so I told him I'd haul it over and deliver it to him. We hung out, had a few beers, saw Vilnius. Trust rewarded is good stuff, innit?

Beeeee-eautiful! That's mega-cool!

Any Strat case will fit like a glove. They're cheap and plentiful.

The TC Nova System doesn't have any sort of amp simulation. I love mine but it won't make anything you'd want to hear through a PA. +1 on the PowerBlock. Or any compact, bulletproof, powerful clean SS head. I happen to have a 75-watt First Act I carry as a backup: one of the ones they made for the 15 minutes of so they tried selling giggable amps. It has the "v-stack" circuitry that was the "next big thing" until First Act bought the technology and the Gear Pagers en masse decided it suddenly sucked. It gets the job done if the Black Pearl dies, but a PowerBlock makes more sense 'cos it's smaller. I just happened to find the FA for a little cheaper.

My band's on a break as the drummer broke his thumb, and I had part of Thursday off as my flight to London didn't leave 'til late afternoon. So I went to the rehearsal space and did some sound checking, just for fun, and from curiosity, A-B-Cing guitars. Thinking the Phantom A5 will smoke 'em all... The Special sounds good, okay... wait, my '79 Aria Pro II Les Paul with the ancient DiMarzio beats them both... on through a couple other guitars but the Aria is number one still. Then the Daytona. Dammit. Each string is clear, it responds better to dynamics. More flexible, from the deep neck p'up sound to the twang of the bridge. And with neck and middle selected, it has more BOTTOM than the humbucker guitars, as well as more clarity and definition. Oh, it goes through the amp's overdriven sound, the dirt box or the Fuzz factory better than the humbucker guitars... just as ballsy, but doesn't get muddy sounding. Finally the thing stays in tune forever because (are all Daytonas like this?) the route for the vibrato is such that when I set it up with the bridge plate 1/16" or so off the body, level (The Way By Gawd I've Always Set Up Strats to Float) it goes down smoothly, but is blocked from pulling up... the locking Sperzels sure help, too. Yeah, single coils rule. 'Specially in a Daytona. Those stock pickups are really good in that guitar.

He's a talented guy with his own style. Queen were great in their day but they're a nostalgia act for seniors now. He'll do this to broaden his audience a bit, they'll have fun and Lambert may still prove to have some staying power. +1 to liking that he's not just doing a Freddie impersonation.

Didn't wade through every word of this, but there were some points made that I though were quite good. The biggest one is that, like like the rise of the middle class, more than a TINY handful of musicians being able to make a living that brings them any sort of comfort is a historic anomaly, a weird period in history. I think, as has been noted before me, the confluence of the return of feudalism (sadly I think it's mankind's natural tendency) and the digitization/virtualization of all cultural artifacts is going to result in a return to the "old days" of music. It was done at home, for fun, or by traveling folk musicians/troubadors, or a handful of academic/elites in some sort of patronage system. In the short term, I've wished there were a system that allowed people to take my work -- my recordings into which I piled thousands of dollars -- for free, in return for my being granted the same from them. Free food, booze, gasoline, clothing. But if technology ALLOWS people to take what they want with no consequences, that -- for right or not -- effectively makes supply limitless and thus the fair market value nil. And then society quirky rearranges its value systems so that a previous generation's theft is a new generation's entitlement. Pity the watchmaker, the printer of phone books, the big three TV networks. Society, through the cold lenses of technology and economics, has rendered its verdict. Someday when we're all toiling in the digital mills to increase the wealth of our our biomechanically-enchanced immortal lords, we serfs might hear legends of the days of rock stars and LPs, but it'll be just words.

So close and yet so far. I'm flying across the Atlantic next weekend, but to the UK for work.

Not really. I won't spend more than $600 on a guitar so that puts me into the "decent table wine" category, not cork-sniffin.'

Missus Polara is pretty discerning, as she sings on one of my bands and also is a cellist. She likes my Phantom A5 best for the sound -- very clear, articulate, balanced -- and is probably right.

Driven to Tears +1. People will sort of recognize it so it has the benefit of being "Oh, yeah!" and also it freakin' rocks. And about as Summers-y as it gets. That solo is great.

Man, and I was THIS close to buying the Bullet. Sorry I didnt on both our accounts now.

Pop, dance, and guitar... Put on some Cribs, Kaiser Chiefs, Franz Ferdinand, Weezer and Foos. Spans nervous pop to hard rock, and it's all catchy.

I was on the train.

I'd like to. Tried for a few months to run a Boss GT-8 through a FRFR Roland keyboard amp and I thought I'd nailed the sounds I wanted. Then played through a Mesa Blue Angel and decided I prefer tubes and analog pedals. A little ironic given I'm one of the HFCs biggest contrarians and love electronic music, digital recording, and my iPad. Maybe there's a combination I'd like but after trying a lot of software sims in studios and a few modelers, I just really prefer old school.

If we talk about being passed around the ol' clubhouse... The Phantoglide The Aceburst The Prince