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A guitar, amp, or pedal ya hate to love?


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Maybe I'm unique in my neuroses, but I hate to love my EBMM St. Vincent. Objectively it is light, very well made, stays in tune, has a great vibrato bridge, and while not chimey and bright, the pickups sound great, and I can get easily-controlled feedback when I want.

But it's all black, and I feel like I should be in The Sisters of Mercy or Spinal Täp playing it. And it's SUCH a "signature" guitar I think I look like a St. Vincent fanboi. I like her fine, but only bought one album and don't like her enough to see her in Atlanta soon. But because it's so terrific, Missus Polara won't let me sell it.

Have you every owned something that objectively is terrific but... you just have difficulty bringing yourself to play it?

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'05 PRS Custom 24 in a gaudy green flame top with gold hardware. My wife loves that guitar and I'm not allowed to sell it. Technically the guitar is perfect in every way, sounds great and I'm okay with gaudy. But for whatever reason I don't play it, don't even take it out and I don't even have a picture available to show you. I love PRS guitars but I think I like them best when other people are playing them. 

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In theory, I shouldn’t like this, but it’s just entirely too good of a guitar for the $550 it set me back… 

image.jpeg

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Vintage Tube Screamers. Sold two, early-80s on eBay for $250/300 each, kinda chuckling along the way. 

I wound up with this:

image.png

After all these years of trying seemingly every pedal, I always come back to: wah, OD, phase, flange, delay, JCM800ish amp...

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My Snakeskin Steve Stevens II. Great guitar. But it has a Floyd Rose and, well, snakeskin finish. Very cool, but not really anything I would take to rehersals or a gig. Also, there is something about the tone in Floyd Rose equipped guitars that just does not satisfy when you plug straight in to an amp, JMP of Fender combo. They sound pretty thin unless you max out the gain and go all Steve Vai with chorus pedals, Bob Bradshaw rigs and shit. So I sold it to Joe. He seems to like it.

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On 6/9/2021 at 9:12 PM, RobB said:

 

After all these years of trying seemingly every pedal, I always come back to: wah, OD, phase, flange, delay, JCM800ish amp...

Sub some kind of vibe for the flange, add reverb, and say modded plexi-ish or JCM800ish, and same. 

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I've always liked those pointy Bo Diddley guitars named the Jupiter Thunderbird and the Cadillac and their reincarnations.   I should have picked up a Cadillac years back at a guitar show when I was able to pluck at 3 of them while chatting with Tom Holmes.  I came across a few Gretsch Billy Bo's (their modernized Jupiter Thunderbird) a few years after their introduction.  I had passed on a red one a time before..  On this particular occasion (and w a choice of 4 limited versions), I figured maybe this time.  Aesthetically, that green sparkle had my eye (no surprise) as well as the one dressed as a white falcon/penguin.  I played all 4 quite a bit.  Walked away.  Came back and played them again.  One came home.  The orange.  

But come on!  BIG COW HEAD on the headstock.  More Cow Heads, Cacti, Fence Posts on the inlays.. When I think cows I think about ribeyes and milk. And there's a first fret inlay! and on RW at that!  What are those crazy doodads all over the sides!  Big giant wood burning kit G..  that maple and gold hw is nothing to go on about.  For cryin out loud. 😲   By definition that's way off from my fiddle profile except for it being pointy, a Gretsch, the pups, and the wood combo.  Never had its NGD here or anywhere.  

But I love it.  

 

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3 hours ago, foodermon said:

One came home.  The orange.  

Wth?  There was a green metallic....and you went for orange???

 

J/k.  Those look cool to me. Glad you like yours.

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I own a Line 6 Spider Valve 112 that I use as my rehearsal amp. It's an amp that Line 6 designed in partnership with Bogner. Has a digital modeling preamp/effects front end and a tube power amp.

It lives at the drummer's house. I don't gig with it because it's a Line 6. But it sounds killer. I have a bunch of settings saved it it for humbucking guitars and then different settings for single coil guitars and control it all with the floorboard that it came with.

When I gig, I use my pedalboard and either my Mesa Boogie or Fender Super Sonic. 

The Line 6 is great, but my ego won't allow me to get on a stage in front of it.

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7 hours ago, foodermon said:

I've always liked those pointy Bo Diddley guitars named the Jupiter Thunderbird and the Cadillac and their reincarnations.   I should have picked up a Cadillac years back at a guitar show when I was able to pluck at 3 of them while chatting with Tom Holmes.  I came across a few Gretsch Billy Bo's (their modernized Jupiter Thunderbird) a few years after their introduction.  I had passed on a red one a time before..  On this particular occasion (and w a choice of 4 limited versions), I figured maybe this time.  Aesthetically, that green sparkle had my eye (no surprise) as well as the one dressed as a white falcon/penguin.  I played all 4 quite a bit.  Walked away.  Came back and played them again.  One came home.  The orange.  

But come on!  BIG COW HEAD on the headstock.  More Cow Heads, Cacti, Fence Posts on the inlays.. When I think cows I think about ribeyes and milk. And there's a first fret inlay! and on RW at that!  What are those crazy doodads all over the sides!  Big giant wood burning kit G..  that maple and gold hw is nothing to go on about.  For cryin out loud. 😲   By definition that's way off from my fiddle profile except for it being pointy, a Gretsch, the pups, and the wood combo.  Never had its NGD here or anywhere.  

But I love it.  

IMG_3157 (3).JPG

If that 'green sparkle' one was the same as Gretsch's 'Cadillac Green' color, I woulda wanted to take it home, too.  Hell, if I was there and had the cash, I woulda grabbed the 'Cowpoke' one, the Penguin one, and the green one.  Lucky you, at least you got the 'Cowpoke' one!  Oh well...  :rolleyes: 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 6/15/2021 at 12:23 PM, hamerhead said:

^^^ Holy Sh!t!! That was MY first electric. Until today I had never seen another one. That is so cool.

My research traced this one to 1966 Hamerhead. It's a cool guitar for sure. It's a pretty nice guitar after all the upgrades..

I refretted it, new tuners, new pickups, Bigsby, made a pickguard, new knobs, new nut, new strap buttons.. Whew!

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I bought mine from my brother-in-law, who gave me lessons way back when. In 1972, $150 got 12-year-old me the guitar, a Big Muff and a 1964 Vibrolux. Still have the amp and Big Muff, but sold the guitar back to him for $100 to fund a lawsuit Ibanez Les Paul. Other than stuffing it with cotton balls (feedback was crazy) I didn't change anything on it. He still has it, but doesn't play anymore.

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16 minutes ago, hamerhead said:

I bought mine from my brother-in-law, who gave me lessons way back when. In 1972, $150 got 12-year-old me the guitar, a Big Muff and a 1964 Vibrolux. Still have the amp and Big Muff, but sold the guitar back to him for $100 to fund a lawsuit Ibanez Les Paul. Other than stuffing it with cotton balls (feedback was crazy) I didn't change anything on it. He still has it, but doesn't play anymore.

'64 Vibrolux and Big Muff!!! Awesome, I can see where that would feed back! I'll trade you my guitar and three fiddy for the Vibrolux!! LOL!

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My Marshall TSL122 combo. It sounds so great when it's working, but it's TOO LOUD. And then it decides that it wants to redplate due to some weird bias issue that early TSLs had. I've never had this kind of love/hate relationship with any piece of gear before.

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I got this guitar (used, made circa 2012) about 8 months ago:

I hadn't played this guitar in a few months and almost forgot about having it, decided to get it out and put it through it's paces last night.  It's a weird guitar in that the wood bits are imported (China? I'm not sure), but the guitar itself was assembled and finished here in the US.  AXL is part of the same company/group who 'made' my VHT Standard 18 amps after they bought VHT from Steve Fryette (I think they also make recent Recording King and Johnson guitars, too) in essentially the same way as my guitar...imported parts, handwired/assembled in the US, kind of a wonky business model if you ask me.  I don't think they do any assembly in the US anymore (probably not cost-effective), now their gear seems to be all assembled and manufactured in Asia.  The only reason I hadn't played this guitar much is because it's a bright-sounding guitar, and sometimes it can get a bit shrill sounding, especially on the high E string.   Otherwise, it does the LP Jr. thing very well!

The music gear press seemed to like the guitar in reviews, but their main complaint about it was/is spot on: It's bright sounding sometimes, depending on how it's used and through what amp:

https://www.premierguitar.com/gear/axl-usa-bulldog-al-1090-electric-guitar-review

Anybody have any suggestions on how to tame it's brightness (besides tweaking amp and guitar controls), so I can use this guitar to it's full potential?  It still has the strings that it had on it when I got it, so would a new set of heavier strings help?  Or maybe a capacitor swap to a different value?  Or both?

 

 

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