Thought I would have a sort through the guitars - I've already done the vinyl this weekend....I like to document how the collection stands from time to time - I've sold a few in the past year and bought a few more. In fairness I do have to downsize a bit so I thought now we be a good time to get them all together.I have a rule - if a guitar is sold it has to fund another guitar, amp or effect - last year I changed amps around and this year Strymon are probably going to perform a walletectomy on me.....First up - ML-2 Classic (my newest and favourite - seriously if I had to drop to one guitar this would be it, honeymoon period notwithstanding, it's a keeper). ML-1 in Antique Sunburst, bought in 2013 after a 9 hour trip to Andertons (which in only 90 miles away!). Finally a 2000 Standard Tele, I picked this up locally for 50 quid - it was dirty and needed some work to bring it up to spec, now it plays great.Next up is a 2009 Dave Murray Signature Strat - Dimarzio PAF in neck, Super Distortion in the bridge. Nitro finish and custom neck profile on the neck. Next to that one is the 2015 Dave Murray - Hot rails in bridge and neck with a JB Junior in the middle. It has a compound radius board and an original floyd. Unlike the original Black one this is mexican made. Last up is a 2006 American Series strat (before it was renamed the standard). Feels great and captures the strat sound perfectly. I bought it from a shop in Tonbridge and remember that I had a scorching attack of gout, which made the drive there and back painful! It has 50th anniversary button on the headstock, which is kind of nice, if totally meaningless.Next up the Harley Benton L450 lemon drop. I bought it from Thomann last march, just to see how good they were and proved to be a really good little guitar - it doesn't have a case, just stays propped up next to the Tiny Terror in case noodling breaks out. Alongside it is a 2004 Les Paul Standard in antique sunburst - I bought this from my localish shop in maidstone, when I was supposed to be getting a strat setup. It has a sixties profile neck, burstbuckers and sounds great - pre PCB as well which is a bonus. Finally there is the Gibson SG '61 Reissue - I saw AC/DC last year, so this was bound to happen. Much like the LP I was in the shop buying one thing and walked out with this - classic '57 pickups and cocktail stick neck.More Lesters - of the Tokai Variety. We have a 2005 LC60 (I I think) two piece mahogany back with a maple cap, gotoh picks and hardware - made in Japan. This was a steal on eBay back in 2012 at just over 200 quid - thanks to it be collection only and very near xmas. Alongside that is a 2005 LS70F - Made in Japan - very similar specs, sounds massively different! Finally a 1984/5 Tokai 38 Special. I bought this in 2013 - my first proper guitar was one of these so I was looking for one at the right price. It was pretty beaten up and I've had to do a bit of work to it. It's all original apart for the scratch plate which I had to get custom made.I bought the blue strat in 1986 from a shop in the Enfield Road called Tempo - it's a 1981 International Colors series in Maui Blue (it was new old stock, before the phrase new old stock had been invented). It weighs a tonne but really plays well. Showing it's age a bit these daysAlongside is a 2006 Jackson RR5 - made in Japan. It's a thru neck model with a pair of SH4's. I've loved the Rhodes ever since the eighties and this is my second. They are hard guitars to live with so this may be leaving the collection (until I play it and reconsider, the way I always do)Final one. Squier Vintage Modified PJ Bass I bought this last year for recording and realised I quite like playing bass. Alongside it is another last year purchase a Harley Benton JB75NA - my son bought one of these and it was so cool I decided to get one for myself. He's cross that I went for the natural one the same has his. I changed the controls to dome ones after seeing the Squier version Jocko posted a while ago. Finally we have Classic Vibe Tele - a great guitar I bought this second hand from Andertons when I bought the Dave Murray Strat, buying two guitars at the same time is something I could get used to.I am going to try and a get a couch video done soon, but getting a quiet couple hours round here is not easy!!!!Next Sunday - Amps!!!
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Comments
17 if I count correctly. Er, wow! I'll save the link to this to show to Mrs Sox when I buy some new strings.
Cheers, Reg.
An enviable collection Ninja, love all the strats. I'm just about to nip out for a bracing walk along the sea front, since the weather is decent, and I need the exercise. Not that anyone asked or needed to know that, but I'll see about posting the full Megi collection when I get back.
I'm not out for a walk until tomorrow morning, so here's the more modest couch in my music room:
Amp is my early 90s Carlsbro GLX 150, bought new (not shown is the Champalike I've just finished building that is awaiting a cabinet to come off the woodwork bench).
Acoustics L-R: Goldtone PBR, 12 years old, bought by me in 2014. The Cittern I rebuilt, originally custom built for me in the early 80s. Faith Parlour, bought new from Richard just over two years ago. Early 1970s Guild D25M bought by me when it was about 10 years old.
Electrics consist of The Baycaster that I built in 2013, and a May 1980 Gibson Firebrand 335-S Standard bought by me in '83 or 84.
The Cittern, the Guild, and the Gibson have been owned by me since before I met Mrs Sox. It was our 30th wedding anniversary last Monday. I don't tend to swap stuff out that often!
Cheers, Reg.
Really like the finish on the baycaster Reg - I remember many year ago when guitarist was worth reading they had review of Nik Kershaw's custom tele (I can't remember the builder), that had an amazing birdseye top in a very similar shade and I remember thinking "If I ever had a customer guitar......"
Megi I have always been a massive strat fan -I could easily binge on them alone - funny thing is I've always wanted one in Candy Apple Red, but never managed to make it happen. My local shop has started carrying some Tokai Japan stuff recently and when I bought the SG I was torn between that and two tone s/burst fifties style one.
Nice collection, and what better way to pass a winter weekend.
A nice collection, Ninja, and a lovely story told about each one. They sound like quite a family!
My wife and I have bought a new couch for our music room. This photo was taken in the shop on Thursday.
Lester - that is a couch made for guitars! I have a dream to build a music room/man cave one day - it's a while off, but it's fun to mentally configure it.
OK, afraid most of these pics won't feature a couch, although one does. We also have a couple of chairs and an old garden seat, but mostly my guitars are lazy like me, and prefer to recline on a bed. Here we go though...
I do also have another acoustic that I need to get sold, and a Squier telecaster with neck humbucker rout, that has been sitting in bits on a shelf for quite some time i.e. it's a project I haven't got around to yet. The ones above are the ones that actually get used though, although I admit some do get rested for quite long periods. The two Shines are the ones that I alternate between for gigs - I'd say I marginally prefer the tone from the trans-black one, which is down to the pickup I fitted, but that can pick up hum sometimes, so often it's the red-burst one with the humbuckers that gets used.
Graham, I have come across some of your guitars before but I don't remember seeing them all together. Thanks for letting us see them.I'd like to have a go on your Ibanez; is it a Joe Pass model, perchance?
Thank you Lester - it is indeed an Ibanez Joe Pass model, from the serial number it can be dated to October 1980. I wish I could remember exactly when I bought it, but I think probably the summer of 1983 or 84. I can remember I got it from Ivor Mairants in London - it was sold as new, so perhaps they'd had it in for a fair while, and possibly guitars took a while to make their way from Japan to the UK back then also.
It's a special guitar for me, because my gran on my mum's side gave me £600 to put towards a good guitar, and that's what I got - if I remember right, it cost £650, so I just had to find an extra £50. I went down to London with my mum for company, and we spent most of the day going around guitar shops looking at guitars - it must have been a bit boring for her! Possibly I could have chosen better - I didn't know too much about jazz guitars (or any guitars) back then. But it is certainly a fine instrument, and it's what I chose, so I'm very glad to have it.
The pickup is not the original, although I do still have that. But otherwise it is original, and in very good nick. It's a really great guitar - it likes heavy gauge strings somehow (13-56 on there usually), but the action can be set very low, and it plays very easily for an archtop, with a slim-ish and very comfortable neck. It's also surprisingly resistant to feedback for an archtop, although it will start to howl a bit if I'm having to play louder than usual and in front of the amp. Usually I prefer to take one of my semi-acoustic Shine guitars to a gig, as they're easier to handle, not as valuable, and still sound good. But (perish the thought) if there was a fire, I'd have to rescue the Ibanez JP first.
Love the 335-S
I'm lovin' everyone's tast in furniture and duvet covers ....
Some great guitars and collections on this thread. I'm not feeling quite so guilty about my collection any more. I thought I had too many guitars but now I realise I need more!
A rather grubby Jocko Tru-caster, photographed this morning. And, on the couch!
FRIDAY COUCH PICS .....
First of all, here's the whole family ....
L-R: Franki, Cherry, Dolly (SG), Ronni (J45), Sunny, Taloullah and reclining in front is Emmylou, an Epiphone Mandobird VIII
All arranged in front of the most important invention in amplification technology since the Marshall stack: The Empire State Stack made up of a Marshall JCM2000 TSL602, a Marshall DSL5C, a Marshall MG15 MSII Mini-Stack and a Marshall MS-2 Micro-Stack. I'm just looking for a suitable toy Gorilla to go on top.
The SG Sisters: Cherry (2004 Gibson SG Standard), Dolly (1965 Gibson SG Junior) and Sunny (2004 Gibson SG Standard)
The Acoustics: Ronni (2005 Gibson Historic Collection J45) and Franki (2014 Ibanez Talman)
The Oddballs: Taloullah (2004 Minarik Inferno) and Emmylou (2008 Epiphone Mandobird VIII)
....... oh, and an Ikea sofa-bed
Love those SGs Dave - which one would be your favourite to use, if you had to choose? And have you ever felt you'd like a Les Paul as well? - no particular reason why you should, but just thought I'd ask.
I love the Junior. I've played it live, but I do need to sort out the amp settings to get the best out of it, as it's a little different from the two Standards. I think in the end the two Standards will remain the main gigging guitars, if only because I don't spend the whole evening worrying that an international guitar thief might be lurking in the shadows! Plus they are a little more robust.
I had a 2005 Les Paul Classic in Lightburst, but I sold it. I've never really got on with Les Pauls as they're so heavy and .... I dunno ..... I just don't. I couldn't really put my finger on what it is, but I just prefer the SGs. I originally bought Cherry on a bit of a whim. I was trying out a Boss chorus pedal and asked to try it with an SG, as I'd always fancied one and I'd only had an SG-X before. I didn't like the pedal, but I fell in love with the SG instantly and bought it on the spot. She was £739
Then at band rehearsals, I always took a couple of other guitars, but I soon learned that if I wanted to play the others I'd better play then first, as once I strapped the SG on I didn't want to put it down. So I figured if I loved the SG so much then it would make sense for the spare to also be an SG, so I marched in to Coda Music in Luton and demanded they sell me a naturalburst one, which was £799. I didn't even play it. Just got them to sell me a brand new boxed one as I knew I would set it up myself anyway ...
But which one would I save if the building was on fire? Dolly, the '65, definitely.
Megi, I just scrolled back through and noticed your Ibanez jazzer. what model is that. Is it on of their Artcore models? I had an AS83 Artcore (not sure what that really means!) which was more like a 335. Loved it, but you can't keep them all!
Cheers for that Dave - I have to say there is something special about those old Gibsons from the 50s/60s, so I can understand the junior being your favourite. Les Pauls have never appealed to me either, not that there's anything wrong with them. I suppose the SG design does have an advantage of light weight, plus the excellent access to the upper frets.
My Ibby jazzer is a Joe Pass JP20 model, Japanese made in 1980, so it dates back to well before they'd come up with the Artcore series. It was based on a hand-built D'Aquisto archtop that JP owned. So a copy in a way, but it's still sometimes mentioned as one of Ibanez's first original design archtops - [have I got that apostrophe right? ].
Later on, when Epiphone started making a Joe Pass model (which they still do), the body shape was kept exactly the same - I know this for a fact, since I have a friend with an Epi Joe Pass. And many of the current range of Ibanez archtop jazz guitars still use that same body shape - I'm not sure if people generally realise the origin, but that's where it comes from. Ibanez are probably better known for their metal oriented guitars these days, but I agree they've always done a good jazz guitar or 335 type.
Some ace collections guys ! Me I have just the one at the moment but I'm just a beginner !
A rare day of "nothing much planned" presented itself today, so I thought it about time I did some restringing and playing. While doing that I also thought I'd take some snaps for this thread!
First up - the Songwriter.
I've put some new 12s (Martin SP). Love the PB version of these strings on this guitar....they really open up the tone of it and last quite a long time. When i bought this guitar it came with Elixrs on it - which ive never really got on with. It's still a newish acoustic and I'm still enjoying the playing-in process.
Next up - my Tele
I've gone for 9s on this (D'addario EXL 125). Light top, - 9 heavy bottom 46.
I love this guitar and I really should play it more often than I do. I've not gigged it yet, but may do in a week or two at the local open mic I've been going to since just before Xmas (usually take my Taylor or Gibson but other people turn up with electrics, so it's "allowed")!.
You certainly have an eye for a pretty guitar Smarty, those are both lovely looking things. I really like the Anderson tele, and I'm sure it must be wonderful to play. I'll have to try a set of the Martin PBs on my own acoustic - I still don't think I've really found the right strings for it, so those could be the ones.
Thanks Megi. The Anderson is sublime. Really perfect in every way, and the nicest guitar I've ever played. I spec'd it via Tom himself. It still amazes me just how easy it is to play, and how great it sounds. I'd love another TA one day. I'm still getting to grips with the Songwriter neck to be honest. I've been "spoilt" with Taylor necks which are quite thin and narrow (IMHO). The Songwriter neck is a bit meatier - but the guitar itself is wonderful.
Have you tried Guild PBs Megi? I always used to prefer them to Martin back in the day as they sounded a tad more laid back than Martins, which sounded a bit too bright for my taste on my, er, Guild acoustic. Of course what works for one person's playing style and their guitar might not work for another.
Cheers, Reg.
I don't believe I have Reg - so that's a couple of possibilities to try now. They do sound like an interesting one. For electric guitar, I find some of the budget brands (especially Darco) very good, but I have to admit that they don't seem so good for acoustic use - better to spend a couple of quid more I think.
I've not tried them either Reg. I tend to buy what's available in my local shop (Martin strings always are). However, I'll order a set online and report back. Cheers for the heads up!