Let's see your GUITAR!

[dubkitty]

it’s not my usual aesthetic, but it’s kind of oddly appealing. certainly more ergonomic than either of the usual Steinberger designs (with/without a traditional body). i think they tried too hard to make it like a regular guitar and wound up with a worst-of-all-worlds scenario where it was too modern for the fogies and too normal for the New Moderns. i haven’t the foggiest notion what the sound like, though. it does seem like the perfect stick-in-the-overhead-compartment guitar, though.

i would be tempted to go totally in the other direction from the stock pickups and go with Bartolinis or something of that nature. something about that style says “super clean” to me.

[backwardsvoyager]

Wise words- trying to make something sound like it’s not is guaranteed disappointment, and I am trying to keep an open mind. We’ll see how it goes!

What stock pickups are in the Salen, are they Suhr? And what did you try to replace with? If you’re willing to share.

It's the Salen Classic (not the newer NX) with Suhr pickups ('Classic T'? they might be custom voiced, not sure).
Tried Lace Sensors, noiseless SDs, hot/cool rails, all sounded pretty bland in comparison.
Since they're designed almost exclusively with ergonomics in mind it's not surprising that the sound profile is a little odd. On the other hand I think they arguably gel with Neural DSP, etc. better than more traditional sounding guitars.

The ergonomics thing cannot be understated, though. Absolute no brainer purchase for anyone with tendonitis or back issues.

[dubkitty]

i was in my Wacky Project Guitars thread talking about what i've been working on and made a reference to my Odd Little Guitars™, which provoked me to get the other ones out for a group shot. from left:

Eastwood Wandré Soloist, brand new. Davoli repro pickups, Les Trem.

2012 Guild M-75 Aristocrat, closed hollow body, floating bridge, Franz P-90 pickups.

the Kondor: Kent body/pickguard/2 pickups, Hondo II neck, Guyatone bridge pickup, Bigsby aluminum bridge, Kay/Teisco repro tremolo, rotary pickup selector and DiPinto Pentatone varitone, Fender/Ping locking tuners w/Hipshot buttons.

c. 1962 Hopf Twisty II: body w/electronics and tremolo from eBay, correct neck w/tuners and logo from a German parts seller, correct bridge from eBay, Schaller pickups from Hopf Jupiter 62 pickguard.

repro c.1962 Fender Duo Sonic from Reverb: refinished Squier Classic Vibe DS body and Squier Mini Strat neck, Duncan Antiquity Duo Sonic pickups, pickup positions corrected from Squier placement to vintage w/Pickguardian guard from my template and body routs in pickup routs as required. the headstock decal was by the seller; i'd have left it blank, but it doesn't bother me now that everyone and their dog are buying Chibsons.

i really enjoy that i have some guitars that are as normal as could be (Strat, ES-335, Les Pauls, White Falcon) and ones like these that are just peculiar. i particularly like that none of these sound typical. no generic tones here! i'm pretty sure all of these are smaller than a Les Paul, but can't be arsed to get it out to compare. i could have also added the Gretsch 5259 Special Jet, but thought it was borderline and that i'd have to add the Les Paul Special as well because they're about the same size.

my project guitars thing has always been about getting different kinds of pickups and different voices. i have some other weird shit in the conceptual pipeline, waiting on funding.

it's hilarious to me that all these guitars are almost as little as the 22.5" scale Duo Sonic but all have 24.75-25.5" scales. some wee bodies in there. if the Kondor and Hopf didn't have such oversized headstocks they'd be Duo sized or less.

[dubkitty]

i really should have put the DeArmond in too...it's the same dimensions as the Aristocrat. oh well.

[BitchPudding]

That is a lovely spread of stuff there dubs! There was a one middle pickup twisty at a local shop near me, and neck + trem felt so good I almost bought it. I just need a bridge pickup in my life. Got a fav out of those?

[dubkitty]

gosh, that's tough. i love all of them in their own way. but i guess if i had to pick one it'd be the Kondor because it's the most unusual-sounding and the one i put the most creativity into. it really doesn't sound like anything else, or anything standard. the rectangular Kent pickups are papery in the mids and round in the low end; the Guyatone bridge pickup does bark when pushed but prefers to chime. sonically across the board i like the Wandré and the Aristocrat, but that's partially because i don't fully understand the Hopf yet; the swapped pickups and 4-position tone switch makes it a little tricky to know exactly what it sounds like yet. comfort-wise the Duo Sonic is the easiest guitar i have to play. the best tremolo, surprisingly, is the Kondor. we think of 60s Japanese tremolos as being less than grand, but its 3 springs give it good tension and it has a pretty wide range. it also has that wonderful knob. i've seen 4-spring versions on eBay that would probably be, well, 33% better.

it's funny because i don't really think of "favorites" that much, but there certainly are guitars that get played more. historically i've played the Epiphone SG, Tokai Les Paul Standard and Les Paul Special, and the Gretsch Pro Jet i gutted and rebuilt with Dynasonic pickups and a floating Bigsby the most. i used to be way into the Strat, but i don't play it so much now. i notice that i tend to play guitars with shorter scales more than my Fenders, no doubt due to my tiny mandolin-player hands.

i guess the coolest guitars are the White Falcon, the 1968 ES-335 i bought for $200 with my first tax refund check in 1975, and the sparkly blue DeArmond. the Galaxiemaster and Jetstar are going to be cool as hell when they're done...that Jetstar is going to be an absolute weapon.

i've never seen or heard of anyone seeing a Hopf in a shop before now. someone on here who lives in Germany and has been following some of my stuff said that they're rare even in Germany.

[morange]

I recently decided I wanted a guitar with a whammy bar and bought this used ESP.

That's fuckin hot.
Real talk what is a better trem than Floyd Rose? I had a fat strat with a floyd for a long time and I don't like regular strat trem at all. I think the only other tremolo I've tried is a really shitty one on some old Kay. But then again I like to buy hardtails now so maybe that is because of the Floyd experience.

[Phosphene Audio]

I recently decided I wanted a guitar with a whammy bar and bought this used ESP.

That's fuckin hot.
Real talk what is a better trem than Floyd Rose? I had a fat strat with a floyd for a long time and I don't like regular strat trem at all. I think the only other tremolo I've tried is a really shitty one on some old Kay. But then again I like to buy hardtails now so maybe that is because of the Floyd experience.

Yeah, and once it's set up right, I can change strings and get it stable pretty quick. I have a trem stabilizer in the back. It doesn't block the trem, but adds a little more resistance to pulling up, so I don't get unwanted warble if I play too hard.

[dubkitty]

my detachment of Odd Little Guitars™ has recruited a new member. i picked up a Moon Blue DeArmond M-75 with the DeArmond Gold Tone humbuckers. i love them to pieces…they’re hotter than what i usually play (manufacturer spec is 8.3kΩ in the neck/8.5kΩ in the bridge) but they have some air in the sound and a POP to the pick attack that’s almost a DeArmond trademark. it’s in better shape than most of the DeAs i see online with the exception of some of the plastics; 3 of the 4 knobs were chipped, the pickguard was too beat up to bother with, and the switch knob fell apart while i was cleaning the guitar up! Pickguardian did a perfect job on the clear guard for the M-75T so i ordered a black one to replace the original here. i thought about a clear guard, but there’s no point because the top is so dark and featureless. DeArmond knobs are not easy to find, but after saving a Reverb search for them a set popped up this morning and i snagged the heck out of it. so i have to wait a while for it to be 100% ready, but i’m very happy with it. it’s comfortable and easy to play, and it sounds like me. $371 plus tax and shipping which is why it shoved into the queue; that’s about $150-200 less than average. here it is after setup with its cousin the Guild M-75 Aristocrat on which this style of DeArmond was modeled. at just over 9 pounds it’s not bad for an agathis body with a maple top, lighter than the Tokai Les Paul or my Jazzmaster. it's gonna sound like God through fuzz and delay. and unusually for a 25-year old quasi-budget guitar, nothing's fucked up. the bridge adjusted easily, the tuners are great, and the neck is unusually straight for an old guitar...the action is about 1-1.5 millimeters lower than usual on the treble side.

[dubkitty]

apparently the knobs were a sore point, friable and easily damaged...most of the DeArmonds i see online other than the archtops have aftermarket knobs, and i don't think it's because of aesthetics. one of the original knobs broke while i was removing them to clean up the guitar, and i wasn't honking on it with a crowbar, either.

[dubkitty]

i just have to honk on the Aristocrat for a minute...it's always been slightly problematic because the truss rod needed to be let out, but it appeared that the nut had been stripped. naturally i discovered this well after i brought it home. after putting up with it for years i decided to settle it. i have 2 8mm hex socket tools that came with my Tokais, but they were too big. so i Googled up the info that this and some other modern Guilds use a 7mm socket. it looked like there were still straight sides beyone the chewed-up part, so i ordered up a socket and by cracky, it worked. after letting some relief out of the neck, the guitar just came alive. the strings are livelier and ring/sustain better in all positions and both pickups. and with the added string information the Franz pickups are quite snappy when pushed while capable of a lush, velvety round sound with the bass pickup played softly. i always did like it--it's the only guitar in years i bought after actually playing it in a store--and liked it more after readjusting the pickups which i was reluctant to do because the neck pickup sound when i got it was so nice. but they were out of balance so i cranked up the bridge polepieces and carefully backed down the bass screws a quarter-turn at a time till the levels roughly matched. the bass pickup is dense, the bridge pickup is a razor blade. there's all kinds of stuff i can do with it now that i couldn't do before. it should take an interesting spot in the part of my single-coil spectrum which goes Dynas->Dyna-likes->P-90->Franz->Schaller->Kent->Guyatone. not sure where the Davolis fit yet.

one of my deeply held observed beliefs about guitars is that if the truss rod is too tight it fucks up the resonance of the neck and kills tone. this seems like an obvious example of what happens when the excess tension is let out. it doesn't sound "looser," but it sounds "more open."

this guitar is totally hollow. spruce top, mahogany sides, mahogany back with kerfed joins. not to be confused with the revamped Aristocrat they're now selling which is chambered mahogany, or with the various Gretsch Jets which also are heavily chambered. those all have control plates on the back; the only way into an Aristocrat is through the pickup openings. i was playing it through the Princeton the other day and it REALLY wanted to feed back. with the amp on 4. that's my kind of guitar. i like these Guild family guitars because they have big, sharp teeth that only come out when they're hungry.

[dubkitty]

i spent some time cleaning up and polishing the M-75 over the last few days, including polishing out a big dulled area where the player’s rib cage would be. i got a set of used black DeArmond knobs in a stroke of luck; one is slightly chipped but it’ll do. ALL FOUR of the original knobs were chipped. obviously i spent a while dialing in the pickups along with neck relief and string height. finally the new pickguard from Pickguardian arrived today and i put it on. it’s now ready to become a part of the group rather than a prospect sans the club strip. its case arrives tomorrow. i’m extremely happy that with less than $500 in i have a guitar i like this much. i’m too tired for beauty shots tonight and the evening light is terrible for indoor photography, but i’ll do some tomorrow. if this guitar and my Les Paul were dogs they’d spend all day chasing each other around the yard. wait, Emmy…put down that pool cue!

[dubkitty]

yes, that was an extended Altamont riff. why are we fighting? who wants to fight? i guess it must have been the documentary short i saw on YouTube about Paul Kantner’s Rickenbacker, which features prominently in Gimme Shelter.

in that clip they explain the racing stripes on his Rick. turns out it’s actually a 366 which had that weird comb apparatus meant to somehow separate one string of each pair so it could be played as a 6-string. they were notoriously unreliable and he took it off. the stripes? they’re black electrical tape arranged so as to cover all of the screw holes from the device that was removed. and here i was thinking it was just because he was cool.

[dubkitty]

as promised last night, some better pictures of the M-75. i love this guitar to pieces.

[dubkitty]

only 3 attachments per post. here's the back, which is a dark brown rather than black. the granular material around the controls in the other shots is dust generated by the endless sanding of the Jetstar, not surface damage.