The New Tone Thread
- Thread starter Telegram Sam
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That's really probably all you need. A couple guitars, and one good two-channel amp. A musician could cover a lot of ground with just that set up. But very few people actually stop there.
JDOD
therecordingrebels.com
That's really probably all you need. A couple guitars, and one good two-channel amp. A musician could cover a lot of ground with just that set up. But very few people actually stop there.
I don't expect to be playing live "full time" as in every week ever again so don't think I do need more. I'd like to gig my own stuff in a year or so. But it won't be an every week job it will be a few small club jobs, locally. I'm gradually coming around to the fact I can't sing the fucking material as I want to though so I'm gonna have to ask someone else to do it which is a pain in the dick. Gonna keep trying for another couple of months though as I did make some decent progress with it initially then completely stalled.
I thought of another way to use my $500 GC bucks. I'm struggling with this one, but it's maybe doable.
I could trade in my Angus SG and add the $500 to get a "normal" SG and something else. Or maybe another Les Paul. Or maybe A Gretsch, or a Gibson ES, or whatever. Maybe an Explorer! Maybe a Tele! No. I like the Angus SG, but it is my least played guitar. I've been thinking about it, and there are two reasons I play it the least:
1) It's kind of valuable. I don't take it to gigs. I think I've gigged it twice. I have recorded it a lot, but it's sound is not special enough to just have to have it. In the grand scheme of things, it's just a humbucker SG. If I'm not playing something, what's the point? I'm not a collector.
2) I don't really get along with it's tiny neck anymore. I liked it at first because it's so easy to just blast off on. But the neck is so small that it makes the guitar feel small and fragile - especially since I'm usually slinging Les Pauls around. I have to have a humbucker SG though, so a regular SG is what I want.
Sooooo...I got the Angus for so ridiculously cheap compared to it's new sticker price, I think I might have some wiggle room and won't lose money. If I get offered less than the huge discount I got it for, I'll just keep it. This thing in mint and I have all of the case candy. If GC's policy is to offer 60% of what they'd re-sell it for, I think I'll come out ahead. I could walk out with a new SG Standard and some lagniappe without even opening my wallet. Maybe.
I could trade in my Angus SG and add the $500 to get a "normal" SG and something else. Or maybe another Les Paul. Or maybe A Gretsch, or a Gibson ES, or whatever. Maybe an Explorer! Maybe a Tele! No. I like the Angus SG, but it is my least played guitar. I've been thinking about it, and there are two reasons I play it the least:
1) It's kind of valuable. I don't take it to gigs. I think I've gigged it twice. I have recorded it a lot, but it's sound is not special enough to just have to have it. In the grand scheme of things, it's just a humbucker SG. If I'm not playing something, what's the point? I'm not a collector.
2) I don't really get along with it's tiny neck anymore. I liked it at first because it's so easy to just blast off on. But the neck is so small that it makes the guitar feel small and fragile - especially since I'm usually slinging Les Pauls around. I have to have a humbucker SG though, so a regular SG is what I want.
Sooooo...I got the Angus for so ridiculously cheap compared to it's new sticker price, I think I might have some wiggle room and won't lose money. If I get offered less than the huge discount I got it for, I'll just keep it. This thing in mint and I have all of the case candy. If GC's policy is to offer 60% of what they'd re-sell it for, I think I'll come out ahead. I could walk out with a new SG Standard and some lagniappe without even opening my wallet. Maybe.
JDOD
therecordingrebels.com
Oh, what a terrible problem to have. You must be gutted
I think that if you're not using it and don't have any sort of emotional connection to it. Sell it. Why not sell it privately as opposed to trading it in? An Angus SG would probably get snapped up and it sounds like you can afford to sell it pretty reasonably too.
Then get the cheapest real SG you can which plays well, a few other nick-knacks and have some fun swapping pickups in and out of the cheap SG. something like this: https://new.andertons.co.uk/p/SGSCW...6-sg-special-faded-traditional-in-worn-cherry
jimistone
long standing member
You do pretty good trading at GC on big ticket item like a les paul, because they give you 10% off. That's 250 bucks or so on a lp standard. The only thing is you would get hosed on the Angus SG. You would get maybe half of what it's worth. If you could outright sell the Angus SG and get its actual value...then you could trade in some little small something like a shure sm58 and get your 10% off the big ticket item and have the $500 credit too. Of course it may take a little time to sell the SG so it would not instantaneous this way like a complete trade would be
my 2 cents
my 2 cents
The only problem with that is I think I waited too long to come up with this plan. I need to use my free 500 dollars by the 22nd. I don't think a big ticket item like a signature SG has enough interest to move fast on the open market. The deadline on the 500 bucks is the key variable with all of this nonsense.Oh, what a terrible problem to have. You must be gutted
I think that if you're not using it and don't have any sort of emotional connection to it. Sell it. Why not sell it privately as opposed to trading it in? An Angus SG would probably get snapped up and it sounds like you can afford to sell it pretty reasonably too.
Then get the cheapest real SG you can which plays well, a few other nick-knacks and have some fun swapping pickups in and out of the cheap SG. something like this: https://new.andertons.co.uk/p/SGSCW...6-sg-special-faded-traditional-in-worn-cherry
A stripped down SG is not really something I'm interested in. I don't want a project SG. I already have one - the Epiphone. I'd want a nice one, decked out, like minerman's new SG. Those faded ones are similar to LP Studios. Some are great, some are trainwrecks. The new Standards are pretty nice.
The instantaneous bit is what I'm after. I'm not hellbent on getting rid of this SG. Ideally, I'd walk into a GC, they give me more than what I paid for it because I got it at a very deep discount, and with my 500 GC bucks I could walk out with a new SG Standard and some extra shit. That's the perfect scenario. Is it gonna happen? Probably not, but I can try, and the worse thing that happens is I keep the Angus model and just use my 500 bucks on whatever else like originally planned.
Lt. Bob
Spread the Daf!
well .... I'm pretty sure it was around the late 70's .... maybe early 80's ..... I don't know the history of CNC so I don't know if they were around then but there weren't much of any computers yet so I imagine non CNC.
The frets themselves were somehow hardened in some way so they'd last .... plain ol' aluminum wouldn't last long as a fret material.
I don't know how you'd harden just the frets but they apparently did.
JDOD
therecordingrebels.com
Ah, I that case you just need to get down to GC with your Angus and try loads if shit out, discuss trade values and stuff like that, look at what extra shit you fancy (leather trousers and hairspray etc) and try and work out a deal. Don't mention your 500 buck lump sum until after you've worked out a deal you want or they'll just dry fuck you cos they know you only have a week left!
Bill L
Massivdonian
I have lots of guitars and around 10 amps. I can't help it, I love this shit.
Still looking to get a Fender Deluxe Reverb, Fender Vibrolux, Fender Super Reverb, Vox AC 15, Vox AC30 and some Marshalls at some point.
That would be before common everyday CNC machining. If CNC existed back then, I doubt some small guitar company could afford to utilize it.
I'm gonna have to go back to my strength of materials textbooks, but I do know there there's a way, if I remember incorrectly, that aluminum is super-hardened by basically infusing impurities under extreme heat. Then it's quenched quickly and you're left with a very hard aluminum with those hardening impurities bonded into the aluminum. Again, this is a process that's probably out of reach for a small guitar builder, but he could probably buy the aluminum already hardened that way. When building engines we'd use hardened aluminum pistons and rods. These parts were way tougher than standard billet 6061 aluminum like we'd use for heads or intakes.
That is the plan. Especially the leather. If they don't offer me at least what I paid for it, then there's no way I'm making any deal. I probably won't even take what I paid for it. It's gotta be more.
Yes this ^^^^^
Your Bassman tracks sound badass though.
Cranks are cast iron or steel, so they go through a different process. They can be moly hardened. I don't think I've ever heard of an aluminum crankshaft. That would be a disaster. Rods can be steel or aluminum, or maybe even titanium. Pistons are virtually always aluminum. As far as I know moly is only used for iron/steel.
Lt. Bob
Spread the Daf!
well, one thing for sure ..... when those frets DO wear out, you've got a problem!
Another thing that could maybe help an aluminum fret is the polishing process. I know with engine parts, polishing aluminum helps surface integrity. We would rarely ever leave anything raw and unfinished. Polishing, or at the very least deburring, resists wear and eliminates stress points for cracks. Machining an engine leaves razor sharp edges everywhere. The last thing you do before putting it together is you go through and deburr all those edges. For one, you gotta stick your hands in there to fit pistons and rings and stuff. Those edges will slice you up in a heartbeat. Equally as important is getting rid of those edges that are always ground zero for cracks. A production engine can live with burrs and imperfections. A racing engine needs everything to be perfect. So anyway, polishing an aluminum fret might make it be able to last.
Yup. You'd probably have to slot it and install regular frets.
Or if the neck is solid aluminum, you could just machine down the space between the frets and voila! Big ol frets again!
None of this can be cheap.
Lt. Bob
Spread the Daf!
yep .... a single piece of solid aluminum it was.
My drummer has a aluminum guitar but I'm not sure what it is. It's heavy as shit. I'll try to remind him to bring it to practice next week so I can snap some pics of it. I think it's a one-off custom build.
Bill L
Massivdonian
Wouldn't Anodizing the aluminum strengthen it? When I worked in Biopharma/Petrochemical world, almost everything was anodized aluminum. Light weight, strong, relatively corrosion resistant (depending on application and atmosphere).
Gerg: I've known for a while I should have some sort of Marshall as most of my heroes (at one point or another) have used them. One of these days soon. In fact every time I see one I try to recall discussions on the various amps from this thread. Got a bunch of stuff I need to purchase first, but it's on the list. And thanks for the compliment on the Bassman tones. Probably the best purchase I ever made. $220 at a pawn shop for a 1966 Blackface all original (this was back in 1991 or so).
JDOD: Never tried the new Bassbreaker amps. In fact, I don't really like Fender's bass line. The reason I bought the Bassman all those years ago was on a recommendation from a friend. He said lots of guitar players used them back in the day (in fact Vintage Guitar magazine had, at the time, just put out a mod that jumped the channels so you could have a 2 channel amp which I thankfully never did). When I play bass, I bring a Carvin MB10 which is a tiny but powerful amp. Single 10" in 20# box. Big sound for short money in a small package.
Gerg: I've known for a while I should have some sort of Marshall as most of my heroes (at one point or another) have used them. One of these days soon. In fact every time I see one I try to recall discussions on the various amps from this thread. Got a bunch of stuff I need to purchase first, but it's on the list. And thanks for the compliment on the Bassman tones. Probably the best purchase I ever made. $220 at a pawn shop for a 1966 Blackface all original (this was back in 1991 or so).
JDOD: Never tried the new Bassbreaker amps. In fact, I don't really like Fender's bass line. The reason I bought the Bassman all those years ago was on a recommendation from a friend. He said lots of guitar players used them back in the day (in fact Vintage Guitar magazine had, at the time, just put out a mod that jumped the channels so you could have a 2 channel amp which I thankfully never did). When I play bass, I bring a Carvin MB10 which is a tiny but powerful amp. Single 10" in 20# box. Big sound for short money in a small package.
jimistone
long standing member
Be careful with the guitar for sure. I had a Applause (by ovation) that had one of those cast aluminum necks and it fell off an amp and I guess the big E string smacked against the fret and put a gash in the fret. I was going to get the fret replaced. That's when I found out the entire neck...frets and all....was one piece of cast aluminum. A neck would have probably been more than the entire guitar if you could have fond one....I couldnt. The repair guy at the music store said "damn, what a lousy designed piece of shit."
The guitar was worthless after one big fret ding.