Scott Baxendale
Well-known member
I’m about to start liquidating down to the few I actually use.
What defines a great guitar?
- Thread starter Scott Baxendale
- Start date
Scott Baxendale
Well-known member
I have a few amps, but I really only use a couple.
Ampeg Gemini1 is my best and favorite amp. I gig with this amp.
Vibrochamp, I have three of these 2 black face and one silver face. I just basically use the silver face.
Greer 3watt Minichief and a Greer 30 watt combo. These go into my UAOXBOX for tracking in my studio.
Other amps include:
Matchless Lightning 30
Black face Showman
Silverface Bandmaster
Steve Hunter boutique amp (2)
Small early 50’s Harmony amp.
jimistone
long standing member
For me it's tone, looks, and playability. To some looks aren't important, but for me, if the guitar is goofy looking i dont care how good it plays and sounds, it's not going to speak to me and have me playing it for hours unable to put it down
Personally, I like mid 60's strats. I have played quite a lot of them down through the years. I like a Brazilian rosewood fretboard on a maple neck. I like vintage kluson tuners. I like a bone nut. I like a nitro lacquer finish. I like Grey bottom fender pickups. I like vintage cold rolled steel trem blocks. I like old growth wood that has already done all the warping, buckling, splitting, and bending it's ever going to do. I prefer alder bodies. I like vintage fender tone and volume pots. I like vintage capacitors. I like push back cloth covered wiring
Strats from from 1957 to about 1969 are awesome guitars. Not crazy about the 70's strats with the 3 bolt neck plates.
I have a 1966 alder body strat that I got for $150 bucks in 1976. Hands down the best playing and sounding strat I have ever held in my hands. Way above average when compared to all the other vintage strats I have played in the tone department. I don't know why it is but it is.
I have 5 amps and all I play through live is my 1968 drip edge Fender Pro Reverb. It's heavy but oh my God does that amp sound good.
If i set my 66 strat through the 68 pro reverb as a benchmark, everything else is *muh*
Personally, I like mid 60's strats. I have played quite a lot of them down through the years. I like a Brazilian rosewood fretboard on a maple neck. I like vintage kluson tuners. I like a bone nut. I like a nitro lacquer finish. I like Grey bottom fender pickups. I like vintage cold rolled steel trem blocks. I like old growth wood that has already done all the warping, buckling, splitting, and bending it's ever going to do. I prefer alder bodies. I like vintage fender tone and volume pots. I like vintage capacitors. I like push back cloth covered wiring
Strats from from 1957 to about 1969 are awesome guitars. Not crazy about the 70's strats with the 3 bolt neck plates.
I have a 1966 alder body strat that I got for $150 bucks in 1976. Hands down the best playing and sounding strat I have ever held in my hands. Way above average when compared to all the other vintage strats I have played in the tone department. I don't know why it is but it is.
I have 5 amps and all I play through live is my 1968 drip edge Fender Pro Reverb. It's heavy but oh my God does that amp sound good.
If i set my 66 strat through the 68 pro reverb as a benchmark, everything else is *muh*
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Man after my own heart
jimistone
long standing member
There is a reason those old strats are selling for way over 10k, when there are so many still out there. Most people don't want to get rid of them, and when they do people with money are willing to cough up the dough. They have vibe all their own that is extreamly hard to replicate in a modern guitar. Fender custom shop produces some guitars that come close, but you will fork out almost as much for one of them as you would for a vintage one.Man after my own heart
40+ years of playing wear creates a neck that feels like you're at home with an old friend.
I will have to say ditto on the late 50's and early 60's les Paul's. But very few people can cough up over 100k for a guitar, so they are out of reach for an average musician.
On Gibson les Paul's I have to say that I really like the 70's era les pauls. Yes, they have the sandwich bodies that are non-chambered and heavy as a boat anchor, but they play so good and sou d awesome. Used to be affordable but are getting really expensive now days.
Scott Baxendale
Well-known member
I used a Silverface Pro Reverb for years but eventually I sold it because I did not ever want to lift it again. It sounded fantastic though.
jimistone
long standing member
Yeah, I had a silver face super reverb too. Awesome amp but heavy. The pro isn't much lighter.
They are both 40 watts. Pro is 2/12's and the super is 4/10's. The super had a mid tone control and the pro just bass and high. I've never found myself wishing the pro had a mid control...it is voiced perfectly in the midrange for my taste.
Some of the early vintage '68 pro reverbs had the old blackface circuit and the later ones had the silver face circuit (they are both outstanding in my opinion). Mine is an early one and has the blackface circuit according to my amp tech. The blackface circuit has a little sweeter and less edgy sounding breakup when cranked, but like I said, they are both outstanding. Also, you have to be playing a pretty big room to peg either one to the point of total tube saturation. I'm 64 yo and it's STILL worth carrying that SOB into the club to get that tone.
Lol
I had a sleeper. 69 fender bantam bass.
Only made for two years. Fender did a collaboration with Yamaha who provided these stupid styrofoam trapezoidal speakers that bass players blew up all the time. Mine worked but sounded like shit.
The size was similar to a Fender super reverb but a bit lighter.
I ripped out the junk speaker and baffle and made one for a standard round 15. Installed a jenson and was in heaven.
Being 30 watts you could get a great break up at a lower volume than a super reverb. It was almost like a poor man’s tweed bassman. Great guitar amp. And with the blown speaker syndrome you could pick them up dirt cheap.
Only made for two years. Fender did a collaboration with Yamaha who provided these stupid styrofoam trapezoidal speakers that bass players blew up all the time. Mine worked but sounded like shit.
The size was similar to a Fender super reverb but a bit lighter.
I ripped out the junk speaker and baffle and made one for a standard round 15. Installed a jenson and was in heaven.
Being 30 watts you could get a great break up at a lower volume than a super reverb. It was almost like a poor man’s tweed bassman. Great guitar amp. And with the blown speaker syndrome you could pick them up dirt cheap.
jimistone
long standing member
I think the old fender pros, supers, vibrolux, and deluxe are hard to beat if you are gigging and you need one ampbto cover all bases....clean, slightly overdrive blues, and rock and roll. My favorite rock setup is a les paul with paf pickups going through a Marshall tube amp, but it's pretty much a one trick pony. I'm not crazy about the Marshall/les paul set up for clean...the old strats through silver face fender amps mop the floor with them. But that being said, a less paul through a pegged 100 watt jmc Marshall is a thing of beauty. Dosen't get much better than that IMO.
Back in the late 70's I had a mid 70's les paul custom and a 100 watt Marshall with the 4/12 slant cab. OMG was that sum bitch loud! Only thing is back then you didn't have all these 1000's of pedals and power soaks available to get the wide open sound at lower volume. The pedals back then sounded like ass. So, playing live I hung a blanket over the slant cab and flipped it around backward facing the wall instead of the audience and cranked it up wide open. It was still very lound and the sound still had clarity...but it didn't make people's ears bleed (including mine)
I have permanent hearing damage in my eft ear because of the les paul/100 watt Marshall years. So, did my best friend and Drummer (who unfortunately died of lung cancer about 15 years ago)
Sorry to side track the thread.
Back in the late 70's I had a mid 70's les paul custom and a 100 watt Marshall with the 4/12 slant cab. OMG was that sum bitch loud! Only thing is back then you didn't have all these 1000's of pedals and power soaks available to get the wide open sound at lower volume. The pedals back then sounded like ass. So, playing live I hung a blanket over the slant cab and flipped it around backward facing the wall instead of the audience and cranked it up wide open. It was still very lound and the sound still had clarity...but it didn't make people's ears bleed (including mine)
I have permanent hearing damage in my eft ear because of the les paul/100 watt Marshall years. So, did my best friend and Drummer (who unfortunately died of lung cancer about 15 years ago)
Sorry to side track the thread.
Scott Baxendale
Well-known member
Mine probably had the Silverface circuit. If I ever turned it up to 2 I would get bitched out for playing too loud.
My Ampeg Gemini 1 is still the best amp I have ever used by a mile.
I’ve owned a couple of Super’s and always hated how I sounded through the 4x10 speakers. When other folks played through it it sounded good but when I played through it it always sound harsh and too trebly. I sold them quick.
jimistone
long standing member
I love among amps too
jimistone
long standing member
One reason it sounded too trebley may have been you setting the amp volume low on 2. The supers, and pro's, (or marshalls for that matter) sound better when you turn the volume on up to 5 or so, where you have way more head room than you need, and pull the volume way down on your guitar.
The amp set on 5 with your guitar volume barley cracked will sound far more fat and lush than your amp on 2 and your guitar volume way up.
That's one reason Hedrix's clean tone was so damn good on his clean soft passages. His guitar amp was still loud enough to get "the star spangled banner" distortion, but he barely had his guitar volume pot open and the tone was beautiful.
Try that sometime. You will be amazed at the difference in tone
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Scott Baxendale
Well-known member
No, I cranked it. I cranked the pro reverb too but it got real loud onstage over 2, but in the studio I played it louder. It was the 4x10 speakers on the super that I didn’t like. The 2x12 speaker was much more to my taste. My Gemini 1 is a 1-12, and so are my matchless and Greer amps.
Scott Baxendale
Well-known member
That’s not the topic.
dogooder
Well-known member
Well, as far as I am concerned I have heard some pretty cheap guitars in very good players hands and they sound like pretty great guitars. You could hand me the most well crafted guitar ever made and I can hand some of my buddies one of my 200 dollar guitars and they will sound better than me.
musicturtle
Member
I have always thought guitars are like golf clubs.
Will someone play/sound better with all the best materials and adjustments to fit their style and physical make up? Absolutely.
But give me a $5000 set of clubs and Tiger Woods my $200 set and we know what will happen
musicturtle
Member
The definition of a great guitar is one that you love to play.
It is completely subjective.
The thing is, I have found very few in my lifetime that I didn't like to play.
So maybe all guitars are just great because, well, they are guitars.
It is completely subjective.
The thing is, I have found very few in my lifetime that I didn't like to play.
So maybe all guitars are just great because, well, they are guitars.
Scott Baxendale
Well-known member
Sure, from a listener perspective. My OP was about what makes a great guitar from the players perspective. This point also has very little to do with a guitar’s price point.
Many of the guitars I remanufacture into world class sounding guitars sold originally for under $30.
