Happy birthday to me!

[tjdracz]

My birthday is coming tomorrow and throughout this month I've treated myself to couple of gifts. Have a look!



Squier Jag for £70 (!), lovely lovely guitar
Yamaha SPX900
Midiverb II

All bargains and well under my target budget. Now I've got some spare dough to spend on the stuff and I was thinking of maybe one more guitar or some other fancy stuff. I was never much of a fan of Les Pauls (booooring design) but I'm thinking of maybe getting one after all, to get some nice humbucking and sustained sound. Also got my eyes on MIK Epiphone Dot or other semi-acoustic.
Any good things out there guys? Guitars, pedals, essential equipment? I've got around £300-£350 to spend so I'd love to see your suggestions ;)

[alex.s]

Very jealous of it all, especially the SPX! Can't beat a good old Yamaha rack verb for some good noise :)

Jag looking great too, and for 70 quit it's an absolute steal! Any plans to mod/do work on it at all?

In terms or archtops, I have an Epiphone Casino and really enjoy it, lovely guitar for the money. Only downside is that it's a real hollow body (ie no solid block in the middle) and can feedback more than your average dot at high volume/gain situations.

Or if you want fat humbucker sound, what about a fat tele? Always fancied one of those... Perhaps with a bigsby...

Anyhow, happy birthday! :)

[tjdracz]

SPX was £50 ;) I was looking for SPX90, couldn't find one in reasonable price, was about to buy SPX50D for £75 but then this one popped up on ebay and I quickly snatched it. Great, great stuff.

Some work already had been done. THe previous owner was running .09 strings and was annoyed by the buzz (duh!) and also used the rhythm/lead switch as a killswitch and promtly broke it. 5 minute soldering job and that's that. Also was pretty noisy so I've put copper tape shielding everywhere and after setup at local guitar shop, it plays beautifully and will stay as it is for the time being. In the future I might change the tremolo to the trem-lock version like on Fenders and maybe change the pickups to lower output, more vintage correct ones.

Never knew how good the feedback is, I like the musical use of feedback but wouldn't like it to be too overpowering in the end. There's Epi Dot, there's this little beauty: http://www.trevadamusic.co.uk/guitar/instruments/electric/alden/colonel-white which is much better than the price suggests, also could probably manage to find some Casino in my price bracket ~£300-£350

Tele for me need to be classic tele, no humbucker malarky ;) My friend is actually selling MIM '72 Deluxe for £350-£400 but it's not my cup of tea.

I've got my bright and trebly ground covered with Strat and Jag so probably would like something humbucking to cover rest of the areas. Seen couple of nice LPs but as I've said, never been a fan of the looks. SG maybe slightly better but might go for something like Dot for the best of both worlds (humbuckers and elegant looks).

Keep them suggestions coming and thanks for the wishes :)

[Beaker]

Something like these:


http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Guitars-Basses-/3858/i.html?_nkw=dearmond&_frs=1


Killer guitars for the price.

Killer guitars for twice the price!

Just stick to the set neck models.

[Silver Blues]

Happy Birthday!

Rondo Music has lots of unique guitars at good prices. I've heard a lot of good things about them; might want to check it out.

[tjdracz]

Thanks guys :) DeArmonds look super cool, just would probably like humbuckers now, to shake things up a little.
Heard good things about Rondo, apparently really good for that stupidly low price. Shame that the website is pain to use and not sure how the shipping  to uk will be.
I'm considering going the Epi Dot route. Local shop has got MIK one, lovely for £350 or so but I've seen some MIK's for £275 and could get that and then use the difference to get Duncan pups or something

[rocket88]

Now that I'm done making and idiot of myself, great looking guitar, and total steal for all that. I've had a bass from rondo music, and it was good, the only thing I would do is change the electronics, but then again I've changed all the electronics in all my instruments, except my g&l's and danelectros. I personally like Les Pauls, but it's mostly due to the sustain I get from mine, and it just screams/rips, plus mine is on the heavy side and I like that. I would suggest a g&l asat tribute if you want a tele, as they have the American electronics but buit in Indonesia, or you can go with a mim tele. Or a SG, Firebird, or explorer. I've always wanted on in white, so how it just screams ROCK!!! I've always wanted a semi-hollow and the epiphone ones play great, and I've wanted one for a long time, but then I think about how much of a PIA it would be to swap the pickups and I just put them down.

Btw, I believe DeArmond is actually made by guild, so it should be top quality. I've played one and they're super nice.

[Chris60601]

Super nice B-day present!! Congrats!!

Cheers
Chris

[tjdracz]

Thanks guys :)

ASAT Tribute is well within my budget and I was considering that. How do they do the classic Tele sound? Was never sure how them MFD pickups behave in that design. If I get tele, I want tele jangle ;)
Firebird would be also my choice but I'm hunting for a version with mini humbuckers. I've seen a lovely Tokai one but at £650 it's bit... ouch

[rocket88]

The asat classic sounds like a tele on steroids. It nails the tele jangle, to my ears, but also can make it a fatter fuller sounding tele. To put it into perspective how much I love the sound, I sold my first guitar, which was an American sunburst tele the day I player the asat classic I have now. I literally went home, grabbed my tele, went back to the store and sold them mine, and custom ordered my asat. I still want an original tele, but that asat just stole my heart. If you can play one first and see how you like it.

[Silver Blues]

The MFD pickups are great IMO. Like Rocket said they can do the classic tones and the modern tones without much issue. That's not limited to the Tele pickups either, their bass pickups are like that too and sound amazing.

[tjdracz]

Okay guys, just decided to take the plunge and get Epi Dot. Scored one for £150 so not bad I think, considering most new ones are £300 and used around £220. I might put the saving in decent PAF style pickups and I should be golden :)

[tjdracz]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand here she is :)

[rocket88]

Love it. She's gorgeous. One thing. I thought about, I wouldn't want to change those pickups. It's got to be a bear to get in that cavity.

[tjdracz]

Don't even tell me about it. Input was bit loose and when trying to fix it, jack socket has fallen into the body. Took me three hours full of swearing to fish it out and mount it back!

[rocket88]

that's what worried me and always stopped me from getting one. but she is gorgeous.

[tjdracz]

It's actually not half bad if you know how to get around it. Tying strings to all the pots to fish them out and place them back and such. I was thinking of putting PAF style bucker in the bridge and some P90 in the bridge but actually the stock ones are not as bad as people make them to be.
I'm actually quite impressed with how far the chinese Epiphones and Squiers have gone in terms of quality, especially considering the price point. If you actually bothered to put some Duncans, quality pots and jack, you will get 90% of the real deal for 10% of the price. Sounds fine to me ;)
Jaguar one plays nice but I might replace the pups at some point to Duncans or AVRI jag ones, the Duncan Designed ones are alright but bit overwound which is not to my liking.
Actually, whoever in the pickup making industry decided that EVERYONE wants overwound, hot pickups? Madness!

[Silver Blues]

I think it was done to sound badass in the retail testing environment, plus the generic hot-wound ceramic magnet pickups are really cheap to make. Sometimes they sound good, sometimes they don't...

[dbat69]

TJ  That is a lovely looking instrument - I've often fancied a one myself but always stuck to solids
I think I might be getting some of that GAS Rocket is suffering from

[rocket88]

Well I've now been thinking, what if I made a jazz style bass that's semi-hollow. I've never seen or played a semi hollow bass and wonder what it would be like. But, if one of these are around for the right price, it will be mine.