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Hello Heritage! I am new to this forum-I just bought my first Heritage Custom Core H 535 Blonde! It is different than any other guitar I have played. I’m used to Gibsons, Fender, arch tops etc, but this feels/sounds so different. I love the QUALITY of the build. The neck is comfortable, pickups sound great. Very versetile. Playing Jazz, Blues, Bossa Nova and Swing on it right now. I love it! It has lots of flame in the wood-front, back and sides. The tuners work really well. I’m using Thomastic Strings, flatwound 11’s.

seems like a nice product for the money for sure, and yes- SOP now. makes me a little sad, but gotta remember: "Its not personal Sonny, its strictly business." I was in London recently and I always go down to Denmark Street and Soho when there to check out the old historic (and new) guitar shops and studios. Dawsons had both US and Ch. made Heritages. They told me that they are owned by the same company that owns Heritage Kalamazoo, so they are the London distributor for both factories. The Chinese ones were downstairs in the main showroom. The good stuff was upstairs in the “private” room that was roped off. Some very nice new production instruments from both places.

There's a big difference between a customer having a build to his specifications vs buying a prebuilt NAMM special build. What I don't understand is the company doing "bespoke" custom builds for "influencers" vs people who have supported them for 10 or 20 years. For an artist, I'll give them more of a pass, as it most companies have artist programs. Frankie Ballard It's great that these people are finally looking at Heritage guitars, but how does someone who has ignored Heritage for years get to spec out a guitar with their color, a P90/PAF and Bigsby for free? Maybe it's because I'm old school, but social media influencers are probably the lowest point on my list of reasons to look at something, much less to buy something. I find about 90% of the online reviews or gear to be utterly useless.

You know how it is. You're wasting time on the internet and you come across a very nice guitar at a very nice price and not too far away... Big birthday coming up (exactly 10 years younger than Eric Clapton), contacted Rolly's Guitars and Rolly put the Heritage on hold for a few days until I could call in, which I did yesterday. I spent a pleasant hour playing the Heritage and talking guitars, bands and assorted nonsense, then made my way home as new member of the Custom Core Club. It's a 2023 model, well set up, in almost pristine condition and sounds glorious through the Drive King. I made a slight adjustment to the bridge pickup height, but that was it. Pics, I hear you say?

Congrats on the new CC H-535. I too am a recent purchaser of a Heritage custom core. I bought my CC H-530 from Sweetwater just a month after it left the factory in Kalamazoo. I owned two H-535's back in the mid 90's and they were great guitars. However, this 530 hits me in all the right places. A fully hollow thin line with great P90's is just what I want today as an old man who doesn't turn his amps up too loud anymore. Enjoy your Heritage. I've included a pic of my 530 from the Sweetwater collection of my guitar. I can't take better pics myself so why try?

FWIW, just saying that something is made in China doesn't necessarily mean it's a piece of crap. There are things made in the US that are crap, and stuff that is high quality. The same happens over there. I used to deal with a few Chinese plants and a few were consistent, and more than willing to go the extra mile to make a quality product. Others couldn't make the same thing twice if their lives depended on it. China is a massive country with lots of different companies. Anyone over a certain age will remember when Made In Japan was the sign of cheapness. Now the majority of things out of Japan are world class.

Eh, lots of variables and generalizations in play... but in a nutshell; if the amp wattage is higher than what the power/watt handling of a speaker is, it's going to lead to 1 of 2 likely outcomes - 1) the speaker will easily distort... which in some scenarios could be a desirable effect and compliment the amp distortion (especially when paired with another higher power/sensitivity speaker); in other scenarios, it could just sound muddy, "farty", or bad. 2) The speaker could just fail...blow the cone out or toast the voice coil. In the reverse role; if the speaker watt/power handling is way higher than the amp output... usually this will make very little difference. It depends more on the design and sensitivity of the speaker at this point. For example, I love to pair the 300 watt EVM-12L with all sorts of amps, including little 5 watters; fairly transparent speaker pairing that let's more of the amps own voicing be heard (minimal speaker distortion/coloration). Usually the only negative scenario is where it's a speaker with a very heavy cone and low sensitivity; that could be a speaker that needs a whole lot of power to make it move in order to sound good. There's not many guitar oriented speakers out there that fall into this grouping though. It's more in the extreme cork sniffers high end of car or home audio (or cheap garbage speakers from temu or something). TLDR - Low power amp with high power speaker; okay. High power amp with low power speaker; may cause death of speaker, or could get you that cinnamon girl sound you've been searching for all your life (if one was to ever search for such a sound).

Yes! Greg is such a unique player, and person! He has combined several guitar styles into his own signature sound. He is a very funny guy! I am new to this forum. Looking fwd to discussing all things guitar!

C J Stanley band. He owns a bunch of them. https://youtu.be/oahyiijnjwQ?si=H2MRO7llLOYSSNl9

I am both an ES125 fan (I've had 4 of them, but only kept one single pickup version, because it's a beast, it's nicknamed the '69 Chevelle because of the rumble it makes) and a P90 fan in general. I think P90s are the sound of rock and roll! Here are all of my P90 guitars. The Heritage H525 P90 (Lollar P90s) 1965 Gibson ES125T (vintage original Gibson P90) 2024 USA Les Paul Special (Gibson P90s), 2010 Gibson Historic SG Special (Wolfetone Mean And Meaner P90s) 2024 Gibson Historic 1954 Les Paul Reissue (Gibson P90s) As for tubes, that is what the good lord intended for all electric guitars to be plugged into

My favorite speaker is the Weber 12A125A. It's a low wattage speaker that I use in three amps currently Mesa DC-2 (25 watts) Clark Beaufort Supreme (20 watts) TopHat Club Deluxe (20 watts) The speaker is rated at 30 watts, but sometimes I throw a lot of outboard gain pedals into these amps (Origin Effects Revival Drive and M/EQ driver, Analogman Sunface BC108 fuzz, Durham Sex Drive) so I try to listen carefully to see if I'm at that edge. Because as Rich says above, square waves (particularly fuzzes), can destroy speakers if pushed close to their ratings! That said, I WANT the speaker to distort as I think that is part of the rock and roll sound.

Bolero, thank you for reply! Yes, this is my first Heritage guitar! I had seen several YouTube videos of the factory, owners, tours, demos, etc, so I knew it would be a quality build. I heard it might take almost a year, so I decided to get one I saw at Truetone Music in LA. I knew them from when living there-had guitars repaired. This one was a 2024 build, blonde, extra flame, not a scratch on it! I had their repair guy lower the action, and put the Thomastic flat-wound 11’s on. I couldn’t believe how nice it was to play. I love it! I will have husband take a picture & post it on here. It covers Jazz, Blues, Swing, Bossa really well with those pickups. Thanks again!

the best part was this old English Bulldog snoring away on the tattered old couch while folks came in and out and played guitars. People were talking so you can barely hear him snoring due to the chatter in the room (if you listen closely at the end), but trust me- it was classic.

The wattage on a speaker is an indication of how much power you can put through the voice coil without it heating up to the point that burns out. The suspension, cone material, available voice coil travel will determine if it breaks up, and sensitivity will tell you how loud the speaker will be at a reasonable power level. The speaker will distort if you exceed the rating, especially if you try to exceed the cone travel. If you play highly distorted, then you should have a higher power speaker capacity since those distorted squared off waves are actually higher in power than a sine wave of equivalent amplitude. Something like the Celestion Peacekeeper handles 50W but only puts out 86dB for 1 watt of power. A Vintage 30 will handle 60W and puts out 100dB for that same single watt. Also, it depends on where you set the amp. A Twin can put out a lot of power, but if you only turn up to 2, you might only be putting out 3 or 5 watts.

There really isn't a better tuner than Gotoh, made in Japan. I put them on both of my vintage Heritage in place of the rotomatics. Collings uses them on their electrics, and they are very good. Grover makes many tuners in China anymore. Schaller are still making them in Germany. Waverly still makes tuning machines in the USA. There are tuning machine companies in Korea supplying Fender and others with unique tuners, like the "70's F-branded" machines on the vintage re-issues. (originally made by Schaller).

Gotoh will put your label on a tuner if you are willing to pay for it. My Melanon built T has tuners with his name on it, very similar to Heritage. Gerard was a much smaller builder than Heritage and used top grade parts for his builds. I would be really surprised if Ed Wilson would have cheap'd out on tuners when he went through all the trouble to set up the custom core instruments. Save $20 on a $4000 instrument, that you've pleked, and designed the pickups for? Doesn't make sense.

uggh. I guess everything got nuked back when the server funk went down... I blame the frog

I seem to recall the old Blog blog. Riveting!

Although not in the pic, the bassist does own an HB-2 also. That's a Danelectro Bass.

This is the third topic I just checked in, to see what condition my condition was in

too late....

Absolutely beautiful guitars! We have the ‘66 ES 125. It really packs a punch! Great little guitar for Blues. I bought husband one. We both have one! Ha! I also love my ‘67 Gibson 330, cherry, with the chrome covered P90’s. That 1st photo is a beautiful burst! Classy! What a nice collection of amps! Wow! The gold re-issue is amazing! It’s so interesting how different guitars sound and feel-like unique personalities. I just bought husband a vintage Epiphone Casino, cherry. He loves it, but it needs a pro setup. Thank you so much for the photos! I bet they all sound great!

Guitar speakers are definitely designed to have a "non-linear" response zone, and they do break up when pushed. How much they do has to do with the design, and also how much "dope" has been put on the cone.

Congrats on your new guitar. Sounds like you found a good one! And I love blonds (guitars that is). I have a H535 with P90s and I love the way that it feels. And, I'm also a fan of Thomastik flats, I use them on my Gretsch DuoJet. Thomastik makes the best flats, and that's from experience, I've tried them all. They are just so slinky As everyone else has said, let's see some pics.

Why would anyone pay $1000+ shipping for a guitar that you can buy from Manny's for $699? I certainly wouldn't buy a guitar from Malaysia when you have a US company doing the imports, with free shipping and a 30 day return guarantee. https://deals.bandlab.com/mannys https://deals.bandlab.com/mannys/products/heritage-guitars/8367752773785

yep- they are really well made quality instruments. I've tried a bunch and bought and sold a couple. I did play one once at an old store called Buffalo Brothers here in San Diego County that I almost bought and probably should have (there's one that got away). I just haven't found one that I connected with like a Heritage, Guild or my Commons.

I don't personally feel that anything made in China is crap - quite the contrary - but I do feel that the stock Heritage tuners on the CC models, regardless of where they're made, are of average quality at best. They just feel sloppy with way too much play in them. Why Heritage decided to use these tuners on guitars with this level of quality is beyond me, but they simply don't stack up compared to Gotoh or many other tuners out there.

these guys are unimpressed

hey, I found it! whew. It's still here. I guess it was posted in the other big generic pond of blogs like a box of frogs All those moments in time could have been lost, like tears in the rain

I'm a big Gotoh fan, I have there Luxury series 21:1 ratio 510 series on 4 of my Zemaitis guitars, and I have plenty of experience with the 381 series, they are definitely an upgrade to the stock tuners.

with you there my friend. my list of things that I wish I'd kept, or should have snagged, lives in my head rent free. very happy with what I have now, but there a few items that in hindsight ....

Paranoia strikes deep.

I see. Don’t break your mind.

what it is ain't exactly clear

there's something happening here

man, I was just thinking about this thread again. I wish I still had my celestion alnico blues & alnico gold 12" speakers. They were really good. I sold them when I unloaded my Vox & Matchless amps

yep summed up pretty good above There is a dynamic between particular speakers & particular amps. Always good to play around with combinations but use caution. Unless you can afford recones or don't have any rare vintage speakers. I have an old ~15w tube amp I put an ancient Bell & Howell alnico film speaker in it, very light resonant cone. That thing RAWKS when it's cranked up. I bet it's just on the verge of the speaker's power handling

Not for CJ. He is known to own at least 1/3 of the Marvbird's made. I talk to him every once in a while. He is an interesting guy with a lot of stories. Met a lot and played in front of legends. That's his son on the right playing the red one.

that is a well hung microphone

Certainly, good guitars can be made in China, or Indonesia, or Korea. The labor costs are lower overseas, environmental and worker-safety less strict, and the currency manipulation make them even cheaper. Just like Epiphone, and PRS SE and any number of Fender sub-brands, and many others, production is offshored. Some are pretty good, some are every freaking corner is cut to hit a price. The truth is that cheap guitars outsell expensive guitars, by quite a lot. What is the value of the Heritage brand? Is Heritage associated as a USA made instrument brand? Does branding imported guitars with the Heritage brand de-value the brand? Outside of a small group of guitar nerds, Heritage is kinda unknown. Even among guitar players, I get a lot of "what is that guitar?" about my H535 (it is quite a looker in curly maple natural as well as incredibly good sounding). Gibson for instance, separates the Gibson and Epiphone lines as generally, USA and offshore brands. Fender has gone both ways. When CBS sold to private investors in the 1980's, they had no factory for a while. They were building Fender-branded guitars in Japan. (I have one, they were excellent!) They also did Squier brand and some other variants for offshore, and make Fender branded instruments in Japan and Mexico as well as USA. It just seems weird to me that it is virtually impossible to make electric solid-body guitars in the USA that cost less than $2000

I think I came across a thread a few weeks ago where someone said that they were made in China, apparently because they could do the Heritage logo. I don't recall where I read that, though.

You know, I feel much the same way. While the new CC models are significantly lighter than the standards, and while they make for a very good modding platform, they would indeed be a very tough guitar to beat if their parts were all top shelf along with some nicer tops throughout. After all the mods I've done to these guitars, I'm pretty happy with them, but if there's one minor gripe that I continue to have, it's the shorter frets. For what they call a "Jescar medium jumbo" fret, it feels much more like a lower vintage fret. While I'm certainly doing okay with the frets just as they are now, if I ever need to do a fret leveling on either of them, I think I'd likely opt to have a refret job done instead. I have no idea about the Schaller M6 tuners and whether or not they'd fit.

Damn this thread makes me wanna buy another H50CC !! But seriously as i looked thru all the web pieces... none of the flame tops are as astounding as the gibsons R9... Few were poorly matched.... yet surprsingly those internet influencers whom they gotten theirs has a crazy top !! Not sure how true it is if they got the specials.... but what i felt it could be probably true that Marketing pieces seen on the web were surprisingly beautiful yet unobtainable... Not being as ass here but i resides same country as the tycoon whom bought over Heritages... i know it business wise it gone better? But consumer wise we are not getting the same butter as advertised... from flame tops, tuners,bridges, and pots were all seem a class lower in grade... If Heritage could again up their game to bring back their nice wonderful selected tops, grover tuners but abr1 bridge it be a second to none being the best singlecut... knowing the fact it already sound so fantastic i been looking to replace the stock tuners, i was wondering if the schaller M6 would fit in nicely ?

There was a reason when the old guard retired, Heritage only made the 535 and 150's and discontinued or limited production of archtops. They opened to Sweatwater and other large retailers and cut off lots of brick and mortar, mom and pops stores. They were looking at the bottom line. The time and expense of building one-off for Boomers and dealing with expectations of same was altruistic and a money suck. Having a website promising future "bespoke" and making the occasional for a high-profile player and influencers is smart marketing. I was fortunate to have my builds made in 2009, 2011 and 2013. Those days are gone forever over a long time ago, oh well!

I have requested builds but have been rebuffed. So much for loyalty. If they only knew!

Eh... I was about to make a long drawn out whiny post about my attempts at getting a bespoke made... but will just condense it to say; once asked for a 150 custom core in faded blue to match an amp my kid and I made (that was it, just the color; and it was a color they've done before); was told no. Later down the road there was some possible horse trade dealing going on, for which my terms were a 150 custom core in faded blue with split inlays or something to make it unique for my daughter; was again told no. As Blues hinted at; I think the program is just a teaser, and really only open to artists and influencers. They don't really have any interest in making unique one-offs; except maybe for NAMM. Which I do get, to some extent... they probably don't want to trump their own standard line up or things they've made for endorsing artists and what not. It's a different world and a different Heritage.

Thanks! They seem to give the guitar a bit more of a vintage vibe, too. Funny, but I was loving this guitar so much that I drove over to Dave's Guitar Shop earlier this week and pickup up another one......😁 This one got the newer ABR-style bridge and thumbwheels that came directly from Heritage. The pickguard is an old LP/P90 guard that I shaved down to fit this one. It's going to get the same tuners as well. I'm really enjoying these CC models. I only wish that I would've picked one up when they first came out:

I wouldn't trust a thing that comes out of that's guys mouth. I can't understand why Heritage would build this guy a guitar for free. Just google up Vertex and rippoff and you will find out about his history... from Joe Bonnamassa... Hey Guys, I'm sorry to be chiming in so late but I must warn all you fellow gear nerds to stay away from Vertex effects and pedalboard services. Mason is not truthful nor is his work good or in most cases his own. He had me on his site without permission as a user and happy customer. I am/was neither happy nor do I use any of his products. My pedalboard sounded awful, took tons of gain away, and added a huge ground hum. It also cost $1400 and that was after I pitched a fit when the $2000 bill came to my tour manager all the while seeing unauthorized You Tube videos of my " new rig" a rig I never tried nor signed off on. Fortunately Dave Friedman at Rack Systems came in and saved the day for $400. All I wanted and asked for was to have some cables cut to size. I didn't want to waste Dave's time so I gave it to Mason. BIG MISTAKE.... I am very disturbed by his actions and have heard recently that he has been called out on some Wah Wah pedal stuff. Bad News Bear that cat is unfortunately. So... In closing... Just trying to keep my fellow guitar nerds from getting ripped off like I was. Caveat Emptor Joe Bonamassa.

Nice blog Pete, good to read about stuff I can relate to here in England. As you know, Maggie Ronson, Mick's sister was a friend of mine, I also knew Mick's brother and their mum, Minnie Ronson. When I was at the Ronson's house in East Hull, I saw a framed picture of Mick his mum had on the sideboard of him playing the telecaster.