rockabilly69

I like the tone of that guitar and amp combo.

I love old amps, I own some really nice vintage amps, and I have access to many great old ones. But I don't think they sound any better than a well built modern amp. I have a TopHat Club Deluxe that pretty much can hang with any amp that I've ever played. I'm in the middle of an extended recording project with my band, and we've recorded about 20 songs and not once did I turn on a vintage amp. It's mostly my TopHat, because to me, the TopHat sounds as a good as an amp can sound. The combination of my Telecaster (a partscaster that I built) and that TopHat is the sound that I've always chased, but could never get... till now that is. And my handbuilt (handwired) Marshall style amp that my buddy Ryan built beats the pants of off of any vintage Marshall I've played. It's the only other amp I've used besides my TopHat on the project. I've owned a few vintage Marshalls, but I got rid of them all. I will never sell the one I have now. Most everytime I plug into it I come up with something musical. Also my buddy owns two perfectly maintained tweed 5E3 Deluxes and another pre 5E3 Deluxe and they all sound great and a bit different, yet my Clark Beauford amp to me sounds as good as any of these tweeds, I think we are in a amp renaissance with many builders building some of the best amps ever made. I think there are amp builders out there now that have cracked the code of the originals, but you'll pay through the nose for some of the best ones:) Now I'm not saying there aren't any great vintage amps out there, because I've heard and played through a bunch of great ones. Recently I heard an early 60'd VOX AC10 that was just magic and had a sound I've never heard in a modern amp, but I don't know many of the modern Vox style builders.

Here's another cool fuzz, this is a germanium pedal Ryan built for me, a Rangemaster style treble boost combined with a Big Muff with an adjustable bias. At 22 seconds in the first fuzz lick kicks in, and at 2:06 I crack it wide open for the slide solo!

When I'm recording demos/songs, I have a few fuzz pedals that I love the sound of, and almost all of them are germanium based. But I've always been against using fuzz pedals on my pedal board because of the instability of the germanium transistors used in most of the pedals that I like. When they work, they sound killer, but if the temperature changes in the room, so can the sound of the pedal. But recently, my buddy Ryan, my guitar partner in crime, and who's a fuzz afficianado of the highest order, gave me a silcone based fuzz made by Analogman, the BC183 Sunface which has earned a permanent position on my pedalboard. It just makes the solos cut so much better. And it's ridiculously consistent sounding. I love combining it with my Origin Effects M-EQ Driver for serious vowel like singing sounds! Not the prettiest board, but it gets thew job done... the solo i play at the end of this song is the BC183...

I said it on the gearpage to you, and I'll say it again. Buy some clear and respray it with a clear topcoat, I know you are afraid you can't do it, and you think it's a valuable guitar, but there are plenty of how to videos out there, and you will increase the value with a decent job. And the buffing out of the new coat would be less work that what you've done already. Nitro is pretty forgiving. Educate yourself, take your time and I bet you can do it.

thanks, it was great guitar!

Nice pedal. The other guitarist in our band uses one, he loves it!

I've never personally relic'd a guitar (or re-licked one). But some of the best Telecaster tones I've ever heard came from a Nachocaster which is a heavy duty relic'd guitar. This one... I think the one I played cost $6000. And up to that point, I would've never ever considered spending that much on any guitar, modern or vintage. The most I've ever spent is $4500. But that guitar had me rethinking about what a guitar is worth. It was that good. As a matter of fact one of my best friends bought a used one just like it for a $1000 more, and he thought it was the deal of the century, HE LOVES IT!!! And the fact that you could nick it, dent it, whatever, and wouldn't lose a cent of value is kind of appealing. These guitars now sell for over $8000 new, and there's a waiting list. He sells them that fast. So people pay even more than that for used ones if they want one immediately. Frankly, I don't think I'd like if the man himself, Nacho, made me one that would look new. It just felt so good, and better than any vintage Tele that I've ever played (I've played a few). A few weeks before I played this one I had a 50's whiteguard Tele at my house and this Nacho smoked it! Here's the only song that I recorded with it, a song which came out of me with less than 20 minutes of play time on it. The pickups just sang and the vibration in the wood rattled my ribs...

I'm a sucker for stingers. If I ever had a custom guitar built it would have a stinger. And that flame on that multipiece neck, it's fine! The guitars that I have that stay in tune the best and are some of the best sounding, are the ones with multipiece necks! My dragon Zemaitis guitar is multipiece and that neck rings like a tuning fork!

cool guitar!

This comes up a lot in my conversations with guitar playing friends. We all agree the amp is the biggest factor in great tone. When you've got a great amp almost any decent pickup will sound good. But... those Lollar Imperials in my Teye sound good with any amp of mine that I've plugged that guitar into. I've recorded it with both of my Boogies DC2 6V6 tubes and Fillmore 50 6L6 tubes, my Marshall EL34 tubes, and my Dirty Girl 6973 tubes. That Imperials just sound great. I also had another Teye with those pickups, and they sounded great in that one too. I wonder if Teye spec'd those Imperials specifically for his guitars. I've had mixed luck with Lollar pickups, and his P90s never really did it for me. But them Kuz sold me that H535 P90, and those sounded great.

These are Lollar Imperials in my Teye, I don't think they sound HiFi at all...

Well you've always loved Silverbursts, so there you go. Way to go on the score Brent!

Unlike most people that have posted above, I have seen the quality issues on my own Heritages, and I've heard about many quality control issues wih pre bandlab Heritages. One of my good friends was a dealer for Heitage. and he told me some stories about how many bad ones came through his store. And of my 3 H150s that I own(ed), two of them had nut and fret issues that had to be addressed before I could get the action down low enough to where I like it. And I had to sand out more than a few file marks. When I see the term "Golden Age" referring to pre bandlab Heritages, I just roll my eyes. For the people that got good pre band lab ones, that's great, but for those us who have had to deal with the issues on the older ones, it was a pain. I originally got into Heritages, because I'm a serial modder with pretty good guitar repair skills, and I figured they were so cheap at the time, if I had to do a little work on one, it was worth it. And I really liked the wood on them, they sourced some nice Honduran mahogany, Eastern flamed maple, and Indian Rosewood. And if you were patient, you could find a good one with a decent low weight. But those low prices are history now, so if I was to buy an older Heritage, I would demand a return window. That said, the H150s I have now are good to go, and with the way I modded them, they are great guitars. And he H535 P90 that Kuz sold me was set up really great, and I knew it would be a good guitar, because it was Kuz, who's a straight shooter, and he would never sell me a guitar that was sub par.

Oh yeah, a bad customer service situation can lead to sore apples, but if I had to be limited to one brand of pickups I would say Throbak are the most consistently in line with what I want to hear. The guy just seems to have that low output PAF thing down. I have heard other brands of pickups that get there, but not as consistently as Throbak, especially the SLE101. With Lollar Imperials I thnk the low winds are the closest to what I like. And I'm also a fan of Wolfetone Legends. Speaking of bad customer service, Tyson Tone Lab pickups, especially his Precious and Grace pickups, are also fantastic, BUT, that guy consistently takes forever to get you your pickups, many people have complaints about him and have cancelled orders.