rockabilly69

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!

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.

this the Sebatron...

Thanks I got a new preamp in the house, a Sebatron VMP2000VU, I use the 4 channel version of this in my studio, although my studio one doesn't have the VU meters. I don't think there's better multi-use tube preamp for home and project studio use. I love it on everything. All the drums you heard from my studio were through the Sebatron. And it sounds great on bass and guitars too. I recorded a cleaner and slightly longer version of this song with my Jaguar through the same mics and pre...

I almost sold mine, but it was too good sounding after I put the Wolfetone pickups in it (Dr Vintage neck, Marshallhead bridge), and when I changed out the switch, I put new CTS 500K pots in , Sozo .022 cap, all new cloth pushback wire, and a switchcraft jack, so it's good to go!

Frankly, it kept me from playing that guitar!

Thanks Rich, I had a big condensor mic on in the room and when I was tapping my foot I noticed it picked up a pretty good thump from the carpeted floor And... I always tap my foot when I play Blackbird!!! BTW I posted the wrong pickup combinations, this is the right combos... Left Side position 1: neck position 2: neck and bridge In Parallel / In Phase position 3: bridge Right Side position 1: neck and bridge In Series / In Phase position 2: neck and bridge In Series / Out Of Phase position 3: neck and bridge In Parallel / Out Of Phase

A few days ago I replaced the single coil Nocaster Cavalier Holy Grail pickup in the partscaster Esquire that I built with a Seymour Duncan Billy Gibbons BG-1400. I love having a great sounding single coil sized humbucker in it, especially because it's humbucker quiet! The Nocaster Holy Grail was great sounding too, but I hated dealing with the single coil noise when recording by my computer monitor. And just last night I replaced the 5-way switch in my PRS Custom 22. I never liked that switch, as I never knew what position I was in. And grasping the 5-way switch with sweating hands while under the stage lights was a pain! Fortunately there's a company "Free-Way" that makes a great 6-way toggle switch that is fairly straight forward to install. I used model Number 3X3-08 Here's the guitar with the Free-Way switch installed... The switch has 2 banks of pickup selections. There's a left and right side of three postions each... Left Side position 1: neck pickup (coils in parallel) position 2: neck and bridge in phase (coils in parallel) position 3: bridge pickup (coils in parallel) Right Side position 1: neck and bridge (in series) position 2: neck and middle (in series) Out Of Phase position 3: neck and middle (in parallel) Out Of Phase So here's a demo of the Esquire as the rhythm guitar, and my PRS with me switching through the switch positions starting with position 1. I'm also playing bass, snapping my fingers, and I mic'd the floor so you can hear me tapping to the beat:)

There are so many good companies that make pedal boards, power supplies, gig bags or hard cases for them etc. It's hard to give advice when we don't know what's floatin' up in your noggin. When I start building a new pedalboard, I think of the job that it is going to do, and then I build to that. I needed a very simple board as a backup for my main acoustic board just in case it goes down, and knowing I was going to use 4 pedals, it wouldn't need to be very big. So I figured I could make one from parts I got at the local home depot. I used some black paint, simple shelving, aluminum from the metal stock, and screws and handles from the fastener section. The only thing that didn't come from home depot was the rubber feet which I already had here. I power it with a one spot to the tuner. And the tuner powers everything wlse from it's convenience 500mv 9 volt DC outlet. It has all the pedals I need for my acoustic guitars that are equipped with magnetic pickups: volume, tuner, EQ, reverb and delay. The beauty of building your own board is that you can make it the exact size you need it. After I built mine, I did a google search and found a company that had a gig back that would fit it.

The Marv Wineburst that Kuz was kind enough to send on to me... And for you blasphemers, here it is with a proper pickguard...

Mark, right there, is why I went solo! I have a band band, and a duet, but I make most of my money as a solo! Good luck with your new drummer, and sorry to hear of your friend's passing.