Heritage Golden Eagle from HOC member makes the big time.

[MartyGrass]

A couple of years ago RhoadsScholar traded some of his stuff at a guitar shop in the Detroit area for this cherry single pickup GE.  It has a HRW and it plays very nicely.  He didn't care for the bridge though.  He wanted an adjustable one.  He gave it to me to have Pete Moreno change the bridge and do a little cosmetic work.  Due to his heavy travel schedule, a nasty winter, and Pete being a bit backed up, it was in my home for about six months or so.

I was surprised that it sounded so good and had such a comfortable neck.  The HRW really impressed me.  I played it quite a bit.

Eventually he got it back and was happy with the changes.  Unfortunately COVID took his life a few months later.

I had some of his guitars and he had some of mine at the time of his death.  About a year later it was safe to have his memorial.  Around that time I returned his guitars I had and got the ones of mine back from his boys.  They were aware of how we swapped guitars all the time by review of our emails.  I bought some of them from the estate.  One of them was the cherry Golden Eagle.

I switched out the Schaller bridge he had installed and put in an ebony bridge made by our own Hinesarchtop that had MOP dot inlays.  That worked very well.  But after a year I sold it to someone in the South.  I don't recall now.  He was happy with it.

I am surprised to see the guitar on Rich Severson's Youtube channel.  It appears at about 50 minutes into the video.  It is unchanged from how I set it up.  Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7_iVjEDK-s

 

[MartyGrass]

I found an old post on this guitar.

 

http://www.heritageownersclub.com/forums/topic/35864-ngdogd-heritage-1999-translucent-cherry-golden-eagle/

[Genericmusic]

[skydog52]

Cool story. I miss talking to Bob. He was so enthusiastic about his guitars and music. We shared that Allman Brothers thing.

[TalismanRich]

I seem to recall Bob having a midi loaded guitar and using it to play sax sounds at PSP.   Was I dreaming that?   I looked through some of my old videos but didn't find any.  

 

[Gianluca]

Beautiful story, thanks for sharing this post.

[bolero]

Gorgeous guitar, and nice to see it being played by such an esteemed musician!

RIP Rhoadscholar: always enjoyed hearing from him, and his enthusiasm.

Thanks for the youtube link

[MartyGrass]

22 hours ago, TalismanRich said:

I seem to recall Bob having a midi loaded guitar and using it to play sax sounds at PSP.   Was I dreaming that?   I looked through some of my old videos but didn't find any.  

 

He got that 18" orange burst H-550 thinline with a Seth Lover and a MIDI from me.  The Heritage workers all signed the back under the clear coat.  Some studio musician in NYC custom ordered it.  It was beautiful and huge.

That guitar didn't look that big in his hands.

[DetroitBlues]

14 hours ago, MartyGrass said:

He got that 18" orange burst H-550 thinline with a Seth Lover and a MIDI from me.  The Heritage workers all signed the back under the clear coat.  Some studio musician in NYC custom ordered it.  It was beautiful and huge.

That guitar didn't look that big in his hands.

I do remember that one and how massive it was.  It was probably the only Heritage that looked proportionally correct for his tall stature.

[Gitfiddler]

On 10/30/2022 at 8:59 PM, TalismanRich said:

I seem to recall Bob having a midi loaded guitar and using it to play sax sounds at PSP.   Was I dreaming that?   I looked through some of my old videos but didn't find any.  

 

 

[DetroitBlues]

53 minutes ago, Gitfiddler said:

 

What a beast of a guitar! The pickup and the bridge look so tiny!

[MartyGrass]

9 hours ago, Gitfiddler said:

 

I got it to sound like a few instruments, more of less.  I'm sure he tried the sax.

The guy who had this built also had a goldtop Roy Clark with a beautiful dark finish elsewhere.  He had worked for about a decade as a studio musician and likely used the midi.

[TalismanRich]

Playing around with the EHX B9 Organ pedal a couple of nights ago,   it just strikes me how difficult it can be to make a guitar sound like another instrument.   Not as much with the sound, which can be synthesized very realistically, but in the playing technique.    Doing vibrato with a guitar doesn't really sound so great with an organ model. 

I wonder if that saxophone patch would be any easier to play.  I wish I had tried it out that day!

[bobmeyrick]

On 11/6/2022 at 6:49 PM, TalismanRich said:

Playing around with the EHX B9 Organ pedal a couple of nights ago,   it just strikes me how difficult it can be to make a guitar sound like another instrument.   Not as much with the sound, which can be synthesized very realistically, but in the playing technique.    Doing vibrato with a guitar doesn't really sound so great with an organ model. 

I wonder if that saxophone patch would be any easier to play.  I wish I had tried it out that day!

About a year ago I bought a TC Electronics Plethora X5. If you're not familiar with it, it's a multi-fx with five slots into which you can put any of TC Toneprint pedals. Each combination is effectively a pedal board, and it has space for 127 boards. It comes with 20 presets, one of which is "Organ Grinder", consisting of Sub 'n' Up octaver -> Corona Chorus -> Pipeline Tremolo -> Flashback Delay -> Hall of Fame Reveb. This combination gives a half decent organ sound, a lot of which is down to the Sub 'n' Up, which gives an octave below and above.

The Plethora is eminently tweakable and designed with idiot guitarists in mind - after editing a pedal or board, just go back into play mode and your new settings are saved automatically. There's also the Toneprint app for serious editing. Plenty of videos online demonstrating its capabilities.

You're right about modifying playing technique on a guitar synth for realistic sounds. Usually piano/organ sounds default to not allowing pitch bending, however certain chord voicings which are possible on the piano are not possible on the guitar and vice versa.