Twinreverb wrote:

I sold everything and started over again

Congrats on the new gear! Out of curiosity, what made you decide to get rid of everything? Did you move across the country? Just felt like a fresh start?
I've been considering a cross country move for awhile now, but would have an extremely difficult time deciding what to get rid of. It's taken so long to acquire in the first place.

Twinreverb wrote:

BB Bunny I wasn't happy with the sound I was getting and
I thought I'll start with new gear. The Telecaster was my
first choice then the strat. The same with the Amps the Louis
Electric was first it reminds me of the old 50's Fender Tweed
amps. Then it was the Tone King I like the clean sounds that
amp has. About the move we want to move to Florida and get out
of NY. I would like to get the Tone King Galaxy because it's
based off the Fender Dual Showman. It's taken me a long time to
get the setup that I wanted.

I’ve often contemplated what I would buy if I were starting over. For regular pitch, 6 string guitars, I could have one Gretsch, one Tele, and maybe an ES-335 Or ES-175. For a bass, I love my CIJ Mustang, although my Warwick is awesome. My Winfield Tremor amp gets the lion’s share of my playing time, so I’d probably have that and my Winfield Typhoon for low watt duty. 3 guitars, 1-2 basses, two guitar amps, one bass amp and a handful of pedals.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

Last edited: Jul 09, 2022 20:07:41

Tqi wrote:

I’ve often contemplated what I would buy if I were starting over.

You know, it's funny - but I never have. This ought to be a thread of it's own! Thing is, when I was a kid I was a massive grunge nerd so the 25.5" Jagmaster's were the closest I could get to the dual-bucker Jaguar he rocked. (Plus, everyone then was getting black goth guitars so I loved the sparkly silver as a reactionary move). I also had a massive crush on this pink Daisy Rock I saw in a magazine.

The thing is, 20 years and 16 guitars after I bought my Jagmaster, I've cut down to three electrics and a bass. Two are the sparkly Jagmaster (My original, close-to-stock apart from repairs and another I bought by accident and modded the hell out of), and the other is that pink thing I crushed on. I've had Strats, Danelectro, fancy solid-maple things, weird custom guitars, short-scale mini guitars, superstrats, telecasters...

And I still came back to the two guitars I adored as a kid. Go figure. Turns out they both even surf pretty great.

Amps though, pretty much the same. I mean - I'd never give up my Vaporizers, but my original 30W valve-modelling-hybrid Vox was what originally helped me discover the amp sounds I liked so I mean - it was pretty much an ideal choice for the time. If I went back in time, I'd still buy that Vox and if I was doing it today from scratch? I'd... just by the Vaporizers again.

Maybe I'm just... set in my ways? Is that bad?

Refreshingly consistent. The Vaporizers were cool amps. The Jagmaster is a unique feature set, and one that I’ve thought of buying, myself. I love the Jazzmaster body, and I’m good with the idea of a Strat style tremolo.

If I could have any offset, it would be a Jaguar, with a long scale. I’d want the Jaguar control plates, Jaguar pickups and all the other things that make a Jaguar a Jaguar. For whatever the crazy reason, I just have a thang for the Jaguar control plates, switches, etc. I just prefer a 25.5” scale.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

TheOutpost wrote:

Would love to see pics.

Some old ones in my profile, and nothing's changed! Here's the Jag's. The one on the left was my second electric guitar, my first "good" guitar of any type, and the one I promised a school music teacher I wouldn't mod (he was scarred by my earnest and clumsy attempts to make a Yamaha ERG121S into a playable instrument). It's... been modified, but only as repair - CTS pots, Switch-craft jack, Gibson-style shielded wire and a Tusq nut. The electronics were last touched in 2007 by Mansons in the UK and haven't been touched since. Working great!

The second one was bought while very high on pain meds in tragic eBaying accident. Turns out the neck pickup was damaged so it became my "modding" guitar. Bridge pup became an extra hot neck pup, the hybrid rail/p90 thing went in the bridge (with 4-way P/P switching through the pots), same "preemptive repairs" as the other one, and the synth pup. Then when a tuner on the "no mods" guitar broke, this one made a donation and got a set of staggered locking Sperzels in turn.

The Vapes are stock (why change perfection?) though I still haven't gotten around to replacing a bad tank on the red one, and I should really get some better (shielded) tank cables made up some time. I actually had 4 of these, the red one is a warranty replacement for one that shipped with both a bad tube and speaker. And the red one is the one with the tank failure. Coincidence abounds. I only ever meant to get the red and green for a 3D-glasses look while running stereo - but I found the bue one used for a steal and had to complete the set. Pedal board hasn't changed since ~2014 either, and the guitar (a $500 in 2003 Schecter with splittable humbuckers and grover hardware) and bass (same age and price, active humbuckers) are still my daily players.

That said, the guitar has been modded, though fully reversibly. First up, while trying to chase down an annoying sitar-G I ordered a replacement bridge out of my favourite material - cold rolled steel. Thanks ABM! (Turned out it just doesn't like a wound 20 Chrome.) Second, I eventually missed my vibrato and found a deal on a used one on eBay, so she also got that. Both things definitely make her surfier!

It's a weird set-up, a chambered LPjr with a trem, but it sounds glorious and it's super comfortable to play. Believe it or not, the tuning is even very stable - not what you'd expect from a fixed tune-o-matic with blade saddles, but it's flawless. I credit the tight tolerances of a £200 solid steel bridge! Long term I'd still like to get one of these:

Same brand as the pink things, identical shape and size body/neck, but F-holed with a Bigsby. White, surf green and candy red were the colour choices. The only problem is, they're almost impossible to find. Especially in my preferred arctic-white finish. One day. I keep a slot free in my six-slot guitar rack, waiting.

I'm still rolling my (also 2003 and underrated at the time, can you get the theme?) Behringer Thunderbird BX108 as a bass and guitar practice amp. I was half-way through building a 6G14 Showman clone in a Twin reverb cassis, but between emergency job changes, Brexit and a pandemic where my income dropped to "racking up debts at velocity" levels - it's been on hiatus for literal years. One awkwadness, the plan has always been to use Soviet military tubes in it (I have a box of 50 or so of the things), an idea which has soured rather over time.

Synchro, if you ever look into the Jagmaster seriously - be sure to go for the 1999-2005 Chinese sparkle model, and a later one at that. The early ones had the 6-point Trem instead of the lovely knife-edge, and outside of that time period you have the original 1997 24" Japanese Vista Jagmaster, and the 2008 and later conversion-neck models. Only the middle era had the Jazzmaster scale length. For ease of identification, the long-necks were the only ones with the 2-point Trem, and they're all sparky - silver glitter, red glitter or black glitter.

They who die with the fewest control knobs, win.

- "The Mysterious" Tqi.

Last edited: Jul 09, 2022 22:01:34

Tqi wrote:

TheOutpost wrote:

Would love to see pics.

Some old ones in my profile, and nothing's changed! Here's the Jag's. The one on the left was my second electric guitar, my first "good" guitar of any type, and the one I promised a school music teacher I wouldn't mod (he was scarred by my earnest and clumsy attempts to make a Yamaha ERG121S into a playable instrument). It's... been modified, but only as repair - CTS pots, Switch-craft jack, Gibson-style shielded wire and a Tusq nut. The electronics were last touched in 2007 by Mansons in the UK and haven't been touched since. Working great!

The second one was bought while very high on pain meds in tragic eBaying accident. Turns out the neck pickup was damaged so it became my "modding" guitar. Bridge pup became an extra hot neck pup, the hybrid rail/p90 thing went in the bridge (with 4-way P/P switching through the pots), same "preemptive repairs" as the other one, and the synth pup. Then when a tuner on the "no mods" guitar broke, this one made a donation and got a set of staggered locking Sperzels in turn.

The Vapes are stock (why change perfection?) though I still haven't gotten around to replacing a bad tank on the red one, and I should really get some better (shielded) tank cables made up some time. I actually had 4 of these, the red one is a warranty replacement for one that shipped with both a bad tube and speaker. And the red one is the one with the tank failure. Coincidence abounds. I only ever meant to get the red and green for a 3D-glasses look while running stereo - but I found the bue one used for a steal and had to complete the set. Pedal board hasn't changed since ~2014 either, and the guitar (a $500 in 2003 Schecter with splittable humbuckers and grover hardware) and bass (same age and price, active humbuckers) are still my daily players.

That said, the guitar has been modded, though fully reversibly. First up, while trying to chase down an annoying sitar-G I ordered a replacement bridge out of my favourite material - cold rolled steel. Thanks ABM! (Turned out it just doesn't like a wound 20 Chrome.) Second, I eventually missed my vibrato and found a deal on a used one on eBay, so she also got that. Both things definitely make her surfier!

It's a weird set-up, a chambered LPjr with a trem, but it sounds glorious and it's super comfortable to play. Believe it or not, the tuning is even very stable - not what you'd expect from a fixed tune-o-matic with blade saddles, but it's flawless. I credit the tight tolerances of a £200 solid steel bridge! Long term I'd still like to get one of these:

Same brand as the pink things, identical shape and size body/neck, but F-holed with a Bigsby. White, surf green and candy red were the colour choices. The only problem is, they're almost impossible to find. Especially in my preferred arctic-white finish. One day. I keep a slot free in my six-slot guitar rack, waiting.

I'm still rolling my (also 2003 and underrated at the time, can you get the theme?) Behringer Thunderbird BX108 as a bass and guitar practice amp. I was half-way through building a 6G14 Showman clone in a Twin reverb cassis, but between emergency job changes, Brexit and a pandemic where my income dropped to "racking up debts at velocity" levels - it's been on hiatus for literal years. One awkwadness, the plan has always been to use Soviet military tubes in it (I have a box of 50 or so of the things), an idea which has soured rather over time.

Synchro, if you ever look into the Jagmaster seriously - be sure to go for the 1999-2005 Chinese sparkle model, and a later one at that. The early ones had the 6-point Trem instead of the lovely knife-edge, and outside of that time period you have the original 1997 24" Japanese Vista Jagmaster, and the 2008 and later conversion-neck models. Only the middle era had the Jazzmaster scale length. For ease of identification, the long-necks were the only ones with the 2-point Trem, and they're all sparky - silver glitter, red glitter or black glitter.

Beautiful. I miss my Jagmaster.

https://www.facebook.com/TheOutpost/

That pedalboard is adorable.

They who die with the fewest control knobs, win.

- "The Mysterious" Tqi.