Joelman
ZAK, this time I say you are talking out of your blow hole.
You and Jake both..
Wow! it seems I'm in a rude mood.

Talking out my blow hole about not liking the Gretsch I owned? It was a terrible guitar. My other bandmates own decent Gretches, but mine was pretty terrible I can assure you.

Also, the bridge on that guitar sucks. It is likely a hi-flyer bridge, or some other really crappy Japanese guitar. I'm having trouble finding a bridge that will work for it and maintain decent action. Tune-o-matic should be the right height so I don't have to shave down a base.

Yeah, it is one of the new AC-4s. It is my roommate/bandmate Mike's amp. The 1/4 watt and 1 watt settings sound pretty thin. The 4 watt sounds decent. Better than all the other new class A amps being made(by the main manufacturers), but still nothing spectacular. 4 watts are pretty loud, doesn't break up enough for an apartment setting, which is a shame. It is really cool thought, definitely worth the money. He got it at cost which is bonus. Only the Super and tank in that photo are mine.

The Sabre Reverb II is Mike's as well. It was made by a company call EMI. They made Gibson amps and the design is similar to some Gibson amps. This use to be our compact organ amp. It sounds pretty decent.

The Fender Champ is Mike's as well, although I have an identical one.

You mean low, as in too close to the bridge? Because the arm sits really high off the body of the guitar, which you probably can't see in the picture. But, no, it isn't too low for me. I can hold it in my pinky while I play. Obviously, if I want to strum a little further up the neck like I do when I play rhythm most of the time I can't hold it in my hand, but it is no problem to quickly get to it and then get back.

A bigsby B-6 would be better suited for this guitar. They have a longer frame so they would be in a better location. I didn't put that bigsby on the guitar.

The new Casinos are pretty good guitars. We use to use one for lead in the 'Verb. We added on a bigsby as well. The wood on the Casino is pretty good, but you'd want to change the electronics. Although it still isn't bad if you don't change them. I've never played one I never liked, and I am quite picky when it comes to set-neck thinlines. Epiphone Dot for example, terrible guitar. I think they changed how they are made though compared to an early one I played. Not big on the non-US or Japan made Epiphone Sheraton, although the vintage and US made ones are very fine instruments.

zak
That depends entirely on the neck angle, if it is too shallow or too steep, the break angle of the strings over the bridge to the Bigsby may be too severe or insufficient...too much break angle will cause tuning problems, not enough will cause your bridge to move around from lack of string tension. Don't just slap something on there without at least trying to eyeball the resulting changes in break angle over the bridge!.

Good call, I forgot to mention that a B-6 wouldn't work on the Guild. I haven't tried it but I am certain there wouldn't be enough angle. My roommate says otherwise, but I disagree.

Gibson ES models usually don't have as drastic as arch so it could be okay with a B-6 which would have the arm reach to where you wanted it.

Nice Guild.

I've got one of those. Really nice amp but not for Surf as it's tone is firmly in the Marshall camp rather than the Fender. Not great for rockabilly either but very nice for blues. The clean sound disappears very quickly as the volume goes up. It sounds a lot better through an external speaker cab because on it's own it does suffer from small-box syndrome. No more so than any other small amp with a 10" speaker though.

http://www.myspace.com/thepashuns

Youth and enthusiasm are no match for age and treachery.

While I don't deny that such amps may be 'more interesting' than modern amplifiers I'd say they were a bad idea if you are not technically proficient at fixing them. 40-50 year old valve amps are not going to be incredibly reliable and you'll be looking at some hefty bills if you can't keep them going yourself.

In my opinion you would be better off buying a Peavey Valveking 50. Sounds great, sounds Fendery, doesn't cost much and has a 12" speaker with a JBL style voicing as opposed to the rather upper-middly 10" in the Laney.

http://www.myspace.com/thepashuns

Youth and enthusiasm are no match for age and treachery.

zak
Unless you need a whole lot of power, look for a mid 60s Ampeg Gemini II (they are plentiful) or a Harmony 415 with the two 12" Jensens, that's a whole lot more amp within the same kind of budget.

I'm sure what you're saying is true for someone who lives in the U.S. or Canada, but Gavin lives in Australia, as do I, and in almost 30 years of looking in music shops here I don't ever recall seeing the aformentioned amps.

Australia is a much smaller market to export to, so those amps may not ever have been sold over here in the first place. If they ever were, they are certainly not plentiful now.

We have local vintage equivalents (there were are surprising number of Aussie tube amp makers in the 60s and 70s) however prices of those are already starting to get ridiculous as people are becoming more aware of them and how good they are.

So unless Gavin wants to take a chance on ebay to get a Harmony or Ampeg Gemini II from the U.S. he'd be looking at something he could buy new I would imagine.

http://www.reverbnation.com/spaceparty4