***The Official Guitar Thread***

[Raymond Lin]

I almost bought an Epiphone Les Paul Special with P90 in TV Yellow today.

Went to GuitarGuitar with the intention of getting it but as soon as I picked it up the GAS was pretty much deflated. First of all the colour was not TV yellow and more a dull dark yellow with a hint of muddy brown. Also the finish although Poly it looks and feels like plastic, like fisher price toy plastic. What really killed it for me was the nut, it was so far off the low E and High E was sitting higher on the nut than the D and G string. It’s like they cut it in reverse to the fretboard radius. Oh, the neck pickup wasn’t sitting parallel to the body, it was tilted forward for some reason. Like the screw was screwed in at an angle.

At minimum I will have to wait until it goes on sale, put the difference towards a setup, new nut, fret job while at it then get some mild sand paper and sand down the neck to get that weird plastic feel off.

It has potential to be a great guitar since it’s only £350 compared to Gibson’s at like £1000 more but it needs some work.

 

[ik9000]

It's always going to be a lesser guitar. Woods, finishes, pickups, wiring and pots, quality of capacitors etc. Quite aside from build quality the hardware is not the same. Modern Gibson's are junk though compared to old ones. Best you can do is try and find a decent second hand Gibson from pre 2010 and ideally pre 2000

 

[2StepSteve]

I picked up a Keeley compressor pro recently. I had two compressors before, one built into my route 66 (v1 and v3, great for sustain/chicken pickin) and one a cheapo dooner compressor. Both are ok, but I wanted something clean and more adjustable. I really wanted something that would act more as a limiter to keep high volumes in check without boosting the lows so it doesn't mess with dynamics and gentle picking etc. I have an old boss limiter but it also brings a colour of its own, though I need to tinker with it a bit more than I've had chance to. then I stumbled across a good price on the pro and pounced. The threshold setting on the keeley pro will hopefully allow me to raise the bar to where I need it. Haven't had chance to play with it yet. Was going to be today but we had to go out at short notice. So tomorrow...

I will report back

for chorus I use a Boss CE-2B. I love it. classic late 80s chorus sound (think Crowded House, U2 etc) and bizarely good with acoustic guitar too. A tip someone gave me on a guitar forum and it works! It has the extra blend/level dial over the standard CE-2 which just makes it that bit more versatile IMO.

The Keeley Pro looks very nice! Let me know how you find it. Compressors are a new thing to me, I didn't quite realise how they can much such a difference. Can so obviously get sounds now that I wasn't able to before.

I almost bought an Epiphone Les Paul Special with P90 in TV Yellow today.

Went to GuitarGuitar with the intention of getting it but as soon as I picked it up the GAS was pretty much deflated. First of all the colour was not TV yellow and more a dull dark yellow with a hint of muddy brown. Also the finish although Poly it looks and feels like plastic, like fisher price toy plastic. What really killed it for me was the nut, it was so far off the low E and High E was sitting higher on the nut than the D and G string. It’s like they cut it in reverse to the fretboard radius. Oh, the neck pickup wasn’t sitting parallel to the body, it was tilted forward for some reason. Like the screw was screwed in at an angle.

At minimum I will have to wait until it goes on sale, put the difference towards a setup, new nut, fret job while at it then get some mild sand paper and sand down the neck to get that weird plastic feel off.

It has potential to be a great guitar since it’s only £350 compared to Gibson’s at like £1000 more but it needs some work.

Sounds like it really isn't worth the hassle! If you aren't feeling it, walk away. Even with what you have said about the cheap finish and quality of craftsmanship.. sounds like you are still trying to talk yourself in to buying it .

Check out the second hand market if you have the LP itch. That £350 could be put towards something you are going to want to play!

 

[Yadda]

This is 42 years of gigging, the back is worse because I threw it into a drumkit.
I've got to admit it feels a bit cheating to artificially age your instrument.

*snip*

Very nice! Similar to my my mid 90's MIJ.

Here's my lonely 94/95 MIJ Strat with Van Zandt (Vintage Plus) pickups.

 

[Raymond Lin]

It's always going to be a lesser guitar. Woods, finishes, pickups, wiring and pots, quality of capacitors etc. Quite aside from build quality the hardware is not the same. Modern Gibson's are junk though compared to old ones. Best you can do is try and find a decent second hand Gibson from pre 2010 and ideally pre 2000

It actually has quality parts, it has CTS pots in them but that finish really irk me.

I will probably try to get a used Gibson one at like £800 or something rather than spend £350 + money to set up to make it right.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Sounds like it really isn't worth the hassle! If you aren't feeling it, walk away. Even with what you have said about

Check out the second hand market if you have the LP itch. That £350 could be put towards something you are going to want to play!

it probably isn’t, I tried to lower my expectations but there are bits I guess there are things I can’t overlook. Used Gibson is where the smart money should go. There is no rush, I still have a LP.

 

[ik9000]

Cheap guitars can be made good, but you've got to be ready for the labour of love, and remember it'll only ever be a cheap guitar in the eyes of insurers. I bought a cheap pacifica 112v a few years back for a tinkering project and to learn guitar tech / setting up practice. I've vastly improved the pickups and circuitry in mine, but I doubt the insurers would recognise it if it got nicked at a gig. Hopefully they'd shell for the pickups and custom switches though - I have receipts for them. That said, hopefully no one would nick a cheap pacifica at a gig.

 

[ik9000]

the keeley pro is ok so far. Threshold has to be set lower than I'd expected so the limiter it affecting more of my signal than I'd like. I did some wave profile recording in cubase and you can see it at work. It's doing what I wanted it to, just provided I can get the threshold to a better setting. I'll fish my other guitar out of the chaos cupboard tomorrow and see if it gives a different result. It's possible the pickup height isn't quite right and giving a weak signal level. I've yet to finish the set up on this thing.

It's amazingly compact. I was expecting something huge but it's the same size as the route66 v3 or similar VisualSound/Truetone combi pedals. There's a great youtube vid comparison of the cali76 TX vs the Keeley Pro. I haven't watched it all yet, but just the size difference (and half the price) would make me favour the Keeley Pro for my use case. Gig board real estate is precious. Smaller the better IMO.

 

[NickK]

Do you own a house?

I've got a few 1980s boss pedals. Must have something older than that... probably the furniture my grandad made way back for his children. Nothing fancy, but functional and I've hung onto it. That and his war medals.

Hang on, I've got some old victorian penny coins too. Pretty much worthless, but I doubt I'll get anything older than those.

House is a 1989 build IIRC

 

[Baz]

can anyone recommend a decent noisegate ? any experience with the Behringer NG300?

 

[Raymond Lin]

can anyone recommend a decent noisegate ? any experience with the Behringer NG300?

Rather than get a noise gate, I would investigate where the source of the noise comes from first, is it the PSU? Are you using One Spot or an unisolated PSU? If you are then I would rather get an isolated PSU to eliminated the noise first.

Otherwise the go to one is Deciminater G-String?

 

[ik9000]

this ^ but also some guitars are more sensitive to noise than others. so there is a longer process.

Are you using single coils? these will always be more prone to noise. Shielding the cavity will make a huge difference. I did it with my pacifica and the noise reduction is noticeable.
Are you playing near noisy electrics, especially motors, generators or flourescent lighting? try turning these off if possible.
Rotate yourself around and see which orientation has least noise. Due to the way EMI works you'll find some alignements of guitar to electric field will give much better behaviour (be less noisy). It's not unknown for guitarists to have to record in set positions in some studios to get best sound for just this reason.
There is also the thing of is it noise or clipping? Mains hum, hiss etc. Sure a noise gate can help. If it's gain hiss from distortion pedals and clipping due to bad signal management the answer is to work on your signal chain and balance the pedals better.

Also some effects are horribly noisy if not isolated. Daisy chaining certain pedals can be instant noise. I can think of a few digital delays which are fine on batteries or their own isolated feed, but daisy chain them and it's a car crash.

Noise gates, well cheapo is el Donner range (and it's peers like Rowin etc), then you can move to Mooer for not much more money, after that is the classic Boss NS-2, beyond that you can shell loads, but for diminishing returns. I haven't really got into much detail on noise gates. I've found the Donner one ok for a mini board (but not perfect) and the boss NS2 reasonable enough for my main board.

 

[a1ex2001]

it probably isn’t, I tried to lower my expectations but there are bits I guess there are things I can’t overlook. Used Gibson is where the smart money should go. There is no rush, I still have a LP.

I think the other key think to do is shop around, quality control on cheaper guitars (and some expensive ones) is all over the place and it sounds like the Epiphone you picked up is a perfect example! The second hand Gibson though is likely to always be the better option as it won't loose you any money and might well even make you a few quid, I wish I'd pulled the trigger years ago on a nice LP just to hang on the wall as the prices have gone up significantly in recent years"

 

[Raymond Lin]

I think the other key think to do is shop around, quality control on cheaper guitars (and some expensive ones) is all over the place and it sounds like the Epiphone you picked up is a perfect example! The second hand Gibson though is likely to always be the better option as it won't loose you any money and might well even make you a few quid, I wish I'd pulled the trigger years ago on a nice LP just to hang on the wall as the prices have gone up significantly in recent years"

You are so right there, especially the past 12 months, I would not be able to afford to buy my guitar back if it goes on sale. Although i did see a Gibson R9 for £3k on a Facebook group, which is the best price i've seen for a while outside forums.

 

[a1ex2001]

You are so right there, especially the past 12 months, I would not be able to afford to buy my guitar back if it goes on sale. Although i did see a Gibson R9 for £3k on a Facebook group, which is the best price i've seen for a while outside forums.

I also spent ages looking at some nice MIJ LP copies by the likes of Burny, Greco and Orville about ten years ago which have at least doubled in price now if you can find them!

 

[ik9000]

Gibson had a huge crack down on imitations. They went really crazy with patent infringement trademark blah blah blah and went after long standing brands with real aggression. It alienated a lot of people. It's why I won't touch a modern Gibson. It also coincided with a marked downturn in quality and the stupid "Gibson as a lifestyle" branding attempt. Hence a lot of the reasonably priced alternatives are not currently around and older ones have more value.

 

[Raymond Lin]

I also spent ages looking at some nice MIJ LP copies by the likes of Burny, Greco and Orville about ten years ago which have at least doubled in price now if you can find them!

If I am buying an LP, I would go on forums and look for something like a Gibson USA Standard (or the Classic...whatever the old 57-60 spec are with no coil split) from the late 90's to early 2000's, if you don't mind PRS then PRS S2 594 used (which would be the best value tbh), or may be a Tokai if you can find one?

PRS SE 245 is a good alternative if you don't mind veneer top.

My problem, and such a 1st world problem is that I am used to guitars that has a certain level of finish and quality so whilst I know it is unfair to apply that standard on an entry level guitar, I can't help myself. Had I never owned a top end instrument then it would just be pure ignorance and I doubt they sound any different in my crappy playing hands.

 

[ik9000]

New toy just arrived. Got it with the money I saved by going 2nd hand on the Keeley Pro:

 

[SexyGreyFox]

can anyone recommend a decent noisegate ? any experience with the Behringer NG300?

One of my guitarists who uses Strats, drove me bonkers on stage because of the noise he made so I showed him this video and he bought one immediately.
The first night he used it he kept looking at me in amazement.

 

[uncle_rufus]

My vote noise gate wise (and if I were ever to buy one) would be the Fortin Zuul... it's clever in that it has 2 inputs and 2 outputs where one is the actual signal (to be gated) and the other is a "key" which you are meant to pass the dry signal from your guitar (so you'd need to route through a splitter at the start of your chain). This way the gate is controlled using a "pure" signal and can't be confused by the harmonics etc. added by other pedals that come before it. As an added bonus you might as well then take the dry signal and amp it up with a second amp to do the whole wet/dry thing which is very effective