A New Guitar… I Really Shouldn't…

You’d be amazed how things come back to you. The longest I’ve gone without playing Guitar is for about 3-4 weeks, maybe longer, and your mind kinda drifts off of what you’ve learned, you seem to forget what you can do and the moment you pick one up you just automatically play something without thinking. Strange.

Theres something special about picking up a Les Paul for the first time in a long time though.

I took my Squier Fender Stratocastor to work today to try it out on a Bogner rig, sounds great. Forgot what a very good Guitar this is, especially on Rotosound .58s.

I’m in two minds about that 9-string Ibanez. Apparantly it’ll be available at the end of the year. See what it’s like when we get a couple in. Tunings will be interesting lol.

Over a year ago or maybe longer, I mentioned on here somewhere a 9 string, (yes NINE), will be built by Ibanez. And when I seen the early production of my custom 8 string being put together in Japan I got snippets of a 9 string. And here it is, or one of.

I’ll have mine in transparent matt black… I will! :diablo:

My Word! what a monster!

How about a 19-string?

Na, not really. Got my Les-Paul out again yesterday and I am amazed by how much is still there. My fingers knew exactly where to go. Within half-an-hour the first track was back again; and I hadn’t played it for years.

Leave the dents on a guitar, don’t try to mend them. A well used guitar is like a good bottle of wine: a little tatty only adds to the appeal.
A few years ago I saw a fantastic sunburst Les Paul on Ebay. It must have been about twenty years old at the time and had its signs of wear and tear. It was gorgeous, I didn’t buy though. I sometimes think I wish I had.

Peter

Over a year ago or maybe longer, I mentioned on here somewhere a 9 string, (yes NINE), will be built by Ibanez. And when I seen the early production of my custom 8 string being put together in Japan I got snippets of a 9 string. And here it is, or one of.

I’ll have mine in transparent matt black… I will! :diablo:

I’m very sorry to hear about what happened to you, Peter. I wish you the very best of health. 🙂

Excellent! How old is your son? Indeed, he’s very talented and very confident too I might add. And a very nice Guitar too! I can only imagine how proud you are of him! 🙂

At 31 years old, I’ve only been playing Guitar for 16 years though I never had any lessons. I got a hold of a Squier Fender Stratocaster (USA copy from Korea) from my uncle, it belonged to a brother I never knew I had that passed away a few years earlier, never met him & all. That was my first Guitar and I still have it to this day & every now and then I get it out for a bit of a session. Cherry Red, white pick guard and pick-ups & Rosewood fretboard, 1982, same age as me which I find strange. Very lucky to have it since those Squiers from that period were a bit “too good” to be sold as a budget Guitar so they soon made them “not as good”… I’ve thought about changing the pick-ups but I just can’t justify it. It’s a special Guitar to me and I wouldn’t really want to change anything on it. I’ve even left the dents on it.

I do hope you get the chance to pick up the Guitar and play again, Peter. I know exactly what you mean about the emotions. I’ve had some life changing situations happen to me the past few years and when you pick up something like a Guitar, a lot comes out you didn’t know you had before when you think about certain things. I’ve found myself to be a hell of a lot more creative than I was before…

… funny where influences come from, ain’t it.

I suffered a heart-attack on April 9th 2012, which was Easter-Monday. I underwent surgery to the heart the following week. I was 51 then.

My eldest son is a very talented guitarist. Here he is on stage last summer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=4jc5wX2vtqg&NR=1

I haven’t played for years, Nicholas has the same teacher that I had thirty years ago. I still have my Les-Paul and when Nick gives it back to me, I’ll give it a bash again. I’d love to play “All alone” by Joe Satriani together with Nick on stage with Nick playing the lead guitar. On the other side though, the thought of playing on stage with my son scares the s..t out of me! I’ll probably only mess things up!

One (unexpected) side-effect of the heart-attack is that music now has an incredibly emotional impact on me. A few weeks ago I went to a Brit Floyd concert (with Nicholas of course). I could hardly stop myself from sobbing throughout the whole set.

Pete

Takamine have always been sweet Guitars, and very well priced too. They can give Taylor a run for their money, even with some of the top end models too, certainly a respectable run. They’re pretty good sellers amongst the Acoustic followers.

Yamaha are hit & miss. They can be very nice but I sometimes feel like they lack something, presence, feel or something…

I’ve got a Gibson Les Paul Custom ‘Black Beauty’. Cream trim, Gold Hardware… totally stunning. Drop A tuning, evil sounds to go with it’s looks. Great!

I’ll go with you on Japanese guitars – I have a few but my favourite is my Takemine Dreadnought acoustic (elctro acoustic? you can plug it in if you want). It always sounds sweet and it is ‘there’ with no plugging in or mucking about if I don’t want to!

Having said that, I still lust after a Les Paul Custom.

It certainly is, wow, it’s a looker sure enough. Glad to hear about the good lady’s job too! Pleased for u both:):)

Thank you! We’re very happy too. Though there seems to be a bit more positive news regarding HMV as a company, apparantly only 60 (I say “only”) stores rather than the previous 100+ stores closing across the UK. Obviously still very sad for the company and more importantly for the workers that’ll be paid off & all. Still no word on the Newcastle store or the fate of the worker’s jobs there. Really happy about my lass though. 🙂

This Guitar is great! I’m not usually a fan of signature models because they tend to be too specific and overpriced. But this one is something quite special and for the price I paid for it, its great for a signature model. Theres another signature 7 string model by Ibanez, the Universe by Steve Vai. Very nice bit of a kit but it costs way more than the 7 string Munky signature model… just because it’s Steve Vai, a lot of name you’re paying for. Given the choice of the two it’d be Munky’s each and every single time.

It’s Japanese built Ibanez, which is possibly one of, if not the best, Guitar makers, the DiMarzio Blaze pickups sound ‘effin stunning and are much more versatile than the previous muddy sounding DiMarzio PAF7 pickups which were installed in previous Munky models. Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of tremolo bridges – can’t really stand them actually, much prefer fixed units, neverless the “push” or “U-Bar” system this one has is very nice…

…what can I say. Drop A tuning (my own default tuning for all my Guitars). Its great! Very, very impressed! The lass loves it to bits too which is the main thing! 🙂

Besides being a steely eyed killer pilot (well we’ll forget the steely eyed killer bit…) I also play/teach guitar for a living and have some 44 years experience of stroking the strings vicar. If anyone wants any guitary type advice from classical to pointy metal beasty then drop me a PM, glad to help fellow aviators and aviation buffs.

It certainly is, wow, it’s a looker sure enough. Glad to hear about the good lady’s job too! Pleased for u both:):)

Great news, and change in plans for a Guitar. Firstly, my sweetheart defenetly has the job at Forbidden Planet in case her position at HMV is dropped. Very, very happy about that cause I know how much either of these jobs means to her. 🙂

Secondly, the Electrical Guitar Company is something we’re going to look into later on, we both don’t really want it enough for the price it costs.

However, where I work, we took delivery of a few Guitars from Ibanez, Fender and Suhr. Some very lovely things indeed. Very exciting going through the Ibanez lot as there was one in particular I was looking forward having a look at, and playing too. Its a signature model called the Apex100 which is by Korn’s Munky. I’ve heard and read about it but never played nor seen it. Though I’ve played the older K7 series and the cheaper Apex2 variant which is still produced today. Apex2 is very nice but the colour is awful.

Anywho, as I were getting the Apex100 out the packaging when my lass popped in store while on her lunch break. Told her what it was I was about to unpack and she got more excited than I did, so, took it out the packaging and opened up the case it comes with and, Ooooooooooooof!!! What a lovely thing it is and my God it sounds even better than it looks. My Girlfriend totally fell head over heels in love with it and made a suggesting by saying: ‘Wayne, you know how its my birthday soon, I defenetly have a job, this costs less than half of that other one and… and you can have my large strawberry milkshake from Burger King….’

So… its sold. Paying over three months in installments and I still get to take it home for her cuz work trust me. Cool! lol

This is it, identical one.

Lovely ain’t it!

😀 Do you sing with the gas mask on.

Aaaaah, inspiration by Slipknot maybe? 🙂

I can’t play a musical instrument at all and really envy anyone who can.

You should get yourself one, acoustic or a starter pack that comes with Guitar, little amp etc – doesn’t need to be something special or will make a hole in your wallet. You don’t have to know how to play. If you pick one up in the morning and expecting to play ‘The Number of the Beast’ by the evening you’ll get bored of it really quickly… the trick is to experiment, don’t “try” to learn, just mess about with it, get a pedal or two and find out what different sounds you can create. Honestly, thats the best way, much more fun. 😉

EE, I hope it pans out for your better half. I was made redundant a few times in my 25yr aviation career, and its no fun. My late Uncle rode motorbikes throughout his adult life. Somewhere in the ‘family archives’ is a picy of yours truly astride his BSA of the time, prior to that, my mother tells me that he owned a bike called a Matchless, and another called an Ariel, she thinks that what they was called anyway. So it was his ‘fault’ that I got hooked on motorbikes.

Glad you’ve decided to go for the guitar, ‘It’s got to be done’ as they say;) And I’m a 54yr old sayin it!

Neil.

Thank you. I’m sure it will. We have a couple of mates that work in Forbidden Planet just up near where I work that say she could work, she loves HMV though so she’s going to wait a little longer, but if she gets paid off she’s got a high chance of getting within the Planet shop, which is cool cause she loves that place too. But yeah, its not pleasant especially if you love the job you’re in, I can only imagine what it’d be like losing a job, or career I should say, such you were in. I’d be devastated if I lost my Guitar Technician job.

I’m glad too. We’re both after the same model which is good. Its just a matter of looking into it. It has a choice for a 33″ neck. 33″ for a six string Guitar, would you believe that. My 8 string is slightly over 27″, but the bridge goes way back.

Can’t beat old British bikes though, when I was younger I tried getting a BSA Bantem. Came across a few Ariels, Matchless’, Norton’s, Vincents, Royal Enfields and of course Triumphs, the prices though… even for clapped out ones. Lovely machines though. Seen some beautys at the Birmingham NEC a couple of years ago.

Very nice rig you have there, Al. Can never go wrong with Ashdown. Very rare we get them in store because they get out so quick, really sought after these are. Also very underrated too I might add.

😀 Do you sing with the gas mask on.
I can’t play a musical instrument at all and really envy anyone who can.I do have a few work mates who play in bands and it does seem that collecting guitars is quite addictive.

Knowing Al, he probably also has a set of Bagpipes tucked away, I can just imagine Al, on a misty morn, standing alone on top of a Mountain, playing, “Amazing Grace”. 😉 with the wind blowing up his Kilt, to his nether regions.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

Nice rig, someone seems to have broken bits of your bass though Al!

It has to be done – it’s never too late to have a happy childhood!

EE, I hope it pans out for your better half. I was made redundant a few times in my 25yr aviation career, and its no fun. My late Uncle rode motorbikes throughout his adult life. Somewhere in the ‘family archives’ is a picy of yours truly astride his BSA of the time, prior to that, my mother tells me that he owned a bike called a Matchless, and another called an Ariel, she thinks that what they was called anyway. So it was his ‘fault’ that I got hooked on motorbikes.

Glad you’ve decided to go for the guitar, ‘It’s got to be done’ as they say;) And I’m a 54yr old sayin it!

Neil.

MSR777, very sorry to hear about what happened, though I’m glad you’re on the road to recovery. 🙂

Like wise, I’ve always fancied finding an old motorbike and doing it up, the Yamaha RD125 looks a rather nice bit of kit, they have that retro-racey look that I’ve always admired, much more than todays road bikes designed by a wind tunnel regarding shape. kinda lack that human element of bikes in the early 90’s to way back when. I’ve always had a soft spot for Triumphs though and always wanted to do one up like Lincoln with the Tiger Cub. Always fancied getting hold of a 1965 Bonneville, my all time favourite motorcycle…

… though not yet. Theres always that stigma that comes with being a mere human being, you only live once, achieve as much as you can as soon as you can sorta saying. I’m 31 years of age, really don’t feel this age, still feel much younger. Which makes me come to a conclusion… you’re as old as you feel you are, what you get on your cheesy birthday badge is just a number. The Devil is just gunna have to wait! lol

Go and get yourself a Tiger Cob, Lincoln. From what I’ve heard about them, you’d love it!

The sweetheart has actually fell for this Guitar, she even suggested to go halfers on the costs, so this what we’re going to do. However, it won’t be yet. She currently works at HMV and as I’m sure many of you are aware, theres a lot of people that are going to get paid off with over 100 stores closing in the UK. So we have to wait and see what happens on her work front.

Thanks for those kind words Bob. I never saw it coming, I went to bed with no feelings of being ill at all. It happened in the early hours, with no warning signs whatsoever, no history of this kind of thing in the family either, and they can never be sure that it wont happen again.

That Mustang flight sounds great, I really hope it happens for you. If any members here harbour thoughts of special, one off thing they’d like to do or own, and if you can afford it, do it or buy it. As I was once told by an American friend of mine: ‘Remember, its life’s curve balls that’ll get ya’ Isn’t that the truth.;)

Neil.