The Guitar Thread • Page 41

Anyone got any experience with Balaguer guitars? Kind of intrigued by their business model, but it's a lot of money to dump on the unknown.

 

I think Andy from Every Time I Die uses them, and his live tone is pretty great. I dunno if he uses them on record though. I checked out a couple of demo videos too and they seem like they'd be good, but still I agree it's tough to pull the trigger on something you don't see in stores.

 

For the bassists out there: I highly recommend checking out Reverb.com's youtube series highlight the techniques and gear of famous bassists. So far they've done James Jamerson, Carol Kaye, Paul McCartney, John Entwistle and the different session bassists from Michael Jackson's songs.
Also check out the Legends of Bass youtube channel. The guy on that channel has some really interesting videos on the techniques of players like McCartney, Entwistle, Flea, Sting, etc.
I've been playing guitar most of my life, but lately I've been playing my bass a lot more, and videos have been really insightful.

 

That's how I spotted them. Through instagram, weirdly. The editor they have on their website is great. There are a few different build configurations I'd very much like to play.

Thing is, a fully spec'd up guitar, with a case, shipping and the import tax I'd get hammered with means I'm looking at £1500-1700 I think. That's an awful lot of money. That's starting to get into the range of being able to have a custom shop guitar made for me in the UK...

 

Yeah, plus with the CITES laws in place if you chose to put a rosewood fretboard on your guitar, I wonder if that would make things more difficult. The Balaguer factory/shop is located about an hour from where I live now, so I might have to take a trip out there some day to see it for myself.

 

I wouldn't put rosewood on a custom guitar anyway. I'd probably go purple heart, just because it looks and feels great.

Instead of blowing a ton of money on a new guitar, I've decided to finally sort out a pedal board. Just spent the best part of £300 to get the board, power supply, cabling and a line selector. My pedals will finally have a home!

 

gonna start building small batches of pedals once i get a garage. pretty excited, have ideas for three or so pedals to start with that i feel like aren’t really present on the market already

 

I have to solder the trem claw ground wire and my partcaster is done.

Until of course I plug it in and the whole things goes to shit....

 

boss re-issuing the dimension c. fucking awesome.

 

Have you built any clones before or are you diving right into making your own?

 

i’ve made a few clones, yeah. and i’m working on building kurt ballou’s distortion, which is a clone of the providence distortion. and then after that i’ll probably start my own that my buddy is developing the circuits for

 

Really want a Red Panda Particle pedal....

May sell off my extra amp and a pedal for one.

Also, my partscaster's wiring is being difficult. Tempted to take it in and pay someone to get it 100%. Sigh...

 

The 2018 Les Paul Classics have been massively reduced over here. £1700 down to £1200. They're making my wallet itchy.

 

don't, they're terrible lol

 

I dunno...p90s in a Les Paul are always a good combo, but the lack of QC from the 2017/2018 ranges made me weary

 

Any reason you say that? I was a bit surprised that they seem to have tanked as a model. Double P90s on what looks to be an LP traditional body. The colour options are good as well.

I might try playing one tomorrow. I've never really bought into all these QC grumbles, but I've not picked up and played a Gibson in a shop for some time.

 

Best octave fuzz for under $200? Mainly want something with at least a sub.

 

the beetronics one is really good. i think it’s the whoctafuzz?

 

Played a couple of classics in a shop yesterday. The blue one looks kind of naff in person, but both guitars sounded great. The black one had been in the shop for a while, was dusty and the strings were ruined. Strangely, I didn't feel all that compelled to spring that much money for one in such shitty shape, so I've ordered one online instead. Should be with me tomorrow.

Fingers crossed it's of the same standard of the two I played yesterday.

 

Finding left handed guitars to try in shops is such a struggle.

 

I will never understand the appeal behind american made models. I've picked up american guitars that play way worse than my MIM HSH strat. @.@

 

Well, in theory they should be better put together and using higher quality materials in the first place. My experience has been that normally the American Fenders have had something about them that the Mexican models don't, but it's a close run thing. The top end of the Mexican stuff really punches up.

 

So, yesterday was my NGD. Les Paul Classic, in black. It absolutely howls. Once the strings had settled down a bit I couldn't stop playing. I played for an hour until I had to go to the gym (this was not pleasing). Ate, showered and then played until I went to bed.

Couple of niggles on a guitar this price. There's a funny bit of finishing on one side of the neck join. It's really minor (maybe a little error when masking), but you notice it when the rest of the instrument looks immaculate. Couple of the controls are slightly loose too, which is a bit annoying, but should be an easy fix. More nervous about scuffing the finish while sorting it than anything else.

Otherwise though, came out of the case in great shape. Tuned it and it was good to go. Decent moderate action, intonation is correct, neck and frets are a step above everything else I own. I'm pretty sure it's strung with 9s, which I might switch to my more usual 10s. It feels pretty nice as is though, so I'm uncertain on that. Oddly, it comes with a photograph of the guitar, sat on the bench in the factory.

So yeah, all those QC issues everyone bitches about on Youtube? I remain skeptical. I've played 3 of this model, 2 different colours and from two different stores. All of them in great shape. The small niggles on this are no worse than the ones I had with my American Standard Tele.

 

I might try putting a evertune in my shitty telecaster. Not even a proper setup can save it.

 

you could just buy a new tele