How to totally screw up your guitar

[haunted]

I have a maple neck and an alder body. Intonation and an overall tune up is needed desperately. I'm storing it at -10 to keep it fresh currently.

[|iR|Focalor]

I really haven't played very much for the past several years. My main guitar was a 1996 Ibanez Joe Satriani signature model, and I've played the living shit out of it. The frets are worn as fuck and have lots of flattened out and scooped out tops especially from the 8th to 14th frets under the top 3 strings where it's REALLY bad - looks like someone has taken a knife and shaved 50% of the tops of the frets off. The bridge is the old Floyd Rose style double locking Lo-TRS II that Ibanez used to use back in the 90's, and I never particularly cared for it. I've never been much of a tremolo arm user, and the vital parts of the bridge and nut system like the allen screws that clamp the strings to the nut and bridge, they're made of really shitty metal and I've rounded out the insides where you stick the allen wrench to turn them. The bridge is a MOTHERFUCKER to adjust the saddles in order to intonate it, so it NEVER stays in tune all the way up the neck. I fucking HATE the locking nut bullshit too. After you've changed strings on one so many times, it wears slots into the nut and completely deadens the strings whenever I put new strings on and attempt to clamp it down... so I just leave the nut locks off completely now. Anyway, long story short, that guitar was ready for a new bridge and new frets. But in 20 years, I've actually learned a thing or two about guitars, and I have firm preferences now. And whilst I love the old bitch, I must admit I'm looking for something different in a 6-string relationship than what she offers me.

So when my old man asked me to give him some ideas of something to get me for Xmas this year, I said the first thing that came to mind: NEW GUITAR!

This is what I was looking for in a guitar: mahogany body, maple top (NO CLEAR COAT FINISH preferably, just bare naked or stained wood) maple or mahogany neck (also unfinished), rosewood fretboard, fixed bridge, and 2 humbuckers (preferably with coil tap push/pull knobs).

I wanted to go pretty cheap because my old man's not a millionaire, so I did a little hunting online and started looking at a couple of Ibanez models. They made an Ibanez RG 6003FM that pretty much fit the bill of exactly what I was looking for. They also make an Ibanez RG 421RW that is very similar except for the fact that it has a rosewood top instead of a flamed maple top. But as I inspected them closer, the top woods on them appeared to be very thin layers, almost like a paper-thin veneer laminate.

I wanted something with a thicker maple top to it, so by chance I began looking at some Epiphone Les Pauls. I've always been pretty anti-Epiphone in the past because their old Les Pauls were awful imposter versions of the Gibsons with awful imposter hardware, weak-ass pickups, and piss-poor overall construction. But in the past few years, Epiphone has gotten their shit together and they actually make a few versions of the Les Paul that are comparable to the Gibsons. I was pretty much dead-set ready to go out and get me a new Epiphone Les Paul Standard PlusTop PRO. At $550, it's a great value. Only thing I didn't like about it was the fact that it was finished with clear coat. Ew. But I was gonna say fuck it and settle.

The whole time I had been ignoring the Gibsons thinking there's no way my old man could afford a 2 or 3 grand Gibson Les Paul, which is what most of them go for now. But just for shits and giggles, I decided to see what they had. I was kinda shocked to find they actually had one with most of the features I was looking for and priced at under 1000 bucks. The one and only thing this guitar doesn't have that I was looking for was push/pull coil tap knobs and pickups.



Gibson Les Paul Studio Faded 2016

HOLY SHIT I FUCKING LOVE THIS GUITAR! All the specs here, unless they update the site with the 2017 shit soon and take it down: http://www.gibson.com/Products/Electric-Guitars/2016/USA/Les-Paul-Studio-Faded.aspx

This thing is DIRT CHEAP ($800) compared to the regular Studio, Traditional, and Standard models. And as far as I can tell, the only thing that separates the Studio Faded from the regular $1500 Studio model is a different neck profile shape, the lower quality but higher output 490T/R pickups, different finish colors, and some nitro cellulose lacquer clear coating. And in my opinion, none of that justifies an extra 700 bucks on the price tag, hell naw.

The Studio Faded comes with the newer Gibson Burstbucker Pro pickups, which are alnico magnets and a good bit lower output than the old Ibanez ceramic magnet pickups I'm used to, but... it doesn't even fucking matter. This guitar being unfinished like it is, it fucking SINGS. You can play it unplugged and it rings and resonates like an acoustic. And probably the biggest thing I love about this guitar is the neck profile. It has the 1959 Rounded neck profile to it, and with the neck being unfinished mahogany like it is, it feels like playing an old vintage acoustic. Gibson makes several different neck profiles, and without a doubt my favorite is the 59 Rounded, which typically they didn't use to offer on any models other than the Les Paul reissues, which were ridiculously priced.

Anyway, for the past two weeks now, I've been blistering the shit out of the ends of my fingers playing this thing. Been so long since I've played extensively that I gotta build my callouses up again.

It comes setup and ready straight from the factory in Nashville, so no adjustment of the bridge was really needed. Although after playing it and getting used to it for about 2 weeks now, I'm starting to notice a slight buzz like either the truss rod needs adjusting or more likely the action and bridge height needs to be raised just a tiny bit. I still can't be mad about it though. I've played nothing but garbage Korean and Japanese made bolt-on neck guitars for so long that I'm pissing my pants with glee to finally have a high quality American made set neck that actually STAYS IN FUCKING TUNE!

[|iR|Focalor]

At some point in the future - when the warranty is done on this thing - I wanna customize this baby out the wazzoo. I wanna replace all the hardware with gold hardware. That'll include the stopbar tailpiece, tuneomatic bridge, output jack, strap buttons, toggle switch and labelled switch washer, pickguard bracket and screws. I also wanna swap the neck pickup out for a Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates neck pickup with a gold cover, and then also get another gold cover to go over the existing Burstbucker Pro at the bridge position. Might be a little difficult though. Gibson is starting to use special PC boards to wire the pickups to the knobs through their special proprietary QuickConnect plugs, and my particular guitar uses this system. It makes swapping out pickups quick and painless as long as you replace them with other Gibson brand pickups that come pre-wired with the QuickConnect plugs, but if you just buy your typical loose pickup to solder in there, you're gonna go "Oh shit. WTF is this!?! Where do I solder it to!?!" Anyway, I'd also like to swap out the silver Gibson Deluxe vintage green-key tuners for gold Gibson Deluxe vintage green-key or pearl-key tuners. Then I'd also probably want to swap out the black speed knobs for gold speed knobs. I screwed around in photoshop for a bit cutting and pasting the gold parts from a regular Les Paul Studio and Les Paul Traditional just to see what it would look like.



The gold hardware makes it look more extra fancy with that dark brown finish. But then I wondered what it would look like if I got some kind of high quality decal skin to go over the top. I'd much rather just get a decal than a real paint job where I'd have to seal it with clear coat. Always thought Zakk Wylde's old rebel Les Paul Custom looked pretty cool (minus the nailed-on rusty budweiser caps and burn marks). But the more I look at this, the more I'm thinking I'll just leave the top as it is.

[|iR|Focalor]

Saw this in my internet travels, and it made me laugh so hard that I had to share it.

What I think is probably an old Marshall JCM800 Slash signature Silver Jubilee 100watt head into a "do-it-yourself" Peavey 12x12 cabinet. Or probably 12x10 or 12x8 since this person can fit 3 in a row under the amp head. Uh... yeah.



Just.... why? Why? That is so ridiculous!