Guitar Nerds Anonymous

That is awesome. I love the fact that it essentially destroys the idea of tonewood (or at least makes it largely irrelevant next to pickup choice and position).

It was posted into my 'guitar builders' whatsapp group a few days ago, with surprising lack of discussion - it's pretty cool. I've heard and nodded along to so much voodoo from builders in the past about woods, densities, grains, even types of glue and paint choices (acrylic vs nitro?).
I've always gone along with "pickups and strings, and possibly (but probably not) nut and bridge" - literally nothing else on the guitar can interfere with the movement of a metal string in an magnetic field.

That said, the guitar I'm making right now is still made of rather expensive mahogany and AAA quitled maple...

I think there's real "spiritual" value in making a beautiful thing that will last, so there's no harm in using expensive wood, but I think you're right about the other I suspect that things that affect the gross rigidity of the structure that holds the nut away from the bridge will count for something (so possibly glued vs. bolt-on neck), but things like saddle material are most likely more or less irrelevant. Acoustics are probably a different story given that you're actually trying to make parts of the guitar body vibrate to generate sound, rather than just giving the string a solid base to vibrate relative to.

It's an interesting video and it confirms what I suspected, that only a few things really matter - pickups, pickup placement, scale length, effects, amp, speaker. A few things sort of (?) matter - wood, bridge type, saddle material, vibrato system. Some more than others.

Warmoth, being ideally placed to test these things, made a really good series of videos a while back where they swapped out things like body wood, neck and fretboard wood, solid vs chambered body, stainless steel vs nickel frets... they controlled everything else to a high degree, even cutting necks and bodies from the same wood blank where appropriate. The results confirmed the conventional wisdom to an extent - you can hear the difference between, say swamp ash and mahogany, but really nothing anyone will ever notice once you fire the signal through a bunch of pedals.

https://youtu.be/7k_A8GhN0L8

I’ve basically completed guitar YouTube so yeh I saw it. Thought it was interesting too. The unwritten conclusion seems to be that pickups and their adjustment are infinitely more influential on the sound than wood … on a tele.

The cork-sniffers who ascribe mystical mojo toney-ness to 1950s Fenders and Gibsons because 'the older the wood is the gooder it is' can GTFO, of course.

I would counter that this balance is probably v different on different guitar designs. Semi hollow, hollow etc.

Also weight, feel, playability and a bunch of other more subtle but important things don’t get a look in.

I’m sure your could make a tele body from mdf and have the driven amplified sound similar to a mint OG ‘52 with all of the other components identical… doesn’t mean I want all my guitars made from MFf.

I think a few things affect sustain, more than 'tone', and body density/chambering/etc. is one of them. Aluminium necks certainly do.

A lot of things affect how you subconciously play the guitar as well, I reckon. An alu neck makes the whole thing feel more substantial, and encourages you to attack the guitar a bit harder.

Also worth noting that the video infers that literally no body, sounds just as good as ash or whatever, but although there in only air in the middle of that experiment, each end of the strings are anchored via the bridge and nut and tuners to massive heavy wooden workbenches weighed down with motorbike engines. Anyone who’s ever leant the headstock of an unplugged electric or bass up against a wardrobe, table or stud wall will tell you that resonance doesn’t have to come from the mass between the neck and bridge.

It might be worth looking at the Marshall DLS1C? I had the head/cabinet version, when switched to low power (0.1W) it was still really good as a valve amp. It's also got a basic reverb built in, effects loop and and an emulated out.

I think the whole point is that as long as the nut and bridge are rigidly separated then what is separating them isn't that important in terms of tone (certainly compared to pickup position) the strings have a node at each end and the movement of the string relative to the pickup creates the signal. For hollow-bodies it may be more complex inasmuch as the brigde may not be purely a node and energy that the string puts into the body as a result may be returned to the string later.

Ended up buying an orange crust 35rt locally, should have it early this coming week.

My take is that people confuse the objective sound, which is almost entirely down to pickups and circuitry with the feel when holding and playing an instrument (which is a far more complex thing with woods and chambers and shapes and profiles and, god knows, maybe fret material, all giving an instrument a feel and character).

No one can tell from a recording whether a strat is poplar or alder, or with a maple or rosewood neck. IIRC there are arguments as to whether jimmy page was using a tele or an lp on some of the led zep recordings.

But anyway, what I wanted to say was that I've just bought an 1987 japanese squire contemporary strat.

I had no idea these things existed, but it combines a standard strat body and style but in basswood, with 12" radius and a locking trem. On paper, for me, thats a perfect combination - classic looks (Ive always wanted a CAR strat) with a 'modern' feel. Maybe the locking nut comes off and some locking tuners go on, dunno there.

Hoping it wont be complete garbage, but the 80's fujigen stuff has a very good rep. Will see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muVzwbkUUnM

just bought a mint condition Epiphone Les Paul Classic from Tune Inn, Hither Green Lane. I’m itching to get home crank up the amp, blast out some big chords..

Bikes 3 - Guitars 3

• fender strat circa 1989
  
• sigma M-15 acoustic circa 2018
  
• epiphone les paul 2020
  

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Nice! I love that shop

thanks @Fatberg it's a great shop, it was also my first visit. In the same way as LBS, music shops can only exist with customers walking through the door. My purchase was gratefully received.

Since the start of Covid, there has been a massive uptick in guitar purchases, what we are now seeing is a re-sell market emerging as buyers have not got stuck in and learning to play. The fender and sigma are both 2nd hand purchases.

Was in town yesterday clocked a lad wearing the AC/DC x Umbro kit.. homage to Scotland WC 1978, whilst he was playing a Gibson SG Standard L/H in No.Tom guitar shop. That kid’s got style.

https://www.umbro.com/en/style/collections/ac-dc-x-umbro/

Not specifically guitar, but I'm finding that trying to put my playing on a more solid footing in my 40s and mini-m learning an instrument has really helped me engage with music theory in a more productive way. My guitar teacher back in my teens tried to get me to understand some of this stuff (chord families, modal scales, relative minor keys etc.), but I don't think I really put it together. Just wanted to note that this
guy does really good informative videos that explain a lot of relevant stuff really well.

@ffm I enjoyed that thanks for sharing.

That was cool. I’m trying to teach myself to read the dots again so very timely.

Having a guitar teacher, has enabled me to pick up so many playing styles and tricks. The whole experience is awesome, strumming and finger picking has been a doodle. Standard chords and chord progression seeing improvement every week. Barre chords (on the syllabus from day 1) remain my biggest challenge, so I need to just be patient and practice, practice, practice, like a workout in the gym, I can’t rush this, mindful that I need to avoid any injuries, it will come in time could be weeks or months. I know that once I have these sussed the Nile Rogers percussive technique and precision will be next. My teacher knows my musical preference so the fender strat’s value increases every week I’m learning, practising, playing.

Changing out my 6-saddle for a 3-saddle compensated bridge.
Thinking of measuring the distance from the last fret to the existing bridge to make setting up intonation of the new bridge a little easier/quicker - is there anything I'm overlooking here?

Is this to work our where to put new holes in the top to fit a new bridge, or do you just mean that you'll be able to get the new saddles in the right ball-park by measurement? I've never done this, but off the top of my head:

• Action/neck relief can affect intonation
  
• If your frets are worn they will intonate slightly differently from when they are nicely crowned
  
• Is your guitar correctly intonated as it stands? The measurement from the nut to the 12th fret is key.
  
• You'll have to properly intonate it by ear/tuner anyway even if you try to measure it exactly.
  

I’m thinking of going to in person lessons having mainly used the internet so far (except for one not so great experience last summer) how frequently are your lessons and how long? I was thinking of an hour every fortnight.