Guitar Nerds Anonymous

I opened it back up and re-fixed my sketchy soldering on the replacment jack which now works. Hooray! Will give the onboard powerbrick idea some more thought. I do think it has merit tho.

Just pulled the trigger on a very lightly used and freshly serviced Classic Vibe strat for a shade over £200. Seems like a good deal.
Not a fan of the black pickguard with the walnut finish but no big deal. Do aftermarket pickguards fit squier(assuming same number of screw holes)? Usually labelled as fender. I’m sure there’s been dozens of variations over the years so sure there’s no correct answer. Would like to think a modern one is fairly universal though. Reckon it’d look 10x nicer with a pearl guard instead

2 Attachments

Looks good! Fender pickguards are a fucking minefield, they're all country specific in my experience. And even then it can still be a bit of a lottery.

Good to know, from a bit of reading it suggests that post-2004 squier should be the same as Mexican fender but as you say, most people seem to suggest at least one thing will be slightly wrong.

Also, if I wanted to tune to d-standard would this require a new strings/setup/intonation etc?
Not something I’d def do but all the bands im into seem to be at the lower end.
No doubt for the sake of learning I'll be in E for the foreseeable anyway.

The musiclilly ones on Amazon are varied and good enough quality imho. They have every hole combination and the model descriptions are pretty clear.

Right, I need this sg gone asap because one in, one out. Nothing wrong with it, just not for me, it’s bottom tier but could be fun for modding. Currently set up with beefy strings.
£70 collected e17

1 Attachment

Looks nice, I like the 70s vibe (no pun intended) with the black pickguard. Pickguards are a total minefield though, yeah. It varies from factory to factory and product line as well as by country of origin.

Re: tuning, ideally, yeah you’d use heavier strings and adjust everything to compensate. The idea of using heavier strings with a lower tuning is to try and rebalance the string tension so it might not need too much doing to it, and the bridge / trem spring tension adjustment on a Strat is fairly easy to get your head around.

Depending how heavy you go on the string gauge some of the nut slots might need widening a touch (you don’t want strings getting stuck in the nut).

Give it a go and see what happens, I reckon.

People run Strats in E flat all the time, and this is only one semitone further. I reckon you'd be grand to just tune down. A proper setup would def help but it'd be good enough for rock 'n' roll regardless.

Also, I have some Monty's relic wax if you want to try and make the fretboard a little darker/glossier.

I've been fucking about with this tuning side of things for a little while, although I wanted heavier strings anyway. Off the peg, guitars always have silly light strings, I don't get it personally.

My Reverend is tuned to D standard, and now has 12-56 ("not even slinky") strings. I did have to adjust the truss rod to fight the tension more, but about a turn and a half, and also adjust the springs in the trem system to also fight the string tension more.

By contrast, when I've had my mustang tuned to D standard I just put on 11s and it was fine. I now have it back in E, 10.5s, and still fine. Much more forgiving.

Interesting, thanks for your thoughts folks. The guitar has just had a proper setup done on it so not a rabbit hole I’m going to go down at this point.
Is the mustang more forgiving due to it being a shorter scale?

When I took my Swinger in for its service the only way he could get the correct intonation and tuning stability on the 21” scale neck was by going with very beefy strings(wound 4th string) with a fair bit of tension. I love that guitar but it’s not the easiest thing to play for someone with clumsy fingers like me.

@Sparky I’ll definitely take you up on that offer, muchos gracias!

I reckon so yeah, plus a less sensitive vibrato system (Reverend has a wilkinson floating thing, but of a hassle but it is pretty nice)

Mustang responds pretty well to my ham-fisted playing IMO, the accidental noises sound good

No sweat. I have tools here to do a setup (and a tiny sliver of ability to do a setup) too, if you want to get it dialled-in a bit more.

Earlpilanz on eBay (*away at the mo) will copy any scratchplate you send him, he has all the pearloids and he's cheap.

He's great, I've gotten a few pickguards from him before.

Third on this geezer - top quality stuff

Looking to shift two EHX big box pedals with respective wooden box - a Deluxe Electric Mistress and a Frequeny Analyzer. Thought I'd put the feelers out in case any interest on here?

Great pedals but hardly use them, time to make funds for other stuff!

Played a Zona Asgard at the Brighton guitar show yesterday - now saving to buy one. Bloody excellent, really sound processes behind the build decisions, and the shape is really cool if you find pictures of someone playing it (looks a bit weird in a stand)

The guy is a cyclist too which helps. Possibly the band came from Columbus tubing, though I didn’t confirm this during our tonewoods/frame materials chat

So that strat I won got lost by parcelface, found. Arranged to collect from the yard but instead they returned it to sender. Tried to get the seller to send via another courier but due to him moving house and other life pressures he wanted to refund me instead.
Bit of a shame but such is life sometimes. I’m taking it as a sign that wasn’t the guitar for me.

Had my first lesson last night: wasn’t as hopeless as I expected and Bob is a damn cool teacher so that’s a positive at least.

Much success. That Strat was shit anyway. You'll find a PERFECT one now.

What I want is a Dakota red hh strat. Pearl pickguard, rosewood fingerboard and 70s headstock. Basically the match for my swinger.

Just ordered myself a Laney tube amp.
Any interest in a Boss dual cube lx including the boss Bluetooth adaptor? In as new condition with the original boxes

Despite having been a Strat man since, well, forever, two and a bit beers at the Lounge Bar in Lerwick, with no little assistance from the live band, has persuaded me that I need a Gibson. Straight for a Les Paul or should I try a gateway Gibson guitar first?

A les Paul is a gateway Gibson, you progress to a vintage 335

SG! ✊

Go straight for the LP - you'll just end up getting one anyway if you buy an intermediary.