Special Saturday Lunch Report 2-5-2011

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone that responded to the LR's this week.


Just one question that I meant to ask this week but forgot....

How sensitive are you to guitars specs??

Do you take a guitar on its overall merits, or if the neck carve is not just right, or it's poly finished instead of laquer finished, or some other spec is not quite ideal for you.
Do you instantly discount that guitar, or give it a try?

I have friends that will not consider a guitar unless it's finished in nitro cellulose. They will not even entertain the argument that it's actually finish thickness, and not type that is important (what I believe)
I have others that will not play a guitar with vintage frets, or a certain neck carve.

Where do ya'll weigh in???


Oh yeah.....and who are you pulling for in the Superbowl????
Honestly I'm not much of a football fan...I'm just curious.

Hi Shawn,

While I have many preferences for my guitars, there is only one thing that can really kill the deal. For me, it's the neck. The way the neck feels in my hands. If that's not right, then the guitar is not for me.

I can change many things about the guitar quickly, easily, and in a reversible fashion. The pups, the nut, the saddles, the pots. the frets, the pick guard. But not the neck shape, size, and feel of the neck.

I should mention that I like the way G&Ls feel in my hand. That's why I own WAY too many of them.

edg

How sensitive are you to guitars specs??

A bit to my surprise not very sensitive at all. As an ASAT and CCD built instrument collector, there are many differently spec'ed guitars in the harem. But all colors are still pretty conservative; nothing flashy. And as long as that is the case no problem from me. Likewise there is a fair variation in pickups and pickup configuration. Buckers (SD and G&L), Alnico Vintage, MFD wide bobbin and classic and all of them sound pretty good. Some have different outputs, and when that's the case for the same kind of pup, I can correlate that with them being hand-wound. Then, like for Ed, the major deal breaker should be the neck, right? So 7.5" or 12" neck radius? Turned out it didn't matter. After initially having only 12" boards, I didn't even notice too large of a difference when I played my first 7.5" board. OK, neck carve then? Likewise. Doesn't matter whether I play a Classic "C" (#1), Vintage "C" (#2), Vintage "V" (2a), Heritage Vintage "C" (#2b), and whatever the baseball bat profile is on my Jr., they all feel comfortable in my hands.

I should mention that I like the way G&Ls feel in my hand. That's why I own WAY too many of them.

Ditto

GO PACK GO!!!

- Jos

I guess I'm not all that sensitive either, I do have preferences and always thought I was hung up on necks being just right, but my most recent guitar purchase ('90 ASAT) has changed my mind.
The neck is all wrong. I prefer maple, it's rosewood. I like thick, it's thin. I like V profile, it's a C. But man, oh man it has such a sweet tone, dare I say "THE tone" (at least the one I was looking for )

I bought it because it was a "leo era" at a great price and figured it'd go up in value and I'd sell it off. Never would have bought it as a keeper because of the neck specs. But I'll be damned, I don't care about the neck anymore, and I can't imagine selling it. That being said I still prefer those aforementioned things, but I'm not so quick to write off a guitar that doesn't have them.

As for the Superbowl, not a fan of either team, I think it will be a close one though.

Thanks for a great week of lunch reporting Shawn! didn't have much time to post responses but I did read them all

-Dave

I am not terribly sensitive and try never to discount a guitar. Every guitar might have something unique and useful, a different neck carve might facilitate some different aspect of my playing. The only thing I avoid is necks becoming too thin (see ibanez) or string spaces too tight (I like 19mm spacing basses). I have a few different necks in the pond, and being a bass player have played all shapes and sizes. My current bass has an assymetrical neck (very nice).

So all in all I try to take a guitar for what it is, I don't expect it to be my other guitar (no value in owning one identical I find). I play thumb on back of neck and rarely 'wrap around' so neck carve doesn't mean much to me.


One deal breaker for me : Sticky neck finish. I like oiled necks, G&L satin is very nice though. I have never had trouble with fender satin either.

I have my preferences when it comes to specs, but give me half an hour on a different guitar and I'll adapt and get over it. I like a thick neck. Until recently I thought the G&L #1 was fat - the neck on my parts-o-caster is much fatter and I find it more comfortable to play chords lower down the neck. I'd expected the opposite, but turns out that the extra girth makes it easier as I don't have to close my hand as much.

I'm unsure as to how finish affects the guitar beyond the tactile. As I imagine in a thin finish would be best, but as to the chemical composition of the paint etc used - I don't know. Nitro gets awful sticky when there are sudden changes in the weather, and the weather changes a lot in Melbourne. I like the satin finish of the G&L necks. I used a really cheap, nasty full gloss polyurethane on the neck of the parts-o-caster and rubbed the back with sandpaper until I got a nice satin feel. You can make anything work if you want to. I'm in two minds about whether I should give the gun oil gloss necks on two of my ASATs the same treatment.....

Ha! You saved your best questions for last, eh? I'll play!

Superbowl: I don't have a horse in this race. I really just want to see a great, competitive football game. That said, Big Ben was the college QB for my Alma Mater (Miami University, Oxford, Ohio) so I kind of pull for him (though I really wish he'd get his hormones under control).

As for being sensitive to a guitar's specifications: I'm not particular in most respects. I'm not a big fan of flat radii, and I suppose there are some colors I'd select over others. I can adjust to just about any nut width. I don't use a trem, so though I prefer hard tails, a good stable (DF) trem is just fine with me. The whole poly/nitro thing is pretty much lost on me. I'm such a klutzy moron that I don't find that the finish type has nearly as much to do with my sound as my degree of sobriety or lack thereof.

True story: I sold the best sounding guitar I ever found because I was under the impression that the neck was just too large. A couple of year later, I tried a Rice Custom guitar owned by our own Zombywoof, that must have had the biggest neck on the planet. I could have (and would have) bonded with that guitar anyway, but the b*stard sold it, having apparently forgotten my love for that particular instrument (configured like a Bluesboy with custom pickups, it was the lightest solid-bodied guitar I have ever strapped on. Seriously!)
What was I saying? - ed