Lunch Report- Rediscovered A New Friend 10-23-12--Tue

It is almost 8 PM and no LR so here goes. Lunch today was leftover pork loin with porkettea seasoning.

G&L
Today I have been absorbed by guitar stuff. Tonight I did my yearly setup on my ASAT Z-3 Bigsby. The cats are usually helping me with this and losing the strings on the floor and such but they are a year older and sack out in the house. Actually things are easier. I oiled the fingerboard, waxed and lubed the Bigsby roller and gave it the workover and installed new strings. The neck on this one is really stable and I must admit that it is really fun to restring a Bigsby. I smiled, thinking of the comments some of you have made in the past. There is a trick and it is fun! After I finished, I tuned her up and plugged into the Custom 15. Wow! I realized that i hadn't plugged this one in for about a year. This baby has grit. Not the overtones like the Alnicos but it really cooks. I wish I had owned this ASAT when I recorded 40 Miles Of Bad Road. It just oozes the old Duane eddy tone and especially with the new strings. How many of you have played a Z-3, ASAT or Comanche? Give me your take on your impression of the experience. I know Boogie Bill has a writeup on dialing in but mine seems to be dialed. Here is a picture after I was done and the picture also leads into the next subject.



Guitar Stands

I have several types of stands and some are much better than others. There is one stand in particular that I decided on for gigging. It hold 3 guitars and uses a smaller footprint than 3 stands and is very stable. It is Hercules Triple. What are you favorite stands and show us a picture. I am always on the lookout for a nice stand. Here is mine



Any new lurkers, please jump in on the open forum. We enjoy seeing what you are up to!-- Darwin

Hey Darwin, thanks for stepping in - you just beat me to it.

I've not played anything with the Z-coils. One day...

Fave stands are these ones from Konig & Meyer. They fold very flat and fit into my gig bag with my pedals, leads, straps and spare bits. They're very sturdy and sure footed too.


Edit: On closer inspection this seems to be a newer model to the one I have. Same principle though.

Thanks for jumping in. My evening is being spent looking at an original BluesBoy lefty. It's a tad beat up, so Darwin can you recommend someone to buff&shine it?


Cheers,

Will

G'day Darwin,
It is always satisfying putting a bit of love into a guitar.
No to all those guitars but I have played a Broadcaster. Does that count?
Cheers
Anthony

I have just finished re-soldering and shielding my Will Ray - there was a faint buzz on full volume that was annoying me so I pulled it apart and copper shielded the swimming pool rout and tidied up all the earth connections.
I love the Z3 sound - it can be both rich and/or snappy depending on how and where you hit the strings.
I've been experimenting with setting the pick ups further away from the strings as they have so much output in a standard position I was driving inputs too hard and getting more distortion than I had control over. Even a long way (level with the pick-guard) gives a clear rich tone. I keep gravitating to the neck & middle combination on this guitar as I get a kind of acoustic guitar balance to the tone. I am keen on trying an ASAT special but I keep playing this guitar thinking it cant be better than this.
I found I was rarely using the B bender - just bending normally with the left hand so I took it off and put a D lever instead as I have a lot of dropped D songs with different chord inversions ( with major and minor 6 in the lower strings). I got up to four bender lever mechanisms before I realised I was only using the D regularly.
I tend to believe that if you keep it as simple as possible less can go wrong - and more can go right!

Thanks for jumping in Darwin - I cant always contribute but I love listening in to the guitar talk.

Jeremy

Jamie, that is an interesting portable stand. I have never seen one. I just ordered a couple of Gig Bag Hercules stands yesterday. I think I like yours better. Where is it made?

Will, glad you were able to look at a lefty BB locally. Does it just need cleanup or is it dinged a bit? If it isn't dinged, I would hand buff it. I use a large buffer on the autos but a guitar is easily damaged with a big power buffer. You didn't say if you purchased it. Let us know the outcome.

Anthony, you bet it counts! Any G&L played is an experience. The reason that I brought up the Z's is that to some, they seem to be more difficult to dial in than others but I think that they are very wide dynamically and versatile.

Jeremy, it sounds like you have spent time trying to figure these things out. They are very dynamic and mine are set toward the lower side. I suspect that they would be very nice on an amp with a preamp gain control. it would be interesting if there were someone on the board who has experimented with this although I know that Boogie Bill has done some time. I have two ASAT Z coil guitars and have not done a lot with them. Quite honestly, when I bought this Z-3, I sold my American Deluxe Tele with my Bigsby conversion to buy it. The semi-hollow body and Bigsby is what sold me. I did not plug it in before buying. I have not had a bad sounding G&L so I wasn't worried about the sound.

Thanks all for responding! -- Darwin