Lunch Report Thursday 3/4/10

Lunch today Chicken sandwich and soda.

Consensus is most all of us miss the old board. Seems I agree that without tons of posts it was easier all on one page. I guess we will soon be used to the beta format.
My main gripe, I wish pics could be uploaded?

I have been slowly gravitating toward acoustic guitar since I moved from Key Largo, Fl. to Anderson, S. Carolina.
I miss playing out and making some extra bucks to buy gear.
I just bought my first good acoustic. A Taylor 414RCE 25th Anniversary. Rosewood back/sides and a spruce top. I love it!
It found me by pure circumstance. I went into the Greenville Guitar Center and was admiring their collection.
Depressed upon leaving (couldn't afford new) I asked the manager if he had a used Taylor?
He said he had one he just took in. To my surprise it was the exact model I wished I had.
It is ten years old and had the original strings still on it, a closet classic. Mint condition.
Though I should never have boughten due to astronomical attorneys expenses , ending a 34 year marriage.
Thats another story that would make a great read or movie! It was just a dream come true, I found this Taylor at a great price.
Never intending on buying anything. A good feeling, it found me.

Todays questions,

Wondering how many of you have played a Collins, CPThorton, or other high end guitars?
I love them but can't afford one. I doubt even if I could, that I would buy one. I like the KISS (keep it simple stupid) method of making guitars.
Which is why I love G&L and Fender. Analogy-The M16 of guitars. I believe that these tools are made to play and take a beating without the worries.
I do appreciate the high end quality and precision detail. I sure admire their work. To nice to play for someone with limited skill like mine though.

For those who are familiar with the upscale brands would you shed some light on their playability and tone.
Do they play better or sound better? Or just look better? Or whatever?

Which high end one do you wish you could own or do you own? Electric or acoustic?

Have a Grateful Day,
John

Pic of Jay's, Chuck Thorton's ...sure are beautiful works of art!

Last edited by Woodfixer on Thu Mar 04, 2010 8:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

John,

Great job this week.

I have not had the desire to play the high end guitars you have mentioned but I think the Collings looks nice.The guitar I have seen is the Collings 290 model.

Simple and straight to the point.

My guitar skills are limited and I have never had the urge for a fancy, expensive guitar. I am sure they are nice but will they make me play any better than a G&L or Heritage? Some of the best tone and playability for me have come from a hundred dollar Danelectro.

As a guy that makes his living working with wood, I don't get excited with high end guitars. I find them boring. Now put a simple guitar into the hands of a skilled player and you have something special.

Being a poor working guy all my life has made me live by the rule of "do with or do without". I do with and like it this way.

y2kc

Hey John,

I always dreamt of having a LP and hence first looked into glued-in neck guitars. That is how, after a disappointing forray into actually owning a Gibson, I got into PRS guitars and own a couple. Because you are completely right, they are most certainly lookers. Outside of the goldtop Singlecut in my collection, each has an absolutely stunning maple top. And they all sound great. My faves are a McCarty with Indian Rosewood neck and a nitro-finished SC245 Sunburst.


Playing a rosewood neck in an experience in and by itself. Its an incredibly smooth, I would say luscious kind of feeling to sense the wood not only under your fingers but everywhere in your hand. But I must admit that especially the ASAT (or Tele for that matter), in all their incarnations, is the most versatile guitar that I know. At at a considerably lower cost, mind you. Hence I started collecting those.

On the acoustic end, I do have 2 Collings guitars: and D-2HA and OOO-2HA sunburst single-cut:

The former loud and clear, the latter more subdued and woody only used for fingerstyle. I also first looked into Taylors and Martins but I didn't like them that much.

Great week. I'm really enjoying it John. Congrats with your 414RCE and take good care of her. She will love you in return.

Consensus is most all of us miss the old board. Seems I agree that without tons of posts it was easier all on one page. I guess we will soon be used to the beta format.
My main gripe, I wish pics could be uploaded?

Here are a few of things to read and try:

Check out the overall FAQ
there are a lot of answers to most newbie's questions

Check out the User Control Panel
you can customize you posting options and posting views.

Check out the different ways of viewing:

View unanswered posts
View active topics
View unread posts
View new posts
View your posts

For example:

You want to view the active topics in the General forums of the G&LDP forum:

go here: Board index » Welcome to the G&LDP (Version 2.0) » G&LDP
then, click on General
you will see all the current active topics in the General forums.

You want to view all unread posts:

go here: Board index
then, click on view unread posts

Regarding Attachments (aka uploading images) on the G&LDP:

We have limited disk space and want to make sure that the GbL Gallery has the space for G&L related photos and
Registered Gallery User's Albums. There are a lot of free image hosting sites on the WWW, so use one or more of them for storing your images. Here's what we have in the G&LDP Guidelines on Photo posting:

Posting Photos: In order to share a GIF or JPEG image in a post on the G&LDP, the tricky part is that you have to actually have that photo located on a web server somewhere. That's actually not as complicated as it sounds, though - there are numerous services out there that will do this very thing for you and closely guide you through the process... take a look at Photobucket.com, Yahoo! Briefcase and PhotoPoint, for example (note: if you have other suggestions for free photo hosting services, please let me know so I can list them here). With the update to the new Gallery on guitarsbyleo.com, you can now upload G&L images to your own photo album and then post them here on the G&LDP. We do ask that you limit the photos you upload to G&L instrument images, as we do have a limited amount of disk space. For details on the Registered Users Gallery, take a look at the Registered Users Gallery.

Hope this helps.

Todays questions,

Wondering how many of you have played a Collins, CPThorton, or other high end guitars?

I haven't played either of the guitars you mentioned. I do have my Taylor 710ce, and an Alvarez Yairi DY84c. The sustain and loudness of the Taylor is the better between them. I find the Yairi neck a bit more comfortable for me, and it's a beautiful guitar overall. My only complaint about the Yairi is that the sustain is marginal. Congratulations on your Taylor. That sounds like a great model to own. I understand that Taylor is now making a 814ce with a short scale. That, I'd like to have, as my fingers are a major limitation, and the lighter tension would probably help.



Which high end one do you wish you could own or do you own? Electric or acoustic?

I play a very nice custom guitar that was made by a local maker named Joe Till. It's a humbucker equipped guitar so I don't play it as much as my single coils, but it's a beauty and plays very nicely. The model is his very curvaceous, "Lady on the Beach". She's chambered cherry with a maple cap, finished au naturale'.

I have never played one but this one looks special to me But the price is
http://www.gryphonstrings.com/instpix/33495/33495.php

I love wood working and the talent involved in making something like this blows me away.
They have a sound clip up on it.

It is a 2002 Santa Cruz and is for sale at Gryphon Stringed Instruments.

They also have an absolute killer 3 bolt 1996 G & L Legacy for sale that someone linked while in the beta test.

http://www.gryphonstrings.com/instpix/33238/33238.php

I have never got to play a Collings or C.P. Thorton guitar. They look beautiful and I am sure that they sound great.

I own three "high end" basses. An Alembic, a Spector and a Ken Smith bass, that are all very good in their own right, but I tend not to use them as much as you might think. I am more attracted to G&Ls and some vintage basses that sound great.

I tend to gravitate towards cheaper instruments that I can get for little cash and then I can spend some time and effort in cleaning, adjusting and getting a good overall setup so that I can play them or a student can use them.

I have several Peavey basses and one Peavey guitar that fit this discription.

I am not seeing many USA G&Ls in stores anymore in my area. I think they are getting hard to find offline.

I would like to own one of the Martin guitars made in the style of the 1930's.
I just can't afford $4K-6K for a guitar!

-bassman

Hey John,

Nice week so far!

I have played the Collings several times at Buff Bros, they seem very nice. Not 4x nicer than I already have, so I have not bought one.

Jay has my interest up on the Blues Queen he is always raving about, so I would like to play one sometime.

I have a Taylor 514CE. Nice guitar, a little bright. Really nice for finger picking.

Good luck with your attorney situation.

Gary G

Wondering how many of you have played a Collins, CPThorton, or other high end guitars?
Played a Santa Cruz OOO and a Collings, both only one time but very impressed with both. I fortunately scored a Martin D-41 for reasonable price a couple of years back and that is MY choice for acoustics. If won the lottery may go shopping for Santa Cruz.



For electrics I am very happy with the ones I have now.

For those who are familiar with the upscale brands would you shed some light on their playability and tone.
What some call high end "aka" expensive guitars some do look and sound better but feel can accomplished with lower cost instruments I believe. For feel, G&L are the best IMHO.

Great week John, you have a Grateful Day too!

Wondering how many of you have played a Collins, CPThorton, or other high end guitars?
I love them but can't afford one. I doubt even if I could, that I would buy one. I like the KISS (keep it simple stupid) method of making guitars. Which is why I love G&L and Fender. Analogy-The M16 of guitars. I believe that these tools are made to play and take a beating without the worries. I do appreciate the high end quality and precision detail. I sure admire their work. To nice to play for someone with limited skill like mine though.

For those who are familiar with the upscale brands would you shed some light on their playability and tone.

Do they play better or sound better? Or just look better? Or whatever?

Which high end one do you wish you could own or do you own? Electric or acoustic?

I have several Gibsons, ten Les Pauls and a 335. No Studios, no Fadeds, all good stuff. I prefer the Gibsons to PRS. Never seen any of the Thorntons. Only ever seen one Collings electric; it was nice but pricey.

I have several Martins and a Taylor 710ce. Again, the Martins are all Standard Series guitars, except the MTV-1 and the DC Aura. The Aura and the MTV are a bit fancy, but built on the -16 "chassis" with the mortisse and tenon joint, rather than the Standards' dovetail.

To me, a good Martin is about as high-end as it can get. There are many small builders that make fine guitars, but Martin is still the standard by which all others are judged. When you've been in business for 176 years, I guess you're doing something right.

Interesting gun analogy. I tend to think of my G&Ls as the Glocks of the guitar world. They're not the high-end customized full-race competition 1911; but for an out of the box carry gun, there's nothing on the market that can compete with the reliability, shootability and VALUE of the Glock.

I have my eye on a Martin D-42 these days, about $4500. I would have to sell some stuff to get it, but that's pretty much my Holy Grail these days. And the electric would be a Gibson 1960 Historic Flametop in an Iced Tea finish, and it's a little pricier than the Martin.

Bill

I have had the opportunity to play sever high end acoustics at Buffalo Bros. and to me they definitely have something special. My faves have gotta be those made by Santa Cruz. In terms of playability and tone they are exceptional and I can see why many are willing to pony up the extra dough for one. If I had the money, I could definitely see myself owning a Santa Cruz OM with a cutaway. That ain't happening for quite a while though.

Lates,

Connor

Consensus is most all of us miss the old board....

Having typed on it for ten years I do have a bit of nostalgia for the old board, but the new digs is just so much more 21 century.

Wondering how many of you have played a Collins, CPThorton, or other high end guitars?

I don't have GAS for high end electrics. I prefer utilitarian workhorses. Acoustics, on the other hand...

Which high end one do you wish you could own or do you own? Electric or acoustic?

My most high end guitar is my '93 Lowden D-32. GREAT dread!! The best I've ever played. Lowden dreads are pretty rare (and mine was a custom build for someone who didn't play it much) so I babied it for about a year before I busted it out for a gig. Since then I've had a red tortiose pickguard put on it (had to because I play hard and was mauling the top). I also swapped out the original Gotoh tuners (503s I think) with a set of Gotoh 510s--I left the black, "butterbean" buttons on the new tuners, but next string change I'm thinking of putting the original buttons back on because they are Lowdenesque and go with the build date of the guitar. Here it is when I first got it (with the original tuners and no pickguard):



I'm sold on Lowdens. If I get another acoustic it'll be an "O" series with mahagony back and sides. Different flavor, smaller body.

Peace...

GDub

wrong thread