Ain't Misbehavin'

[darwinohm]

Most of you know what kind of trouble that a retired guy can get into. On a serious note, I wasn't going to post about this but after a lot of analysis and pondering, I decided this would be a good post as it brings up some food for thought. I have become much more serious about what I have for guitars and everyone one I go for now is for a very specific reason. We become more selective as we get to know these things better. I started out as a Fender guy and ended up with about 18 to 20 Fenders, all good stuff. Then I discovered G&L, another plateau as such. I have PRS, Taylor, Surh, Hamer, a Gibson and others, all fine instruments. They all have their good points. Recently I came across something that really interested me. Yesterday I decided it was time for my Eric Clapton Custom Shop to go to a new owner. I have owned it for 4 years and bought it in pristine condition, used at a very good price. I looked at it as an asset. It is the most overpriced, plainest, guitar that I have ever owned and as a custom shop it is supposed to have flaming in the neck. You had to have damn good eyes, in the right light to see it. My American Deluxe Fenders are more refined! Most of my standard G&Ls have more flame or birdseye and they are not custom shop.

So we look at high end guitars and what makes them so special? They talk about "Tapped tone woods" and some other sonic things that are hard to measure. We would all expect great fit and finish, well put together and some of your other requirements. I brought home a Don Grosh Retro Classic Vintage T. I have really become a T type guy and I looked at this one long and hard. Now what would should a guitar that costs more than double than most of my G&Ls have? That is a fair question and I think is even more difficult to justify than one would want to answer. So here it what I have found.

The build quality is outstanding, the paint is terrific, the neck is finished beautifully and it has hardware you would expect on a guitar like this. After playing it unplugged for a while I really liked it. It has a large roundback neck which really felt good. So home it goes and I check the setup, wax it and now am ready to give it a test drive. The setup was the most perfect for me of any guitar that I have ever received, although several of my G&Ls have been very close. I have 8 double 40 watt florescent lights in garage and any single coil guitar will have noise. I plugged it into my custom15 and I could not believe what I was hearing. A Tele with NO noise. What??? I checked it out a bit an the tone is awesome. I then decided I needed to look further. I removed the control plate and discovered that the control area is finished with shielding paint, it apears to have orange capacitors and the part in the control plate were quality. I also discovered that the pickguard was covered in the back with copper and grounded to the control plate. I am certain the pickup route is also shielded with paint. Now, I sat and thought about this a bit and wouldn't you expect that from a custom build?

Tonight I brought out a couple of G&Ls to compare to and this should not be a fair comparison. My Gold Flake Asat Classic has some noise from the lights. I also have a quartz lamp over my guitar workbench and the Classic picked up noise from that. I then brought my Launch Edition Alnico out. It really surprised me as it is very quiet. I did a comparison of the pickups and was really surprised to see that the Alnicos are very close to the Grosh pickups. The Alnico had a bit more spank in the bridge and you already know that they are among my favorites. Now I am impressed with my G&L Launch Edition. So here is my point. G&L really has it going for them. How many of you would be willing to pay more for shielding and better electronic components in the controls? I don't think that it would add a lot to the cost of building the guitar, and my Anico Launch is less than half the price of the Grosh. I think that is food for thought. Here are some pics.-- Darwin

This is Glacier Blue Metallic


The waist is a bit thinner than an Asat and the lower horn is almost strat like. It has a brushed pickguard.






and the control cavity

[yowhatsshakin]

Thanks for the A/B Darwin. And the Grosh is a very nice guitar. Still, your story seems to confirm once more that G&L USA builds custom shop quality instruments at a very reasonable price. Which is certainly the biggest reason I fell for them ...

And it brings up the question once more whether shielded cavities should be an option you can ask for when ordering a G&L.

- Jos

[meowmix]

Thanks for posting your findings. I like the price tag we have on G&Ls now. Any addition will cost extra. The internet is a big place to find the right mod for the guitar.

The cavity in the pic is black, which tells me it is graphite paint. The paint I have heard other people use is, RF paint http://amzn.to/WChnVo, Nickel paint http://amzn.to/WT06VX,
and the Stewmac graphite paint (Cheaper, but requires many coats and time). The A/B/C comparison were all the same. Sonically, no one could hear a difference. The thing with paint is you get all corners covered and there isn't a gap. Working with copper or any other foil works, but imo more difficult to get everything covered. I have plenty of guitars. Taking one down to work on it for weeks is not a problem. On my S type guitar I was able to paint the hole between the control cavity and the plug, not something easily done with foil.

I asked Kevin about shielding the transformer in my amplifier, the reply was use Mu-metal for the best results. I then looked at the price tag and scratched that idea. This makes another point about shielding. We are using a thin layer of paint. To be completely efficient in removing the lower Hz frequencies you need something thick. Beware of people saying XYZ has better properties, when it may certainly do, only when it is over an inch thick. Otherwise a thin layer of paint, they all sound the same.

What I have learned over the past couple of weeks about shielding is what it does not do.
[*]It does not fix the ground loop hum you get in your amplifiers. This is a bigger deal than shielding. First get that amp silent when nothing is plugged in and all knobs to 10. Then slowly add pedals and everything else making sure the noise is minimal.
[*]It does not fix the 60 cycle hum from single coil. I prefer to use the word buzz noise for shielding and hum for 60 cycle.

Before tearing apart the guitar, my suggestion would be to locate the noise first. My first attempt to shield the guitar proved fruitless. The buzz was not the problem, copper is expensive, and time I will never get back.



Oh and those orange caps are Sprague. For tone controls Darth and I suggest to use Silver Mica when possible. I do not like the idea of buying from eBay because I do not trust the quality of these caps as they are cheaper than getting from digikey/mouser. CDE is an excellent company for these pricey caps. Don't buy the 50volt of less, those may break when soldering to the circuit. Usually in the tone control there is a cap at .001uf or larger? You won't be able to find a silver mica cap for these larger values. If you do, the price would be astronomical. Here is it okay to use the orange caps.

[gitman001]

Great stuff, thanks for sharing Darwin!

Scott