Greetings from Portugal

[joaopazguitar]

Hi guys!

My name is Joao (John) and I'm a musician/teacher, guitar/violin The guitar part is mostly about jazz, my favourite genre.

I know very little about G&L - just the trivia part, actually. But I always loved the looks of G&L guitars and the fact that, just by the photos, they inspired me trust and quality of materials and build. I thought I would buy a Tele type but, yesterday, on a trade, I ended up with this wonderful S-500 on my lap. I had been searching for a Strat with a DF type bridge and so when a guy offered me this one for my Fender Jaguar I jumped in. The Fender is a great guitar and I was apprehensive at first. But after spending the whole day yesterday cleaning and setting it up, and playing it - I'm delighted I did this trade!

I didn't want to plug it into my hand before finishing the whole setup part, but as I was moving along, just by holding it and working on it I was amazed - and am really in love with it - just hope to someday switch to big jumbo frets but that's another stage.

I believe my has what is called a PBT tone control, didn't know about that when I got it! Also it has that little switch that really and dramatically changes the tone - I suppose it must be some sort of series/parallel wiring. Any tips about this will be appreciated

OK, let's see if I can share some photos .... or it didn't happen, right? Thanks for reading!

[Fumble fingers]

Beautiful guitar !!! ..... controls are volume , treble and bass ........ the toggle switch does different stuff depending on pick up selector position ,

toggle switch on (towards the neck) while in pick up selector position 1 or 5 will combine the neck and bridge pick up together at the same time
....selector position 2 and 4 will engage all three pickups at the same time
..... position 3 (middle) has no effect from the toggle switch , it still will be middle pick up only ...... so with the mini toggle you get 2 more sounds than the normal 5 ..... 7 total pick up cominations

[joaopazguitar]

Thank you!
So that's easy to remember, very ingenious.

Didn't mention on first post. Previous owner replaced the knobs, I believe... but kept the original ones so all's good.

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Off-topic - nice to see this old-school smilies around

[JagInTheBag]

Shes a beauty! Welcome to the club. I have a Jaguar and an S-500. The S-500 gets all the love!

[joaopazguitar]

Shes a beauty! Welcome to the club. I have a Jaguar and an S-500. The S-500 gets all the love!

Thanks for the welcome, JiTB!

Last December I had reached 40... guitars in my studio But that was a a kind of a wake up call and I started selling. I'm not a collector, so I just was buying the guitars that could interest me. And also a bit a quest for *my* perfect axe. I had a Squier Stratocaster Classic Vibe (top of Squier range) and sold it because of the bridge. The guitar was great in everything but the bridge was really not up to par with the rest of the specs. So I sold her and kind of regret it ever since, because I always liked Strats even though they may not be very suitable for my music, jazz.

Sorry for this long into... the thing is that with 40 guitars I had to learn a few things about them to avoid bankrupcy. Just changing strings in the whole roster was daunting. I have a few USA made Teles and LPs, and a few wonderful Ibanez's and The Loar's.

But since this G&L arrived I don't want to play any other. I mentioned the Squier because in a sense it was related to this S-500... the Squier CV represents the best of the non-USA made instruments by Fender.

My S-500 I believe it's make in Korea? (will have to double check) So it's also a non-USA model from a respectable brand. But my old (lovely) Squier and this G&L are in different leagues. Don't need to tell you which one wins, by large This one also beats by the trade-in, a Mex FSR Jaguar, and it's up to par at the very least) with my American Special Telecaster.

My new non-USA G&L is a sweet and sure feels like a "real" instrument. I'll have to learn and investigate and ultimately buy a USA-made G&L Strat pretty soon

[EmGeezer]

lovely wood grain on your S-500. Made a good choice, as you already know. Love that pole pieces can be individually set. I had one of those CV strats, 50's version, and really are quite remarkable value. maybe you ought to keep eye open for semi hollow bluesboy? Seems that might be a bit more jazz oriented and/or adaptable.

[joaopazguitar]

Just read my dumb statement above about the Squier CV being the best of non_USA Fender production .. totally forgot about the Mex line

but, still....

lovely wood grain on your S-500. Made a good choice, as you already know. Love that pole pieces can be individually set. I had one of those CV strats, 50's version, and really are quite remarkable value. maybe you ought to keep eye open for semi hollow bluesboy? Seems that might be a bit more jazz oriented and/or adaptable.

...yes, my CV was the 50s version, too. The bridge was my only turnoff. The body, compared with the S-500 felt thinner, but the guitar was super comfortable and sounded amazing! The finish was perfect and the fret job idem!

Oh! Hadn't noticed that yet, the individual adjustable polepieces - thanks for that! And before getting my G&L the semihollow Bluesboy was exactly what I had in mind

[Lu7s]

Bem vindo João,

Bela colecção de guitarras, sem dúvida que merecia estar aí "uma" G&L
Quem sabe eu não decido vender a minha Bluesboy...

Abraço,
Luis

[joaopazguitar]

Bem vindo João,

Bela colecção de guitarras, sem dúvida que merecia estar aí "uma" G&L
Quem sabe eu não decido vender a minha Bluesboy...

Abraço,
Luis

Thanks, Luís! Tenho estada a vender uma boa parte mas as especiais para mim ficam cá todas - incluindo a G&L!
Quem sabe então um dia não fazemos negócio!
Abraço!
João