Any opinions?
I saw Restless Heart perform last night. Their lead guitarist, Greg Jennings, is quite an accomplished player. He only played one electric guitar through the entire set, but got a great range of tones out of it. At the autograph session after the show I asked what kind of Strat it was and he said Don Grosh. Have any of you played a Grosh before?? Seemed like a great guitar.
Don Grosh Guitars
Oh my…
DROOOOOOL…
I have not heard of them until now…
D
Droool ? 
I think that one look rather hideous…
Oh, wait, that’s my problem, not yours 
Reminds me of one of these cheap guitars…
Sanatoga Semi-hollowbody
The difference is that the cheap one has a set neck.
I hear that they are doing great things with screws these days…
| Quote (teryeah @ May 05 2006,19:55) |
| Droool ? I think that one look rather hideous... Oh, wait, that's my problem, not yours
|
I get it Teryeah... you like dem BIG bodies best!
D --
| Quote (Diogenes @ May 05 2006,21:49) | ||
I get it Teryeah... you like dem BIG bodies best! D --
|
"Skinny little me wants a big fat blonde" ( © Bob Walkenhorst)
Nah, that thing just looks plain weird with the placement of the f-hole (note use of singular form), the pup combo, too flamed top for everything else, bad proportions & a lousy overall appearance.
EVERYthing's wrong with that plank, from an estethetic (sp?) POV.
Bad proportions are bad proportions no matter what size you are
Heh - IMHO, of course
I could do without the f-hole. Don’t like the gold covered humbucker and I’d prefer an ebony fretboard. Other than that… I think it’s PURTY!
D
I like it too. Think it looks like a sex bomb.
I can’t comment on Grosh guitars but if you are thinking about investing in a custom guitar, check out my friend Bob Arconti’s guitar - Arconti.
Bob will build whatever kind of guitar you want, within his design framework, and put whatever you want on it. He also uses really nice necks and has the guitar setup by a pro in Hollywood.
I don’t own an Arconti but I’ve played a number of his guitars & they are really, really nice.
HEY…My Tele has an F-hole.
| Quote (Mr Soul @ May 06 2006,00:07) |
| I can't comment on Grosh guitars but if you are thinking about investing in a custom guitar, check out my friend Bob Arconti's guitar - Arconti. Bob will build whatever kind of guitar you want, within his design framework, and put whatever you want on it. He also uses really nice necks and has the guitar setup by a pro in Hollywood. I don't own an Arconti but I've played a number of his guitars & they are really, really nice. |
I'm not sure why anyone would buy an expensive electric guitar with a bolt-on neck. As a guy who has been building and repairing guitars for 35 years, bolt-on neck guitars seem to be a cop out. If you want a guitar with better tone and sustain, there really is no choice; you buy a glued (set) neck or neck-thru guitar.
A bolt-on neck implies that the guitar maker is not good enough to properly set a guitar neck...
Well, Doc, a lot of people would disagree with you there, horses for courses & all that…
‘Better tone’ is a slightly (cough) subjective term.
| Quote (teryeah @ May 06 2006,12:18) |
| Well, Doc, a lot of people would disagree with you there, horses for courses & all that… ‘Better tone’ is a slightly (cough) subjective term. |
You are right of course Tery. The bulk of the tone in a solid body electric comes from the pickups, the strings and the hands of the player. But I still stand by my statement. I would never pay more than $500 for a bolt-on neck guitar. And that includes the nicest Fender ever made.
Although “favorite guitar” is a highly subjective call, there is a point where knowledge and experience come into play. I have spent 35 years building and repairing all sorts of fretted instruments (literally thousands of guitars), and I can pretty safely say that the best bolt-on neck guitar does not come close to the quality, resonance, playability and feel of the best neck-thru or set-neck guitar.
Personal preference, I understand, but if we all get together someday, I can prove it…
[EDIT] although, I have an old Ibanez Roadstar II “bolt-on” Strat copy from the mid-1980s that I think would cause a few of you “Fender purists” to go and spit on your guitar…
I agree with Dr Guitar…if this was 20 years ago and there was still craftsmanship left in the world!
In todays world a bolt on might be a better choice then a bad or cheap set-neck. You can always bolt on another one!
I think that at least after $1000 I want to see real furniture craftsmanship with lots of detail work in the neck especially like even frets, great tuners, smoothed out edges, a bone nut or even a comp system, a smooth action and a contoured heal.
I sold my '71 ES345 10 years ago and have been an unhappy camper ever since!
I have never been a Fender fan…unless I was in a flood and needed an oar!
Of course, today I don’t have a great guitar…A Pre-Fender Jackson…which has a bolt on but it HAS a great little neck. I’ve rewired it several times and today it has 2 '59 Seymore’s and push-pulls for coil splitting and works out pretty well for the variety of sounds it can get.
When I got into computer recording my desires in a guitar changed quite a bit as I have to record direct in and not mic’d. As fun as the Jackson is “live”…it has a lot of drawbacks “direct in”. It’s very harmonically active and direct in accentuates (sp?) that.
Today I dream of a variax…although I’ve never tried one.
KingFish
KingFish, I have a Variax 500. It does a lot of good things, but if you’re a tone purist, it may disappoint you. I find that one the bigger advantages is that when doing home recordings, you can switch between acoustics and electrics quickly, which makes it a snap to lay down multiple guitar tracks. There are a few electronic bugaboos and tone issues related to the piezo pickup, but overall I’ve been very happy with mine.
Interesting to hear the opinions associated with bolt-on vs.
neck-thru or set-neck guitars.
I’ve never given it much thought. I tend to view the sustain issue as urban myth, because I have both types of guitars and I don’t see alot of difference. I mean the neck-thru concept got taken to an extreme with those guitars with aluminum necks (which I thought sounded terrible).
I personally like necks that I can take off & replace. I did that recently with a $300 Ibanez Silver Series strat and I replaced it’s neck. It’s one of the nicest electric guitars I’ve ever owned. It’s got lot’s sustain & sonds sweet.
I also like to not pay no more than $500 for any guitar but I’ve violated the rule on occasion.
I can appreciate your persecptive as a guitar repair man but I would still think it would be easier to work on bolt-on necks?
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| I tend to view the sustain issue as urban myth, because I have both types of guitars and I don’t see alot of difference. |
I agree totally. My reasons are based on past experience and I’m not a guitar player but a drummer that plays guitar and worked as a guitar repairman for a while.
Most neck-thrus (Jackson’s - Gibson LP’s - etc) are made from heavier wood in the first place than most bolt-ons (Fenders - Charvels - etc). In the end it’s the heavier more solid bodied guitars that have the most natural pure sustain. This doesn’t take into account tone or electronics, but the strings continuing to vibrate.
Some guitars that have super strong magnets on the pickups have much less sustain because the magnets drag on the strings, and can go so far as to interfere with the harmonics. Having pickups too close to the strings can do the same things. Closer and stronger is not always better for sustain. It will give more output and that can make the sustain seem longer when distortion or limiting is added.
But there is this resonance thing. Lighter guitars will have resonances at different frequency ranges than heavier guitars, and they are usually at a higher pitch. That can translate into some lighter guitars seeming to have more sustain than heavier guitars. This is very apparent when dealing with semi-hollow or true hollow-body guitars. Some hollow-body guitars scream sustain.
Floating bridges and whammy bars can kill sustain when compared to a solid bridge on the same guitar. everything else being equal that is.
Neck mounting method can affect resonance for sure, but there is a lot of other stuff that can affect it as well. All that adds up to the neck mounting method being a small part of the reason guitars have sustain…as very small part when looking at all the other stuff.
| Quote (Mr Soul @ May 08 2006,13:40) |
| I can appreciate your persecptive as a guitar repair man but I would still think it would be easier to work on bolt-on necks? |
Sure, bolt-ons are much easier to repair when there is a problem with a neck set or a poor neck angle. My contention is that such a problem should not exist in the first place when you have a quality built guitar. Some guitars fit so shotty in the neck pocket that it allows the neck to move from side to side (think old Kramer bolt-ons and old Jackson bolt-on electrics). And these are guitars from 20 years ago (sorry Kingfish).
As Phoo has so eloquently pointed out, there are many variables in guitar "sustain and resonance". My point is that "all things being equal", a neck=thru or a neck set design is superior to a bolt-on system. So superior in fact that the bolt-on design pales in comparison. There are rare few ways to prove such a statement except through experience with thousands of guitars or maybe two guitars from a company that have the same hardware and woods but different neck configurations. Such a design difference can be found in Ibanez Roadstar electrics from the mid 1980s. The 100 series Roadstars (the holy grail of Strat copies) were bolt on electrics with similar hardware and woods as the 1400 series. The difference was that the 1400 and 1500 were neck thru and the 100 series were bolt-on. A more recent comparison could be made with "The Bolt" electric guitars from Carvin and any of the neck-thru guitars by the same company.
Keep in mind guys that how a guitar feels is very personal and some people are just going to like a bolt-on feel better for whatever reason. But I submit that sustain is not a myth. And although the best fitted bolt-on neck guitar will come close to a neck-thru in sustain, you probably are not playing the best fitted bolt-on.
Mr. Soul, I actually liked the Travis Bean (aluminum neck-thru) electrics. They had a ridiculously fast neck and amazing sustain. I did not like the Kramer aluminum necks though. THe balance was wrong and the tone sucked.
Lastly, a guitar is more than just sustain. And the fact is that you can coax sustain out of a guitar with proper finger technique. My real point is that a bolt-on guitar neck is like a cheap, fast copy of a real neck pocket design. It seems like the manufacturer couldn't get it together to be precise enough to build a real neck joint and instead decided that a bolt-on would do the trick.
So although it might be easier to work on after it is built, I would rather they build it right the first time....
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| Such a design difference can be found in Ibanez Roadstar electrics from the mid 1980s. The 100 series Roadstars (the holy grail of Strat copies) were bolt on electrics with similar hardware and woods as the 1400 series. |
Interesting. I have an Ibanez Silver Star (78) which I thought was the holy grail strat copy. I also have an Roadster (79) which has a quadra-lock neck.