Not as of yet. Not sure what will happen with it. Kinda one of those “if I ever get around to it” ideas. We’ll see.
Hey chiller
Here is my old melody maker. I never liked humbuckers, so this gibson with the single coils really cuts through. I put a bigsby on it and it sounds great. It was made sometime in the 60’s and I picked it up at a pawn shop for $200. The fire engine red paint is under the pickguard. Someone stripped it at some point. The strat in the pic I bought new in 1991. It is a japanese strat. Hope you enjoy your strat!!!
Sweet looking guitar, Jeromee, and I bet I would dig it! (Though I’m not much of a Bigsby fan … just a matter of feel.) But I’ve always loved SGs, yet prefer SC pups.
Before buying a strat, you should at least try guitars with these pickups: the “Sensor Lace” noiseless single coil pickups, and “Texas Specials” (in addition to the normal pups). Three completely different sounds! I like the Texas Specials myself, rather hot & dirty little devils they are. The Lace pickups are the complete opposite; very clear and bright and crisp. Standard pickups sound somewhere in the middle to me (and there are lots of different “standard pickups” as well).
Lots of guitarists are extremely sensitive to every little nuance of pickup design and construction (or at least, they think they are). Like James Bond, they can tell you which factory girl coiled that particular hand-wound, as well as other things about her hands, and what mood she was in at the time … 
Not me, I’m just not that sensitive and tuned in (plus I’m a keyboard player first anyway). So take my word for it the difference between these pickups are night and day, not subtleties!
But I see you just went and got an Am Std. You’re not likely to regret that! As much as I like SG’s, I think that Strat will see you both through more years and styles than an SG. For most folks, a Strat is a much better 1st guitar, or even 2nd guitar after an LP.
BTW, something’s wrong with your guitar-player gene. Most folks with that affliction also have a craving to spend countless hours in music stores playing myriad guitars in search of the ONE TRUE GOLDEN AXE. Count your blessings!
Whoa !!
| Quote (learjeff @ Mar. 22 2005,09:41) |
| I’m not much of a Bigsby fan … I’ve always loved SGs…, |
Sir Lear of Jeff, that was two straight instances of blasphemy & heresy !!
And I always thought you were a smart guy…
Well, I've never used a Bigsby enough to learn to love one. Maybe that's the problem! They definitely look cool.
I had a housemate with an SG 28 years ago, and both of us were able to make that baby rock. Maybe there was something we didn't know ...
But I don't even have a strat or an LP! (I have my first guitar, which is a National copy of an LP -- a pretty strange bird it is, too, with laminate formed top rather than carved, giving it an air space ...) My main electric is a '65 Jazzmaster. If I didn't have that I'd probably have a Strat, but shucks, everybody has one, so I can always borrow!
I'm a pretty bad electric player anyways ... Just don't have the touch. Lord knows I've tried!
Heh - as a fairly fresh Gretsch & Bigsby owner I think that dang thing is great. It just felt right the first time I got my sweaty mitts around it. That said, I’m an old Floyd Rose abuser
I never tried an SG where the neck didn’t feel wobbly. I’m pretty heavy handed, though…
A bigsby is the only tremelo I ever used where the guitar would actually stay in tune. All traditional strat trems were terrible. I had 3 strats at one point and every single one had a block of wood in the back 
Now my main gtr is a 52 reissue tele. The most beautiful sounding gtr I ever heard
S’funny, my reissue 57 never has serious tuning problems. 
If I am not mistaken , there is a device called the tremsetter that will keep a Strat in tune…Don’t even know if they make them anymore.
| Quote (learjeff @ Mar. 22 2005,17:51) |
| (I have my first guitar, which is a National copy of an LP -- a pretty strange bird it is, too, with laminate formed top rather than carved, giving it an air space ...) |
An old bandmate of mine used to have a Vantage with similar construction... he referred it as "quarter-acoustic" (is that "demi-semi-acoustic" for Britons?
). Actually, not a bad idea for construction, if somebody'd do it with care.(Gretsch 50s style solidbodies, like my Duojet, come close: they may look like Les Pauls, but there are large air chambers on both sides of the pickups. At the pu area, the top sits solidly on the mahogany, though.)
And Jeff, you're right about guitarists - and us bassists - being sensitive for perceived nuances: Just the other week, I followed an idea from an online Gretsch forum and turned the Dynasonic bridge pickup around, so that the polepieces are on the neck side. There's less than a centimeter difference, but I'm inclined to think the bridge pu now sounds a bit fuller and a bit more mature. Might be just a case of snake oil poisoning, but I'm happy!
And that’s what counts!
The air chamber makes it a good practice guitar, unplugged, because you can hear it a bit better than a solid body. Not that you can really tell what you’re doing, unplugged, unless you already know …
The vibrato bar on my 65 Jazzmaster never puts it out of tune. Perhaps that’s becuase it doesn’t go up, and it only goes down a little – perhaps a half tone. I only use it for subtle purposes anyway. No Floyd Rose dive bombing supported! Funny thing: I had that guitar for 15 years before I even tried the whammy bar, because I’m a stickler for tuning and I assumed it would foul it up. When I finally did try it and it worked great, I felt like a fool! (A rare moment of clarity …) I always use it now, and when I forget to put it on, the guitar feels all wrong.
Hey Ali,
As its 9pm my time, ifn your at scotland, isnt it 5hrs and makes it 2am in the morning?! Whoa! go to bed!
Sorry Chiller, I never saw your post the first time, so didn't respond to it.
Anyway, sleep and I ain't good friends these days.
But anyway, I'm now in California, and even more time-zone screwed up! LOL
But, I still say, for me, feel and playability are much more important than the sound.
But there again, I've been deaf for 20 years.
Ali
As its 9pm my time, ifn your at scotland, isnt it 5hrs and makes it 2am in the morning?! Whoa! go to bed!
Sorry Chiller, I never saw your post the first time, so didn't respond to it.
Anyway, sleep and I ain't good friends these days.
But anyway, I'm now in California, and even more time-zone screwed up! LOL
But, I still say, for me, feel and playability are much more important than the sound.
But there again, I've been deaf for 20 years.
Ali
Ali, AHA thats wy you are posting so late at nite.
If I am not mistaken , there is a device called the tremsetter that will keep a Strat in tune…Don’t even know if they make them anymore.
I need to know more about this, my new strat will not keep in tune.
Every nite retuning after playing for 20 minutes… is that right?
Chiller
It depends; if you are playing hard, bending a lot or really pounding the strings, 20 minutes in tune isn’t so bad… 
Are the strings new? Or old? If the new baby is getting played a lot, strings will naturally stretch out and lose their ability to hold tune. I seldom get more than 4 or 5 hours from a set before I feel like it is time to replace them. If you are sharing the guitar with your son, that just means the strings will go south that much sooner.
Good luck!
'til next time;
Tony W
If I am not mistaken , there is a device called the tremsetter that will keep a Strat in tune......Don't even know if they make them anymore.
There is a device called a Tremsetter, and I have one, somewhere.
I installed it on my Strat, and it's definitely better than the floating bridge on its own.
But I didn't like it. Even using the set-up procedure given by David Borisoff, the inventor (and that is different from the set-up given in the leaflet that comes with it), I still wasn't happy.
I found that big bends on a string would cause the other strings to drop flat, (Ok, I should damp the others, but that's not always my playing style).
So now, I have all five springs in the back, and they're all screwed up tight, and the tremsetter has been removed.
I have a small piece of ebony glued in the slot so that the bridge sits at the correct angle.
The drawback of course, is that I can only "dive", and not do a true tremolo.
But, the plus is, lovely sustain, that wonderful "Strat Reverb", and it stays in tune.
Ali
There is a device called a Tremsetter, and I have one, somewhere.
I installed it on my Strat, and it's definitely better than the floating bridge on its own.
But I didn't like it. Even using the set-up procedure given by David Borisoff, the inventor (and that is different from the set-up given in the leaflet that comes with it), I still wasn't happy.
I found that big bends on a string would cause the other strings to drop flat, (Ok, I should damp the others, but that's not always my playing style).
So now, I have all five springs in the back, and they're all screwed up tight, and the tremsetter has been removed.
I have a small piece of ebony glued in the slot so that the bridge sits at the correct angle.
The drawback of course, is that I can only "dive", and not do a true tremolo.
But, the plus is, lovely sustain, that wonderful "Strat Reverb", and it stays in tune.
Ali
Yeah, that’s why the Jazzmaster trem stays in tune as well as it does, it’s “dive only” and always returns to zero. I find that work just great for nice subtle effects, especially with chords and harmonics.