I Bought A New Guitar Last Night

First time in a long time, but i just had to replace one of my guitars because i've always been unhappy with the floating bridge on it. And, i've never bought a highline guitar before. I've got good ones, but no great ones.

So, yesterday went out and bought a highline Ibanez (the middle of the Satriani signature line). Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. Now, i have a great guitar.

It plays like a dream and the pickups are so smooth sounding, but still high output. The bridge is tight and so responsive that i can do all the Joe Satch and Reeves Gabrels stuff i hear in my head (although obviously not as well as Joe). The neck is slim and fast.

Through my Boogie and my PW10 wah, i am truly hearing my fingers do the sound i've been hearing in my head for 15 years.

Wasn't cheap, but worth every penny, and i only played it for 45 minutes last night.

I know, i know. Who cares? But, i'm just bustin' out i'm so excited, so i needed to share.
The Professor

I know how you feel. I have played teles all my life, and I just got me an Epiphone Sheriton II, I am floored by how much I love it. I feel bad for my 2 Tele's but hey..we all get dumped a few times in our lives.

is a great Hollowbody. my friend has one and I love it.
I like the tobacco sunburst finish---looks classy.

Then again i love a good old Tele---they are great to play and have a very distinctive sound.

There is still no substitute for it when you want a thin, glassy sound when your using a clean tone. This new guitar has coil splitting, and when you use both pickups as single coil, it has a very nice Stratty or Tele-ish tone, but it's still not the same as the Tele.

But, when using a saturated tone, it blows away anything i've ever owned. I'm happy, happy, happy, but would still never put my Tele into storage. It's still out on my 5 guitar stand so i can grab and play as the mood strikes.
The Professor

of a new axe

Congrats!

:-)

I need more other musicians to be appropriately jealous.
The Professor

He'll oooh and aaaah to your satisfaction.

So, he owes me some ooohs. Maybe not Aaahs, but at least ooohs!
The Professor

:(

get him into a music store and he is like a kid around candy...
He plays an Ovation w/pickup right now, and an Ibanez bass.
Enjoy it!
BTW, you a prof in St Peter???

I live on the fringes of Chicagoland.
The Professor

No, the GAC are my initials.
The Professor

I know the feeling, when you move from good to great, but I get that in golf equipment.

Now, if you'd bought new irons, I'd be drooling MUCH more than I am. ;-)

Just bought a beautiful Yamaha drum kit. :-) :drool:

Sounds fucking awesome, now if I can just play like Manu Katche I'll be set. :-)

Joe Satriani's self titled bluesy album with Katche on drums and Nathan East on Bass and Andy F-L on guitar is just so damn good.

Are you a tube guy, or a solid state guy? I always wished I could play guitar, but I'm just not coordinated enough for it.

But what does a "good" guitar cost these days. (I have a son who plays with no Christmas present bought yet) ????

Which is a very good good price for this guitar, with the hard shell case. I think it lists at $1500.

But, Ibanez and Fender both make VERY good guitars that are considerably cheaper. You sacrifice things for the lower cost. But, some of those are slightly lesser quality wood, somewhat cheaper electronics, and less detail in the finish. (My guitar is a hand rubbed stain, so the woodgrain shows through the color, while the lower priced stuff is typically painted. It's cheaper to spray on paint than it is to hand rub a finish.)

My friend has an Ibanez that was less than half the cost of mine and it plays really well. The pickups are not as sweet sounding and the body isn't sculpted. That extra carving, while mostly aesthetic, is expensive, too! The floating bridge on mine is top of the line stuff, so that alone probably added $75 to the cost of the guitar. If it had a fixed bridge, it probably would have been $175 less.

So, these things add up. But, none of them are "have to have's". (Well, in my case, they were. But, a year ago, they wouldn't have been.)

I've seen Fender's (made in Mexico) for as little as $250 and have played them. They are perfectly good guitars. My other friend has a Mexican Stratocaster and it's really, really nice. Again, it's just a plain black paint job, but the guitar plays and sounds very good.

There are plenty of other affordable brands out there and the only issue is how much do you want to spend.
The Professor

Not the highest quality in the world, but certainly a good guitar to futz around with and learn on. Technically, you can get a "higher line" model for much cheaper if you don't mind not having a "Made in USA" Fender. A friend of mine has a Mexican Telecast Deluxe that sounds great.

I went to this shop and bought a Heritage (orginal makers of Gibson stayed behind in K-Zoo Michigan to hand craft them) - they are excellent sounding - even better than the Gibson!

It replaced my Ibanez at the time....

but I still can't get away from my Jaguar!

I've got a 1962 Jazzmaster that i saved from the scrap heap. There really wasn't much wrong with it, the guy i got it from just didn't like it, and when it wouldn't play right, he dumped it on me, really cheap.

The Jag is nice because of the shorter scale. The neck is 3/4" shorter than a standard Fender neck, so the string tension is lower. It makes for some nice slippin' and slidin' around the neck, doesn't it?
The Professor

I like the old school pickups and the longer neck. I am a bass player and I have big fingers, so that might be part of it.

They sound differently, play differently. I like them both, but only have the one. Always liked the Jag. Never enough to buy one, though.
The Professor

The fretboard is easy to play - which is why I love it.

Also, It sounds pretty retro with the right amp..

I haven't ever played a jazzmaster, although I always wanted to...

Swervedriver's guitarist used to play with one and it sounded nice.

I like those Ibanez models...you're right the neck is fast on them....you deserve it Prof! Shred away!

but there is something special about investing in a new instrument.
Glad to hear you are already getting different feels and tones out of your new axe, Professor:hi:

Gee, who would have figured you weren't a guitar player. Your screen name sure wouldn't reveal anything, would it?
The Professor

Last time I bought a new instrument was my Rickenbacker 5-string bass about four years ago.

Since then I've only been buying used gear, generally at yard sales and similarly informal venues. Over the summer I bought the cheesiest sub-Teisco guitar, which I hope to rework into an electric bouzouki-- I'll add two tuning pegs and rebuild the bridge.

An Electric Bouzouki. . .Cool!
The Professor

The Professor

I asked this earlier, but I guess you didn't see it.:hi:

I play through a Boogie. Wah pedal, chorus unit, tube amp!
My "spare" amp is a small Fender tube amp.

For bass, i like solid state, but for guitar, tubes! I've had both. I've had modeling pedals to try to get a "tubey" sound, but it's easiest to just buy the right amp.
The Professor

I've got a Marshall S80 stereo combo that has the hybrid set up..tube preamp, solid state everything else. 40wx2, true stereo effects loop...the new ones have a mono effects loop. This amp sound great, it's never let me down it sound wise, anywhere I've ever gone with it.

I got an Ibanez 540 years ago for Xmas...but it was the only Ibanez on the earth that came with a big fat neck, and these monster jumbo frets...so I never really liked it. Sounded great, but a bitch to play...and it made me envious of all my friends who had Ibanez guitars with little skinny necks lol.

I eventually got the neck scalloped, which helped a little, but I still don't play that guitar much.

Right now, I mainly play my 2 Strats...one has a Warmoth scalloped neck, and the other is an Yngwie signature model. The warmoth scallop is even deeper than the Yngwie one, but once you get used to it, it rocks. Warmoth makes VERY nice stuff if you ever need to replace a neck. My goal is to buil a guitar from the ground up one day, using all warmoth parts. I know what I want, I just need the $1500 to buy it all!

It's not scalloped. It's a birdseye maple neck with matching fingerboard. It's worth more than the whole guitar would have been with the original neck, i think. I bought the neck in 1983, (i think) for $400. That'd be about an $800 neck today.

It does look nice, and i still play that guitar, but third on my list. My new one, the Tele, then the Strat. The other 2 electrics are special application guitars. (One is Dan Armstrong lucite body that's set up for slide.)
The Professor

And deserves recognition. Something about a sparkling-new guitar that really inspires.

I'm pretty much an acoustic man these days (Gibson SJ-200 Montana Gold and Martin 000-28EC), but the same laws apply.

Now, go tickle those frets!
:toast:

I have my Takamine and Giannini on the stand, ready to go at a moments notice, but lately i've been 95% electric. Or i do what i really know how to do and play the piano that's 3 feet from the guitar rack. The acoustics seem to be getting angry over it, too!
The Professor

Lower the action, and Set the intonnation.....see if you feel the same way about it.

Ever played a Vigier? You can set the action down so low that the strings seem to be sitting right down on the frets.