The Bassist and Guitarist thread

[Drago]

 

[Cycleops]

Have a listen to this. What would Hotel California have been like if recorded by Stevie Ray Vaughan. Absolutely brilliant.

View: https://youtu.be/hNF5_Y7Cz3M?si=a7yvT241KRHBD_-x

Or by Johnny Cash:


View: https://youtu.be/8T-SDp4N24Q?si=-ReGbfcCqDaMi6Et

 

[ColinJ]

Get your entry in quick! (Worldwide entries accepted. Closes 23:59 (BST) May 19th 2024)

WIN a Shergold Telstar Metallic Orange electric guitar worth £379.00 in association with Guitar Interactive Magazine.

 

[rogerzilla]

Not posting pics will get you banned 🚫 from this thread @rogerzilla . Get 'em up quick.

It turned up today. First impressions: it is immaculate and looks good. Lighter than a Les Paul - possibly lighter than my alder-body Tele. The pickups sound good (it has Filter'Trons, unlike the normal G5230). However, it does not play well compared to my Strat, Tele or SG, and needs a good setup. The action is too high and whatever strings are on there feel horrid. It's a short-scale guitar so I was expecting it to be very easy to fret notes, but it isn't.

The Bigsby just gets in the way, really, but you can't get a hardtail Jet with Filter'Trons and hump block inlays, amd I wanted both of those things.

 

[Drago]

Oooh, Bigsby trem.

 

[Cycleops]

That's a beaut @rogerzilla for sure. Especially love the colour.

 

[MontyVeda]

View attachment 731566

It turned up today. First impressions: it is immaculate and looks good. Lighter than a Les Paul - possibly lighter than my alder-body Tele. The pickups sound good (it has Filter'Trons, unlike the normal G5230). However, it does not play well compared to my Strat, Tele or SG, and needs a good setup. The action is too high and whatever strings are on there feel horrid. It's a short-scale guitar so I was expecting it to be very easy to fret notes, but it isn't.

The Bigsby just gets in the way, really, but you can't get a hardtail Jet with Filter'Trons and hump block inlays, amd I wanted both of those things.

Where did you get it from? It's not good to ship a guitar like that without setting up first

It is lovely though. It will be great with a decent set up.

 

[Drago]

Will a set up suriving being manhandled roughly by the parcel boys, sucden changes in temperature and climate, etc? Not automatically.

One wouldn't expect sharp fret ends etc, but it's not unreasonable to expect to have to do a truss rod tweak or set the action to your personal preference.

 

[rogerzilla]

It was secondhand. I don't think it's really been played. I'm not a good player but I know when a guitar feels right. I have an Epiphone SG that was new and exactly right out of the box.

If the frets are good enough, I like the action at 4/64" for all strings. A Sturmey-Archer spacing washer is rather useful for this!

 

[Drago]

On the bass in particular I prefer the strings a touch above average in height. I'm a big one for showing off with hammer-ons and pull-offs and having the strings on the deck works against that a smidge.

 

[MontyVeda]

Will a set up suriving being manhandled roughly by the parcel boys, sucden changes in temperature and climate, etc? ...

delivery won't affect the way the nut has been cut and shouldn't affect the saddles either. The climate inside the packing should be reasonably ambient unless they just wrapped it in brown paper.

I was presuming the guitar had come from a music store, hence presuming it should have been set up reasonably well... but from a private seller one can't always expect that. Maybe the previous owner played slide, hence the high action?

I have made several guitars a lot worse by trying to set them up without really knowing what i was doing... but these days we have youtube

 

[rogerzilla]

Neck relief is just about spot on, so truss rod doesn't need touching. I'll see how low I can get the bridge before it chokes the notes on the higher frets. I think a lot of it is to do with the strings, though. Not sure what gauge is on there but they look like D'Addario from the coloured ball ends. I would expect 10s to be pretty easy on a 24.6" scale guitar. I have some Ernie Ball 10s I can try.

 

[Drago]

delivery won't affect the way the nut has been cut and shouldn't affect the saddles either. The climate inside the packing should be reasonably ambient unless they just wrapped it in brown paper.

I was presuming the guitar had come from a music store, hence presuming it should have been set up reasonably well... but from a private seller one can't always expect that. Maybe the previous owner played slide, hence the high action?

I have made several guitars a lot worse by trying to set them up without really knowing what i was doing... but these days we have youtube

No, indeed, nut, frets (already mentioned frets, and while it was unspoken other physical non adjustable items would be lumped in with that) etc should be properly finished.

But action is as much a taste thing as anything else, so we should all be prepared to set it to our personal tastes. And from there we could end up tweaking intonation as well as that alters slightly woth the action. First thing I do is throw away the original strings and fit Ernie Balls anyway, so who cares what it's like with the shite OE strings?

Even in hard cases instruments suffer sufficiently for set ups to be affected. I often have to tweak a truss rod between gigs a few nights apart and I treat the planks a lot better than the courier will.

How many times have we seen on a guitar or bass forum that a new buyer is complaining their new bass from Germany needed a truss rod adjustment? It's unrealistic to expect that a) an instrument will be set up exactly according to one person's tastes, and b) that every single instrument will arrive without requiring adjustment no matter how well set up they may have been at point of dispatch.

Physical finish of items aside, the set up preference is an entirely personal affair, and even instruments kept indoors at home in relatively benign circumstances can be expected to require minor fettling throughout the year if one expects to keep the set up completely consistent, as indeed some of my fleet do.

 

[Cycleops]

Unleash your inner Chet Atkins or Brian Setzer to your hearts desire

 

[Drago]

Unleash your inner Chet Atkins or Brian Setzer to your hearts desire

It is a good looking beast he's got there. Guitars don't tug my rug as much as basses, but that is right nice.