It’s been almost two months since I posted last and I’ve had some lineup changes in the guitar department.
Musicians, and especially guitarists, are often victims of GAS, or Gear Acquisition Syndrome. We might be happy for a while, but eventually, for the majority of us, the beast only stays dormant for so long.
I sold the following guitars, some of which were acquired as well, between the last post and this one
- 1995 Fender American Standard Stratocaster
- Sold via Craigslist
- 2021 Fender Player Series Telecaster
- Traded PRS SE277 Baritone for it
- Sold to a friend
- 1981 Hondo H-737
- Traded EQD Dunes, Kokko Compressor, and Mosky M-Drive
- Sold to a friend
- Ibanez GSR105EX 5-string bass
- Sold via Craigslist
- 2020 Paul Reed Smith S2 McCarty 594
- Traded along with a pair of Mackie HR624 Mk2 Monitors for 2012 Les Paul Traditional with hard case
- 2021 Paul Reed Smith SE277 Baritone
- Traded for a Fender Player Series Telecaster
- 1997 Squier Affinity Duo Sonic
- Sold to a friend
- Squier Mini-Stratocaster
- Sold via Facebook Marketplace
Since September, the following guitars have been purchased or traded form. Guitars in italics have sold, as listed in the Sold tab.
- 2012 Gibson Les Paul Traditional (November 11th)
- Traded 2021 PRS S2 McCarty 594 and a pair of Mackie HR624 MK2 monitors
- 2021 Fender Player Series Telecaster (October)
- Sold to a friend
- 197X Session Les Paul (maybe Japanese made) (October)
- Purchased on Reverb from local seller
- 2022 Squier Classic Vibe Stratocaster (September)
- Purchased for 50% off on ProAudioStar.com Labor Day sale
- 2022 Squier Classic Vibe Late ’60s Jazz Bass (September)
- Purchased for 50% off on Fender.com Labor Day Sale
- 2022 Squier Classic Vibe ’70s Jaguar (November – will be a Christmas present for Ellie)
- Purchased from Sweetwater.com
- 1997 Squier Affinity Duo Sonic (October, non-working)
- Traded a Lovepedal Jubilee, Tapestry Audio Fab Suisse, and TC Nova Delay
- Sold to a friend
For years, I dismissed the Squier brand, but after recently wanting to sell my 1995 Fender American Standard Stratocaster, I wanted to have a strat because it’s a distinct sound. However, I felt bad letting a guitar that averaged sales of $1300 over the last two years just sitting in case on a shelf. Spending $250 on a Squier, especially in my favorite Fender/Squier color was too good to pass up.
The colors below correspond as close to the instrument’s color
The Classic Vibe 60’s Stratocaster
I was VERY surprised by this guitar. This model normally goes for $459, but ProAudioStar.com had them for $249 for Labor Day. As far as I can tell, it was not a used model.
Straight out of the box, it was really close to my idea of perfect right out of the box. I adjusted the truss rod and tweaked the intonation, but had to do very little. When I took it to Big John to check out, he said there really wasn’t much to adjust. I’ll let things settle for a few months and we’ll revisit it.
I replaced the pickguard and rear plate with white pearloid verions, and also swapped vintage style tuners with some better ones that were on the Squier Mini Strat I sold, but I haven’t changed anything else. My end goal is to get a hold of some Fender Texas Special pickups and install them, but I’m happy with what’s in them for now.
The Classic Vibe Late ’60s Jazz Bass
These are normally $480, but Fender had them on sale for $250. I could not pass this up. I absolutely LOVE the way the neck looks on this thing. The pearloid inlays are *chef’s kiss*. The Indian Laurel wood isn’t the darkest (certainly nowhere close to rosewood), but I added some fretboard conditioner and it darkened up rather nicely.
The bass, unlike the Strat, was NOT close to perfect out of the box. Big John had to adjust the neck significantly (he showed me how to make adjusting the truss rod so much easier and I did the adjustment on the Strat) and the frets towards the end of the neck were sharp.
The pickups are dirty, but not in a bad way. Interestingly, they offer a similar yet distinctly different aural palate than my Fender P-Bass Deluxe does, and I love it. I think it still needs some adjustment to get to where I like it, but it’s made me excited to play bass.
I did replace the bridge with a Fender High Mass Bass Bridge and changed the pickguard out for a white pearloid one (I can’t help it). I might end up changing the tuners at a later date as well, but I’m surprisingly OK with the pickups. Maybe they’ll get replaced some day, maybe for some Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounders or something, but as for now they retain residence.
The Classic Vibe ’70s Jaguar
I don’t have this one yet. In fact, it won’t ship until Tuesday. This one is going to be Ellie’s first real guitar. Sure, she had a Mini Squire but she never really tried playing it. This time, I will make sure she gives it a good go. It’s black with a tortoiseshell pickguard, and it has the same style neck as the Jazz Bass.
Pro Audio Star had used versions of the sunburst and green colored ones but Ellie really wants a black one. I bought it on Sweetwater. The cool thing about Sweetwater is it shows the Serial Numbers AND pictures of the actual guitar. Not only does the neck on the one I chose have the darkest wood of the three they had, the Serial Number also contains Ellie’s birthdate backwards, and in European format (so 21, 90, and 71) which was too coincidental to pass up.
When it arrives on Thursday, I’ll take it out of the box, mess around with it, and then it will go with me to get setup. Once that’s done, it goes in the closet to wait until Christmas Day.
The colors below correspond as close to the instrument’s color
2012 Gibson Les Paul Traditional
I just traded for this two days ago on November 11th. I’d owned my PRS S2 McCarty 594 for almost two years. I’ve tried to force myself to bond with it and I just couldn’t. The pickups, while trying to replicate the sound of the Classic 57 Gibsons utilize, sounded flat to my ears.
Someone who was selling this Gibson reached out to me and we worked out a trade where I included a pair of studio monitors to even things up.
Yeah, I love this thing. While the color (Desert Burst) isn’t my favorite, I actually like it quite a bit. While I’d trade it for another color, I’m not going to actively sort it out.
I have a Les Paul Classic that had Classic 57 pickups in it, but recently swapped them out for something a bit different. It’s cool to have a guitar with them again. While the Les Paul Classic will have some extra flexibility with the pickups, this Traditional is exactly that…the traditional “PAF” sound with no extra bells and whistles. Just straight humbucking goodness. It might need some better pots down the road, but I’ll let Big John be the judge of that.
197x Session Les Paul copy
The guitar is black but black font on a black background isn’t good. For years now, I’ve wanted a guitar built in my birth year of 1978 but those have gotten pretty expensive pretty quick. A post on Craigslist of a guy selling a 1980s Burny Les Paul, which was a maker from Japan that used to make Les Paul copies and even put Les Paul on the headstock. It made me realize that I can look up 1970s “Lawsuit” Les Pauls and pick one of those up.
Now, most of these import copies have some defining traits: plywood bodies, garbage electronics, bolt on necks, and microphonic pickups (which means they, like the Hondo I owned) are incredibly noisy and do not handle overdrive very well.
This Session model, which might be made in Korea (I’ll get to that in a sec) has a set neck and the pickups are quiet AND pretty hot. They sound really good, to be honest.
Now, the good Japanese imports had wood bodies while this one has a plywood body, while Korean-made copies had the plywood body. The pickup routes in the body, however, look like the normal Japanese style. We’ll have to end up taking the electronics out and doing some digging, and I’m not real pressed to do that.
I ended up paying $400 even for it. It looks cool, plays VERY well, especially for a guitar nearing 50 years old, and it just has a cool vibe to it that I like.
That being said, I picked it up with the idea that it’d be my 2nd humbucker guitar because I had intended on selling the PRS (which is now gone) and now I have both the Les Paul Classic and Traditional. I have to decide if this is worth selling or holding onto and doing something “interesting” with the pickups.
Needless to say, there’s been a bit of traffic in and out of the stable of guitars I have.
I can see a couple of these guitars eventually finding new homes, like the Session Les Paul, Epiphone ES339 that sits behind me and just isn’t doing it for me, and the purple Fender Roadworn ’50s Telecaster. Time will tell.