Guitar porn/Gear Aquisition Syndrome (GAS)

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How many guitarists out there drool over new guitars and what not?


Lately I've been hard up on this new Fender that's coming out called the Pawn Shop Mustang Special. Not only is is just beautiful:







But the specs are any control freak's dream: The two on/off switches that the Mustang is known for are now coil selectors (ie, you can tap either coil or have both going). 3 way switch. Same small scale comfort and it does away with the vibrato for a hard tail bridge. Now, while I do love the vibrato on my current Mustang (it's great for what I do which is less bar-based and just "grab it and shake" style vibrato), a hard tail is always great for an alternative and probably more up to speed for everyone else.

Now if only I could get that and throw in some Q-Tuner pickups, I think I'd be good. At least, with that guitar. :p

http://www.fender.com/products/pawnshop ... No=0266400

I've had my eye on the Mayones Regius 7 guitar. You can get it in various specs but the one I would go for is the 7 string, 27" baritone scale. Also comes with EMG's. I used to talk with Larry Roberts from Novembers Doom and he said if I wanted a really deep sound then I should invest in a good baritone guitar. I've always wanted a guitar that just had that bone crushing low end and this is the one to get the job done. Not sure on the price, though I've heard these things can go for roughly over $1000. My last guitar (BC Rich Ironbird LTD) went for $650, so whats a couple more hundred dollars

I try to avoid GASing, I can't afford it. But I will steal a look at the violins, cellos, violas and basses from time to time. I am for sure finally getting a real violin of my own at the end of the month. Far better than the cheapy I have now.

I get serious wood for some fine instruments, with curves in all the right places. I sold a lot of my equipment off before I moved out though...
Someday when I am more financially secure I will indulge my GAS much more fully

I've always had it really bad. When I was touring I had an excuse, they were paying their way because I was using them on stage every night. Now that I don't play that much I've managed to cut down. I parted with some Gibsons and a Gretch, that was hard. I have only seven guitars now. I used to use a lot of brands but I've become somewhat fixated on Telecasters.

I have three electric ones, one is a stock '77 in Placid Blue with a maple neck. Some of the '70s ones have poorly wound pickups that ring and feedback. When I picked it up I thought maybe I'd have to throw on some Texas Specials or maybe some Lindy Frailins, but it sounds classic, no need to change anything. Some tried to tell me that the stock tuners wouldn't hold a tune, or that the three saddle bridges never intonate right, but it holds a tune just fine and it sounds great, close enough I can't tell.

Then I have a custom Tele that I built about 30 years ago, a butcher block Mahogany body, all brass hardware, a PAF in the lead position and a DeMarzio for rhythm. It has a longer headstock too, so I could use full-sized Schallers instead of the Minis. The bodywork was done by a great luthier named Greg McCracken in Brooks, Alberta, and the pickguard, wiring, and final set-up was done by another first-class guitar builder named Ted Kellison who at the time lived in Billings, MT. All I really did was sand, finish, and then bolt the thing together.

But my favorite is my G&L ASAT Leo Fender signature model, probably made in '80 or '81, one of the few built with the sig on the headpiece instead of the bout. It's in dark sunburst with a black pickguard and hardware. The pickups look a lot like Gibson P-90s, which I love the sound of, I'm big on single coils, 'buckers are a bit too dark and muddy for me, I like that Tele treble bite. But the Leo has it all, it can cut like any Tele, but still have that fat Paul sound with just a few adjustments. The damn thing is almost as heavy as a Paul too. Good Swamp Ash.

I also have a Rickenbacker 481 Angle Fret in Natural Maple. It looks a lot like a 4001 bass, but the neck is bolt-on instead of through-body like the bass. It has that nice chrome 'R' tailpiece, but it's a little strange to play with the angled frets.

For acoustics I have a Charvel Charvette acoustic-electric Tele, an beat-up old Epiphone, and my pride and joy, an older Martin D-18.

Without great willpower I would have many more, and a lot less money.

I'm at capacity right now (at least in my current judgement) with my Gibson Les Paul Standard Plus, Parker P-38, Epiphone Riviera P-90, Fender Mustang, Epiphone Ripper, and Epiphone John Lennon Acoustic.

But that Pawn Shop Mustang looks really good. That and the Jaguar HH in all black. Gibsons just haven't been doing it for me lately. The design is just really uninspired in a lot of their new stuff and last time I tested out a couple, the build quality wasn't there either. If I were to go for another Gibson-type high-end, I'd probably get a PRS...despite the guitars seriously lacking personality.

Though, to be honest, I think if I were to get another guitar at this point....I'd probably go with auction hunting and try to snag a Music Man Sabre II guitar.

[img][800:300]http://www.halkans.com/images4/1032musicman.jpg[/img]


I played one before and it's just about everything that's ever been right about Fender with a little more muscle.

Used to back when I played.

Then, somewhere around my senior year of highschool I ended up drooling about the release of this product (and yes - I graduated right around the time it was released in 98', did buy it):

From that point on it stopped being guitars and started being silver boxes or keyboards with loads of pots and sliders.

Sometimes you have to quit GAS'ing or it will drive you mad, sometimes its because you find the perfect axe, like i did.



Ignore me in the pic. This was a pic taken for another thread to play guess the 3 vintage things in the photo. One was obviously me.

Heres another angle, no me



No pic can capture the awesome neck colour as its aged from what was a pretty decent colour in the first place.

That is my baby, my Number One, and only one now. A '57 Reissue Fender Stratocaster from early 1982, from the first year they started making them. She got retired for a short period when i got a cheap deal on an American Standard as her frets need replacing and she's tricky to play. I have since sold the AS and am back to a one guitar house. She doesnt get played much anymore as i have a nervous system issue which makes it ever more difficult to play, and i was already struggling with no feeling in my left hand, and no calluses ever in 20+ years of playing!.

Like SRV's Number One, she is the only guitar ive ever owned that has allowed me to say what i wanted. Ive owned about 6 Fender Strats in my lifetime, but this one is very special.

Some say that these early reissues are the best guitars Fender made, i can only agree, ive had this one about 12 years. I bought her off a guy who developed heart disease and his wife made him sell most of his guitars and quit playing live. I got interviewed twice before he would let me buy it off him! Seriously, he didnt want it to be locked away for a rainy day payoff, he wanted it to be used, and i bought it on the promise that i would never sell it on. I've been offered quite a lot for it over the years as its almost mint (apart from a small melt in the headstock lacquer in the in the usual cigarette spot lol and not from me) and shines like the day she was sprayed, but the answer has always been and will be "shes not for sale".

Needs a refret and thats it, but the quote for a refret about a year ago was more than the deal i got on the AS, so i took the AS. Because of its age and the anal perfection that would need to be put in to match the lacquer tint if the refretting pulled the lacquer the quote was high.
Will get around to refret i think this year finally.
Only other thing done to it in almost 30 years was a new nut, i replaced it with a Graphtec TUSQ XL, about an hour with medium and fine sandpaper to get the radius matched and that was it, almost a drop in replacement. This guitar never, and i mean never, had tuning problems - best guitar ive ever had in that respect, so it didnt make a huge difference in that respect, but it does sing a little better after the Graphtec.

Only ever owned Strats, but would love to get a Tele, i just never made it there yet for some reason....but then i never played acoustic before electric and went straight to and got a Strat as my first guitar.
If i were to own another brand, it would be a Gretsch 6120.

These hands a have never touched a Gibson and never will.

Be VERY careful when shopping for vintage MusicMan guitars, as some of them had a very serious flaw to them.

When Leo Fender started MM in the 70's, he also hired an deadbeat employee that he had when he still owned Fender. One of the things that this man did in the late 70's was that he changed the spec on guitars and basses so that the truss rod was not capable of holding tension when it was installed, and was basically reduced to an 'ornamental feature'. The reason why this was done was that the man thought that he could save a few $$$ for Leo Fender.

A lot of these guitars are still around, and they are completely unplayable due to the fact the necks warped within a couple of years of manufacture. --I ran across one of these in 1985 and the neck had bowed to the point where the action was about .5" off of the frets.

The man who basically f***ed up the guitars was let go be Leo Fender, but the damage to the company had already been done at that point.

Wow, thanks for the tip. That's a damned shame because the one I played was like a strat with balls. No neck problems but this was also in store so it may have just been maintained while in store.

If you haven't tried an ASAT you should give one a go. I've played many Teles over the years, and I've never played another that got it right like the ASAT. Remember it was Leo's last Tele design, and I believe he finally had it figured out.

If you played one in a store that was in working order, you were most likely playing one that did have the bad trussrod. --They did exist.

If you do buy one, make sure that you play it before you buy to make sure that the neck is in working order. Furthermore, if you do buy one with the bad neck, make sure that the price you pay for it is NOT the ridiculous 'Vintage Gear' price, and replace the neck with a Warmouth or something similar. You may need to order one custom to get the correct headstock, fretboard radius, and neck profile. I currently have no idea of the scale length on these, but you could probably find out yourself and order accordingly. --I think that all of these came with a maple fretboard but I'm not sure.

The one that I looked at back in '85 clued me into the fact that these guitars were problematic, but I didn't know the story about it until I read Forrest White's Bio of Leo Fender a few years ago.

Also, +1 to the guy that mentioned G&L guitars, as they were the company that Leo Fender started after the death of MusicMan. I don't know about the ASAT, but their update of a Strat was very much a like a strat but with more balls, they used hotter pickups, a differant tone circuit, and a knife edge tremolo that was similar in design to the really early Floyd Roses, back when FR was still hand making them at home.

I know about G&L (George and Leo) but I like the design of the Music Man guitars better...G&L was more like Fender doing Fender. Music Man was Fender doing something different.

Actually, this G&L looks pretty spiffy:


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf2s6Zs95Hc[/youtube]

Another cool guitar that can be had cheaply are the old Peavey T series guitars from the 70's and 80's. most of them had Ash (Northern as opposed to Swamp, I believe) bodies with solid maple necks. Some of them had maple bodies and rosewood fretboards as well.

Here's a pic of someone's T-60:




Because of the fact that they're inexpensive, you can mod or otherwise f*** it up and not really have to worry about it losing value like you would with a lot of other guitars that are 20-30 years old.

The Peavey T series guitars are another group that I've definitely looked at long and hard. Very nice looking guitars and the quality seems to be pretty straight as well.

Another vintage, defunct beauty I've looked at from time to time is the old 70s Fender Starcasters.


It seems I have a thing for guitars from the 70s....T-60's, original run Music Man guitars (Sabre and original Stingray), Fender Starcasters....and of course, the general Fender big headstock of the late 60s and 70s.