tobereeno

for a "simple" pop rock band, their instruments have always, always been standouts. cool-ass Sunburst. B12A bass. And anyone notice the very vintage and rare Rickenbacker that Zander is playing??

I am in love with the SD Quarter Pounder. I realized this today, although I had a feeling for a couple weeks. This love supersedes everything on earth. I just ordered a bunch more with the punch-drunk idea of putting these pickups into everything I own. Need to come back to reality....but the tone is like heroin.

This is his hobby. Ours too

my guitars have survived the wildest humidity swings, without fret ends sticking out no less. the necks do shift though. this recent cold has dropped RH to 15~20% in the house. I've started running humidifiers and I've been straightening out necks all week. One thing about super dry weather, and I don't know if I'm imagining it, is that I feel like the guitars resonate acoustically a little more when they're dry. Conversely, when it's summer and RH is very high, the resonance feels slightly soggy...but the necks stay straighter and the action is lowest and least buzzy during the humid months.

I always thought a cool variation on a Virtuoso would be to make one with a 24 fret neck, but with the same body. With the 24th fret at where the 31st fret is on a Virt, the bridge would move backwards and you'd have a nicely compact superstrat!

I thought about picking up that one myself and not posting the link, but with the recent amp and pedals purchase, and also the fact that I already own the exact same guitar...I would have been thrown out of the house for sure! So I'm happy to see it stay within the HFC family I personally love the feel of the 26.25" scale. But what is unquestionable is the *sound* of that scale. It's an amazing guitar, even if you never venture above the 24th fret. ETA: I don't think you'll miss having a neck pickup. Part of the appeal of the guitar is how much more dynamic control the left hand has over the sound. It must be a combination of the scalloping and the scale length. My Virt is the only guitar I own where I haven't touched the pickup.

http://www.moonguitars.co.uk/index.php/vintage-second-hand-and-specials/hamer-vir/ looks like it's for sale again. Reasonable price too.

that sounds about right - both in the feel that they compress too much and lose dynamic feel when distorted, and also that that might be the case since the gear I'm running through isn't designed for such pickups. I'm open the the idea of a better mousetrap though, which is why I bought the (expensive) set to play with. If pedals or amps were EQ'ed or otherwise designed to work synergistically with this type of pickup, there could be potential there. But I will say this - it's a simpler and much lighter way to get EMG-esque performance. They're quieter than EMGs too (if memory serves).

ok, a few years later...I've installed a set. The design of these things is super innovative and very, very, VERY cool. They weigh nothing. and, very first sound impression was good! super clear, super quiet, super crisp. Crisp. Did I say crisp? Because they're really crisp. They feel like an EMG 85 in a way, but crisper. And after playing for awhile I found its Achilles heel. Distorted, they feel weird. They don't respond the way normal pickups do, so they end up feeling kind of numb. Bottom line: they sound amazing clean with lush reverb. They're good in drop-D tuning for articulate chugga-chugga. They're ok playing crunchy chords. They SUCK for lead.

I've also never paid for fancy flame. It might be nice to have, but it's like buying a hammer with a curly maple double-stained handle. At the end of the day, it's a tool and how it works is all that matters.

I've never had seats good enough that I could see the band without the screens. But I sure could hear them, and they never disappointed, whether it was 1989 or 2012 or any of the shows in between... without the possibility of a meet and greet, I'm just going to get tickets wherever.

this guitar?

on the flip side, if you had an older sibling that became a rock god, and you fell into being the caretaker of his legacy, would you spurn that for a vanilla day job out of some sense of snob artistic integrity? I wouldn't! I read the press statement from the sister and it sounded fairly admirable - to make budget guitars available to kids, along with a learn to play guitar book. a kid may very well feel a bit more inspired by playing a Hendrix guitar, versus some truly cheap-ass guitar.

it looks like a nice guitar in and of itself. I'm guessing that the article surmised correctly, that Hendrix' estate was happy to take the money from Gibson for a run of guitars, as inauthentic as it may be? I'll reiterate that it takes balls to sue people left and right, then build a Strat that's a lot closer to a Fender product than the PRS Singlecut ever was to a Les Paul. That hypocrisy more than anything overshadows what could have been a decent guitar.