3 G’s… share you stories…

[mystixboi1]

So I thought this could be fun… out of all of the guitars in your collection, post pics of 3 that have some kind of meaning to you… then post why that guitar is special or why you don’t like it. Here are 3 of mine… they happen to be my top 3:

Paul Reed Smith Custom 22

This guitar was a total shock. My wife got this for me as a wedding gift a few weeks before we got married. I came home one day from work and my wife had set up scavenger hunt for me. When I got to the final clue, it led me to my guitar room and there was a guitar case in the middle of the floor that I had never seen before. When I opened it up, my mouth dropped. Just a short while before, I showed her a pic of the guitar that I saw for sale. I told her that it was one of my dream guitars but was too much money for me to spend on a guitar. She contacted Baimun and he helped her with the transaction.

In the past year or so, it hadn’t seen a lot of action due to the Wide Fat neck… it was hurting my hands to play(damn getting older). I sent it to PRS to recarve the neck into a Wide Thin with a satin finish. Now it’s my #1. I actually smile each time I play it. It just sings.

Ernie Ball Music Man Albert Lee

I got this guitar a few months ago. It played and sounded amazing, but I hated the color. It was a chocolate/tobacco burst of some kind. The worst I had ever seen. I sent it to Marty Bell in California to do the refinish above which is just stunning. The full rosewood neck is a dream.

Ernie Ball Music Man Luke III

I think the Luke iii is, hands down, one of the best production rock guitars on the market. It’s not overly expensive(unless you go with a snazzy finish like this one)… it plays effortlessly. The Dimarzio Transition pickups are great too. The guitar is incredibly versatile too!!!
How about you?

 

[Muppet]

The Jem I bought new in 1987. It's #126 of 777, signed and numbered by Steve Vai. I was a kid, and so I had to finance it. It took 2 years to pay it off. Since I don't take it out of the house any more, I built the guitar I call Apple a few years ago. 570 body, 270 MIK neck, Dimarzio PAF Pro (bridge) and Breed (neck). Once I got the whole thing together, I realized I made a mistake and put a standard-spaced pup in the bridge instead of an F-spaced. Crap. I figured, oh well, I'll get a different one sometime soon. Then, I noticed they made the same mistake in my original Jem, so I left it. This guitar plays the best of any guitar I own. The V, which I call Boris, is stock except for the tailpiece. It was a Christmas gift from a girl I was with back in 2005. At first I was kinda bummed that it was just the faded series, which was entry-level. Then I plugged it in and realized that it's one of the best guitars I've ever heard. Other people say the same thing too. I feel really badass when I play it.

 

[Prages]

1992 PRS CE24.

This was my high school graduation gift from my parents, and my only functional electric guitar for much of the 90s.

1998 Peavey Wolfgang Standard

After over 5 years of heavy playing on my PRS, the frets were getting worn pretty badly. I graduated from college in December 1998, and my parents gave me $500 toward the purchase of this guitar. I took out a 12 month no interest loan to pay for the rest of it. It was my primary gigging guitar for the few years that Mixed Nuts was gigging every weekend.

2003 Warmoth

This was my second Warmoth project, and all of the pieces just came together to build my ultimate guitar. This is still, by far, my favorite guitar to gig with.

 

[Tweedledee]

I only have two electric guitars at the moment, but they both have personal meaning to me.

My main guitar is my Jaguar that I might finally be done tweaking. The body is from a Cobain Jag and I finished in a version of charcoal frost metallic. The neck is an All Parts Jag neck that I gave the matching headstock treatment. When I first did all the finish work, I went with ice blue metallic, but I didn't love the color so I stripped it all back. As part of that process I wet sanded the back of the neck with 800 grit paper thinking I would give the whole thing a few more coats of clear to blend the repainted headstock with the sides, but it made the back of the neck feel so incredibly good that I left it. So I basically created the perfect feeling neck on accident. When I finish necks I usually wet sand them all the way up to 2000 grit then polish them, but this neck has been a bit of a revelation.

Pickups are Seymour Duncan Antiquity Firebird pickups and they sound incredible. They actually retain a lot of the character you get with good Jaguar pickups, but with a little more "oomph" and stronger mids.




The other guitar with real meaning is the thinline P90 "Tele" I put together a few years ago. I wanted to make something that I would have for the long-haul and could give to my son when he gets older. I finished it a couple of days before he was born, so the guitar is 3 1/2 years old, just like him. Hopefully he'll actually want it when he's 18 or so.

The Warmoth neck actually developed a twist just after the 1 year warranty expired (the first time I've ever had that happen after years of finishing necks), so it doesn't have a mahogany neck on it at the moment... but it will eventually be back to looking like this. I need to scrounge up the money for another custom neck at some point.

 

[Mark Wein]

ok...
2004 Les Paul Standard. Here is the writeup I did on in a few years ago:

I got the guitar in May 2004 while on an overnight trip to San Diego. My wife and I were getting ready to open our teaching studio and this was to be our last "getaway" for some time. I was NOT guitar shopping...

While wandering around the Gaslamp District we stumbled into Centre City Music, which at the time sold only Gibson Guitars and Marshal amps. I had had my 1979 "The Paul" for some time and had yet to find a Standard (or any new Gibson, for that matter) that I liked enough to spend the money on. I still liked trying them out, though so I spent a half hour or so noodling away on an increasingly disappointing pile of Les Pauls. Most played "so so" and none sounded all that great.

As I was getting ready to leave my wife pointed to what I considered the ugliest guitar in the store and asked "why don't you try that one"?

Just to humor her I had the salesman get it down and played it for a few minutes. It kicked the living crap out of every other guitar in the store. At a certain point my wife tells me "You know you'll have to buy that, right?". Even my non-guitar playing wife could hear that it was a one of a kind find for me. I decided it was time to go to lunch and I would think about it. I really shouldn't be spending $2000 or so on a guitar I don't "have to" own. Eventually we ended up back there and asked about the price. $1596+tax case included. That year the street price on that guitar was $1999 and I think they just wanted it out of the store. So I bought it biggrin

One thing about the guitar is that it played horribly. I did a minor setup on it when we got home and played it that way for about a month or so, and then had a pro setup done. The intonation was terrible as well. It was like an untrained monkey had done the final setup and inspection at Gibson. The guitar sounded too good to worry about it, though. All easily rectified by a trained professional....

I had only had my 2002 Suhr Classic about 2 years at that point but this guitar immediately replaced it. At that time I was gigging constantly and teaching full time. After 6 months it needed another setup and even a fret dressing due to excessive fretwear messedup0

One thing that sets this guitar apart from my other guitars and even other Les Pauls is that it has a really huge onstage sound. When I was doing trio cover gigs it would fill quite a bit of sonic space even clean.

It currently has a Duncan '59 in the neck:

17 by Mark Wein on MarkWeinGuitarLessons.com

1979 Tokai Springy Sound

This is something of a review of my very first nice strat. I had been playing guitar for only a few months in 1986 and was already looking past my $110 Memphis strat copy at Charvels and Kramers. I was taking guitar lessons at Sightsinger Music here in Orange and every Saturday I would drool over whatever they had on display. The guitar teacher I had at the time steered me into this Strat copy that he explained was part of what they bought from Fender wheen Fender moved out of the Fullerton factory...they blew out all the junk lying around that they really couldn't sell and this was part of a truckload of gear they had bought. I remember a bunch of the Starcaster semi hollow guitars lying around....

This was obviously a "lawsuit" guitar in that every detail of a 1956 strat was slavishly copied. If you check out the headstock even the decal looks like the Fender but the you see things like "Springy Sound" in place of "Stratocaster" and "Oldies but Goldies" in place of "Original Contoured Body" smi

The story I had heard was that they had a trio of these Tokai guitars that had in fact been used as samples in their trademark infringement case in the early 1980's against Tokai. The decals on the back of the headstock (still there to this day) seemed to bear this out:

Here is a little history from Tokai Guitar Registry

http://www.tokairegistry.com/tokai-info/larrymeiners-tokai-article.html

Since I was a metal kid at the time I had them put a Duncan Hot Rail in the bridge position. Over the years I had it refretted, put a Duncan 57 reissue pickup back in the bridge, had a "neck on" toggle switch installed and then removed and then finally retired the guitar n the mid 1990's. It carried me through High School, College and the early part of my career. It honestly sounded better than any of the guitars Fender was selling in the 108-'s (not too difficult, really) but played like a pig.

In its current incarnation it has a Warmoth neck on it and a full complement of Dunca Antiquity pickups. Here is @IamSeaDevil enjoying it the night I had the neck swapped:

And my main guitar, the McFeely 454. This was me asking @telecaster911 to make me a strat-shaped korina flying V. It has no paint, just true oil on it and it sounds fucking awesome and weighs about 6lbs. It is the ultimate "Weincaster".

 

[Chad]

I only have 3 electrics and one is just a Hofner travel guitar (even though it sounds awesome and weighs next to nothing).
The first is Lead II I put together. I bought a Lead II back in 93 and it was my all time favorite guitar. When my wife was getting her Master's Degree, I had to sell to pay some bills. Once we actually had real jobs, I tried to replace it, I probably bought 10 or 11 Leads over the years and none of them came close to the original I had. So about a year ago, I was browsing eBay and saw a lead body for sale. It was the same burst finish as mine (and I have never seen another one with this type of burst) so I went ahead and bought it. It has a piece of finish missing from near the bridge like mine did and a dent in the upper horn like mine did. I will never know 100% if it is the body off my old guitar, but I am pretty convinced it is. Anyways, I nabbed a neck and threw it together. My original one had a maple fretboard, but this neck is a 24" scale conversion neck, so I am stuck with rosewood, but it works.

After Pragestock 2013, I decided I wanted to build a guitar using a Mustang body, but with a Jaguar vibrato and pickups. So I asked tele if he could build me a body, and he said he could, but it ended up snowballing into a full guitar, so now I have a McFeely. Which completely rocks.

 

[jelloman]

Back in the 80s I was playing bass in several bands but still had a Squier strat for a guitar...the Squier was a good guitar but some douchebag I was jamming with thought it would be really funny to yank all 6 strings until the broke, which completely tweaked the neck...at the time I was wanting a Les Paul and had the money to buy one but could not find a good one anywhere...a Musician's Friend catalog happened to show up in the mail around that time and they had this...



1989 Washburn WP50...I decided to take a chance and ordered one...it's been my number one favorite instrument ever since....perfect neck, gorgeous figuring in the wood, stable tuning...


Around 1995 or 1996 I was in Imperial Music when I spied an American Standard strat, used, on the wall for a ridiculous price...I grabbed it and had my perfect strat/les Paul combo...

...until...

I was in Alto Music about 2006 looking for a cheap guitar I could take out on the road (I was driving truck at the time) and they had a Mexistrat similar to my AS that had some damage...got a deal, took it home...as time went by I found myself playing the MiM strat more than the AmStd...



Goodbye 1994 Am Std strat...I like the neck on the MiM more, and it was cheap enough that modding it wasn't an issue...



For years my acoustic was a Martin Sigma DM28 that I got for 200.00 when I was about 15...it was fine but I was never comfortable with the full dreadnought body...in 2001 Musician's Friend had these special edition Washburn's on clearance for 300.00 and I had a web coupon for 100.00 off, so 200.00...



I love the thin line body, the Florentine cutout makes it easy to play, the neck is thin...and it sounds great, even with the thin line body, and the preamp works well...

 

[Tweedledee]

Back in the 80s I was playing bass in several bands but still had a Squier strat for a guitar...the Squier was a good guitar but some douchebag I was jamming with thought it would be really funny to yank all 6 strings until the broke, which completely tweaked the neck...at the time I was wanting a Les Paul and had the money to buy one but could not find a good one anywhere...a Musician's Friend catalog happened to show up in the mail around that time and they had this...



1989 Washburn WP50...I decided to take a chance and ordered one...it's been my number one favorite instrument ever since....perfect neck, gorgeous figuring in the wood, stable tuning...

Lovely! Several years ago I received a WP-80 as a partial trade and I was impressed with how great of an LP copy it was. I probably should have kept it, though ultimately I couldn't handle the gold hardware. That Washburn line is one I always keep an eye out for, but I rarely come across them. Here's the one I used to own:

 

[mystixboi1]

Some great stories and great guitars in this thread. Funny, when I see some of the guitars, I realized it's what I associate each forumite

Ie... Prages' warmoth and wolfie
Mark's mcfeely

 

[Knox in Box]

My partner in crime. Bought in 1992 from a damaged instrument store in DC, they had reduced prices on everything there and they all had bangs and dings. $250.00 got me this bad boy Yamaha LD10 list at the time was $950 and a street price of about 650. One suspended open G on this and I was hooked. I toyed with the idea of getting a "Better" acoustic and went on a search for one, but I've never picked up a guit that made a connection with me that made me feel like replacing it, or even having a #2. It's been with me from DC, I carried it with me as baggage because I couldn't stanfd the thought of shipping it to Germany, on to Bosnia for 11 months, back to Germany back home to PA and back to Germany. Also on vacation to Spain one year where me and my best friend Shawn made up our rendition of "Go On Kick the Bum and Run" as we had a Bum follow us around trying to panhandle next to our beach performance and had the local policia giving us a hassle because busking was not allowed. We had a hell of a time trying to tell them that we weren't wanting the money or even soliciting. It was that asshole.

My #1 electric AKA "Bo Jackson" because "There are stars, and there are superstars, and then there was Bo Jackson.". This guitar does anything good, it may sound like an exageration, but it's not. I literally had to train myself to go to other guitars for different sounds. The only thing That gets me is the lack of a 22nd fret, and it's heavy as all get out. 1 piece body and sustain like a piano. It has a really aenemic trem block, but I'm really not needing more sustain, I actually think it would become a problem if it had more as I need to dampen off the strings to kill the note at times even playing clean.

Other than that I have no REAl attachment to any other guitars though I like them all and think I've been hella lucky to get good guitars every time I've ordered one.

 

[Denverdave]

I only own one electric at this point. I love everything about it except the color. Since it is my stage guitar I would really prefer it to be a more neutral color. I am kinda boring that way. My dream guitar? No....but it is a seriously great sounding and playing guitar and tonally it is the sound I hear in my head. It is a keeper.

 

[Gary Blanchard]

I was looking at Craigslist last August and saw this being offered used with a case for a decent price. This was my original choice for a 12-string, but Luna had discontinued the 12-string model. I drove down to look at this and was immediately blown away by the quality and the beauty of the wood. I tried taking pictures of the back and sides but my camera doesn't do it justice. This is a joy to play and sounds great unplugged or plugged. When I did the Bandedge program, the cameraman seems to love the guitar.

Another of Luna's discontinued models, the main feature of this is the customizable pick guard. I bought a tie-dye poster and created a guitar that is mostly tasteful but also reflects my hippie roots. So far it has not made it outside my practice space, but I may use it for a gig someday.

This is the first guitar I got through Luna. Dennis and Yvonne were very helpful in my getting this; they had been on backorder and mine was hand selected by them and sent to me as soon as the guitars arrived. This guitar will always hold a special place in my heart.

 

[Prages]

I only own one electric at this point. I love everything about it except the color. Since it is my stage guitar I would really prefer it to be a more neutral color. I am kinda boring that way. My dream guitar? No....but it is a seriously great sounding and playing guitar and tonally it is the sound I hear in my head. It is a keeper.

But how can you not love orange?

 

[Denverdave]

But how can you not love orange?

Not my favorite color.....of course YOUR orange guitar kicks all kinds of ass....

 

[Stratguy]

Gary, that 12-string sounds great!

 

[Stratguy]

Just three? Man, this is brutal!

Ok, this is the Taylor that I said I'd never have. I had played quite a few Taylors over a few years, but I had just concluded that the Taylor sound just wasn't my sound . . . up until I met this Taylor dreadnaught. Yeah, the abalone rosette caught my eye, but the incredible resonance really made me keep going back to play it again. At $2,800, though, I never thought I'd ever be able to afford such a nice guitar. Then I talked to the owner of the store, and when I found out he was ok with not having any cash in the deal, I made a list of all the gear I would be willing to exchange for the Taylor. Three days later, it went home with me, and I knew I had a keeper for life. This guitar is so resonant that I feel it on my abdomen when I'm strapped up.

This was a an amazing find. I went to California to do a wedding for a couple that were friends of my son. I got there late Thursday and wasn't meeting with the bride until Friday afternoon. I went to see if I could get a tour of the DW drum factory, but the story about them not doing tours any more was true, so I headed for GC to kill some time. I found a this Deluxe Player's Strat hanging on the used wall and I noticed it had "Vintage Noiseless" pickups. I had never heard Vintage Noiseless pickups, so I asked to play it. I got my own room, and a '65 Deluxe Reverb Reissue amp to play through. I heard heaven! I had to wait for it to clear waivers, but it made the trek all the way to Nashville, and when I picked it up, GC had put a new original pickguard on it (it was a white pickguard in the store). For me, it's THE Strat. I eventually bought the '65 Deluxe Reverb Reissue amp, too.

The other "can't live without" guitar would be the Gretsch 5420. Got an amazing deal, and it has the best sound. I had tried a few other 5420's and I just never really liked the sound. I had decided to see if I could still find a 5120 instead, which I did. I loved the look of this guitar, but I found that they were in very short supply, even though they were featured in a special sale. Nashville was out, but I found did find one slightly farther south. The minute I played it, I knew I had found a gem, and every time I play it for others, they remark on how beautiful it is. They never seem to talk about how great it sounds, but that might just be my fault. ops:

I've got a few others I probably would hate to see ever leave, but these are the non-negotiables.

 

[Psychotronic]

Hard to narrow it down, because several of mine of pretty meaningful or are a favorite in some way, but here goes (in no particular order):

This one is a '72 Strat, stock except for a replaced nut and 5-way switch (instead of the original 3-way). I'm not a Strat guy - I always want them to play and sound like a Gibson -- but this one sounded amazing the first time I heard it when a close friend bought it while we were in high school. I tried for years to get him to sell it to me, he always refused. Around early 2000, I offered to get it playable again (after having fallen into a state of significant disrepair) if he would lend it to me for a while. He agreed, so I got it playable and played it a lot for a few months. He asked for it back, so I was ready to bring it to him the following week at our monthly poker game. He was killed in a car accident a few days before I could give it back to him. His wife let me keep it.

The next one is my '87 BC Rich STIII that I had their custom shop make me. I was 19 and was working at a local guitar shop that was a long time BC Rich dealer, so we had a good relationship with the Rico's. Bernie Jr. was happy to make one to my specs for not a lot extra. It was my first pro level instrument. I find it nearly unplayable now as I don't care for the shredder thing anymore (very wide, nylon-string type of fingerboard). This was my go-to for my metal years.

My favorite of my Les Paul's, and was the first thing I got after the BC Rich era from above after a lot of saving up money that I didn't have. Plays and sounds amazing. It's been everywhere and is getting pretty beat up, but it always delivers. This is a '94 Les Paul Classic Plus (1960 reissue) with '57 Classic pickups, bought new that year.

 

[vintage clubber]

My FrankenNashville - I first acquired this one in the late 90's. It started out life as an MCI Intertek Tele Style with a pointy Jackson type headstock. I replaced it with an Allparts tele neck and lots of other changes in the last 15 years. This is its current form and I intend to leave it in this state. The Tele pickups are wired to a 4 way switch and the Strat pickup in the middle is wired to a mini-toggle for on/off. The only sound I gave up was the middle pickup by itself, but I have lots of Strats that do that trick...This was my first Tele style of any kind and my first partscaster assembly.



Greeny - I'm a big Peter Green fan. I can across this used MIK Epiphone LP in GC one year and the finish was really cool and looked like a perfect candidate to make a tribute guitar. Pickups are BG "Green Lizards." Note the mismatched knobs as well.



The Richard PettyCaster - Mrs. Clubber used to work for a company that held a suite down at the local racetrack for NASCAR. One of her projects while she was there was to host race events for their customers The CEO of the company is married to Richard Petty's daughter, so he would regularly visit the suite for a meet and greet. One year my wife asked me to actually put together a guitar for him to sign... I thought at first it would be for a fund raiser, but she then told me it would be for my own collection and not to spend too much. It was too late at that point I had already spent more than she had in mind... Anyway, it turned out pretty cool and he was kind enough to sign it for me...

 

[GreatDane]

nice thread idea.

i have more than three guitars in the collection that have "meaning", but here goes...

i've owned this 1979 Gibson Les Paul Custom for many years, many recordings, many shows and a few tours (US and Europe). it's Silverburst. i bought it used in the early 90s and played it constantly until maybe 2001 0r 2002. It's stayed in great shape throughout, and has never let me down. at one point, I had to bring it to a local luthier because the heel-end of the fretboard was lifting slightly due to lack of humidity (i made the mistake of keeping the case close to a radiator in an old apartment - never a good idea). He injected some adhesive into the void, clamped it lightly and it's indistinguishable. i retired the guitar from regular playing as soon as prices on these 70s customs really started climbing, but i do let it out every once in a while for studio work or for personal playing. I remember one show we played in Rhode Island opening for High on Fire, and Matt Pike gave me a t-shirt and bought me an oil can of Fosters in exchange for letting him play it before their set. He told me it was "fucking awesome and don't ever get rid of that guitar, man."

the second guitar is also a Gibson Les Paul custom. this one is a 1989 in wine red. I bought this one from a friend of a friend to replace the Silverburst as my gigging guitar, and proceeded to play the snot out of it until maybe 2006. I was VERY hard on this guitar, but it kept up and never failed me. I put all the wear on this one myself - relic'd the real way, i guess you could say. i had it refretted with medium-jumbo wire after i wore the original frets out (in addition to frequent playing, i used to slam the guitar fretboard up against the speaker cab and slide it up and down the neck a la Hendrix - eek!), which i think makes it very easy to play relative to a lot of other Les Pauls. it's heavy - 11 lbs 4 ounces. it's got the original Bill Lawrence designed HB-L/HB-R circuit board pickups in it, which i think sound amazing and very unlike other Gibson pickups - higher output and very bold sounding. the sound was perfect for the band I was playing in during this time.

The third guitar I'll share is also from 1989. It's a Charvel Model 1. I bought this the same year it was made. it cost me next to nothing, which was good because i had next to nothing financially. it was the third guitar i ever owned, but the one I always considered my first really good instrument - my first guitar was a Hondo that i sold to my guitar teacher at the time, and my second was a Platinum Series BC Rich strat-type that never sounded very good to me, even as a kid just starting out. i bought this guitar from Daddy's Junky Music in Portsmouth, NH. my best friend and I applied the sticker and did the paint job later that same year in his basement using paint pens (it would come right off with Naptha, but i will keep it on because it reminds me of those rad times; these were my developing years - first real band, time to burn practicing and writing and recording on the tascam 414 portastudio and dreaming big without any worldly concerns. the neck on this guitar nearly spoiled me. it was the "template" by which i judged every other guitar that i played for years afterwards. very comfortable. the single pickup is stock and completely killer. just an incredible sounding rock pickup. super-simple control layout, i fixed the bridge (5 springs and buried the trem claw in the back) so it's essentially a hardtail. the sustain is incredible and it nails the 80s/90s hard rock sound. i ended up launching this guitar across a stage into a speaker cab during a show, and cracked the top of the headstock near the low-E tuner (see last pic). I squirted some super glue into and around the crack shortly thereafter, and it hasn't moved since. after playing it mercilessly for some years, i totally neglected this guitar for 15 years - it sat in its case and collected dust. Fast-forward to about five years ago when the old band was offered a spot in a Portland, ME area charity event. i thought it would be fun to bring this one back, so i dragged the case out, and crossed my fingers that the guitar inside hadn't disintegrated. amazingly, after 15 years of "hibernation", all it needed was a fresh set of strings. i played an hour set on it, and it was heaven. Just a wonderful, simple, effective instrument.

 

[wagdog]

I've posted all of these before. They're still my top 3 (although I rarely play any of them out):

1981 Les Paul Custom. I bought this guitar new when I was 16. It was $599, with the case. It has traveled with me all over the world.



1974 Strat. My mom gave me this. It's sounds great. It was heavily modified in the 70's by the previous owner. I returned it to a more stock'ish configuration. Gigged it quite a bit, but now it stays home.


2007 SRV Sig Strat. I bought this new. I gigged it straight for about 4 years, but don't take it out much now. The FAT neck is incredibly comfortable. I love the TS pickups as well.