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Stringed Guitars

Created by a passionate guitarist, containing a bit of gear reviews and news

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Gibson SG GT

Yes.. another SG! I haven’t bought an SG for a few years I think… and I stumbled across the GT version, which I knew nothing about apart from the fact that existed.

So… for the official info.. you can go to SG Wiki: https://solidguitar.fandom.com/wiki/SG_GT

I love that website! They actually used one of my guitars for their pictures of a 71 SG :).

Anyway.. it is just like any other SG? Mmm kind of… but of course the tailpiece gets all the attention, I originally thought it was just a cover for the regular SG tailpiece, but no… it’s a whole thing that is bolted to and through the guitar! And ma man is it heavy! It feels heavier than my other SGs. Pretty cool design which attempts to resemble the bonnet or a car.

The Pickups are the 490/498 Alnico II. To me these are great pickups, I’ve been raving about Alnico II and Alnico III for a few years… preferring them over the Alnico V pickups.

The neck… I haven’t compared measurements but it feels chunky and not as slim/taper like a 61 reissue, just about the perfect size. You might have seen on other recent posts that I’ve discovered that chunkier necks seem easier to play…

The frets… this has caught my attention, they are quite thin… good height and crown… but they are thinner to what I’ve been seeing on standards and custom shop… There’s usually not a lot of info on frets used on different versions.

The inlays! These are not your usual mother of pearl… these are “mirror” inlays… of course probably made of plastic… but they add to the cool chrome look of the guitar.

All in all, I’m very pleased with it, it plays great and it sustains nicely. A definitely good addition to the SG collection.

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Gibson Firebird V

I had an Epiphone Thunderbird for a while and while it looked cool… it was so uncomfortable to play… that I never considered a Firebird guitar as I thought it would be just as bas, boy was I wrong.

So… i sold a couple of SGs as I has way too many and some had almost never been played since I bought them, I started to look for something different.. something special, until I stumbled upon the Firebird, what a piece of art this is… designed by an ex car designer… it just screams luxury.

It’s a neck through construction, which gives it that raised middle section and then two “wings” attached to the side, the neck is built by 9 continuous pieces of wood glued together, two of those bits… are walnut, and it gives it that distinctive two lines of slightly different wood colour.

The pickups are something of their own… constructed with blades instead of poles… and in a much smaller package, I’d say they sound a little bit like P90s.

Apart from anyone looking 10 times cooler when holding a firebird… these guitars sound awesome, great sustain due to their construction method and great playability too! Although… they are meant to be played standing up, so… when playing seating down.. the guitar feels a little

Bit offset to the left, because of the curve of the body where we wedge our thigh on… the guitar feels longer, even though it’s scale isn’t longer. When you stand up… everything just feels normal.

The pickups, the bridge pickup sounds almost like a humbucker but like I said.. it has a p90 twang, a bit more bite than a humbucker, the neck pickup even though I think it’s the same construction… sound a bit more single coil, like the 5th position of a strat, which I love.

The one I bought is a 1991 Firebird V which means it has two pickups and the bigger inlays. The tuners were changed to the steinberg ones which apparently is what Gibson used before.

The Firebird hasn’t always been on Gibson’s catalogue because it was an expensive guitar to build and not very popular, however they just added it back in… but… it’s construction method is like all other gibsons… just a set neck. If you are looking for a Firebird… please buy an older one with the traditional neck through, this way you’ll experience the real Firebird!

An awesome guitar that is becoming one of my favourites to play.

The finish is starting to crack a little bit which looks incredible.
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Epiphone 1959 ES 355

One of the hottest guitar on the internet right now. Everyone is raving about it.

Of course I bought one.

Who doesn’t like a 355?? They are probably the coolest looking guitars out there, we know who is to blame for… Marty McFly! Or Chuck Berry!

This guitars is part of the “gibson custom shop collaboration ” series. Which allows a lot more people to own a oiece of history and something that doesn’t scream Epiphone as soon s as you see it. They dressed it up every nicely.

Custom headstock logo, headstock binding, headstock with the right shape, block inlays, the whole thing just looks stunning!

I would not have many situations where I find myself playing a 355… so I was having a hard time deciding to invest a lot of money in this purchase, trust me.. I spent a week! Having a Gibson 345 in my cart… of course the gibson 355 is only custom shop and it’s double the cost of the 345… so that was out of the question.

So… I received the guitar, very well packed and presented, the case is very nice! (Not as nice as a Gibson custom shop) the guitar itself looks very smart too, the finish is matte and the gold hardware… is very gold… so… it looks too shiny on a matte finish, this hardware should be more like a VOS finish so it would blend in.

The good? It looks great, it plays well… like an Epiphone.

The Bad?

I don’t think you are getting a better Epiphone for the money… the frets are the same as any other Epiphone.. the rounding, the size, the feel. Was I expecting a better Epiphone? I think so… it costs twice as much….and… they spent a lot of time and effort dressing this one up… so.. why don’t make it better?

So… what are these extras?

Custombuckers: i love custombuckers… almost all my guitars have them, I have 3 custom shops with them + I have bought a lot of custombuckers and fitted them on my standards SGs, I know them very well… do these sound the same? I don’t think so… but why? Is it the pickup or the guitar? I don’t know… impossible to tell.. but I don’t think they feel like a regar Custom Bucker, also… their cover is just too shiny.

The Case: who cares for a case now? i don’t.. I much rather get the leather gig bag Gibson introduced a few years ago… but I understand what they are trying to do.

Aesthetics: block inlays, split diamond headstock inlay, neck binding, headstock binding, body double binding. I love all of the above, they make the guitar look incredibly smart.

So.. is it worth it? I think so… i think is 20% too expensive… I would’ve dropped the hardcase and focus on the frets. Still.. it can be sorted with a good setup, it’s a nice playing guitar and costs around 30% compared to a Gibson 345.

If this won’t be your main guitar… and you can afford a Gibson . Get the Epi..

If this will be your main guitar and you can afford the Gibson… get the Gibson

If this will be your main guitar and you can’t afford the Gibson.. get the Epi! It looks awesome…

If this will be your main guitar and you can’t afford a gibson and you don’t care for the looks.. get the Epi 335 that we’ve all known for years

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Boss Katana Artist Gen 3 (Combo)

Alright, this might be the most reviewed amp on the internet right now… so of course… I ended up buying one.

If you have read any of my other posts… you will by now know that I’m a simple guy… guitar + amp and nothing else (maybe the solo dalas tower…) but… in summary… I don’t like buttons, knobs, etc. give me something simple so I can go straight to the action. So you might wonder…. why even bother with the Katana? well.. I wanted to buy something different.

let’s get the first thing out of the way. This amp does not sound like a tube amp! but.. that is not a bad thing… tube amps always sound different… why? think about this… if you are old enough as me… you’ve heard music on tapes… or even vynils…. do they sound the same as the cd? or the same as spotify? No… should they sound the same? No… it’s a completely different technology…. what is the draw back of a Tape? well.. it ends up stretching… every time you hear it.. the tape degrades, the same with the Vynil and the CD…. but.. Spotify (quality aside) gives you the same exact sound every single time. The Quality? well… it’s easy.. Spotify has to compress a file send it over the internet… put it on your laptop/phone.. and then play it out… so.. even though it’s all 1s and 0s… there are algorythms behind.. the quality suffers but it’s scientific.. we know how much it suffers and we still choose it.

Tube amps are the same.. every time you play them.. they will wear.. they will sound different if there’s high humidity… if it’s cold… if it’s too hot.. if it’s been pushed around.. maybe the tube isn’t well placed in the socket… and you never know what makes it sound appealing… maybe your biased isn’t set to what the manual says… but you still like it…. and if you go in to try to fix it… you might not like it anymore…

I have and have had over 50 tube amps… I play in an AC/DC tribute band… i’m not an expert on tubes and amp building… but I know my sound when I hear it. And the Katana… isn’t my sound… but… it is still a great sound.

The Speakers / Cab: The Artist combo comes in an oversized cab.. which I love! the speaker is superb… it’s clearl not a regular guitar speaker because it doesn’t need to be broken in… it sounds as good as it gets right out of the box. the body of the sound and the tight end is unreal… you’ll need a 4×12 to get that sound

The Sound itself: I’ll probably end up using just one setting on this… “pushed” + my guitar volume, And that’s ok… but hard to accept when they offer “hundreds of options” I hate options.. I hate fiddling with knobs and apps.. I hate buying a rock album and getting a balad… so… I want an amp that can do one thing right at least. The Katana gives you a great break up sound with very clear bottom end at most volumes

How does it react with the guitar: I find that the amp works nicer with single coils… with humbuckers.. the guitar volume behaves differently compared to a tube amp.. I have to get used to that.

The Features: I have no idea… but dude… this amp should have the freaking bluetooth and a footswitch included! come on! at least a simple one to go from clean to the drive section

Should you buy it? I guess so…. I wanted a combo amp that I could just plug and forget about it.. I was between the 1974x, the Fender Tonemaster and the Katana… but… the Katana fits for the new project I’m working on.. I might need a bit of delay.. I might need some reverb.. I might need some fuzz… but what I definitely need is an amp that requires 0 maintenance, that I can load in the back of my car with one hand… and have the tone I had at home.

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Richie Kotzen Telecaster

This is my…. third telecaster. But I currently own one.

I’m a Gibson SG person… for me… it is the most comfortable guitar in the world. But… I always had a thing for teles… similar to an SG… it’s a “no bells or whistles” kind of guitar. The simplicity of its design and oh god, can they take a beating!

My first tele was an American Standard… back in 2003, which I loved… it was white ivory finish, stunning. I sold it to buy an SG… and 10 SGs later.. I bought the Tele Elite, this was a sweet guitar, the finish… the fretwork.. all stunning. But I never bonded with it, that bridge pickup… I struggle to like it.

I then found the Richie Kotzen model, I think as I was searching for “hum-bucker” type bridge pickup.. his model came up on google… then a few years later…. I went ahead and bought it.

Man…. this is an outstanding guitar! Made in Japan… comes in a box and a gig bag… but… is it full of goodies or what!

The fretwork… is immaculate, the maple neck and fretboard… are so easy to play… your hand just glides. The Frets! (Yes I already mentioned them…) but man.. the frets! The string just dances on top of them. The finish! Never been a sunburst person…. in fact the back of the guitar is nicer than the front… but still… sunburst with gold hardware… hard not to like.

The inlays! Holy moly, abalone inlays which have little variations of colours, it’s like looking into a beautiful sunset.

The pickups! Yup… two of them. the Chopper T bridge pickup… what an angry pickup! This is what a rocking tele has been missing! Full of balls and body, an amazing sound but still true to the tele twang.. (somewhere in the back of the sound) that adds to the spectrum of the sound wave which probably covers every single hertz out there.

The neck pickup! Always my favourite tele pickup, you kinda get straty sounds out of it, I love SRV but I can’t play Strats… i find them uncomfortable, this pickup delivers that tone! And it can get to the breaking up point where you get a bit of distortion going on.

The bridge and neck pickup combined… series or parallel switch… i haven’t really explored it much, but this option makes it much more useful than a regular combined position.

This is the Tele for you if you want to rock out! If you feel that the regular bridge tele pickup holds you back.. then this guitar is for you

Now.. the Neck! Everyone says it’s massive! And… it’s definitely not small… but coming from Gibsons SG.. i say it’s pretty decently sized neck… it is a baseball neck for sure. But i’m starting to believe that bigger necks are faster and more comfortable to play… they fill your hand better… more ergonomic for sure.

The Frets! (Yup… 3rd time mentioning them) jumbo frets… bending… is as easy as abc. The size of them makes this neck very easy to play….

The Tuners! You can tell this guitar was designed by someone that actually uses his signature guitar… the tuners are a pleasure to use, just the perfect amount of “stiffness”. And they look incredible.

If you are in the market for a Tele… please do try one of these… I feel that this is what a Tele should be, this has to be the new standard.

And… made in Japan. Which… is great! Japanese gear has always been very high quality and it always feels a bit more “exclusive”.

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To Fuzz or no Fuzz – Solodalas Orbiter!

I’m not an expert on the fuzz world, but I always wanted one… when you watch those late 70s AC/DC videos, Angus guitar sounds like if he had a fuzz… barely turned on.

We all know that Angus never used a fuzz, but maybe the combination of poor recording quality or whatever other combination of stuff… makes his solos sound like if he had one.

So when Solodalas released his Fuzz… i got excited! Cause I know these guys are honest to the vintage sounds and they don’t really over do stuff… it’s always kind of sutile… but exceptionally noticeable! Kind of a weird balance.

I’m using this pedal in addition to the EX Tower, not to add more distortion nor fuzz… but just to push the amp and the tower a little but extra… like a hot biased tube.

This pedal apart from achieving great fuzz and sputter fuzz tones… gives you very nice and homely overdrives and sustain that is to die for!

I love this thing! I kinda wish it didn’t exist cause I’m not a pedal guy… I always try to minimise stuff that can go wrong in my rig…. i hate cables and stomping on things… but I’ll make this work… maybe velcro it to the amp or the top of the tower, because like all of their products.. it is something to always have ON.

The tone cleans up nicely when you roll down the guitar volume.. like if it wasn’t there.

This is a pedal to be bought! I absolutely love it!

Thank you Solodalas Team!

Orbiter Fuzz Pedal
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Pushing 2 Amps with one guitar

So… when you see AC/DC live… you see tons of guitar cabs, and you have to wonder… how are these people pushing all these cabs??

Well… That I don’t know… however… you can do this at home pretty easily, given that you have more than one cab.

My recent OR15 purchase was because I wanted to use 4 cabs for a specific gig, and I either had to carry my mesa boogie which is a 295… meaning 2 amps.. 95Watts. Or… I have to buy a new amp to go with my SV20h

Well.. I bought the OR15 and then I remembered I had this Y cable which splits one signal into two different 1/4 inch jacks.

Pretty basic, right?
Worked like a charm!

I can now push 4 cabs with these two amps, they also sound pretty similar.

I had one hiccup with the Orange as the cabs are 8ohms each and the OR15 has a minimum of 8ohms load… so.. Palmer sells a device that allows you to connect cabs in series or in parallel, meaning that 2 x 8ohm cabs can turn into a 4 or 16ohm load.

It’s tiny!

I attached it to the back of the Orange with zip toes tot the grill and I plugged everything in, neat and tidy.

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Gibson SG CME/Andertons Exclusive

Last week was my 40th birthday, I spent a great week with my wife, my kids (I didn’t have kids when I started this blog) we did all sorts of things, but every year I buy something for myself… like a self-present… however this year was a bit different because I already have everything I wanted.

I swear, I spend at least 1 hour per week browsing through ebay, reverb, etc. Looking at guitars, just seeing how the market is and what is available, but lately… nothing was catching my attention, I already have 10 SGs, 3 custom shops… a jaydee… I think I’m good in the SG department.

But… never say never…. Well… I never had a yellow SG, and who doesn’t like a TV Yellow SG!? Well… I couldn’t find one… but! Andertons in the UK and CME in the US, did a special run of SGs with some really cool colours, green, pink, black/purple-ish/yellow. So… I found one used and it was yellow :). These are a reissue of the 70s SGs, the square inlays, the neck, the slightly smaller frets, and… they created T-Top replica pickups which are somewhat unique.

I went ahead and pulled the trigger, drove an hour to pick it up, in fact I took my son and we saw some sheep and goats on the way, we had loads of fun.

I got the guitar and I instantly removed the old strings, gave it a good clean, a nice fretboard run with instrument food from Monty’s guitars, a bit of fret polish with nomad products, and man. It looks and feels incredible.

The frets are a bit on the low/small side… I got a heavy hand.. I need to work on this, so not my most comfortable guitar to play, but oh boy! Does it look cool!

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Malcolm Young tribute

Yes… another Gretsch, and this makes 3, why? Because I wanted to replicate both of the beasts versions of Malcolm, the one with the badass bridge and the one with the Burns vibrola.

In this case I bought another 5222 to replicate Malcolm’s beast with the burns tailpiece, the one I bought was purple and it had a bigsby arm, so.. this time I wanted to do a complete overhaul with a professional, what I ended up doing is the following:

Bought on bidding a shiny purple one and sold all the parts, se below the details for costs as I think this is the best way of getting a replica on the cheap

You can see expenses in orange and sales in green.

The mod (£404.35) which included re-finishing in nitro and reshaping of the floating bridge was done by DY Guitars in London which I recommend,m, he also did a bit of ageing.

Re-finishing in Nitro was a must for me. I just don’t like the finish of poly, it feels different…. And cheaper, i’m not too sure if it increases wood resonance and all that crap… but to my touch is just feels nicer and of course the back of the neck feels much better too, this time DY Guitars chose a matte finish which I think makes total sense as it makes it look a bit more worn.

So the total cost of the project was £672 which isn’t bad at all compared to the cheapest replica that costs around £2500

This is how it looked originally
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