equipment

Guitars

My guitar equipment can best be described as "selected firewood". It's worth about as much. I have owned some good guitars in my day...two real Les Pauls, an L6-S, a Fender Mustang...While in other bands I have played Fender Telecasters, Gibson SGs and Melody Makers. But currently my lame guitar collection consists of the following riff raff (except for the PRS):

Epiphone G-400 PRO: I'm a BIG SG fan, it's definitely my guitar of choice. This white one I bought new from Sweetwater in 2019. I was looking for a white one used, but they wanted so much for one I just bought a new one. Tuning stability is outstanding, even with Epiphone tuners (normally I would expect Grovers). I also have two used SG-400s that I started out with. One is Korean, the other Chinese. I upgraded both with coil splits and used rail humbuckers on one of them. I use a "string butler" on these to improve tuning stability. The rail HBkr one is used as a practice guitar, the other is a spare I use when gigging in case a string breaks. Played around with roller bridges for a while but settled on the old TOM bridges (but not the Epiphone ones, I think they're a bit cheap). Might actually consider a real Gibson SG if I get rich & famous. I have the money for a real one, but just don't think they are that much better than these Epiphones.

Epiphone Junior (black): I bought this one new at Guitar Center in 2007 for $99. At the time I had a Yamaha electric (actually a pretty good guitar) but I just wasn't into it (it had a Floyd Rose, which I hated). This low end Epiphone had the old "Gibson" feel and I am really into single pickup guitars (ala Leslie West). Probably 95% of my "Better Late Than Never" CD was recorded using this guitar; a lot of the songs on that CD were recorded before I started "collecting" guitars. Mostly stock except for some Wilkinson Rotomatic tuners (which are blatent Grover ripoffs, with a 19:1 ratio, at half the Grover price).

PRS Standard 24: I always wanted one of these things; decided to get one before I retired in late 2021. Waited too long and ended up paying for it (retail prices went up $150!). While it's a great player and is of great quality, I'm still having issues with the 10.5" radius. I've simply gotten used to very flat (13"-14") radius guitars. Didn't like the ceramic pickups, so I replaced them with some Epiphone PUs. But it's a keeper since they will never be any less expensive. Will probably always be the most expensive guitar I will ever own (unless I find an old Gibson SG that blows me away).

Monoprice Fake Tele: After a few years Monoprice came out with a newer line of guitars. These were a bit more expensive but appeared to have a bit higher quality than their first line. I always liked Teles, and thought I would get a Squier at some point but decided to try this one. The finish is awesome. I replaced the three barrel bridge with a six saddle bridge and swapped out the bridge pickup for a dual rail humbucker shaped to fit a Tele pickup (so I didn't need to cut any wood). Teles are like cell phones, everybody should have one. I don't use it that much, but I like to have it around. Fret work on this cheapie is outstanding (probably more luck than quaility control).

Firefly Guitars: Ok these are my latest additions. Everybody knows I am into cheapo guitars. If you follow YouTube guitar channels you have probably seen the dozens of reviews of these Chinese guitars mostly available from a place called Guitars Garden (but sometimes available from Amazon). They make 335 (they call it a 338), Les Paul, SG, Explorer, Flying V, Strat and Tele clones plus some other models. I always wanted a 335 and a LP type guitar, so I decided to try these. When in stock they tend to sell out in 48 hours or so. I had to look at the web site every day for a few months until I could even get one as you never know when they will be back in stock. The 338s are currently $160 (used to be $140!) and the LPs are $180. The reviews are everything from "best ever" to "junk". As usual, the truth lies inbetween and I can only speak of my two purchases. First off the finish on these guitars is fantastic. Construction seems to be pretty good as well. These both have bone nuts, not plastic. They have MOTS inlays which look pretty good. On the 338, the fretboard coloration is a bit weird; I think it's supposed to be rosewood but I'm not sure. The 338 has those small sized pots (expected) and most of the reviews said the tuners were crap. I have a bunch of good tuners laying around, so I just swapped them out. I also replaced the bridge with a Gotoh bridge. I had to work on the frets for a while (several high ones) and will probably do a full fret level on it at some point. Pickups are average. Now, the LP was much, much better. It actually has full size pots, bone nut, the fretwork is great (no high frets, low action), fretboard is fine, the bridge is very nice & wide. Not sure if the tuners are any good, but I had a spare set of Grovers laying around so I just put them on. I was shocked to see 4 wire pickups in the LP; it's not wired for splits but it does have 4 wire pickups. Now you can find flaws if you look hard; one of the inlays is a bit crooked and a few of the tuners could be a bit more centered but you would really have to do a lot of scrutiny to find this. So....when guitars are this cheap you can't expect that every one will be a winner. The 338 is fine after I put in a bit of work; the LP was just about perfect out of the box. If you are the type that doesn't mind doing a bit of work these are great instruments at a rock bottom price. And it appears that most are very good, but at this price point you need to expect that sometimes clunkers get through QC (if there actually is any QC). I have some GutarFetish pickups laying around and I might swap out the bridge pickups at some point on both of these, but that's just because I have them laying around from other projects. I do plan to actually gig with these guitars as they not only play well they are really pretty (to me, looks matter on a guitar). I already have a hard case for the LP; the ironic thing here is that a good case for the 338 costs about half of what I paid for the guitar itself. Bottom line is these are way better than the price would indicate. It's hard to believe they can produce a guitar this good and so cheap.

Agile 12 String: Saw this in the used inventory in a local guitar shop for $149. You're saying the same thing I said...."must be junk". I did a bit of research on Agiles (Rondo Music) and was amazed. Everybody said the same thing, "there're cheap"...."have no resale value (obviously)"...."all made in Asia" (this one is Korean)...and then they all ended the discussion with what an excellent instrument it is for a really low price. I checked it out, and figured it was probably worth the $149. Hell, I have had restaurant bills bigger than that. I haven't used it much yet, but it's nice to have around. You can hear it at the beginning and end of "Best I Could Do" on the "One More Time" CD. It's good for playing Hotel California and old Byrds tunes. Not quite a Ricky 12, but close enough for $149.

EART Headless: Sometimes you just do goofy stuff. Actually a very nice guitar, stainless steel frets and the 5-piece neck is great. I changed the pickups to some Wilkinson Humbuckers and use it as a drop D guitar at gigs. It suffers from "strat-itis", ie, the volume control was too close to the bridge, so I eventually moved it back a few inches. EART makes fantastic guitars for the price.

Yamaha Bass: Bought this at GC new for $150. What can I say....I needed a bass guitar so I bought the cheapest one I could find that had an adjustable bridge. Works for me.

Effects: I don't use amps to record, I just go from a pedal directly into the recorder ("thru the board" as they say). On my first CD I used a BOSS ME-70 effects pedal. My friend Pat had a DigiTech RP-1000 and likes that, so after some research, I bought one off of Ebay. This is also a good pedal. Most of my second CD uses the RP-1000. Now that I'm in a band I use the RP-1000 and bought a second one for a spare. The good thing about the RP-1000 is that you can load and store all of the presets from a PC so there isn't much danger of losing the presets (couldn't do that on the BOSS). However the RP-1000 isn't made any longer so at some point I'll probably need to look at another multi-effects box. I like this setup as I don't want to string 10 different effect boxes together on a pedal board and try to remember what combination sounded good last time. I recently got rid of the BOSS pedal as I don't really use it any longer.

Acoustics: I really don't play acoustics much...but somehow I have two of them. The first one (a Martin D-28, 1968 vintage) I inherited from my late mother who was a country western musician. She played in her own country band for many years. Now don't get too excited, I know most Martins that old can be worth a lot, but this one is REALLY beat up. My mother glued a plastic cover on it, and some glitter on the head stock (something punishable by death in most guitar shops). I removed all of this stuff and refinished the main body. Looks rank but still really sounds good (after all, it's still a Martin). The other acoustic is an Epiphone that sat in my basement for about 10 years left over from some band my son was in for a while. I had to put a bone bridge on it and fix a string peg or two, but it actually looks and sounds pretty good. I haven't used either of these on my recordings yet. I'm more of an electric guy than an acoustic guy. At some point, I'll probably get rid of the Epiphone; I'm somewhat emotionally attached to the Martin.

1969 Ampeg G12 Amp: Now that I'm in a cover band I needed an amp; I bought this amp in 1969 while in high school for about $190. It saw a lot of action as I was in a bunch of bands until the late 70's. It failed on me one night (in 1975, I think) and I put the wrong fuse in it and smoked it. It sat disassembled on my desk for a year or two and I finally wrote the Ampeg company to get parts and replaced several caps and the output transformer and replaced the power tubes and it came back to life. I further re-tubed it in 1992 and in 2016 I went thru the chassis and replaced the main caps and power resisters and anything else that looked a little smokey. So far it has been working perfectly with no buzzing; even the effects (reverb and tremelo) work fine. I do carry a spare amp on gigs as you never know what might happen. But for over 50 years old, this thing is a real gem. I use a home made external speaker cabinet with Ampeg grill cloth with an extra 12" speaker for gigs.

Gone But Not Forgotten - Stuff I Used To Have (but got rid of)

Epiphone Junior (brown/black):I decided I wanted to experiment with a different pickup, and being afraid to screw up my black Epiphone Junior, I bought this one used at Music-Go-Round for $70. I replaced the stock pickup with a Guitar Fetish P90 clone. I thought it would sound like a 57 Les Paul. Actually...it sounded like an Epiphone with a Guitar Fetish P90 clone pickup. Seriously though, it sounded ok. I love the midrange tones I got from this thing. I put some 19:1 locking tuners on this one (I forget which brand). I eventually traded it in for an Epiphone SG Goth model.

Epiphone Black SG-400 PRO: Actually this was my first Epiphone SG Pro. It was in very good condition. I did a lot of recording with this. It's only fault was the neck was a bit chunky and I was looking for one that had a thinner neck. I finally found one with a thinner neck (one of the red ones I currently own, the Korean one) and traded it in to get the red one. Looking back, not sure if this was a keeper or not.

Epiphone SG-400 (Goth): Traded in the brown Epi Junior guitar for this one at GC. Didn't have any fret inlays or dots so I put some stickers on it. A very cool guitar but didn't really get into it. Ended up giving it to my friend Bruce who expressed some interest in getting an SG-400. Funny, it seems all of the flat finish Epiphone SGs like this one seem to just not "feel" right to me like the gloss finish ones do.

Epiphone SG Special: What a great guitar! Paid $99 (these are less than $200 new, I think). I upgraded the tuners and replaced the bridge pickup on this one. Did a few recordings with it also. Eventually traded it in for one of my red SG-400s (the Chinese one). This was one of the best guitars I ever owned and I always recommend them to any begining guitarist. The only thing this model lacks is the long access neck that the SG-400s have. That's the only reason I traded it. The red finish on it was outstanding, a really good looking guitar.

Monoprice Chinese Les Paul I'm not really a Les Paul guy (I've owned two real ones). Much too heavy for me, and I prefer double cutaways. But this cheap knockoff ($154 which included shipping) was just too cheap to resist. It was from Monoprice, it was from their first line of cheap electric guitars. For the price of a fair radial tire, I just had to try it. The finish was beautiful. I did a lot of work on this guitar; tuners, bridge, fret work, nut, pickups; but in the end I never quite liked how it felt or sounded. It was a great learning platform and let's face it, you can't screw up a $154 guitar. Finally sold it to Music-Go-Round for $80 (after restoring all the original parts and keeping any of the better ones I modified it with). It looked like it sold pretty quickly. Good luck to whoever bought it. After a while I decided to try another chinese LP and ended up with the Firefly mentioned above. I'm very satisfied with that LP.

Ibanez GIO: This was my daughter's guitar. She has since picked up a couple of Epiphones and wasn't interested in keeping this one. At first I didn't like it, but after some neck adjustments, fret leveling, a roller bridge and new tuners (Wilkinson rotomatics) I really grew to like this guitar. I'm amazed since it's such a cheap guitar. But it plays and sounds great. Throw on some cheap stickers and you're all set. But I have so many SGs, I finally got rid of it.

Fender Squier Strats: What's up with Strats? What in the world made Eric Clapton switch from Gibsons to a Strat? Actually, I have always liked Fender necks, they are almost always easier to play than Gibbys. But I have never cared for single coil pickups. I have a thing for maple fretboards, so I bought this one. I replaced the tuners on it (the stock ones were pretty bad, and in one case, broken) and also replaced all of the electronics except for the pickups. I put a single humbucker on this for a while but then eventually returned it to its natural state. The truth is I have gotten used to playing 12/13 inch radius flat fretboards and now have trouble with these low radius Fender clones. My first Squier strat was a blue one that I used a little bit on the first CD. But I eventually got rid of both of them as I settled into SGs. Squiers are still GREAT guitars at a very low price.