Jinder

Lovely version, QM! I had the immense pleasure of hanging out with Brian a couple of times back in 2003/4. He's one of the nicest guys in rock'n'roll. His manager at the time, Jean Sievers, introduced us and told Brian I was the songwriter with a band that were in the charts that week, and he jumped and shook my hand, said with total sincerity "Man, that's so cool! How cool is that? Wow. Can I grab a photo of us together?" After getting over the initial shock of being asked for a Kodak moment by the man who wrote God Only Knows and a whole constellation of other classics, we spent ages chatting and drinking tea, and he was really funny and animated, not at all the deer-in-the-headlights that he seems to be in interview. Really kind and interested in others...he knew exactly what to say to make me, as a young up-and-comer at the time, feel really special and an equal somehow, despite him being arguably the greatest living composer of our times. I met up with him again a year later when he was on the road doing Smile, and he remembered me instantly, asked me how everything was going and whether I had any new music out...I was working on my first solo record at the time, and promised I'd email some rough mixes to him via Jean, which I did, and he was very kind about. I will never forget those times. Very precious memories.

A guitar manufacturer who I feel is woefully underrated is Mossman. I've played some astonishingly beautiful Mossman guitars. Just the very best of everything in terms of tone and response. A '76 Great Plains remains the only guitar that has ever reduced me to tears. No hyperbole there at all. At the end of the day, our preferences are all about personal impressions, a mixture of sonic compatibility and the emotional and musical connotations that we attach to instruments. It's like people, politics, preferences in a partner. We all have our leanings and our preferences etc. The things that touch us individually, for whatever reason, and make magic of the mundane. Sure, I could write songs and make records with any number of guitars. I've toured and recorded with a £200 secondhand Epiphone IB'64 Texan before, and loved it. That guitar touched me in s different way to my SJ200 or Dove, but it still touched me. Whatever works.

The maple Nick reissues are fantastic. I can only imagine how good the originals are. A grail guitar for me. I'll own a reissue one day and it'll make me happy as a clam though, I have no doubt.

Oh, wow...I could most definitely get involved with that!! I'm about $3200 short, but once that's sorted...!

I only ever aspired to play a Gibson. When I was a kid, I remember seeing pictures on my parents' LP sleeves of Dylan holding an SJ200 (Nashville Skyline) and Emmylou doing the same (Blue Kentucky Girl) and thinking "that's what the greats use". Further viewings of Johnny Cash, Waylon, Elvis, Townes, Little Jimmy Dickens (and so many more) playing them totally solidified that preconception. I respect Martin and Guild, and have owned and enjoyed a few of both. Three of the Martins I owned live in the "ones that got away" folder, I liked them so much, but it's always Gibsons that make my heart leap, even after all these years. There is a certain caché that comes with stepping onstage with a Gibson, and they all make different statements about the artist, to my mind at least. SJ200=country and storytelling, Dove=alternative Americana, Hummingbird=blues rock, J45=hard bitten workingman anthems, L-00=blues and folk. What the AJ says is anyone's guess, but it's usually something equally wonderful. I enjoyed every Martin I owned, but I never felt that sense of identity when stepping onstage with one. Gibsons make such a visual and sonic impression on an audience, which to many artists may be a bad thing, but to me it's a big part of who I am and what I do. Perhaps it's imaginary, or perhaps it's the weight of bringing my childhood dreams and ambitions to life, but for as long as I can remember, when I have stepped onstage with an SJ200, I've felt a sense of responsibility, the weight of greatness that all of those seminal artists who played an SJ200 brought to us as listeners and players, a duty and obligation to bring my A-game. To know that the guitar in your hands is capable of far more than the player holding it is a powerful thing...it makes you reach up, push towards the light and aspire. That aspiration is like lightning in a bottle, and can pull out of your soul the extra 2% that makes the difference between goodness and greatness. THAT is why I'll always be a Gibson player. These guitars gave me a license to dream, then a license to make that dream a reality. Through all of the insane ups and downs of my life and career over the last 23yrs, from playing arena gigs to being dropped by a label, penniless and living in my car (and a million other stations in between), the one thing that has sustained me through even the bleakest of times is the dream that lives inside the hard-shell case right next to me. My tireless travelling companion, the tool that gives voice to my inner dialogue, the key to the Tower of Song. Good enough for Townes, good enough (arguably TOO good) for me.

Same issue on my OnePlus. Makes the forum almost impossible to use! Please tweak it for us, Gibson!

I'm 99% sure that would be an all-solid guitar. It's unlike anything I've seen before and could well have been a custom order. It's cool as all hell! I love maple Dreads, and used a '95 Dove for most of my last album. This J35 is right up my street...as far as used market value goes, I'd expect to see it sell in the UK for £16/1700.

This video has sent me down a rabbit hole of researching old, lo-fi gear to make my next record with...I adore the tone she has and want to explore that area a little more. I looked into the modern Green Bullets and they're a relatively clean dynamic mic now, which I'm sure isn't what we're hearing in the video here...I'm on the hunt for a vintage example, either a GB or an Astatic JT30 or possibly one of the early Japanese made alternatives, but for now have ordered a Superlux D112 which allegedly sounds similar to the modern GB but with a little more mid-inclined vintageness to it. I also picked up an old Russian Oktava dynamic on a whim from Reverb for £13 posted from the Ukraine, most of them have DIN plugs but this one has been converted to XLR which sold it for me. They're cheaply made mics but were industry standard in the Soviet Union for many years and have a sort of crankily beautiful tone for recording acoustic guitar. I've always strived for pure, clear and harmonically rich recorded tone and have spent many years chasing down the sound in my head. I love valve mics and crisp, full tone, but I really want to go the other way after seeing this video and make a sort of vibey, old timey record with all the rattling cuff buttons and mistakes left in.

I'll try those out! Most of my guitars have soundhole pickups (Sunrise mainly and a Seymour Duncan MagMic in my Dove) so nickel strings require a whole load of tweaking re polepiece heights for live performance with Nickels (I have also tried the excellent John Pearse nickels on my old AJ), but as no gigs are forthcoming at the moment it's an ideal time to try stuff out!

I would say the Veritas are definitely worth a try, I have been extremely impressed. They're the best DR strings by some way, I would say. I like the Rare and Dragon Skin DRs, but don't love them as such...the Veritas are in an entirely different league to the other DR sets in my humble opinion. Newtone Masterclass round cores are superb too, I have had excellent results with them on my SJ200 and Maple AJ. The Dove and Sigma are excelling with Veritas, the J45 with Retros and my Hummingbird 12 string is big and chimey with Martin Lifespans. I may try D'Addario EXPs on the 12er next, whatever it wears needs to be coated as I find string changes on 12s a real chore!

I like Cleartones a lot. Really great strings with minimal evidence of the finger noise as you mentioned. DR Veritas are the other strings I've been really enjoying recently, they're pleasing me hugely on my Dove and Sigma CF-100 copy.

Thankyou for the tip off-I must try the Retros on my Dove, I tried the D'Addario Nickel Bronze on my old D18 (a standard model from the early '00s which I never bonded with...I replaced it with a prototype D18 Golden Era which was incredible, but now belongs to my good friend Richard who is much more of a Martin man than I am and really makes it sing. I seem to only be able to get where I want to go with Gibsons, but that's another story entirely) and didn't like them as much as EXPs on that particular guitar. I'm all for trying them again though, I've been wrong before!

Hi all, Inspired by the great Sierra Ferrell video shared last week, I've picked up an old style Harp mic and am planning on doing some lo-fi single source recordings using my '67 J45, once my cranky fingers allow...I thought for extra effect I would try a set of Martin Retro strings (11s to accommodate said cranky fingers) to see how they jived with the dry, old tonewoods. First impressions are very good indeed...the guitar is naturally a VERY loud instrument with a dry, fundamental-forward tone. The Retros really play to those strengths and sound great...I have no idea how they will bed in, but for now I like them a lot. Has anyone else tried them? Would love to know thoughts if so!

The guitar is genuine. So many tells appearance wise if you know what to search for...the Chibson fakes never get anywhere near the look of the real thing. As has been said, the inspection card mixup is down to the GC staffer grabbing an otherwise identical case for a different J45. Get a decent setup put on it and enjoy! I owned one of those when they were called a J15 and loved it. Walnut is such a bright and expressive tonewood. It will give you a different tone and feel to your Taylor which you'll really come to appreciate.

I'm not sure what the logic is/was behind the dual action rod, mine works fine but it would be easy to totally destroy the neck if it was used with the same range of turning as a standard rod. My Dove has seen a great deal of life before it came to me, so I'm surprised it has survived this far! There were certainly some wacky ideas about in Bozeman in the early '90s as you said, and they appeared to come and go almost arbitrarily-my former '90 Hummingbird had a paddle neck joint and Fullerplast finish, but a standard rod, whereas the Dove, five years later, got Nitro and what appears to be a standard neck joint, but the kooky truss rod. One thing seems to be universal though-it was a real purple patch for tone and build quality. The Hummingbird, Dove and also the '94 Blues King that I owned were all exceptional instruments.

I really like the Veritas! I put a set on my little Sigma CF-100 copy and was impressed straight away, that was two or three weeks ago and they're still sounding great. I thought I would try another set on my Dove, as I couldn't play it with 12s. Initial impressions are very good-I used the standard B and E on the Sigma and the Xenons on the Dove, not a huge difference but they seem nicely defined and have a strong "pop" to them. I kept the Xenons by from the set I put on the Sigma, so I'll put those on at some point, I'll be interested to see how they compare to the standard wires. Yes the joints still aren't playing ball in the way I'd like, but I can play for a little longer now without significant pain, 30 mins or more and it's game over, but it's such a joy to be playing again!

I've been keeping an eye out for one of these all-Hog EL-00s for a while but they never seem to come up on the 'bay here in the UK which is a shame. They look great and sound superb from the YouTube demos I've heard.

That's a LOUD Dove!! What a great sounding thing. I've never heard anything that sits better in a mix than a Dove, they can come across as very "in your face" as a solo instrument (I use mine solo all the time, having said that) but they just melt into a mix like musical butter into warm toast. So balanced, no preponderance of bass, delicate and lyrical midrange and that glorious, percussive top which holds everything together beautifully for strumming and arpeggios. My last record is almost all Dove, other than a couple of cameos by my SJ200 and old Cedar topped Takamine EAN20C. We used a mixture of valve condensers and a ribbon mic, but whatever we put in front of the Dove it sounded fabulous.

I slung a set of DR Veritas 11s onto my '95 Dove yesterday...I missed playing it madly, but my joints are still so painful post-illness that I couldn't play it with 12s. I expected the action to drop a touch with 11s, as often happens, of course. However, the neck relief did not budge one iota. Same action as with Martin 12s, which of course have thicker cores and higher tension than most 12 gauge strings, and this is with Veritas 11-50s. I immediately suspected that I may be dealing with one of the dreaded dual-action truss rods that Hogeye regaled us with tales of in years gone by. I whipped off the TRC and, sure enough, there was the 1/4" brass nut, brazed to the rod. I froze for a moment and scratched my head...do I tweak it and roll the dice on it not working, snapping or worse, or leave it and ride out the higher than standard action? Of course, I tweaked. I reached for my 1/4" drive 1/4" socket (which always used to be kept close to hand for replacing con rods in modified go-kart engines, the racing of which was a hobby of 27yrs until the Covid crisis and illness had other ideas...as recently as last October, as a "past it" racer on the verge of turning 40, I was leading (and on the verge of winning) the British championship before my stay in hospital made me miss the last two rounds!), And to my delight found that the dreaded dual-action rod was actually in perfect working order...boy, are these things sensitive! Less than a sixteenth of a turn brought the relief down to the perfect place, and the guitar rang out clear and true. Maybe I got lucky. The 1990 Hummingbird I owned previously (man, I miss that one) had a standard rod, so this is my first rodeo with the double trouble, but it was entirely trouble free. I've heard horror stories about them being stuck fast by glue seepage, breaking necks etc...thankfully I was forewarned so knew to go gently. Has anyone else come across these oddbod rods?

Wow, her voice (and specifically the way it's recorded) is sensational. Is she singing into a Green Bullet? I've only ever seen those crystal mics used for harmonica, never ever for vocals in all the 20yrs or so that I've been in and out of studios doing session work and recording my stuff. The sound is so '20s but without the crackle and clipping, modern clarity with old world tone...I'm smitten. There is a little of Karen Dalton about the artist, she can certainly write and perform.

That's a genuine guitar at a GREAT price. Such a shame you're too far away to snag it!

I've always been an advocate of 12s as a general string choice, and 13s for certain guitars. Having said that, I often find I can tease out the silkiest voices that are hidden away in small bodied instruments by using (whisper it!) 11s. I currently have DR Veritas 11s on my little Sigma CF-100 copy and it's a perfect match. I'd never use 11s on something like my SJ200, but small bodied instruments are "off book" in terms of my usual choices of strings etc.

I can only speak for the '68 F25 I owned...hugely wide nut (2") but an incredibly flat and shallow neck profile. Would have been lovely with a deeper and more meaty neck...as it was, it was painful to play for more than half an hour for me, despite sounding terrific. Different hands may find it fits better though, I know Grampa on here loves his to bits.

All of my Gibsons have checking somewhere or another...my '95 Dove looks like it's been through a war (heavy checking on the headstock, checked top, nitro almost entirely gone on the back of the neck through checking and playwear), my '67 J45 is a little less checked up and the Hummingbird 12, SJ200 and Maple AJ all have minor checking/lacquer cracks in places such as around the logo, headstock binding. I think it's just a reality of life with a Nitro finished instrument. I don't mind it at all, it adds a bit of character and patina. My guitars aren't case queens in the slightest, in normal circumstances they all earn their keep on the road and wear their scars accordingly. If I was a collector or investor, I would probably feel quite differently about checking.

I've owned a couple of Recording Kings (RP06 and RNJ-25, a Martin 0-18 copy and a Nick Lucas copy respectively) which were both uniformly excellent. I miss them both, superb guitars. I put a Rare Earth in the RP06 and a Matrix Infinity in the RNJ and they were a pair of terrific gigging instruments for under £500 for the pair. Underrated I would probably say Harley Benton, the Thomann house brand. I own a little tenor guitar by them that has the best fit and finish of any guitar I've ever owned...I've been over every inch of it and it's almost unnervingly perfect. Sounds great too, and was under £130 delivered. Overrated...for me, personally? Collings. I feel guilty for saying it, but every single one I've played has left me stone cold. I should add that I don't count the Waterloo (Collings sub-brand) guitars amongst this...they're great guitars. The Collings branded instruments just don't do it for me, though. They are beautifully built, play well, look gorgeous but don't suit my ear or playing style whatsoever. A couple of years ago I was very excited to try out one of their Adi/Rosewood parlours that a dealer friend had in stock, but I was utterly bored by it within five mins of noodling about. Picked up the Dove that he sagely knew I would end up buying, and I was instantly home. It was as if the music I had to wrestle from the Collings just fell from the Dove in a cascade with minimal effort on my part. No contest for me.