Jinder

That is an incredible 185 isn't it? So dry and crisp. I'd love to play it. I've seen Hawley live a couple of times, superb artist and very, very funny too. Lovely guy.

Love this, Jason! I spied the Frank Turner tee too, Frank's a great guy. I opened for his former band Million Dead many years ago and caught up with him at a festival in Croatia a couple of years ago that we were both playing. Had a coffee with him in his bus and nerded out about Hummingbirds together!

No judgement here, we're all going to have different approaches to transporting our instruments and what I choose for the purpose is no reflection on your FRANKLY INSANE CHOICE TO PUT A SUPER 400 IN A DAMN BAG! (I'm joking by the way 🤪) I have used POD style semi-hard cases for my resonators for years as the weight of a reso combined with a HSC is just too much for my problem shoulder to cope with. The only one I haven't trusted to a soft case is my 1930s (pre-Regal) fiddle-edge Dobro M32. There are so few left in the world that I couldn't bear the idea of it getting broken, so it stays in its Hiscox Liteflite Artist case, which is light enough for me to tote. The M32 is the lightest reso I've ever owned too, which helps. I've spent the last half an hour googling 18" soft cases and I think you're going to have to go down the custom build route. Not cheap I would imagine, but worth it.

Sounds like something of a one-trick pony, but WHAT a trick. I really dig that thin '20s style tone.

One all-mahogany guitar I owned and really enjoyed was the Martin 00-DB Jeff Tweedy signature. Small (00 obviously), but deep bodied and so punchy and warm. Amazingly rich midrange overtones and a really superb all-rounder. Wish I still owned it, but I traded it (along with a very averagey example of a D18) for my 2015 SJ200 when it was new...absolutely zero regrets there as the SJ200 is magnificent.

I certainly didn't feel any roughness that I noticed-they feel very similar to D'Addario EXPs which are my go-to string for most guitars, just a touch heavier (54 bottom E rather than 53 etc). If there is any roughness there I'll certainly be aware of it by the end of two hours of gigging tonight...will report back!

I picked up a "two sets for one" pack of these for £15 from my local guitar shop...I thought I'd give them a whirl on my '41 RI SJ100 which is one of my main live guitars. I slung a set on just now ready for tonight's gig and am REALLY impressed with them. They're coated but don't feel coated, and sound absolutely huge. So much bottom end! Really nice bell-like trebles and smooth, complex mids too. Has anyone else tried them? Looking forward to using them live tonight!

In my experience, YouTube recordings are woefully inadequate in portraying live tone-it never, ever sounds anywhere near the same. If YouTube was to be taken at face value, the Sunrise pickup (as used by Richard Thompson, Lyle Lovett, Emmylou, Michael Hedges and dozens of others known for their immaculate live tone...and me too 🙈) would be consigned to the bin of uselessness...I haven't heard a single YouTube recording that even comes close to the real sound of the pickup, or indeed sounds half decent. In real world use, I find the Sunrise to be immensely musical and responsive, one of the most enjoyable pickups I've ever used and, whilst not the most pure of acoustic replications tone wise, it's a terrific guitar sound. By the time it's been put through a preamp/mixer/speaker and into a room, it's scarcely recognisable from the YouTube version, which usually is the pickup plugged straight into an interface and a DAW, which of course isn't how these pickups are intended to be used at all. The MagMic, in similar real-world non-YouTube applications, is very enjoyable and versatile. The MagMic wins out over the Rare Earth Blend (another very good pickup) by virtue of the adjustable polepieces, which can be wound up for a more immediate attack and a more "electric" sound, and wound down for a more warm tone. This is also extremely useful for dialling in string balance, something I've never found to be to my taste with the Rare Earth Humbucker or Blend (unwound strings are always too hot and "pingy" compared to the wound wires, although this issue doesn't occur with the Rare Earth Single Coil for some reason). The Baggs M1/M1A and M80 are very good pickups, don't get me wrong, I just find they sound a little muddled. The body sensor element is a good idea and a very clever design, but to me (and everyone else's take on this may be entirely different!) A direct amplification of wood wobbling around isn't necessarily a preferable aural element to air moving as captured by a condenser mic, and whilst the body sensor adds an extra dimension, it doesn't do so as musically as a mic, in my opinion If Baggs brought out an M80 style pickup with the option to blend in/out the body sensor AND a mic (on a separate blend control) I would be first in the queue for that beast. Triple source and SO much versatility in one package.

VS means Vintage Sunburst. Or, in the case of this particular guitar's authenticity, Very Suspect.

It's quite a different beast to the M80. The M80 uses a top sensing coil and usually sounds bright and a little muddled to me. The MagMic has an onboard condenser capsule, complete with onboard blend control and preamps for both mic and pickup. I find that whilst it still sounds like a mag pickup, it sounds a LOT more like the guitar it's in than most other soundhole mags. The mic is quite accurate and honest.

Wonderful demo by JT, and shocking that Gibson treated him like that. That aside, that original '43 banner LG1 is to die for isn't it? So beautiful.

I use D'Addario EXP Mediums on my Maple AJ, that guitar really sings with a big chunky ol' set of wires on it.

Try the Seymour Duncan MagMic, they're a brilliant dual source mag pickup with a miniature condenser mic built in and onboard blending, so no need for an external mic/lead/stand etc. Super transparent and warm. I use one in my '41 Reissue SJ100, and it often gets compliments at live shows. If you can live with the look of a soundhole pickup (I quite like the businesslike visuals), the MagMic is a terrific option.

Ah, the lure of the majestic Hummingbird. I've owned four, three six strings and one twelve. The twelve is still here and is one of my very best loved guitars. A great Hummingbird can well be a guitar for life.

PROS : slightly easier on the left hand, brighter tone if the guitar is excessively dark, reduces the volume of a very punchy instrument which can be useful for a quiet singer looking for an instrument for accompaniment CONS : ...just about everything else! A higher action required to prevent buzzing, lower volume for general purpose playing, less bass, less definition and note separation in chords, less of the sound of the driven top, can sound overly splatty and tinny with a heavy pick, everything gets very loose in downtuned altered tunings OVERALL THOUGHTS & EXPERIENCES : anything less than 12s isn't for me. Perhaps on a small bodied guitar 11s could work, but not a dread in my experience...it feels a bit like putting bicycle tyres on a Harley Davidson, to me.

Buc is right. There is no magic bullet or proven formula here, every guitar responds differently to changes and every player hears it in an entirely individual way. There is a high likelihood that you will enjoy the K&K and find a small tonal improvement acoustically when you ditch the Element. I know I have found this to be the case many times, as the woven metal undersaddle unit tends to be quite soft and rob a little volume and top end clarity when fitted. I use soundhole pickups as I tend to play on a wide variety of stages and, whilst not as "pure" an acoustic tone as something like a K&K, they are tremendously consistent and offer a security blanket against feedback and other problems. I have K&Ks in my '67 J45 and Hummingbird 12 though and they sound fantastic. You're highly likely to enjoy the K&K sound. The other changes are entirely subjective though...suck 'em and see.

You absolutely should. Don't worry about keeping it perfect, play it and enjoy it, let it's life begin in earnest. In my opinion guitars aren't meant to be perfect...I've never once listened to a classic record and thought "jeez, that acoustic sounds unmarked!" All my guitars have bruises and battlescars, between them they have been in and out of planes, trains and automobiles more times than most people do in a lifetime. They work for me and I work for them. I never treat them disrespectfully, always keep them clean and well maintained, but they're out on the road with me between four and six nights a week and have inevitable playwear. The upside is, of course, that the more they're played the more they open up and really start to sing.

I've had zero problems whatsoever with my AJ wearing 13s-quite the opposite if anything. It feels like the most robust guitar I own, and I didn't even need to tweak the truss rod when going up to 13s. I use 12s on everything normally, but the AJ just seems to call for 13s, and responds magnificently with D'Addario EXPs in particular.

Welcome to the club!! You'll love it...hope you get the chance to have more of a play with it soon!

J15s are great guitars! So dynamic and touch sensitive, loads of lovely overtones and punch, but subtle with it. I miss the one I had back in '16 and sold.

There are a couple of approaches you can try here...to come up with the melody first and build the chord structure around it, or try to find chord melody within the existing structure. Mother Maybelle Carter was brilliant at chord melody, and would often shadow the vocal melody with arpeggiated melody within the chords she played. I often do this in reverse, and find a vocal melody within the music. Songwriting is an absolute enigma. Nobody actually really knows what they're doing. I've been writing songs for 25yrs, am a former staff writer for Universal Records, have written and recorded ten albums for five different labels and a load of songs for other acts...I still have no idea where the songs come from, how to write a song with intent or what the formula is. Ask anyone from Carole King to a newbie and they'll all tell you the same thing. Magic can't be mapped. I'm just glad and grateful when a new one comes along.

I had an LG2 AE for a while too. Really lovely little guitar, sweet and punchy but tucks behind a vocal beautifully. I really wish I still had mine, it was a few years ago and I can't even remember what I traded it for now.

Brendan, great to see you back here! What a great song, performance and guitar. Hope you're well.

I though you might be the one to advise, thankyou! I'll give the Blackstack a miss until I can try it hands on. I have a Seymour Duncan MM in my '41 Reissue SJ100 and love it-superb pickup! I'd fit another in a heartbeat, although nothing has topped the Sunrise for me yet. I enjoy mine in my AJ as a single source unit, although I do use my Boss AD10 pre and run the 'Acoustic Resonance' function at around 11 o'clock, which I think probably adds something of the air to the Sunrise tone that a bit of mic blend achieves. I used my SJ200 (with Fishman Matrix Infinity) for a gig the other day, and was shocked by how cheesy the UST sounds in comparison to my Sunrise, MagMic etc that I've been using for the last year or so. Not even in the same district in terms of tonal quality. I'm wondering whether I'd see much tonal uptick from running a Sunrise buffer box in front of the AD10...it seems a bit self defeating to chain the gain stages like that, but I'm intrigued. I'm also very interested in the Sarno Steel Guitar Black Box, the all tube variable-z front end box which is supposed to add all manner of tonal magic when placed at the front of the signal chain. It's not just a buffer as such (although it functions as one), more a tonal conditioner. Fascinating bit of gear!

Gorgeous guitar! The Vintage is a superb instrument, a real guitar for life. Looks to be in perfect condition too! Enjoy it in good health.