Jinder

I can’t even recall what first brought me here, some 15yrs ago or so…I’ve been checking in pretty much daily since then though, and have learned and laughed plenty. Have made some stellar friends, many of whom I’ve met in person and several I’ve bought/sold guitars to or from, and whilst there is the occasional wrinkle here and there I’d say far fewer kickfights than on most forums. This place is golden.

Hi all, I have a line on a very tidy ‘66 Epi Cortez which is of interest to me due to its comfortable body size and slim neck. I’m considering it as an alternative to the ‘60s Original J45 I was pondering previously. It’s had the adjustable bridge converted to a fixed saddle (not that that bothers me either way) and looks to be in nice shape. I believe they were basically a Kalamazoo built B25/LG2 with a different headstock. Has anyone played one? I’ve played and enjoyed various LG2s and B25s, but I’ve never owned a vintage one or played a Cortez. Any thoughts would be welcome.

I prefer a moderate to high action too (3.5/4mm at the 12th on the low E). I play with a thickish pick (.88 Tortex Flex) and like to pull certain dynamics from the guitar that a higher action facilitates. I use a variety of strings, from Martin Retro 11s at concert pitch on my ‘67 J45 to Ernie Ball Everlast 13s tuned to Eb on my SJ200. That action height seems to work well for me all round, but this is a real “different strokes” thing. Tommy Emmanuel tells everyone to lower their action, but no amount of low action ever made me play like Tommy! Go for whatever works for you…there is no right or wrong here, just different flavours.

A quick addendum to this…after expressing my apathy towards K&K, I spent the last weekend gigging with my K&K equipped ‘67 J45, didn’t take my pedalboard, looper, AD10 or anything else, just the J45 into my K&K Pure preamp and then straight into A) a Bose S1 Pro that was supplied by the host of the house gig I was playing on the Saturday, and B) my AER Compact 60 that I usually gig with on the Sunday. I’ll be damned if it didn’t sound absolutely superb. Really dynamic, sweet and natural. Took a bit of EQ work to get rid of some midrange honk but once that was squared away it was a joy. It was particularly good through the Bose S1 Pro. The Tonematch system on those little beasts really jives well with any and all pickups in my experience. Had to pop a Feedback Buster into the soundhole for a few fingerstyle numbers which I had to turn the gain up for, but as more of a precaution than anything. Impedance matching seem to be a crucial factor with K&K as straight into my AD10 pre it sounds much more tubby and unnatural. Into an amp or desk via the Pure preamp is much better.

Thanks Ken! That’s good to hear. I’ve never minded an adjustable bridge, have owned a few with them. I converted my ‘67 J45 to a fixed bridge out of curiosity to see how it sounded…made very little difference at all! It sounded great before and great after. I like the adjustability (obviously!) aspect, always handy for switching string gauges and dialling out seasonal action changes. I have several fixed bridge guitars so a little extra adj zing is always welcome!

Thanks Zomb, that’s very interesting info. I don’t think 1 11/16” would be a problem, the other neck I found very CTS friendly in the past was the 1 11/16” neck on my old D18GE prototype. I could play that for hours with no problems. Sold it during the Covid layoff to pay some bills…should have defaulted on ‘em and kept the guitar in hindsight!!

Thanks Boyd, really interesting stuff re the necks. I think I need to get one in my hands to feel how different it is to my ‘67. I have played a few ‘60s Gibsons which had massively varied neck carves so I’m not sure what they’ve used as a median basis for the ‘60s Original neck! How is the sound of the ‘60s Original? I’ve always liked adjustable bridges, despite them being controversial! I converted my ‘67 from Adj to fixed bridge and it made no difference at all to it sonically. Wish I’d left the Adj bridge in there!

Thanks Forty! All good thoughts. I’ve not taken the ‘67 out for a show since pre-Covid before today. I’ve been using my AJ and SJ200 for live work and my Dove for recording-all 25.5” scale and 1.725” nut width with the standard (ie Bozeman era) neck profile. Until today, since live work began again circa 18mths ago (with the brief break again for the last lockdown last year) my CTS has grown progressively worse in playing situations to the point that I’m hit with intense tingling and burning sensations and a lack of touch sensitivity in my fretting hand within 15mins or so of picking the guitar up. I find it a bit bizarre that switching to the skinny neck on my ‘67 has made it go away so completely…I’m wondering if it has manifested as an RSI from playing the same neck profiles/scale lengths all the time? I really need to take advice on it from a physio I think. I just found today’s pain free gig such a joy that I want them all to be like that! CTS has been a problem for me since 2014 and whilst it has been fully diagnosed via nerve conduction tests and I have been trying to convince my doctor that I should have it operated on, the NHS have now changed their policy on carpal trench surgery and will only carry it out if the CTS is so advanced that incipient paralysis is a risk…it’s far too costly a procedure to go private in the UK so I’m stuck with trying to work around it at the moment which is less than ideal to say the least!

Hi all, After a year of struggling with increasingly irritating Carpal Tunnel Syndrome symptoms in my fretting hand, I’ve recently had a breakthrough-when playing my ‘67 J45, skinny neck and all, I have NO CTS symptoms in my left hand whatsoever! I’ve just finished a 2.5hr show which featured probably the best performance guitar wise I’ve given for the last 18mths. I can feel what I’m doing rather than just pain and burning tingling at last. The only issue with this is that my ‘67 is too old and valuable for me to want to use it as a gig hack four nights a week. I take it out for the occasional theatre/arts centre gig but otherwise it stays at home for recording etc. All of this has made me curious about the newish Original ‘60s J45 model. Apparently the neck carve and width is “period correct” and 1.68” at the nut. Has anyone played one? I’d love some real world feedback if at all possible as I’m considering moving some kit on and investing in one as a “daily driver” if the neck profile is kinder to my hands as per my ‘67. Any thoughts and advice gratefully received!

I think we’re on different pages here-I mean a resonant node as in what is often referred to as a “wolf tone” or “wolf note”, which is the nodal frequency of the entire instrument, which-if it is the frequency of a particular fretted or open string note (in the case of my J180 this was around 92hz, or G played at the third fret of the bottom E string) causes a resonant phasing/phase cancellation effect where the note and the resonance of the guitar cancel each other out, making the note itself sound like a “thunk” or “bonk” with very little to no sustain/tail to the note compared with the other notes around the fretboard. This can be tuned out to some extent-all instruments have a nodal frequency, but a properly built guitar will be tuned to have the node “between” two fretted notes, so as to not affect the guitar’s usability when tuned to concert pitch. This is done by adding or subtracting resonant mass-this can be accomplished by adding ballast to the top or scalloping braces to lighten the top. This moves the node down (by adding weight) or up (by reducing weight), effectively shifting it out of the way if it falls on a fretted note. I did try this with my 180-adding brass pins and a soundhole pickup helped to some extent, but the nodal frequency was unusually wide on that particular guitar and I couldn’t find the sweet spot with it. I’ve never sold a guitar based on a rattle/buzz and so forth caused by loose hardware or braces-I spent several years working as a guitar tech so am like a bloodhound with that sort of thing and enjoy the challenge of isolating and solving problems like that 🙂

I played Neil Finn’s Maton when I was in the Greek island of Paxos a couple of months ago to play a show. He has a home on the island and leaves a guitar at Bar Taxidi for him to use for the late night guitar pulls that often happen there. Spiro, the owner of Bar Taxidi, let me play it as I and NF have mutual friends and he is familiar with my music. I believe it was an EBG808. It was sweet and articulate, not loud acoustically but pleasant and fairly responsive. It didn’t sound like “me” in the way that an SJ200 or Dove does, but for a player seeking a less “big” sonic experience (think Martin 00-18) it would be a pretty good choice. Plugged in it sounds smooth and very acoustic, similar to my Takamine EAN20C. They are a nice, well made guitar but not one that suits what I do as a player or writer, so at this moment in time I wouldn’t buy one. I am happiest working with a Gibson with a Sunrise in it, and have felt that way for a long time. Pickup choices are far from linear and are entirely subjective and personal. In my opinion no question regarding amplification is silly and no choice is ordinary. We are all here to learn.

I use a Boss AD-10, and have done since they were released. It is SUCH a useful piece of kit, and is so fully featured. It has all of the features of the AD-2 and so much more. I haven’t done a gig without it in the four years or so since I bought it, and it has solved so many of the problems I’ve faced in the past with EQ, feedback and much more. It’s a one stop shop and a real solution for any acoustic player who plugs in. Well worth the upcharge over the AD-2, and I prefer it by a long way over the Session DI. Build quality and tone is superb. Definitely investigate the AD-10 before you buy anything else!

I like the K&K but it’s too feedback prone for my needs. It’s a nice sounding thing in a quiet room but when the more subtle aspects of the tone/overtones are lost amongst bar chatter and ambient noise, the fundamental tone of the K&K is quite midrangey and honky, even with extensive EQ work. I have one in my ‘67 J45 and had one in a D18, it suited the Martin better than the Gibson but is adequate in both. They work better for 12 strings in my experience. If I’m playing out, I always grab my SJ200 or Maple AJ, both of which are Sunrise equipped. I’ve preferred soundhole pickups for a long time…better feedback rejection and they fill a room more efficaciously in my experience. The M1A is an excellent pickup, I think you’d enjoy it. The fundamental tone is very similar to the M1 as you would expect, just a bit louder with a balanced output that can go straight into a low-Z input if required. Keep us posted on which direction you go in!

Okay-speaking as former guitar tech I’ll offer up a few bits of friendly advice: 1) You don’t want back-bow. Whoever told you that needs a swift slap in the marital potatoes. 2) I’d imagine that the same person told you to check neck relief with a business card. Dude just earned himself a second wallop in the lovespuds. Please don’t do this. Business cards come in all shapes and sizes. Buy yourself some feeler gauges. Do not use anything other than feeler gauges. For an acoustic you want between .008” (eight thousandths of an inch) and .010” (ten thousandths of an inch) of relief, measured at the 7th fret on the low E string with a capo on the first and twelfth frets. 3) If your truss rod (or neck!) is creaking, stop cranking the nut. You’re going at it too hard and/or making too drastic an adjustment. Truss rods are tools for very delicate incremental adjustments which must be done very gradually. A quarter of a turn at a time is enough, and a neck can still be settling after an adjustment that small a day later. If you’re making big adjustments, you’ll forever be going back and forth trying to find the sweet spot, which is not good at all for your neck or the bond between your fretboard and neck. I’ve seen (and repaired) two guitars which have had fretboard separation due to aggressive truss rod adjustments. Just go gently and take your time. A quarter turn and give it a day to bed in. 4) Don’t adjust your truss rod with the strings under tension. This is fairly obvious, but you’d be amazed how many people wail away on it with the strings on, stripping the nut threads or rounding off the nut flats in the process. Everything works better with the strings detuned or removed. 5) if you are in ANY doubt whatsoever about what you are doing, take your guitar to a tech and have it professionally sorted out. Ultimately it’s far cheaper to pay for a setup than a setup and a new truss rod plus other repairs. I hope this helps. If you’re still getting buzz with 8-10 thou of relief, your saddle is too low.

It’s a combination of factors, but primarily the reason is that my vocal range dropped a touch after some health problems took me out of circulation for a few months back in late 2020/early ‘21. A lot of my songs make use of chord melody and hammer ons/pull offs which rely on certain chord shapes to make them work, so rather than reworking everything to make it work in different keys, it was much easier to go up a string gauge and down a half step. On a further positive, that setup brings out so much boom and volume from my SJ200 that it’s bordering on magical. My Maple AJ sounds very good that way too but is still a bit younger and tighter than the SJ200. The 200 is just wide open and glorious!

13s tuned down to Eb for me on my SJ200. The chunky wires tuned down that half step really bring out acres of clang, boom and steam, to quote Tom Waits. Love it!

Parker never let Elvis tour outside the US because he (Parker) was an illegal immigrant, having come into the country with a travelling show from the Netherlands in the late 1920s, changed his name from Andreas van Kuijk to the most American sounding name he could muster, and flown under the radar for several decades. He always travelled with Elvis and didn’t have the requisite paperwork to travel outside the US as he never had the requisite paperwork to travel TO the US in the first place. To put it quite simply, if he had left he wouldn’t have been able to get back in!

I’ve not come across this song before-love it, and great performance. You were right to keep Little Elvis, what a great match of guitar and picker!

Great news, RB!! Glad to hear this!!

I’m a Maple fanatic (my main three guitars are an SJ200, a Dove and a Maple AJ) and that clip, albeit perhaps in an unsympathetic room and perhaps recorded with an unsympathetic device, sounds awful to me. The guitar sounds thin with a honky upper mid spike that reminds me of a cheap archtop, and it appears that that chap playing it is having to hit it at quite a clip with his right hand to get it to project. I had a cherry red J180 from 2014 or so which sounded considerably better than that. Perhaps it’s just a clattery room and the wrong choice of strings, but I’d not be happy with that sound if I’d paid a billionty pounds for the guitar in question, or however much they cost. FWIW, I didn’t feel like the pickguards held my 180 back very much. It wasn’t a particularly loud guitar but it sounded sweet and played very well indeed, the neck was outrageously good. I traded it for my Dove which was a no brainer as it’s easily the best Dove I’ve ever played, but the J180 was a nice instrument for sure. The only aspect I wasn’t keen on was a resonant node/wolf note that it had around the low G. In retrospect, if I’d slung 13s on it and tuned it to Eb as I do now, the issue would have been largely nullified.

Thankyou for your thoughts, all! A really fascinating thread. In answer to a few questions, I understand that the definition of a “working musician” is approximately the same as the definition of the length of a piece of string. It’s an extremely variable (and changeable from week to week) job in terms of pay and hours worked. On average, myself and my friends who work in music earn anything from £15k to £30k a year from a mixture of live work, session work, function stuff, writing for other artists/labels/film scores/adverts, making and releasing records etc. I’m very much a musical odd job man. There isn’t a huge amount of money in it, but if you’re willing to diversify, survival is entirely possible. In terms of sessions where I’ve lost work through having the “wrong” instrument to hand, I’m not sure who came in after me to do the work. There has only been a couple of occasions where I’ve actually been dismissed from the session entirely based on instrument availability-more often than not, if I haven’t had the desired instrument in my arsenal, there have been some other parts on the project that I’ve been able to play. I remember one EP project that I was asked to come in and contribute BVs to twenty seconds of an outro on one track, and ended up playing bass on the whole record! It’s often very random, and the best sessions are always the ones where you can say “hey, let me try a thing”. I’m happy to buy used-I’ve never had an issue with doing that, and of course finance is available for people who want to buy new instruments, although the variable income of the working musician can make finance approval very difficult. I agree that there are many pro grade instruments out there that are significantly cheaper than classic Gibson models. A good friend and former bandmate of mine is a prolific session player and for many years used a Martin D16R for everything. It was a wonderful sounding guitar and is on several of my records. The chap in question now runs his own studio and has massively expanded his collection, but for a long time the D16R was the only one. Likewise another session player who bought a 000-15 in 2005 or so and has barely used anything else since. In the world of pop sessions, a mid level Taylor will suffice for everything. It’s the more niche Americana/Roots/Folk/Blues stuff that people get picky about! Anyway, thankyou all…so interesting to read everyone’s take on it.

I was mightily impressed with all the J29s I played when they were released. The 29, 15 and 35 were all wonderful instruments and superb value for money.

I’ve had a set of TI Spectrum 11s on my Sigma CF100 copy for close to a year now. I just flew out to play a festival in Greece and took the Sigma as I hate flying with my Gibsons. It’s the first time I’ve gigged with it, popped my Sunrise in and boy did it sound great plugged in. Even with over 11mths of wear on the strings they stood up to two days of rehearsing with my Greek pickup band, the show, the flight both ways and some picking since I’ve been home. Great strings! Might be time to put the fresh set on that has been lurking in the box for months though now 🙂

In my experience it’s more the artists than the producers that tend to be sticklers-most producers will think with ears before eyes but it’s usually the artists who have a predisposition towards certain brands and models…the producers are usually the ones rolling their eyes and mouthing “sorry!” 🤣

Very interesting thoughts, thanks all. I agree that there are good instruments out there that are pro quality but aren’t Gibsons/Martins/Collings etc. I’ve played some very impressive offerings from Eastman, Sigma and others. 99% of the time I could turn up with any of those guitars and get the job done just fine. Session work is the outlier here…generally (in the UK at least), the pickers with the recognisable/desirable kit get the work. I’ve had clients flat-out reject certain guitars because of brand prejudice. I owned a fantastic Duolian style steel bodied resonator made by Michael Messer which sounded like weeping angels…I was asked to play some slide on an Americana project and turned up with the Messer expecting to wow the clients with its beautiful tone, but they rejected it before I played a note because it wasn’t a National or Dobro. I’ve had my SJ200 turned down for not being a D18, and even my old D18 Golden Era (which sounded incredible) turned down for not being a D28. The music industry is certainly in a weird spot at the moment. It’s hard to imagine someone who works in the automotive sector walking into a tool store to buy a ratchet, only to be told “These are the professional level ratchets that only amateur mechanics can afford. As a professional mechanic, what you need is one of our amateur level ratchets over here…” It’s all cyclical though. Eventually it will level out. In the meantime, secondhand Bozeman era Gibsons continue to be just about the best buy out there, in my opinion.