BluesKing777
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Posts posted by BluesKing777
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38 minutes ago, zombywoof said:
Coincidentally I have found a version of the Smeck that has non-scalloped bracing. If I move on it, it will be tonight.
Ah!
This is more the ZW we know!
Your meds the other day must have been duds! Collings guitar, ha! 😐
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13 hours ago, jedzep said:
I hear. I just sold my '31 L0 to Retrofret so I could buy the '70 D28S. Turns out I sent a project and got one in return. Still loving the rosewood OM21 so I added the D28. What a huge neck!
A zillion posts ago I was ranting about my allegiance to small bodies. Now I'm playing 2 D's and a J.
More 1st world problems.
Selling the L-0?
You are sentenced to watch 3 episodes of The Real Housewives of........
I am also guilty of an allegiance to small bodies but the last 3 buys have been a new Taylor 717e Builders Edition (slope shoulder dread), 2005 Dove from pawn shop, 2002 J50 from pawn shop.........apart from Maton small bodies, there is never much in the way of small guitars here - Dreadsville! Pickings are very slim for used small guitars....zip usually at the pawn shops. I owned 2 dreads in the 80s before I knew they were called that! First small body I ever played was a Clapton Martin in a shop......aha, very expensive but the light switch clicked! The well known alternative for the skint was the.....ha ha....OM21! Not now!
BluesKing777.
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Just checking, ZW - you know Collings and Waterloo guitars have bolt on necks?
BluesKing777.
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On 6/30/2020 at 11:01 PM, zombywoof said:
That is where I am headed. One of the top contenders for me is a Collings CJ35. Based on a late-1930s Gibson J35 loaned to them by Mass Street Music while not a spot on copy it has the non-scalloped bracing and three tone bars. It helps that they are factory built guitars so do not carry the heftier price tag of others. Plus, I am looking at used guitars anyway.
Oddly the repair shop I use also builds a small number of acoustics and offers versions of the AJ and L-00. They base them on originals which had come into the shop for extensive repairs allowing them to measure and document every part. Only problem I have with them is not only are the expensive but they tend to bling them out with more abalone that I am comfortable with (my comfort level when it comes to abalone is none)
P.S. Thanks for the Crooked Star recommendation. Their version of the Bacon & Day Senorita made just my jaw drop.
Where are we up to? It is all gone quiet...second thoughts?
Next you will be buying a Tonerite to make the Collings CJ35 sound older than it ever will by playing for a couple of years! 😎 (I know a little about CJ35's because I was interested in a little sister C10-35 with a black top. A couple of years back, I played both while I was there trying to buy strings! They both sat at this shop for years! Too expensive? But then..'poof' - gone! Both! Lotto winner?)
Another popular alternative on certain other forums is the PreWar Guitar Company Slope Shoulder, though a used one could be rare.:
https://www.pre-warguitars.com/model-j
But speaking of Collings, a guitar you probably should own x2 is the Waterloo WL-14 X braced (L-00 ish) and the Waterloo WL-14 Ladder braced (Kalamazoo - ish)! Bill nailed it! Vintage sound in a great build and setup and fabulous neck! No Tonerite needed for mine! I don't understand how Bill did this? And why can't 'you know'?
BluesKing777.
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8 hours ago, MissouriPicker said:
I realize you can't give an exact number, but do you think playing a "treated" guitar 2-3 times per week for 30min-45min would maintain the enhancement?
It depends on your guitar and what you want from the Tonerite, MP!
After using it, I will now go to the ends of the planet to avoid buying a guitar that needs it. For example, the last new guitar I bought was a Taylor 717e Builder's Edition slope shoulder dread that features rosewood with a torrefied spruce top to push that side of the equation along a bit...it is still a new guitar though. I have owned it for a year and a bit and played it a fair bit, so it has 'broken in'. Torrefying the sitka top has given it a papery sound in there while strumming, beautiful toned guitar - designed to be more 'vintage' sounding than the 'bright' Taylors. If my Tonerite had not broken, would I have used it on this guitar to open out the whole guitar more? Don't know. It could do with a few zaps.....hmmm.
Do the guitars I used it on still need to be zapped occasionally? No - I just wanted the gadget to get the guitars over the new guitar 'hump' - they got zapped in my music room while I was working the other end of the house. Do they need it? Nope - they sound absolutely brilliant at the moment. And no bits fell off the guitars!
MP, I have read on other forums about people that keep zapping their guitar to re-wake it - I think they might have bought themselves the wrong guitar. Just as I hope not to do.......😎
BluesKing777.
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5 hours ago, MissouriPicker said:
I hadn't thought of Tone Right for a long time. Don't think I'd buy one, but this oldie was a good thread and I enjoyed re-reading it. Like literally everything and anything related to how we each hear things, it depends on the ears doing the listening. I've never had a clear answer on how long the Tone Right effect lasts. Is it permenent, or do you have to keep doing it every few days or weeks?
Not if you keep playing it!
My guitars I still own that I zapped still sound great.....but the only scientific way of comparing results would be...comparing results. 😵
(Need 2 identical guitars - one on the Tonerite, the other, not).
BluesKing777.
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While I don’t want to burst your balloon, PB, for your ‘studio hobby’ as you call it, a small body guitar with a nice balanced sound is must!
So, add another guitar to your list.....or 2, 3..... Or gasp!!! - buy a small body instead of another dread!
Gibson L-00, Martin 00, Lowden S for example.....and up the ladder of overtones to the max. Just play to a mic with ALL EQ dead flat and capture those sounds easily. (ish).... As soon as you start recording a dread, you are cutting the thing you like most because it causes boom and rattles and buzzes and all kinds of problems - yep, the bass! Same playing live, press the various EQ filters to stop the rumble!
BluesKing777.
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I haven’t tried a Tonerite on an SJ........
As reported in an earlier thread somewhere started by the chap from Tonerite himself, I believe, my Tonerite was a buzz, buzz, buzzing on a guitar overnight in my basement music room and one time I walked past the room and heard not the customary ‘buzz’ but a light ‘bzz’.
As I entered the music room, the Tonerite went ‘bzz’, ‘bzz’, .........’bz’.......’bz’........’zzzz’.........’zz’.......’z’.......................................................................
Kaput!
Good! That buzz sound would drive you dingbats in a smaller house! Out you go, Tonerite, to the back yard to lie in the long grass with the rollerblades, a Yamaha acoustic and an old Marshall...🥶
These days when I try out a guitar, if it is in anyway too tight and in need of serious breaking in, back to the rack it goes!
BluesKing777.
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The pawn shop where I got my 2002 J50 and 2005 Dove is skun as well!
They are still closed. Online the only Gibbie they are flogging is a 90s J45 with a broken neck!
After the mess on the J50 from customer grubby fingers BEFORE the virus, I cannot see getting anything there again!
On another slightly related track - all the hand-washing with cheapo soap and hand sanitizer getting your hands red raw? A guitarist friend was complaining with red raw hands. Try some goat soap! Very, very good. My hands are like a baby's - goat related milk stuff is great for skin problems! I started using it when I was in Graphic Arts and had to clean hands all the time but made the mistake of using the work hand cleaner!
BluesKing777.
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The times haven't been trying for everyone, Jedzep - I keep track of a local acoustic guitar specialist shop...over the many years they have been going....
A strange thing is that when the virus lockdowns hit, they closed the walk-in shop immediately but went to online sales with lots of notifications on the social media.
That shop has been skun! Acoustic guitars new, old, good, bad - skun! And a lot of new guitar supplies have dried up with the factory closures. The musical chairs have stopped literally. And now all there is is ...junk - old junk, new junk - the rats have been through everything! I can look through their listing and not see anything I want! Zip! The shop owners must have had a moment when they thought never to re-open the real shop!!!
And my brand of strings is empty in 2 shops near me! I may have to go the horrids....
BluesKing777.
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I am fortunate to have a houseful of acoustics of various type!
I rotate around them and really enjoy the differences, but one guitar I rotate to a lot is my custom made Cargill deep body 00 shape....
Why?
Well, mainly because it was made for me! Not made for...them! While I ordered the neck specs and guitar shape etc I knew I liked most, the luthier has also done work for me for many years, has seen me play and knows what I am about. The guitar is now 4 or 5 years old and really hitting its straps!
Where am I heading with this? Some of you guys should order a full custom made guitar to your specs! If it has to be a Gibson, drive to Montana and get one made for you - for you! These days with torrefied tops etc, you may not have to wait 20 years for your new guitar to sound old. You can even get it bashed up to look old if that is your thing!
BluesKing777.
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Check out the 'battery removal device' on the new Brad Clark Supernatural pickup - halfway down the linked page:
https://rguitars.co.uk/blogs/news/clark-supernatural-preamp-available-exclusively-with-auden-guitars
I saw a thread somewhere where a guy takes his batteries out of acoustics with a kitchen tong with his guitar strings still tight, so I bought a small tong but it needs to be bent! ) No good...Don't work! But the Brad Clark device looks good.
BluesKing777.
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I can be my worst enemy! Can't we play them with the case still on?
I often hover over beautiful guitars with a screwdriver to do various things, shouldn't be allowed. And mic stands are pure evil!
So measures need to be taken to counteract my own stupidness - clear pathway to the areas I sit and play normally, clear area where I unload a guitar from its case, a bumper bar made of bubble wrap and gaffa tape on my music stand edges, and the Hiscox case is generally my friend.
But..I moved 'row A stand and contents' - 5 guitars each stand - the other day to clean/dust behind it and I notice I all but ruined the dry wall behind it, where the cases have hit the wall....and in a dog leg entrance way to the music room near the door, the corner dry wall looks like a fight happened! So I suppose that has saved the guitars, but if I sold the house 'as is' with all the gear gone, what a mystery the new owners would have looking at the damage! "What were they doing?" would be the comment....
BluesKing777.
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Ha!
I only just put it back in its case - I have torturing the poor thing all week since I got it back from the luthier.
L-00 size, Mod V neck, 1 3/4” nut, 2 3/4” bridge spacing plus new setup and pickup - just absolutely ideal for my style of bare finger picking - I can’t imagine many here liking it and most plain old hating it! The internet is full of people who loved the ‘idea’ of the guitar but the neck ‘hurt’ and they ditched it.
But for BK777 - it is the perfect blues fingerpicker! It is very L-00 though more Martin toned and great for ripping through rags and fast blues without too much clutter in the sounds to get in the way.......Cannonball Rag, say, or Robert Johnson tunes. Perfect! I went through a lot of that stuff yesterday morning, then in the afternoon I tortured the pickup in various gadgetry. K&K is good in various preamps, great actually, but..........there is always a ‘but’, eh? What? I love the guitar, get that straight.....first.....
I bought it new in February 2015 - if I bought it today in Australia, it is listed at $AU4750!!!!! Wow! And nobody has one. Setup, K&K plus installation and K&K Pure preamp cost me $AU620. So we are up to $AU5370......and then I have it in a Hiscox case $329 today......so total that to $AU5699. Every second person seems to recommend the K&K pickup and preamp but to me, it is ....quacky, piezo quack yep....especially if I get stuck in a bit harder.....and it needs to run in my Tonedexter and to make a wavefile to ‘de-quack’ it. The Tonedexter cost me about $AU650 to get here a couple of years ago, but you know, add that to the cost and we have $AU6349...should I add the cost of 2 guitar leads and a patch lead between the K&K preamp and my Tonedexter?
Got all that?
For personal comparison purposes, I grabbed my Maton custom finish black EBG808 with sitka over Australian blackwood in a deep body 00 format, but a very, very similar style of guitar to the CEO7.....blues fingerpicking machine, but with the Maton AP5-Pro pickup system often called the best live play system currently......played direct to my mixer with just guitar lead and guess what? I couldn’t take ANYTHING ELSE to a live gig...absolutely sensational plugged sound and a great guitar to fingerpick. Cost brand new a couple of years ago - $AU2200.
Hmmmm.
Photos!
Martin CEO7:
Maton EBG808 custom black finish:
BluesKing777.
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3 hours ago, Brucebubs said:
Please tell us more and post some pictures if you have some - love to see them!
Is this the same one I showed you a while back, Bruce?
It was sold and must have been returned? Problems maybe? Or a whole other guitar?
Don't see many!
BluesKing777.
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Tying up a few loose ends with the big Virus lockdown business......after getting my J50 setup and picked up, I thought to get some work on the Martin CEO7 I bought around 2015 but never had setup......(so eventually it went to the back row!) In the movie “Yesterday” , the hero is given a CEO7 and plays it a fair bit, so out of the closet mine came but the neck had bowed a bit and it was playable but tricky. So off to my luthier for a setup, a K&K pickup and also a K&K basic preamp I can try after everyone talks about them.
So I got it back yesterday and all work items are fabulous! So it is Gibson L-00 shaped but sounds more Martin 00 with more......something.
BluesKing777.
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Yes, I have also enjoyed the videos.
I have to say that my 2005 Dove I bought from a pawn shop last year sounds not one thing like the one above! Modern Dove vs. 60s Dove, skinny, skinny strings vs my Elixir PB mediums! The old one is very 'woody' and 'dry' while mine is balanced, very full toned, 'wet' and a touch 'metallic'???
Here is a fingerpicked track I did a month or so back if you want to compare....:
BluesKing777.
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8 hours ago, timeless said:
Anyone know the size of the sound hole on a LG2 Banner guitar
No idea about the LG2 Banner but if I am guessing right, you probably want to know if a soundhole pickup will fit?
And also no help with the LG2 but every Gibson of mine from 1935 to modern and small to large have soundholes that allow the installation of the standard Baggs M1, M1a, M80, Sunrise, Dimarzio.......the same can not be said for smaller Martins like my CEO7 or OMs!
BluesKing777.
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Love it! So to speak!
But I already got mine!😊
A 2005 Dove on the vine:
BluesKing777.
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Easier than all that would be to take the big drive to play one somewhere that has some..... a good half hour playing at the least.
Ask a salesperson? That has never lead me anywhere but the wrong road! But you know, it does get some information. Maybe.
Wildwood guitars put there guitar stock's neck measurements at the 1st and 9th or 10th fret but of course the Law of Murph says they don't have the Bird you want in stock! Here is a link to the Gibson acoustics they have, but yo know once you study the neck sizes up you will realize that what everyone says is rather true - every neck seems to have a different size! You could measure what you already own and love with some digital calipers....then compare with the list, but really it seems a road to....nowhere. May as well get your cousin to pick a Bird for you!
![[biggrin]](//content.invisioncic.com/p286412/emoticons/default_msp_biggrin.gif "[biggrin]")
BluesKing777.
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5 hours ago, Jinder said:
BK I love the tone of your J50! Absolutely stellar. A great case in point of a guitar that, as I mentioned, is strong and resonant enough to barely notice a UST being in there. I've had a few like that...my 1990 Hummingbird was barely changed at all by having a Matrix Infinity put in it. That thing was loud as hell and absolutely beautiful sounding...but I've come across some guitars that sound a little wimpy and come to life when the factory fitted UST is removed. My old J180 was a case in point, it was really meek with the Element fitted but sounded substantially better with it removed. I think it's very instrument specific. Your guitars sound great with the Anthem though!
Ha, I got the Anthem installed because I liked the one that came free in my pawn shop 2005 Dove! Apart from sounding great in both guitars, they are both kind with vocals.....some pickups sound good but get in the way of singing without heavy EQ carving.
I asked for an Anthem to be installed a couple of times previously and got the dreaded phone call that the control unit wouldn’t fit between the braces and came home with different pickups than planned.
My Sunrise is a joyous pickup too! With it running through my Sunrise buffer box and then EQ’d in my Fishman Pro EQ, it is a great sound like Jinder describes above. I would install it permanently in one of my guitars but I use the Humidipak system in the soundholes when not playing them. I think the Sunrise sounds better in larger guitars and the best sound I have got temporarily installing it is in my large Lowden O22! I now know why the Sunrise is so popular with Lowden O size players.
The Sunrise is another pickup I bought that won’t fit in the soundhole of the guitar I bought it for! Lots of OMs and 00s have small soundholes. Same with my custom Cargill 00.
BluesKing777.
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It is probably worth the price of admission to video your guitar friends’ faces when you first play it!
Friends and family non players may not even notice, but the guitarists.....hah!😝
(the reverb in the first demo reminded me of a bar I use to play...terazzo floor and bar sides and big windows on 2 sides....)
BluesKing777.
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Unless you never intend to play anywhere, ever, finish - I would leave the Anthem in the guitar. Set up properly with the mic part adjusted , it is a great pickup system. And quite expensive to have installed. I recently got my 2002 Gibson J50 back from my luthier with a setup, new bone nut and saddle AND a full Baggs Anthem. Superb in all directions now! The other week I posted a soundclip of the guitar recorded acoustic only and a few commented it was one of the best J50s they had heard! If the Anthem is upsetting the sound it is in a real good way!😤
BluesKing777.
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....my poor Dove has no beak.......
BluesKing777.
![[biggrin]](http://content.invisioncic.com/p286412/emoticons/default_msp_biggrin.gif "[biggrin]")
Short tracks of my Gibson Blues King L-00.
in Gibson Acoustic
Posted
Hot off the recorder, here are a couple of short ditties played on my 2007 Gibson Blues King L-00.
It is sounding terrific at lucky 13 years old! I was going to post them on another forum in a L-00 thread where the opinion of the L-00 is poor, but let me stand up for the little guy!
BluesKing777.