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rustystrings

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Everything posted by rustystrings

  1. If you're talking about the anti-feedback device, the flexible Feedback Buster works beautifully in Gibson flattops. I've used them for more than 20 years in LG-2s and J45s, as well as in Guilds and Taylors. Puzzled by how they would improve recording, though.
  2. John Pearse Pure Nickel 960L light gauge .012-.054 has been my choice for barehanded, no-plectrum playing for several years now, replacing John Pearse phosphor bronze in the same gauge. I am not convinced that bigger, heavier, thicker strings are the best choice - the lower tension nickel strings seem to vibrate better and the guitar just sounds fuller this way.
  3. I never encountered the "workhorse" designation for J-45s until c.2007, when I saw it in Gibson promotional material online. Certainly never heard it around music circles in Macon. Maybe a Nashville thing, though I really suspect Gibson's marketing people made it up out of whole cloth. Perhaps I am just cynical.
  4. My best friend's early 50s LG-1 imprinted the Gibson chordal blend in my ears; helped me to hear chords as a whole rather than separate notes; laid the foundations for what I would later desire in guitars. It was (and is) a great guitar. The 1960 LG-2 I bought in the mid 80s for $125 led to learning about inside chord voices. It was a chameleon of a guitar, able to delicately pick out atmospheric sounds, whirl through Celtic-inspired fingerpicking, thump through Piedmont blues and chunk out roots music, even pour out a shockingly loud sheet-metal roar when pushed hard. It remains the only guitar I really regret parting with. It taught me a lot. The early 30s roundhole L-4 that required multiple patches to repair holes created by a previous owner's electrification was a great guitar that was an unforgiving taskmistress. You heard every single note on that guitar, and when you played a clam it was obvious, but it rewarded with a surprisingly round and full tone, mids and lows that rivaled nice jumbos, and a focused power that carried to the back of the hall when used to accompany singers. It led me down a lot of musical roads and was a good teacher, and I hope whoever has it today appreciates it. My blues mentor's '62 J-50 taught me about the gut-punching whomp of the low E string and was used to teach me Piedmont blues and spilled out a swath of stories from the folk revival through Macon's music scene of the 60s and 70s. Specifically, it changed how I heard guitars, giving me a greater appreciation of richness, of depth, reducing the importance of top end to me. It helped me to really value the mids. The c.1950 J-45 I traded for had 24-count-'em-24 cracks in top and bottom because the neck block had popped loose from the treble side. It spent many months languishing in a shop in Atlanta before I finally paid off the repairs and took it home. It completed what my mentor's J-50 had started, and every time I hear the first recordings I did with that guitar I am struck by how wide open and rolling and strong it is, not like someone shouting to make himself heard, not the over-used "it's a cannon!" foolishness, just the normal conversational voice of a truly great singer. It's lived with my brother for more than 20 years and he still thanks me for it, so it's a great guitar in the form of giving me the opportunity to give something, too. I once briefly played a D'Angelico Excel, one of a pair commissioned in 1948. It was a big archtop, and I was playing it with bare fingers and it still pushed back against me, I could still feel the whole guitar vibrate in my arms and against my chest, and it had a singing quality I wish I had words for. The greatest of them, for me, is the one I have now, an '05 J-45 Historic Collection built for Guitar Center, discovered on a day when I wasn't looking for an acoustic guitar, discovered when I casually lifted it off the hook with my right hand and was struck immediately by the thought, "what is MY guitar doing hanging on the wall of this Guitar Center?" It touches on the legacy of every guitar I have ever played and loved, tone reminiscent of the vintage jumbos but with a breathy, voice-like quality I cannot truly describe or explain, the neck feel of the LG-2 but subtly better for my hand, just a sense of being utterly, absolutely right under my hands while playing it. It is the only guitar I have never had an instant of buyers' remorse about. It is the guitar that I have played for a dozen years while finally finding my own voice, finally consolidating what it is that I do with music, rolling every technique I have into what works for me, relearning from the basics of how to hold a guitar, how to listen to what the guitar says while playing it, how to go for that point where my voice and the guitar's voice complement each other and work together and stay out of each other's way, how to put everything musical into the service of the song and not me or the guitar. This guitar inspires me, I am always eager to play it, always saddened and reduced when it is time to gently lower it back into its case and close the lid. A good guitar is a fine musical instrument that plays well and sounds good and is a delight to the eyes. A great guitar is your partner.
  5. My understanding is 670 J-45 Historic Collection guitars were made for Guitar Center c.2005-2006. They were essentially the standard J-45 with Sitka spruce top, EIRW bridge and fingerboard, Tusq nut and saddle, Gotoh Kluson-clone tuners, Fishman Matrix Natural pickup, 20-fret fingerboard that (alas!) covers part of the rosette, which in turn is (along with the soundhole) closer to the neck because of Ren Ferguson's change of the bracing angle to 98 from 103 degrees or so, and a badly-placed pickguard that covers another quarter of the rosette. Mine has a nut width that is 1.704-in according to my Harbor Freight digital calipers. They weren't a vintage recreation so much as being a sort of vintage-esque, old-ish, tradition-ortiented Gibson that referenced the past with subtle features and touches that reflect decades of refinement. I think it was 2008 when Gibson split the J-45 into the Modern Classic and the True Vintage variants. The Modern Classic later evolved into the Standard, with more of an emphasis on being a good playing, working guitar with a nod towards the past, while the True Vintage (which was neither) raided the past for some aesthetic choices and tonewood selection and married them to a bracing pattern that had no historical connection to the model to create a fancier, more expensive guitar that had the appropriate buzzwords attached. I think the TV is also the start of this century's use of Adirondack red spruce by Gibson, something later expanded to things like the Legends guitars. It gets dizzying and confusing. Heresy, but I'll say it. The overwhelming majority of the Gibson J-45s we grew up listening to either live or recorded were Sitka-topped postwar guitars with block logos. The Standard/Modern Classic/Historic Collection/Early J-45 and their ilk are much closer to producing the sound most of us heard growing up. If you run up on a good price on a Historic Collection and you like it, grab it. I've been keeping tabs on them for years, and currently they sell used for a bit more than I paid for mine new in 2007.
  6. Have you played this guitar with a capo yet? Try it on the first fret to start with. Your J-45 would not be the first one sold with nut issues - mine had nut slots so shallow the guitar went out of tune when you played it. You might have the opposite issue, a nut with slots cut just a whisker too low and allowing the strings to rasp on the first fret.
  7. Before I went with Pearse's nickel wound strings, these Jp phosphor bronze 12s were my string of choice for more than a decade on a variety of acoustics. They were about the ONLY string I could get to work when I had a Taylor 815C, they worked well on my old Guild GF-25C, and they were near magical on the 1960 LG-2 that I still miss.
  8. If you are looking for a warmer, mellower sound that doesn't have so much string "zing!" I would point you towards John Pearse Pure Nickel acoustic gauge strings, the 960L light gauge .012-.054 set. I went to them several years ago because I wanted a more consistent sound that had a more apparent wood and air tonality and didn't have the over-hyped top end of new phosphor bronze strings. I have really enjoyed the way they sound AND their surprising longevity. , which is the 2005 ancestor of the Modern Classic that evolved into today's Standard, and if you turn it up loud enough the iPad mic used captured most of how the guitar sounds. I would NOT go to mediums on a J-45, because to my ear they constrict the sound. I would not recommend extra light gauge strings on any guitar. I have always found them to be kinda thin sounding.
  9. I played last week at an open mic associated with a local arts center event - the first time I've played any of my stuff publicly in 11 years. The iPhone recording this picked up more crowd noise than would be ideal, but if you turn it up and listen to it through earbuds or headphones it's pretty close to how it was live - There are also these songs from 2014, which I just realized I never posted here. You'll need to turn the sound way up on these, the iPad's mic was a touch too far away for ideal audio ... As always, 2005 J-45 Historic Collection, stock Fishman Matrix Natural pickup, playing barehanded with John Pearse Pure Nickel 12-54s.
  10. I'll chime in - I have a 2005 Historic Collection with the stock Fishman Matrix Natural pickup that Blindboygrunt has. Of all the guitars I have ever owned in my life, including several vintage Gibsons, this one is my favorite. The neck contour on mine feels identical to my memory of the neck on my much-missed '60 LG-2; the sound manages to reproduce what I loved about the 1950 J-45 I once owned, but with a breathy, very sensitive quality on top of the ability to chunk out mounds of sound when needed. FWIW, I play finger-style-ish with my bare hands, AND I use John Pearse pure nickel wound acoustic strings. It is very much Ren Ferguson's redesign - the x-brace angle is not quite as wide as the old ones, and the soundhole is far enough away from the bridge that the end of the fingerboard covers the inner rosette ring - but it nails enough of the old Gibson sound and vibe to make me happy and at the same time it's stable enough stay out of the repair shop. I understand that Gibson's marketing people need to eat and all that, but bear in mind that something like 99% of the Gibson J-45/50/SJs we have heard in our lifetimes - the ones that shaped how we hear this sort of guitar - were made of good ol' Sitka spruce and not Adirondack red. The "forward shifted AJ bracing" is a recent modification to the design. As you wade through the zillions of minor variations that Gibson has deemed it necessary to produce, just think of how thoroughly refined a design this guitar is! I could say, "play a bunch of J-45s and find the one you like," but you might be like me - I walked in not even looking for a J-45, seeing this one and, on a whim, picking it up - and being smitten down right there, holding it without having played a single note on it and thinking, "Why is MY guitar hanging on the wall of this Guitar Center?" Good luck!
  11. Underrated - Seagull S6. The basic one, no-frills, and they generally need to be tweaked. Mine, a deeply discounted shipping-damaged example required filing on nut slots, then actually gluing the nut down, as well a some serious truss rod adjustment - but the reward has been a sound all out of proportion for its price. Overrated - sorry, but I'm gonna go with lots of folks and comment on Taylors. The 815C rosewood cutaway jumbo I used to own was cosmetically nice enough in a precise kinda way, but it was overbuilt, frankly heavy, and took a lot of work to drive the top. The deciding factor for me was the neck - nice enough if you play lots of electric, but too thin for me, no shoulders, uncomfortable when played for hours, and prone to making my forearm cramp up.
  12. I'm Russ from Greenwood, SC, formerly from Macon, GA and Ferrum, VA. I'm down to a classical guitar that I have 30-odd years of history with, a '50s Favilla soprano ukulele, and a 2005 Gibson J-45 Historic Collection that suits me more than any other guitar from any time period that I have ever played. I'm primarily a fingerpicker and I mostly play my own songs these days. My influences include the whole folk revival scene of the early '60s, the whole singer-songwriter scene that followed that, some Piedmont blues, some bossa nova and a buncha British folk-baroque thrown into the mix. Sometimes, when the moon is right, I try for what Ray Charles would have sounded like had he played fingerstyle acoustic guitar.
  13. The guy who taught me most of what I know about acoustic blues playing had a J-50 he purchased brand-new off the wall of Bibb Music on Cotton Avenue in Macon, Georgia in 1962 for $162.50. He said it came stock with a plastic bridge with an adjustable saddle which Randy Wood replaced with a hand-made rosewood non-adjustable bridge. It was a great sounding guitar that I always enjoyed hearing and playing.
  14. Jinder, you've convinced me that it's a B-25. Going back and listening to the bass on the guitar, it IS less jumbo and more grand concert sounding. If Townes had to borrow that guitar for the movie, it makes me wonder if he even owned a guitar at that point.
  15. Jinder, you may be right. I'm used to thinking of Townes as tall and thin - but the way he holds the guitar in the film, headstock pointed somewhat down, may make it look bigger than it is, i.e., looking more like a J-45 than a B-25. The Blue Sky website at <http://pnwpest.org/coopl/tvzfaq.html#19> has an FAQ, one of which is about which guitars Townes played through the years. The quote we want from that one is this - ca. 1973 A red Gibson J45 or J50 slope-shoulder [seen in "Heartworn Highways" and in "Be Here To Love Me", including where Townes is at the the Austin club Castle Creek with Rex Bell and Mickey White. This guitar was loaned to Townes for making the movie by his amigo Richard (Ricardo) Dobson, who later lost it in a divorce. It had been customized a bit, with a hand-carved ebony bridge made by Guy Clark - R. Dobson 2-28-2006] - which may or may not be accurate. I can't really tell from the tone, and I don't think we ever see the whole guitar in a full-on angle shot in the film.
  16. Saturday night my wife and I watched the 1975 documentary "Heartworn Highways," featuring a bunch of folks characterized variously as country revivalists, outlaw country, etc., including Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Rodney Crowell, Steve Young, a very young Steve Earle, Gamble Rogers, David Allen Coe, and many others. What I found myself doing was keeping track of various guitars - no mean feat in the extras section that includes lots of the Guy and Susannah Clark-hosted Christmas gathering, where it appears folks are swapping instruments around. Guitars noted in the course of the film included - 1. '60s red sunburst B-25 without a pickguard played by Townes Van Zandt 2. '60s red sunburst J-45 w/ batwing 'guard in the party shots (I think Rodney Crowell plays it at one point) 3. '60s (I think) J-50, batwing 'guard, played by Steve Earle during part of the party sequence 4. (?) J-45 or J-50, top looks to be stripped or unfinished, reverse belly bridge, square area like a clear guard (?), played by Steve Earle during much of the party sequence 5. Postwar J-45 (I think small 'guard, maybe '47-55?) played by Guy Clark for one song in the party, appears to be the same guitar he works on at his work bench earlier in the film 6. Norlin-era J-45 with almost stenciled looking 'burst, square shoulders (can't remember who played it, though!) There were a few Martins, notably Guy Clark's D-something ornate with Grover Imperial tuners, Steve Young's D-28 (?) with funky additional fingerboard inlays, and an ancient D-18 (I think) played at the party. Seriously, a LOT of slope-shouldered mahogany Gibsons - but interestingly enough, NO small guitars of any stripe. (*edit - note Townes' B-25) Comments? Anybody know if these guys actually played Gibsons regularly, or were these all from Guy Clark's stash back then?
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