sparquelito

Hi, Pippy. Great to see you alive and kicking. Happy Anniversary to you and the missus. Uncle Social, Can you tell us more about where you recall seeing this Les Paul in the late 1970's? Private sale, retail music store, new, or used? It sounds like you are remembering a guitar that might've been a Standard, Custom, or a Deluxe that had been refinished in Midnight Blue Metallic. As rct observed, the first Studios to be offered were in 1983 or 1984. I know how vexing it can be to get a guitar stuck in your head. I recall a Telecaster hanging in a music store, down south, and back in the late 1980's or early 1990's. It had a lilac metallic finish, and all black hardware and pickups. (Very unusual, now that I know more about Tele's, right?) Years later, I think on that guitar, and as I noodle around the internet, I can't find any sort of Fender Telecaster that was ever made or sold in that colour and with those features. Most frustrating! I can recall visiting Blue Springs State Park in lower Alabama many years ago. The water in the springs was bitterly ice-cold. Bone-numbingly cold. My daughter was fussing about not wanting to get into such cold water, and indeed, there were very few people in the water at the time. I wanted to set an example of bravery and bravado, and so I climbed in and started wading in, and then dove directly into the frigid shallows. I came immediately to the surface with a gasping inhalation, unable to breathe or even move another step. It was startling how ice-cold that water was, and as I tried to get over the shock to my system, out of the water, right in front of me, came a woman. She was wading my way, preparing to exit the water. I have never in my life before, or since, ever seen a more beautiful woman. Hair plastered back, stunning ice blue eyes, graceful demeanor, and a bikini-clad body that was perfection. I couldn't breathe. I stood there trembling, my flesh and my private bits tight and shrunken in the chill of the water. My ears became thick and all sounds went away save for my heartbeat. I was transfixed. Stunned. The Goddess gracefully and silently walked past me, climbed out and disappeared from my sight. I stood there for a few more moments, and finally began to take in oxygen. The sun warmed my back, the sounds of people playing in the park returned, and I heard my daughter calling me. "Daddy, are you okay? DAD, are you alright??" I turned, nodded, and then waded back out. The beautiful woman was gone. "Yeah, baby. I'm alright. Say, that water is too cold to swim in. Let's go over to the swimming pool. " We walked away from the springs, and I searched the camp grounds, looking for any sign or evidence of the woman I had seen coming out of the pool. She wasn't there. I have often looked back, over the years, and wondered if she was ever there. 🙁

Things change, forums evolve. Some get better, and some die off altogether. As a long-time web-forum contributor, member, moderator, admin, and even web-site originator/host, I have learned this much; These are the best of times, these are the worst of times. The only constants in life are death and taxes. and, You can't please everybody. So don't even try. Just try to bring joy to others, and give more than you take. The truth, even, I have found, is subjective. So that even is a moving target, and the left and right limits move day by day. Just have fun. And do more good than harm. And you'll find that you wake up each morning looking forward to logging back onto forum.gibson.com, and we'll all be the better for it. 😑

Wait. I thought this was gonna be about........ Oh, never mind. 😥

Brad, I watched some videos of Glen Campbell and his family, filmed during his final performances, and how it was for his grown kids during his decline. He would have a lot of confusion, and forgot nearly everything leading up to an actual song, but once the song began, he would be on auto-pilot. Sharp, in the zone, on time, and on tempo. And then two songs later, he would try to introduce that same song again, and his daughter would gently say, "Dad, we already did that one," and they would prod him toward the next song. And he would KILL it. He was so good. It's tragic, and my prayers go out to you and your family, good sir. My mom passed with a fine mind but a worn-out body. I don't know if the inverse would be any better. I suspect not. Look up those Glen Campbell videos, sir. They are really good. 😪

The year I was born; Hmmmm....... Let's just say that it's the exact year of Gibson Les Paul that NONE of us could ever afford. 😔

The tulip-shaped tuning keys offer 15% more woman tone than the kidney bean ones. Just sayin'........ 😏

Oh, I forgot to ask; What did you pay for it at the pawn shop? That alone might give us a clue. 😉

A few details look off to me, and this is from a scan of photos of a half-dozen 2000 Gibson Les Paul Standards; * Truss rod cover has etched on it, "Les Paul Standard". All the others I see have simply the word, "Standard" on it. * A 2000 Standard apparently came with Grover tuners with kidney bean tuning keys, not those ivory jobbies. * The quality of the back covers looks poor. * The serial number and Made in USA filled in with gold paint. Not seeing that anywhere else. Most importantly, do a Google search for " 00170429, Les Paul". That serial number pops up quite a few times. I'm no expert, and I would stand by for more seasoned posters to wake up and offer their opinions, but it doesn't seem right to me. 🤨

I must confess. I once found perfect tone in a pawn shop, with a crappy, dusty guitar with five strings on it, and a no-name amp that was missing a Volume knob. I have found perfect tone in a temporary drunken state that later found me barely waking up from a bourbon coma. I have found perfect tone on a stage with my friends and band-mates on days or evenings when the wind was blowing just right, and our harmonies were tight, and the audience was happy and rocking. I found perfect tone trying out a Telecaster in a music store in Yuma, Arizona years ago. And it had more to do with the mood I was in more so than the guitar I was holding or the amp I was playing thru. But I have never found any sort of tone wonderfulness or benefit from changing out: this kind of tube for that kind of tube, this pickup for that pickup, these steel saddles for brass ones, or this brand of strings for that other one over there. Tone is a state of mind. It's confidence. It's in your fingers. It's in your head. An older sage once told me, and bear in mind the topic was finding the right girl, and/or going out and getting laid; "Sport, stop chasing it, and it will turn around and come to YOU." Tone fanatics. Stop chasing it already. It's probably already there. It's right in front of your face, most likely. Just play your guitar, play it well, make good music, be a good band-mate, and give the audience what they paid for. Tone will just happen, and it'll be good. 😏

(No disrespect to Peter Frampton by the way. I love the man, listen to his newer music all the time, and admire his humble, gracious manner of communicating, playing, and doing business.) 🙂

best /best/ adjective of the most excellent, effective, or desirable type or quality. "the best pitcher in the league" It's all subjective, and that much is clear, at least by this point in the thread. To assign any guitar player in history the tag, "the best" is to invite criticism and sharp rebuke from others who have a different opinion. The problem isn't just that it become a matter of personal taste or preference for each listener, it's that there are very few quantifiable metrics by which we can judge a given guitar player. In the example provided above, "the best pitcher in the league," we at least have some hard statistics to rack and stack, and it's actually possible to make that determination. A pitcher is scored and ranked based upon their Earned Run Average, Field Independent Pitching numbers, and walks plus hits per inning pitched. So, for a given baseball season, you truly can state emphatically that this guy or that guy is the "best pitcher in the league". What numbers or stats do we have when making our own determination for "the best guitar player of the '60's"? Here a some quantifiable metrics, and bear in mind that these point to 'popularity' more so than technical prowess and guitar playing skill: * Number of records sold * Number of #1 hits * Number of weeks at the top of the charts * Number of tickets sold at concerts and live shows where the player was the headliner * Number of times, from 1960 to 1969, that the guitar player was ranked #1 by a panel of their peers and by the music critics There really are no hard statistics to use then, therefore, in determining the best. It's all a matter of personal opinion and tastes. And even that much is confounded by other strata of popularity factors such as player attractiveness, stage presence, innovative playing qualities, manner of dress, reputation among band mates as being likable and easy to get along with, etc, etc. Is Jimi Hendrix consistently rated #1 because he truly was the best, or is it because he was a ground-breaking innovator at a pivotal point in history? More importantly perhaps, would he be consistently rated #1 over all these years if he had not died? Bear in mind that, had he lived, he may well have gone on to innovate and wow audiences, and to make many, many hit records. But he might have also followed the Peter Frampton model, and, after having enormous success at one time in his career, gone on to have a normal, humble career, and slowly fallen out of the limelight. And in that normal flow of events, his mystique would have surely faded, and Jimi would always be thought of as one of the great guitar players, but not necessarily the greatest. George Benson is a fabulous talent, an admirable human being, and surely one of the very best guitar players of any decade. On that I think we can all agree. Okay, I'm gonna shut up now. 😐

A new friend on Facepage posted this morning that he was new to this guitar culture, and he wished to know about such acronyms as, 'MIM' and terms like 'humbuckers'. I obliged, and penned a brief and not-terribly all-inclusive list of just such acronyms and unique guitar terms. Please feel free to borrow, and please add to my list. I typed it up in about an hour, and only so much care went into it. I'm sure you guys and gals could add to the quality and quantity of the thing. 🙂 AA, AAA Industry grading of flame maple tops on guitars. AA means handsome wood grain, and the two sides nearly match. AAA means extremely beautiful good grains, and the two sides match exactly. Acoustic A hollow guitar with a sound hole, and no onboard pickups, jack, or electronics. A true acoustic guitar is fabulous for playing by the campfire with friends, but must be played up close to a microphone when performing for a larger audience. Acoustic-Electric An acoustic guitar with some form of pickup, that can be plugged into an amplifier for a larger, louder sound than a mere acoustic guitar. Axe A performer’s instrument. Usually means “guitar”, but the expression began with jazz players, and generally meant, “my horn”. Example. “Hey man, come on up to my loft at ten. Me and some cats are gonna jam.” “Sure. I’ll just go get my axe.” Belly cut A guitar body design wherein a portion of the wood is carved out to make room for the performer’s stomach. The more beer a guitar player consumes, generally the larger the belly cut. ‘Burst Guitarist expression for a ‘sunburst’ finish Cut Cutaway. A scoop made in the carving of the guitar body to allow for easier access to the higher frets. A Les Paul is a single-cutaway guitar shape, or ‘single-cut’. DC A double cutaway body shape. An old Gibson Junior (like Joan Jett favors) is a DC. Hamer makes a lot of double cutaway guitars. A Fender Strat is an ‘offset double cutaway’, in that the cutaway shapes are asymmetrical. Diva A self-absorbed singer or performer. Diva originally meant, “super star female singer” but now can mean “that band member who is a complete pain in the ***, is fond of making demands, and isn’t much help loading in or loading out the heavy gear at gigs”. Dive A bar or club that is a bit seedy, and is frequented by men and women of low station. Bands usually get their start playing in dives. Drunk Guy The hyper-inebriated bar or club patron who inevitably comes to visit the stage to either: * request that the band play ‘Free Bird’ by Lynyrd Skynyrd * tell us that he plays guitar too, if we want to have him up for a jam or, * make passes at the girl singer, and tell her she’s real pretty Electric Among guitar players and collectors, an ‘electric’ means an electric guitar as opposed to an ‘acoustic’. “Dude, bring one electric and one acoustic to the recording session.” An electric is normally a solid-body guitar (though not always), and has one or more pickups, a jack where the guitar cable end goes, and may feature onboard electronics, a pre-amp, and a battery. A Fender Telecaster is an electric guitar. ‘Faced ****-faced. Exceedingly drunk. Most drummers get ‘faced at the gig, and get accused by the other band members of playing either too fast or too slow. ‘Floyd The Floyd Rose guitar tremolo system, featuring a tremolo arm embedded in a multi-axis tremolo block, multiple springs, a locking nut, and minuscule knobs for making minor and frequent adjustments to each string’s pitch or tuning. See ‘Eddie Van Halen’ Gee-tar This is how many older British players pronounce the word ‘guitar’. George Harrison most famously. HH A guitar setup featuring two humbucking pickups. HH may also be called a ‘dual humbucker’ design. HSS Similarly, a guitar design featuring a Humbucking pickup and 2 single-coil pickups. (You can guess, at this point, what ‘HSH’ means.) Hofner Or, ‘the Hofner’. A violin shaped electric bass guitar, like the one made popular by Paul McCartney and The Beatles. Hofner also makes a variety of other stringed instruments, but that violin bass is iconic. Holy Grail An expression meaning, ‘the ideal’, or very best. A player who covets a particular guitar, pickup, vintage of instrument, or wah pedal often call that their ‘holy grail’ item. See ‘1959 Gibson Les Paul’ J See ‘Joint’ Joint A expression meaning “place where the band shows up to play or practice”. Joint = house, room, apartment, club, bar, or dance hall. Joint can also mean, ‘a marijuana cigarette’. Drummers and bass players are inordinately fond of smoking joints. ‘K Short for ‘okay’, or ‘yes, of course’. Example; Singer: Dude, the drummer is too drunk to drive home. Can you give him a lift in your van? Me: ‘K. But he better not puke on my shag carpet. LP A Les Paul electric guitar. May refer to any Les Paul-shaped guitar, whether it was made by Gibson or not. LP may alse mean, “Long Playing vinyl record album”. Many modern music fans are buying vinyl now. LS Long Scale. Scale length is the distance between the nut (at the top of the guitar fingerboard) and the bridge, near the bottom of the guitar. Gibson Les Paul guitars generally feature a 24 ¾ inch scale length, and Fender Strats go 25 ½ or so. Anything longer than that is called Long Scale. MIA A guitar made in America In military circles, MIA also means ‘Missing In Action’, like when the drummer disappears to talk to a drunk ugly girl, and can’t be found when it’s time to begin playing the 3rd set. MIC A guitar made in China MIJ A guitar made in Japan MIM A guitar made in Mexico ‘Norlin Gibson electrics produced during the "Norlin era" were guitars made from 1970 through 1983; these are considered by many Gibson fans to be the worst guitars. O Face The passionate facial expression that a guitar player affects when he or she is playing a particularly awesome guitar solo. ‘Paul Guitar player slang for “Gibson Les Paul”. Pickups The items mounted in the guitar that capture the string vibrations and send that signal to an amplifier or Public Address system. Normally a magnet wrapped many, many times in copper wire. Responsible for a fair amount of each guitar’s unique or individual ‘tone’. Pointy Guitar Any guitar featuring radical body shapes, pointed edges, and a pickup configuration that invites the playing of lightning fast riffs and lead runs. See ‘Ibanez’ Pups A slang expression for guitar pickups. ‘Pups’ are normally changed out on a weekly basis by bedroom players in their quest for the mythological, unattainable ‘perfect tone’. QC Quality Control. The production of well-made, consistently top-quality guitars, no matter what the price point. When a guitar is found to be poorly put together, the guitar manufacturer (and all their employees, and their parents and grandparents) find themselves branded as having ‘lousy QC’. RR The Red Rocker Guitar player and singer Sammy Hagar. SSS An electric guitar featuring 3 single-coil pickups. The original Fender Stratocasters were of the SSS design. Strat Slang for ‘Stratocaster’. May refer to any Stratocaster-shaped guitar, whether it was made by Fender or not. Tele Slang for ‘Telecaster’. May refer to any Telecaster-shaped guitar, whether it was made by Fender or not. Tone The much revered sounds that emanate from a guitar player’s amplifier. The subject of much debate involving the chief contributor of tone, including the guitar wood weight and density, type of pickups, composition of the bridge, thickness of strings, type of guitar amplifier, type of amp speaker, type of amp tubes, and type of material used in the nut. All of these theories are by and large over-blown. Tone is mostly in the player’s fingers, and style of execution. Tone Wood The notion that the type, weight, or density of wood matters to guitar tone. This is a fallacy, of course. Tone is, again, mostly in the player’s fingers. Top-wrap A technique employed by players of Les Paul-style guitars, wherein the strings are fed thru the tail piece backwards, wrapped over the top of the surface of the tail piece, and then so on across the frets and on to the nut and tuning pegs. This is believed to improve guitar tone, and to lessen the break angle on the strings for some supposed improved feel and ease of string bending. I’m not a fan, and it strikes me as a passing fad or fancy of the moment. Tube A conventional guitar amplifier vacuum tube or ‘valve’. Often considered to be a key component of, or contributor to, guitar tone. Don’t even get me started. V A V-shaped guitar. The Gibson Flying V most notably, though other guitar manufacturers make V-shaped guitars, and they sell like hot cakes to mostly older players endeavoring to recapture their misspent youth. Z The z-axis on a guitar knob mounted to a control or potentiometer that clicks up and down (in addition to rolling this way or that, to adjust the electric guitar’s Volume or Tone). Popular Z-axis features include coil splitting, coil tapping, or the activation of onboard effects. Okay, that’s all I can think of for now. I’m sure that other players can add to this list, and improve it over time. 🤨

NICE!! 🙂

I had a really great Fender Telecaster, a Chinese-made Modern Player Telecaster Plus. I played it for years, gigged with it, and ultimately sold it to a good friend who coveted it. At a point when I needed to thin the herd. The neck and middle single-coil pickups were top-notch, and the Humbucker in the bridge was killer-great. A fabulous pickup, and it rocked. The one down-side to this guitar was the tiny-coil-tap switch and associated function. You could be rocking in the humbucking mode, and switch that pickup to a 'single-coil' mode, and it all fell flat. That bridge pickup immediately sounded thin, trebly, and useless. I wanted to get rid of the switch and feature altogether. But, in the end, a good guy bought the guitar, and he loves it. 🙂

There's not an easy answer to those questions. A humbucker is a humbucker, but coil splitting or coil tapping rarely give the performer a classic 'single coil' sound. Seymour Duncan elaborates on the difference between coil splitting and coil tapping: Coil splitting is the practice of shutting off (or otherwise fading out) one coil of a humbucker, leaving behind a single coil for a brighter tone. Coil splitting is often confused with a single coil option known as coil tapping, in much the same way that the terms ‘vibrato bar’ and ‘tremolo bar’ are considered interchangeable even though only one is technically correct. So what is coil tapping, and how is it different to coil splitting?Coil tapping is when a wire runs off of the pickup windings at a certain point, somewhere short of the full amount. This means you can install a switch to select between a single coil pickup’s full output or a lower output, giving you two distinct levels of power from one pickup.The tapped output level will give you a more vintage-like sound, while a hotter, more modern voice is available from the full-powered setting. This can give you more precise heat-of-the-moment control over the output compared to simply using the guitar’s volume knob to reduce the output level. Further, this Gibson link will most likely offer elucidation on what is in your Studio: http://aws2.gibson.com/News-Lifestyle/Gear-Tech/en-us/Tuned-Coil-Tap-vs-Tap-vs-Split.aspx 😐

I used my Wahl clippers yesterday morning before I went on a flight to Nashville. As usual, I cut it 'way too short. 😐

Band practices and live performances are a bit easier with the Alesis (or a Roland digital kit) compared to a proper Gretsch maple kit. You run the digital drum kit's output signal directly to the PA, and get it balanced out in the sound checks. Digital cymbals don't bleed into the vocal mics, that one BIG plus. And there are a variety of drum kits (in the drum brain) to choose from, so there's some versatility to it. Another big plus is that you don't have all these drum mic inputs going into the main PA mixer the way you do with a conventional drum kit. (Unless the drummer wants to play a non-digital-snare, in which case that one gets its own mic.) We tend to use a drum amp for a sort of onstage drum monitor back to the drummer. Everybody benefits from that extra punch, and it DOES bleed into the vocal mics slightly, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. There are some venues where a proper Gretsch maple kit works better, and is preferred. But most live halls beg for a quality digital drum kit. Okay, I'm gonna shut up now. 😑

I do believe I will order some of these Gibson strings then, and give them a try. It would appear that the strings on your 2019 Modern are the Gibson Brite Wire 'Reinforced' nickels. According to Mark Agnesi anyway. 0.10's, surely. See timestamp 0:26 for the description and images of those very guitar strings. I'm ordering right now. Amazon has them for nine bucks. It'll be a fun experiment, and I'll compare them to the Ernie Ball Primo Slinky's that I normally use. 🙂

You obvious feel strong emotional attachment to the old classical and especially that Ovation. (And God rest her soul.) And that's understandable. If you ever feel like you want to pay them forward though, you can do what I often do; Donate them to a local drug & alcohol rehabilitation center. (I find myself donating a guitar to the local Bradford facility at least once a year, including the very first guitar I ever bought with my own money, an old Epiphone FT120.) When we aren't playing them, but they mean a lot to us spiritually, sometimes it's easier giving them away like that, to a place where patients will play them, and get lost in some playing. And in doing so, forget about their pain and longing and addictions for just a little while. It's just a thought. 😐

I like it a lot. I'm inclined toward simpler guitars with less knobs and only one pickup, but in most cases those guitars are less versatile than, say, a Les Paul or a Tele. This one feels and sounds great. Interesting tones and harmonics from that one very hot pickup. It's as unique as it looks, if that makes any sense. Re; not counting ukuleles and lap steels. I do admittedly include all stringed instruments in my total count. If I subtract the uke and a 3 string cigar box guitar (good for slide), and the two electric basses, I guess you could say that I technically only have 15 guitars. (4 acoustics and eleven electrics.) Say, I really am making progress here! I may not need to ring up that shrink after all. 😛

Heh heh, yeah, there's that. I do play keyboards. I have two, a Korg and a Yamaha. Also play drums. I have two digital Alesis kits. One stays in the music room for permanent duty, and the other is stored in the garage for gigs, and always ready to be loaded out. LUCKILY, I haven't had the same collecting desires for keys and drums that I do guitars. I do look at more and more basses, of course. Two is an awfully small number. I really need to see a therapist. :(

I know. I need to settle down with the acquisitions, and sell off a few more. It's tough because I get attached to most of them. I think ten would be a healthy number. 2 acoustics, 2 basses, the uke, and a handful of solid body electrics. I tell myself that, and then I drive by a pawn shop that I haven't been in lately, and then I walk in a lose my mind. 😔

Another cold beer perhaps?? 😜

Man oh man. Talk about thinning the herd. I just sold two guitars today, and then sat down and took stock of the situation, and did a tally. Turns out that in the last month, I have purchased 3 brand new stringed instruments. A Sterling Ray5 five string bass, a Traveler Ultra Light six string electric guitar, and (just yesterday) a Slick SL54T six string electric guitar. But in that same period of time, I also sold-off, gave-away, or gifted ten guitars. A net loss of seven, if my calculations are correct. (I was educated in Alabama, so somebody please check my math.) This leaves me at just 19 guitars in my stable. What's this world coming to? I think I need a cold beer. 😔

The bass amp, an old Crate, was just off-stage to the left there. My ancient Marshall was just out of view to the right. Right in front of the motorcycle. The colored bandannas help to wipe moisture off hands, and they are generally color-coded to the mic cables leading to the PA inputs. (Need to turn Lisa up, grab the volume knob above the pink cable, etc etc.) :)