NighthawkChris

I’m with you on this one - can’t stand the smell of rank cigarettes. The smoke gets all over everything and leaves layers of tar on whatever it lingers by. I used to wash cars for a living as a junior, and cleaning a smoker’s windshield was disgusting! It took several applications of window cleaner as you’d see the yellow streaks left on the glass - not to mention the rag! Such a disgusting habit. Just a shame it’s so addictive. You’d think that spending what is it… $10 a pack give or take… just how powerful the addiction is.

I think speed is nice to use with good taste. Going a million MPH all the time is just like rambling a ton of words and no one can understand. For instance in a solo there might be a time to have a real quick set of notes but generally I feel that a solo should emphasize the rhythm always. A solo to me is like trying to make the guitar sing when the vocalist takes a break. In short, one should try to make the guitar say something other than I can play this fast if that’s one’s intentions. With regards to playing better and wishing one was better, etc. it’s about putting in work. If one does nothing to learn new things or doesn’t spend time to actually play even (or playing the same stuff mindlessly) improvement will be hard to come by. I spend a lot of time these days it seems learning new chords and playing with some backing tracks which have these new chords in them. I learn the chord first in a few different positions so if I do decide to spit out a lead, I know the notes that make the rhythm more emphasized. But again, it takes time and thought some may not have these days - time that is… I don’t play my piano that much these days but I used to play a ton of great music on it. My mother was a pianist and started me at 9 years of age. I actually hated it at first and went to guitar at 14 when I wanted to play like all the rock heroes we love and know - like Led Zeppelin, Beatles, and even started to get into heavy metal as I really am into these days. But I learned how to play some piano pieces that people have complimented me on graciously when I shared a performance - and I know it took me years to learn and perfect these pieces. I worked on a couple at a time and they sort of become part of you or somewhat “your own”. I would get so frustrated with certain parts of say Chopin that I would literally just scream F! Smash my hands on the keyboard and stomp my feet out the room only to come back the next day and play it right all of a sudden. And if you want to do it well, have to do it all the time. The rust accumulates FAST! Overall talent like this takes years to develop and just so happens when you’re young you have a lot of time to develop as well as the brain agreeing to mold so to speak. Although I think at any age, people can aspire to learn even still. So I encourage all to put in the work. Make art that is worth sharing with others. This is my take and it’s not necessarily right, but it works for me to enjoy why I play music. I like playing in a band… I like sharing music… It’s literally all I do when I have time to myself these days in our hustle and bustle world.

There’s a guitar player on YT who goes by the name of Rick Graham who is really nice to listen to. He talks about how to play with complex movements. One of the best things he taught me listening to him was that a lot of people have a very stubborn hand and can’t shift their index finger well which basically will keep you stuck in one spot on the fretboard. Notice how these guitar virtuosos use their index finger. It glides around and all of a sudden, in another spot on the fretboard. Just something I noticed I needed to improve which made my solos better.

Music is definitely not a competition. The older I get the more I appreciate history of great composers and their works. It just happens that during those historic eras that music of the greats was truly something humanity can call masterpieces. It takes a lot of time and devotion to learn the works of the masters and people who agonize to learn that stuff IME do it because they love the music not to one-up someone. Music has to have feeling that makes the listener appreciate it for the message it conveys. It doesn’t have to be complex to be good… but some can appreciate music that happens to be what some would classify as complex.

@SteveFord, Ahh the moonlight sonata… I played that on the piano - all 3 movements. Took quite a while as you might imagine but like anything practice makes perfect. I don’t make YT videos though and my day job is software engineer - unfortunately. People today just don’t appreciate musical talent or even the technical abilities of composers all the way back to the baroque era. Beethoven is sort of a composer that is half classical, half romantic era. He had great disdain for his contemporaries such as Hayden and Mozart. But as I have said before, I am a huge Chopin guy. Oddly enough, I believe he was claimed to have disdain for Beethoven… but had deep appreciation for JS Bach. JS Bach just listen to some of his works…

Here’s the guy that did the video I saw that I mentioned doing a Telecaster type thing with a fence post to explore “tone woods” haha! He’s reviewing the first video @Larsongs posted for us in this thread which I liked BTW. Here’s my conclusion of it all… Quite a mythical instrument the guitar and what we believe about it makes it sound better, more sustain, whatever…

lol it's almost like you were waiting for someone to mention something about a cap 😆

That’s all you could ask for when you want an R8! Happy New Guitar Day!

Got to love those that claim their gut feeling or whatever as fact. That’s called seeing through the BS. A lot of it out there today. It’s like those that tell you to learn how to play music by “feeling” it. Literally the worst advice ever.

@Larsongs yeah I saw something like this before too. With an electric I believe that a lot of the tone is in the pickups, how they are adjusted, and amp. None of the hide glue business, long/short neck tenon, body weight, etc. has any effect that makes a significant difference. The video I saw like this way back was similar… a guy basically made a guitar out of a fence post or something and same type of results as video you shared.

Nothing stupid here, at all. Please feel free to share what you want. I mentioned that you can 100% verify with a notched straightedge for the Gibson scale. This is what luthiers use and will get you much needed information. Don't trust your eyes if you aren't trained enough to do this... And I agree with @kidblast no twist that I can tell... And if the neck joint on a LP separated... you'd know. You have to hit it pretty hard to make it come out of the neck joint. I HAVE seen a lot of alpine white finishes crack and check... Seems to be what you have to look forward to. No worries though. I think it looks 'normal' for these guitars as they age, YMMV. And to boot, if you had a neck separated, you'd get some serious tuning stability issues. Not the string getting caught in the nut issue, but just totally goes out on you. Maybe you should spend some time watching YT videos on luthiers setting up guitars, doing fret dressings, neck restorations, etc. Maybe you can find something that helps you learn how to diagnose yourself as I have. I have bought a few tools from StewMac to help with fixing my guitars - things I learned how to use by watching others do it online.

You don't annoy anyone here. You are entertaining I like to think of it 😆 Best of luck to you!

I wish I was rich enough to give Spotify the finger haha!

@Sgt. Pepper I agree, I like Canada too. I live close enough to the Ambassador bridge and enjoyed some great hockey over the years. Used to buy great hockey equipment there for cheap back then compared to US prices. Beautiful country to say the least. Also, I worked with Canadians and they are some of the nicest people I ever met. I don't get the politics there though... As always, leave it to politics to muddy the waters. Seems draconian to me to disallow someone to participate with society because they opt to not take a shot. Like we were saying, are vaccinated people less contagious? It doesn't seem to be completely preventing infection... Again, I think no one knows anything about this virus.

Some of them Canadians are getting testy over there blocking borders because of mandates. I get the protest. Canada has like one of the highest vaccination rates and you can't do a GD thing there unless you take the shot. And Trudeau was blackface before...

I don't know why I find the fake thing funny, haha! It cracks me up! Literally, just call someone fake this or fake that, I laugh!

So does Neil, the guy who wants us to quit working at Spotify and is going to pay for us to live in his mansion where we can have avocado toast every morning. I believe NY is fake news.

Has a twist in the neck been definitively found? Basically, someone tried to make the neck as straight as possible - the wood - and used a slotted 24 3/4" scale straightedge to inspect both the treble and bass side of the neck? This is what needs to happen to measure it the best. You could do the capo/feeler gauge stuff, but if your frets are not level, you could miss something... So if you don't have a twist and you can make the neck straight via the truss rod, you should shoot for factory spec to see if any issues are present. 5/64" on bass side, 3/64" on treble side at 12th fret when tuned up to pitch. If you don't have chokes anywhere on any note, then you don't have fret issues where a fret dressing/leveling could be needed to fix. After you verify that factory spec setup is good, adjust to your liking. I only say to go factory spec to make sure you are dealing with a guitar that is "acceptable" to Gibson - what SHOULD be acceptable IMHO. If you want to lower the action or raise it, go ahead. Specs to me WRT guitars are GUIDELINES, not rules. You're only going to get away with so much though. And if you're expecting perfect intonation, this is never going to happen. I learned to just deal and have fun playing. Not sure if you're in that camp I used to be in years ago when imperfect intonation bothered the heck out of me.

IME, Custom Shop Gibsons are the best Gibson can make. Granted there are always anomalies... Overall, I wouldn't worry about it so much. As @Sgt. Pepper said, best to put them in your hands to try them out to make a call. Hopefully you have return windows on them if you have to purchase first... But you should know what guitar is the best once you take some time with each one. Do note that R8s are supposed to have baseball bat necks with tall skinny frets - like an R7 with a burst cap essentially. Once you go to an R9, you get bit of a slimmer neck profile and smaller frets. This is general stuff here. I've seen some R8s that have flamed caps that could pass for an R9. And I've seen R9s with plain tops. Gibson... All over the map, hence why you want to try out as best you can before pulling the trigger for good. My advice is to be happy with what you get, the price won't matter so much. Not sure about the Custombuckers when they started to go into the Historics... They are the best pickups Gibson makes IMHO - these and 57s. The 2018 will probably have these in them. Not sure about the 2014. I would like to say the 2008 has 57s... My 2003 R7 Custom (Black Beauty) has these.

I remember that I started showing symptoms the day I went to a concert with my friends. They were very mild - a little bit of a runny nose, no congestion, cough, etc. I felt fine in other words. But I was in very close proximity to all of them. To boot, 2 days later, I went to band practice - still feeling just fine. I cut my lawn while I had an infection and we are talking about walking around an acre of land lifting crap and the sort... So in the end, NO ONE caught COVID from me even while I was symptomatic. I caught it from my kids who had a COVID outbreak at their daycare center. So did the vaccine help me, I'd like to think so. Granted I still believe that this is way overblown by the fake news - i.e. corporate media of ALL walks of life from Fox to CNN (FNN) - but in the end, this virus is highly contagious and I know people who have long COVID, have died, or had weeks of suffering in the hospital with pneumonia and blood clots in their lungs. I also know that many people have had very mild bouts with COVID like me. Most people get mild cases which to me qualifies as someone that doesn't need medical attention to route the infection. Nonetheless, I am going to do what I can to be safe as I can. I am not going to live in isolation forever and by God, my kids go to schools every day... We are exposed and that makes it easier for us to enjoy a simple dinner at a restaurant. I missed that a lot back when this stuff all started. But in the end, I believe that NO ONE knows about this virus. Not the CDC, the WHO, our wonderful leaders, nobody... But I said it in the beginning of this that the only thing that will get me out of this house of mine is zero cases (haha!) or a vaccine. Obviously took my chances with the vaccine and held out as long as I could. So that's my story, I'm sticking by it. I don't know what I'm doing from one day to the next be there a school closing, daycare closing, breakout at work... Finally got my COVID tests in the mail from the gubment... Good timing. Just in time before the next pandemic! I heard the tests are not as good at detecting the variants. The PCR test is a poor way to detect the virus anyhow from what I have heard from some "experts". Who knows... This whole thing has been a disaster and a S-show. Yeah, I held out on going to the concert with my friend, but he was cool about it and we are going to get together for the SB this Sunday. COVID be damned, I'm watching Stafford play in the game of his life. It's the closest a Lions fan (not that I am) will ever get to the SB. Truth! Best wishes to ya @Retired!

@Pinch I like my R7's baseball bat neck - and it is noticeably fat comparatively to others we've discussed here. I can play everything on it just fine - and you don't need large hands to find it comfortable. I also can deal with very slim neck profiles too... but when I have a LP in my hands, I don't want it to be Jackson Soloist thin. As I said, R9 is my favorite - at least the profile on mine.

@Pinch what's your preference for neck profile? Have you ever held an R7 before to understand how much of a baseball bat it really is? The R9 I believe is my favorite - not too skinny, not too fat. As for a 60s, I have a 68RI and it's not too thin, but rather feels slightly thinner than my R9.

That's good to hear that the neck is OK. Anything else should be easy enough to deal with and not very detrimental to what you could get for the guitar. I wish I could help you with someone to price it out for you. Other than that, are there any other listings you could compare to would be the next best place to get a better idea what you can get. Good luck!

What's the condition of the neck? Can it be made straight? Free of twists? Truss rod work still? To me, anything usually can be fixed with a guitar, but once the neck has issues, it's firewood. Regarding how/who to appraise, can't answer that one.

Damn @Rabs I haven't seen this thread in a while and you do some awesome work man!