How many guitars does a guitarist need?

[Phil OKeefe]

14 hours ago, SteveFord said:

When you have to put masking tape on the outside of the case and write what's in there, you've got enough.

 

*I* know what's in each case without having to look at the names on the masking tape. The tape is for my kids when they come over, so they can quickly find whatever guitar they want to play.

[Grog]

When you can no longer find a place to store them, you might have enough……

[Phil OKeefe]

1 minute ago, Grog said:

When you can no longer find a place to store them, you might have enough……

Or, you might just need a bigger house. Or, a "clubhouse" like Tom Petty and Mike Campbell, where you can store everything, do rehearsals, etc. 😄

[duane v]

13 minutes ago, Phil OKeefe said:

Or, you might just need a bigger house. Or, a "clubhouse" like Tom Petty and Mike Campbell, where you can store everything, do rehearsals, etc. 😄

So far I have managed to house 34 Gibson's and some Hofners and Fenders.....  I keep 16 guitars on the wall for quick access and change them out. In the other room with the majority that are currently not in use, stay in their cases.

Both rooms have humidifiers.

[Ceptorman]

We might have a winner!

[PrairieDog]

9 minutes ago, Phil OKeefe said:

Or, you might just need a bigger house. Or, a "clubhouse" like Tom Petty and Mike Campbell, where you can store everything, do rehearsals, etc. 😄

Grin, getting there.  We already broke down the dining room to turn into a music room…. Still can’t fit everything in there.  Besides the guitars and banjos, we have a full size keyboard, full size Celtic harp, and a variety of percussion (no drum set, yet) scattered elsewhere in house.  We have a comfortable finished lower level walkout, but I’m paranoid about flooding, with it being below ground on 3 sides, and there is no way to seal off the spaces down there, so it’s tough keeping it  conditioned properly: too damp in the summer/too dry in the winter.  

We do have our office pole building. We are beginning to joke about just retiring, and setting up the studio in there.  But needing to walk in -50 windchills and blizzards to get to play sounds like a recipe for terminal procrastination.

 

 

[DanvillRob]

I have six acoustic guitars....I couldn't do without any of them.

I have 2 electric guitars made by my cousin, (now passed away), so they can't go.

One P-Bass.... can't do without it.

I have a Strat that I hate....so it can go....but would have to be replaced with a Jag.

I have on Schecter from my cousin.... it's actually a very nice guitar.

I also have a 3/4 size "Tender" guitar....looks like a mini-Strat, that I got for my son over 40 years ago.....It'll go to one of his kids.

 

 

[Valeriy]

18 hours ago, sparquelito said:

I agree with the spirit of this listing, but there are provisos and conditions to ponder....






 

Thanks for these answers, guys.

Yes, of course, there are provisos and conditions. What style of music do you prefer personally, or do you need to play different styles at a concert, somewhere else, when it's your job, it slightly increases the number of guitars. Then we can focus on the ideal option when you play certain styles that you yourself want to play. Ultimately, any musician usually strives for his own specific and favorite style. I don't think there is a need for a large variety of guitars in this case. 

It is also possible that all the known achievements and conveniences are scattered across different guitars, and you want it to be concentrated in one guitar, as Van Halen sought to do, in particular in his Frankenstrat
 By the way, in one interview he said that he began his experiments with guitars because no one had yet made the guitar he wanted. That is, he did not want to have all the guitars that were in stores at that time. Although he tried to play on various guitars, he was going to make one hybrid one and was quite successful, since manufacturers then copied it. I.e., there are some similarities with Brian May.

[Sgt. Pepper]

19 hours ago, SteveFord said:

When you have to put masking tape on the outside of the case and write what's in there, you've got enough.

 

I have 2. One case is thermoplastic and one is traditional tolex. I know what’s in what. 

[sparquelito]

1 hour ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

I have 2. One case is thermoplastic and one is traditional tolex. I know what’s in what. 

My guitars all hang on the walls. 
The cases are nicely stored in a special closet in the music room, for whenever one or two guitars need to be transported to a gig and back. 

Well. 
One of my hard cases contains emergency bottles of a variety of alcoholic spirits. 
Just in case the economy folds, and all the stores are closed. 

😀

Edited June 18 by sparquelito

[RBSinTo]

54 minutes ago, sparquelito said:

My guitars all hang on the walls. 
The cases are nicely stored in a special closet in the music room, for whenever one or two guitars need to be transported to a gig and back. 

Well. 
One of my hard cases contains emergency bottles of a variety of alcoholic spirits. 
Just in case the economy folds, and all the stores are closed. 

😀

Sparquelito,

Now I'll know who to contact if civilization as we know it falters, and I have a paintbrush that needs cleaning.

RBSinTo

[sparquelito]

3 hours ago, RBSinTo said:

Sparquelito,

Now I'll know who to contact if civilization as we know it falters, and I have a paintbrush that needs cleaning.

RBSinTo

You ain't cleanin' no paintbrush with mah good whiskey and brandy, good sir!!

No sir!
😐

 

[RBSinTo]

2 hours ago, sparquelito said:

You ain't cleanin' no paintbrush with mah good whiskey and brandy, good sir!!

No sir!
😐

 

Sparquelito,

Well what else could one possibly use it for? 

An accelerant for starting campfires or generalized arson perhaps?

And what's with the "good sir" business?

If "RBSinTo" is not to your liking, perhaps you could use The Lovely Missus RBSinTo's term of familiarity when addressing me: "$hithead".

Your call.

RBSinTo

 

[Karloff]

On 6/18/2024 at 8:23 PM, sparquelito said:

You ain't cleanin' no paintbrush with mah good whiskey and brandy, good sir!!

No sir!
😐

 

"Say when ..."

[Sgt. Pepper]

On 6/18/2024 at 9:43 AM, Grog said:

When you can no longer find a place to store them, you might have enough……

Then just rent a warehouse, or storage facility to keep the over flow in. 

[PrairieDog]

Since early April, every time we went into our GC, my wife would pick up this used Recording King RR50 mahogany round-neck reso and noodle on it.  Last time it even had a broken string, but she was trying to pick some licks out on it, chuckle.  

She has two square necks and has a round on her wish list.  It was not much, so I kept asking if she wanted it… she always put it back saying, nah, with some excuse why not.  But then the next time we’d go in, she’d look for it.  

I knew it was going to be one of those guitars that you get used to seeing at the store, and that you think about, but don’t buy. And then one day it’s gone, and you kick yourself over why didn’t you just get it. 

She has been working really hard lately, and was out of town, having a crummy time on a job up north in the middle of some bad flooding.  On my own back home, larking about running errands, I popped in to GC and bought it for her.  The great guy at GC who knows us did me a kind one and took some more bucks off an already good price.  We’ve spent more on groceries at Christmas.  

At home, I set it on a stand across the room from her Gold tone Paul Beard square, like it’s been there all the time.  They are nearly identical, save the neck. 

When we were catching up on the phone last night, I told her I had checked GC while I was out.  She asked if there was anything interesting, “Naw, nothing new. “ And sure enough, the next question was, “was the RK there?” I said “yeah, and they even restrung it.” 

I could tell by her voice she was relieved…. I grinned a little and was really glad we weren’t face-timing, I would have made a lousy poker player.  

Today she bagged the rest of the job, roads washed out so she couldn’t get to the next project area, and came home early.  

She popped her head in the music room on the way to unpacking and said, “Oh! You were playing my reso?… Wait!? What’s this???”

I got a big kiss.  😊

So yes, the answer to how many guitars you need is: +1 😄

[Phil OKeefe]

That's awesome, Prairie Dog! 

 

In your shoes, I would have probably told her, "no, it's not there anymore. Looks like someone bought it..."  Which is true, right? Someone DID buy it. You're just not mentioning that it was you who bought it for her! 😃

[PrairieDog]

7 minutes ago, Phil OKeefe said:

That's awesome, Prairie Dog! 

 

In your shoes, I would have probably told her, "no, it's not there anymore. Looks like someone bought it..."  Which is true, right? Someone DID buy it. You're just not mentioning that it was you who bought it for her! 😃

😄yeah, I thought about trying that, but when it comes to buying her things, I have no game.  I’d end up giving it away.  She knows too well my reflexive,  “Ernie” laugh (sesame street reference).  I use it when I  get her something I know she really wants/or is totally going to be unexpected.  And after more than 30 years she knows me too well and is almost always is able to guess what it is.  Like I said, good thing we weren’t on screen.  And besides, I didn’t want to break her heart on an already bad day.  

Edited June 20 by PrairieDog

[Notes_Norton]

One electric for gigging, plus another electric for a spare, and one acoustic.

How many do we want? Depends, but no fewer than 50.

 

Notes ♫

[Dave F]

Let me know when y'all come to a consensus so I know how bad I am. I'm currently at 31 (down from 53) and looking for another one.

Edited June 21 by Dave F

[rct]

1 hour ago, Dave F said:

Let me know when y'all come to a consensus so I know how bad I am. I currently at 31 (down from 53) and looking for another one.

Yeah but you have all the guitars God didn't get.  Your pictures of your guitars have me wanting guitars that I don't even want.

rct

[Jim H]

You can probably get by with one electric guitar if you have push/pull pots, a good set of humbuckers  and a decent sound processor. 

[Phil OKeefe]

25 minutes ago, Jim H said:

You can probably get by with one electric guitar if you have push/pull pots, a good set of humbuckers  and a decent sound processor. 

For many people, this is probably true. But if you're someone who plays live a lot, the first time you break a string in mid-set, you will probably decide you want a second guitar as a backup. 

 

[Jim H]

True! You can tell I’m a stay-at-home guitarist. Wish I had the confidence to take it on the road.

[Valeriy]

On 6/18/2024 at 12:07 AM, Phil OKeefe said:

Re: #4: Only one acoustic? I have two parlor/short scale acoustics, a pair of 6 string dreadnought/jumbo bodied acoustics with different back and side woods (for different tonalities), an acoustic that is Nashville-strung, a nylon string acoustic, and a 12-string acoustic. All of them have different tones and uses. 

 

Hello guys,

as for acoustic guitars, I evaded this question a little, but I have my reasons. Now I'm more interested in replacing the acoustic guitar with an electric one.  And probably many guitar manufacturers are also interested in this.  Who remembers, I once gave a link to a video where Pete Thorn plays a Fender Acoustasonic guitar quite beautifully, which has a very small resonator body, as known, and one magnetic pickup, so it's actually an electric guitar. But there it does a pretty convincing job of sounding like an acoustic guitar.

Well..., why this is interesting now? By and large, electric and acoustic guitars are the same instrument, the same 6 strings, tuning, etc. But at that time in the early 50s, when electric guitars spread quite quickly, one unfortunate mistake was made. Guitar pickups have had too much magnetic influence on strings, on their vibrations. And today in fact modern pickups are still pretty much the same regarding the said influence on string as they were back in the 50's. Their design of course changed, but in terms of the magnetic effect on the strings, too strong an influence - it remained the same. Accordingly, the electric guitar sound in clean also remained the same as it was then in the 50s, not entirely satisfactory, not reaching acoustic one. I would say even, generally unsatisfactory. That's why electric guitar players still often buy acoustic guitars additionally to the electric, and GAS is thriving so far.

   By the way, this is in numbers (a little physics) - it’s clearly visible. As you probably know, combo-amp-cabinets and all gears for the electro guitar have a small frequency range, often not even more than 5 kHz. This is no accident. This is so because, for example, a usual humbucker, with 2 coils and 2 rows of pole pieces, also has a rather small operating frequency range at its output, somewhere around 3 kHz, i.e. even less than 5 kHz. And above the 3 kHz, humbucker frequencies are greatly distorted (due to the said magnetic influence), and the guitar sound, thus, is also distorted, and those high frequencies must be cut off, which is what the mentioned combos and gears do.
    For a single-coil pickup with one row of pole pieces, due to this, its width is 2 times smaller, and thus its magnetic field is also approximately 2 times narrower on the strings. And accordingly, the single gives an operating (undistorted) frequency range 2 times larger, up to 6 kHz, i.e. it's a little better for clean sound. But this is still not enough, since the sound of any acoustic guitar has an even greater range, up to approximately 12 kHz. And until guitar manufacturers begin to install new pickups on their guitars with an effective range of at least up to 10 kHz, these electric guitars will continue to lose out to acoustic guitars in clean sound, and GAS will continue to thrive. Well, some guitarists will still be in this mad GAS .

In turn, an electric guitar with a pickup with frequencies up to 10-12 kHz at the output, its prospects are very attractive. Such a guitar, if these sensors are in active mode (like the EMGs), can be easily used with any amp\preamp including home Hi-Fi system, making good recordings on a computer (without the need to use high-volume combos and microphones). And else, its sound in clean, although it differs from the sound of an acoustic guitar, yet it being from the electric is even more interesting, in particular, more sustain, louder, etc.