The crappiest guitar possible-project

[Eric***]

Pretty cool. You're like the savior of cheap-a$$es everywhere!

So tell me, where do you spend your money with guitars? Pedals? Amps? Cables and accessories?

[poodlesrule]

So tell me, where do you spend your money with guitars? Pedals? Amps? Cables and accessories?

I think he mentioned beer before.

[deeaa*]

Lol, yep beer for a large part plus I have a 10-month old so wife's not working and I have to support the family alone :-) I do buy and sell lots of pedals and such too. Just gettong an sd-1 for instance...tend to sell them off too cheap then if I don't like 'em much.

But, basically, got me four great guitars already, don't need more...only been thinking of selling one in favor or a floyd one....I got this gas for a full-floating bridge to realize some quirky recording fantasies...I've had maybe 5 floyd axes but always so.d 'em off.

[Bloozcat]

There's a TV show here in the US called "American Pickers" where a couple of guys search junkyards and old barns in rural areas and buy broken down old items which they restore to useable (and valuable) form.

Could be an idea for you Dee. "Found in Finland". Got a nice ring to it...well, in English anyway....

[Eric***]

Lol, yep beer for a large part plus I have a 10-month old so wife's not working and I have to support the family alone :-) I do buy and sell lots of pedals and such too. Just gettong an sd-1 for instance...tend to sell them off too cheap then if I don't like 'em much.

But, basically, got me four great guitars already, don't need more...only been thinking of selling one in favor or a floyd one....I got this gas for a full-floating bridge to realize some quirky recording fantasies...I've had maybe 5 floyd axes but always so.d 'em off.

I suppose what I was trying to say is that your point seems to be that you don't need to spend much cash to get an axe that plays well and sounds good. You certainly don't need to spend thousands of dollars, as long as you have some sense of what matters.

So my question is whether there's anything worth spending money on. Amps, etc? Is there any area of gear that really needs a decent amount of money invested in it to give you good results, or is it pretty much all cork sniffing?

[deeaa*]

I suppose what I was trying to say is that your point seems to be that you don't need to spend much cash to get an axe that plays well and sounds good. You certainly don't need to spend thousands of dollars, as long as you have some sense of what matters.

So my question is whether there's anything worth spending money on. Amps, etc? Is there any area of gear that really needs a decent amount of money invested in it to give you good results, or is it pretty much all cork sniffing?

Oh, definitely there's plenty to spend on. And guitars too - I mean, I would never play this thing professionally. It works fine at home but rigors of the road and real life uses, keeping tune etc. are a different matter. But you're right - I've long believed that if you spend 400-500 bucks sensibly on an electric guitar, you really can't get a better one simply by shelling out more money. Just better looks and, well, of course satisfaction, which is a big factor too of course. Yet under that mark it is nigh impossible to really find real professional quality too. Maybe with crazy good luck in a pawnshop or something, even half of that may suffice for a truly awesome guitar...but generally IMO roughly 400 is what you do need.

And...amps - that's where you need the money, if you want the best. A well designed tube amp won't come cheap. Strings too, no reason to save on them, change often. Well, with amps you can get totally pro sound and excellent home sound for very little thanks to modern modelers etc. but if you're really making an unique, _your_ sound and recording it, you still need something a little special in that department, not what a million others play. You can make a guitar rock hit single playing a junkshop stella but it won't likely happen if the amp is a run-of the mill modeler. Well for some nu-metal act etc. it might ;-)

It's pretty much the same in Hi-Fi. You don't really need a CD player any more special than anything out there, instead you can never buy too good speakers. I don't believe at all in all that hi-fi hype, super cables and stuff...IMO even 'high-end' amplifiers are largely stupid, because even a $100 Sony amp produces better sound quality than a $200.000 speaker could ever hope to reproduce.

But yeah, I would rather have one or two guitars worth 200-500 bucks but well adjusted and tweaked, and ten good amps, than vice versa. Good amps are so expensive it just naturally gravitates amassing more guitars and not amps...I always regret selling any good amp I had but I just don't have the money to keep lots of amps costing hundreds around.

And, unless you want to take the time to learn how to adjust and tweak guitars yourself properly, it's always worth it to pay for proper intonation and proper neck setting and proper fret work and polish etc. I'm often amazed at some really good, even pro players I know really care next to nothing about setting up their axes. They just take them to a luthier a few times a year, when they start feeling they aren't as good to play as they should be. Me, I go over my guitars nigh every time I play to make sure they're perfectly set, and once a year I give 'em a full treatment with fretboard conditioner and all. That is worth time or money too. Many a cheap guitar can be soooo much better with some TLC given to its neck alone it's just uncanny.

More things I don't want to save on include patch and guitar cords, guitar pedals (although I don't usually think boutique is any better) and any accessories related to transferring the sound to recording; microphones, stands, speakers, recording devices.

[Mr Pants]

Brilliant. I once saw a guitarist called Wild Willy Barrett, who supported John Otway, and he had a similar looking crap-o-caster which he built himself. Brilliant guitarist though. Nice licks yourself.

[deeaa*]

Thanks :-) do check out the finished merchandise...:-)

http://www.thefret.net/showthread.ph...558#post183558

[Telefinken]

Hyvä project!
That bridge height adjustment..."thing"..is ingenious, You should apply for a patent on that.

[Nelskie]

. . . and goes to show ability is a big part of the equation.

Not big . . . biggest. But well said none-the-less oldguy. As for the guitar, deeaa, here's another dude that thought highly of the DIY method.

“So I went ahead and made me a guitar. I got me a cigar box, I cut me a round hole in the middle of it, take me a little piece of plank, nailed it onto that cigar box, and I got me some screen wire and I made me a bridge back there and raised it up high enough that it would sound inside that little box, and got me a tune out of it. I kept my tune and I played from then on.”

-Lightnin’ Hopkins

If you don't know who Lightnin' Hopkins is, check this out:

http://www.guitarsolos.com/videos-li...zM7jB2c%5D.cfm

GREAT guitar! Great thread.

[Bloozcat]

Nelskie???

Well, I'll be!

How have you been?

[gordy_sg_no1]

for being a P.O.S. its plays well .............. strangely i like it.