I love my gear

JoeyBones

I think the best way to do this is a start to end approach, plus I don't have pic's of all my stuff. So here goes. This is a pic of the first 2 guitars I bought 3 years ago.

The acoustic is an Ibanez Talman which I bought secondhand and the electric is a Squier Black and Chrome Fat Stratocaster® (Special Edition). It sounded really great and even though it was made in Indonesia, I've gotten tons of compliments on the build quality. I sold the Talman to my nephew last year and gave the Strat to one of the guitarists at our church. They were great while I owned them, but we all have to move on sometime.

Garth-S

Hey Joey

I also have an Ibanez Talman, they are great little guitars. Mine is red and I put a scratchplate on it for extra protection. I like the look of that Squire, I also have an Indonesian one, but I'm not that impressed with the build quality, it was my first electric, so I missed all the glitches, but it's proved to be faithful. The biggest glitch is that the bridge seems out of line with the nut, so the strings angle up the fretboard slightly, I can't believe it got past QC like that. Anyway we live and learn hey ?

JoeyBones

The only gripe I had with my squeir was the action. It was really high, but I learned that that was a common thing with the cheaper guitars. I sent it in for a setup and changed the strings to D'Addarios and that did the trick. It didn't have a fast neck or anything like that, but it was great to learn on and for playing rhythm.

JoeyBones

Ok, so here goes. As with all things, theres always something bigger and better. A couple of months after buying the aforementioned guitars, I started browsing ebay and came across this beauty.

It's a G6117 Anniversary edtion. I picked it up for a steal (I won't say how much, cause then you'll hate me ?)
It's a 2003 model and the guy I bought it from only used it in his studio. It's in mint condition and I'm trying to keep it that way.

Next up is my USA Fender Highway1 Strat. I picked this one up from a guy in Centurion. It's been fitted with Fender custom shop 70's pickups and Fender locking tuners. I really would like to hear the difference between a Highway 1 and some of the higher end Fender models. I was really pleased with the playability and the sound of this guitar while I owned it. I sold this one to my nephew 3 months ago.

cain

The major different between a Fender highway 1 and a the higher end versions, is the wood, the finish and the pickups. Since your pickups was changed to decent ones that will help. The thing is that American standard and deluxe guitars are made from 3 pieces of wood thats glued together, the highway one has 5 pieces. This would give your a more twangy sound because the wood is less solid. The finish is also more prone to chipping, scratching and fading. All this is just done to keep the price down, thats why a highway ones retail is about R9000, A standard's about R12500 and a Deluxe about R17000.

cain

Oh yes, forgot to mention, even if you dont tell us what you paid for that gretch, I still hate you cos im damn jealous!!!!

JoeyBones

I guess I got a good deal on the strat then. I picked it up for R5500 with a flight case.

As for inciting jealousy, this is just the beginning. I'll continue my gear assimilation story tomorrow. I forgot to bring the other pics to work today.

kayDUB

Bring it on! Can't wait! ?
waiting on some details on the little corner of the AC30 I see in the gretsch pic... ? Nice gear!

I generally think you get much more value for money buying gear second hand, you just have to find the right deal!

JoeyBones

I almost forgot. This is the the first effects pedal and amp I bought. I got them secondhand for about R1100 each.

Korg AX1500G.

I sold this to my nephew about a year after I bought it. Was pretty decent, but we had problems getting even volumes out of it at church. I guess it was more down to a lack of knowledge than bad product.

Fender 25R Frontman

I really enjoyed this amp until it started buzzing. I sent it in for repairs. It worked ok for a while and then it started doing it again. I sent it to a friend of a friend to get it checked out early last year and the guy has gone MIA on us with my amp.

We're still trying to find him.

JoeyBones

I wanted to try something different so I decided to build myself a strat. I bought a neck, body and most of electronics of ebay. I ordered the GFS Hotrails and the 500k dpdt pot from Guitarfetish.

I wasn't expecting it to be anything special, but it turned out pretty cool.

Mind my photography. I took these the other night with my phone, so it doesn't show the colours properly. The body is candy apple red and the neck is maple with a maple fretboard. Both are Fender MIM parts and it's setup with DPDT's on the Volume and Middle Tone pots. They coil tap the Bridge and Neck pickups.

My nephew grabbed this one from me before I even got the chance to play it at church or anywhere else. I think the black pearloid scratch plate gives it a nice retro look. I assembled the guitar and sent it in to Music Connection to have the electronics and setup done. All in all, it ended up costing around R4500.

This is his main axe and he's plays lead most of the time.

JoeyBones

I'm taking too long to get to the point so I'm just gonna add the pictures I have and narrate where possible.

Here are my amps :

I didn't know which pic would show up better, so I added both. I bought the Ashdown 2x12" 60W All tube Fallen Angel at Marshall's 50% of sale about 2 years ago. It's an awesome amp. Uses the Celestion Vintage 30's. Too bad Ashdown discontinued the range.
I bought the AC30 from a guy in Stellenbosch. It was his son's and it hadn't been used in over a year. It's a reletavely new model with the wharfdale speakers. I got it at a great price and thought and I'd just swap the speakers out with Blue Alnico's. Guess I should have priced them first.

As you can see, the pic was taken when I had way too many guitars for an amateur (I think i still do). I had to keep those on the rack cause I didn't have cases for everything.

cain

Nice amps. As far as i understand the ashdown is a heavier amp. Heavy distortion etc ... But man the ac30 is awesome, i love the chime sounds you can get out of it!

JoeyBones

My top boost channel went dead, so I'm only using the ashdown right now.

cain

Erf that sucks, how did it just go dead ? lol a tube ?

JoeyBones

I think so. I'm just too lazy to open the back covers and check it ;D

I'll probably make some time this week now that I'm feeling guilty about not attending to it.

BTW I bought an Electro Harmonix Double Muff a couple of months ago and just couldn't get it sounding right. I gave it too my buddy to test and when I spoke to him yesterday, he said it's an awesome pedal ... The problem was that I was using it at very low volumes (I hate townhouse complexes) and he has a garage to practice in, so I'm gonna go check it out sometime this week. Almost sold that one of cheap !

cain

Haha the muff pedals are fuzz hey ? Fuzz pedals are very nice ?

JoeyBones

Ok, so where was I. Errrmmm, I think lets go with this one. Here's a pic of my Gretsch Rancher Junior Acoustic. I bought this one of ebay (Where else ;D ) about 2 years ago. I love this guitar cause I'm a small guy and it doesn't make look like a twelve year old on stage. It looks awesome. The strings it came with were really dull and bassy, so I put elixirs on it and it turned into a whole other animal. It's a bit sharp but works well when playing in the band. You can actually hear the chords I play and not just some feint strumming in the background.

Here's a pic of the gretsch website. Show the details better :

JoeyBones

Next is my favorite and most used guitar right now. I bought this after hearing the awesome sounds Nigel Hendroff gets from it. I guess his effects have something to do with it as well ?

It's a Gretsch 6218 Duo Jet. I bought it off ebay (Once again !).

It didn't come with a case so I had to buy that separately (I picked up a brand new one for a good price of one of the ebay stores). I also bought a bigsby so that it would match the 6218T spec (Should I bother saying where I got that from). I had it fitted at Andy McGibbons - They're a bit expensive but they do great work.I don't have a new pic of it, but heres what it basically looks like with the bigsby installed.

cain

I hate you ... no seriously i hate you!!!!! If you ever want to sell that gretch ill take it off your hands ?

kayDUB

I'm feeling the same way Francis... :'(

I think we should make JoeyBones' Duo Jet the prize for the next forum comp. Waddya say Norio?
? ? ?

What did you end up paying for it?