talk to me about two things

[B3Guy]

Ok, so I've got my first Warmoth neck on the way  :blob7:  :blob7:  :blob7:

But I need a body for it, and I don't have a ton to spend, as I'd like to have cash left over to have it set up professionally. I need some opinions on a  couple different points. First off, let me explain what music I play, and what sounds/feels I like and do not like. I primarily play slow/medium blues and basic four chord rock n' roll crunchy stuffs. The blues is what I want to focus the guitar on, but if I can get some crunch out of it too, I'd be very happy. So here's the deal. I've been playing a friends guitar for a while now, but it is very dry. I have to really hit the strings pretty decent to get any longer sustain, and the harder I hit, the less juicy it sounds . . . it gets a lot of bite going, which for slow blues is a big much. The body and neck of the guitar are also pretty dead feeling (think big fat Les Paul). understand me? it feels like a paul, like the body and neck are just a big dead mass in which the pickups are mounted in order to capture what the strings are doing . . . but the body just feels like the structural support and not really like its part of the musical equation. What I'm after is a guitar that sings real easy. I don't want to have to hit it too hard to get it there, either. So here are my two questions:

1. Is it good or bad for a guitar body to vibrate when played (considering my desire for a singing guitar)? does this help or hurt sustain, etc?

2. Single coil Pickups: Hot or not? Will hot pickups or normal pickups be better for what I'm wanting? I want to make sure that the neck and middle pickups really sing. What about the bridge pickup? most starts I play have a lot of bite in the bridge, which is fine (as long as the other pickups can give me the juice). Would it be better to take the "bite" sound and run with it in the bridge, and what pickup type will be good for this?

Here's the neck I got:

Warmoth Pro
Pau Ferro/pau Ferro
SRV contour
SS6230 (vintage) frets (stainless)
MOP dots
22 fret,compound radius
GraphTech white nut
vintage style Gotoh tuner holes and chrome tuners to match

 

[Jusatele]

:blob7: :blob7: :blob7:

First.beautiful neck, I know why you ordered it

wow, are we opening a can of worms to be discussed

ok, vibration, ever seen a guitarist slap or hit his guitar body while trying to get it to sustain forever? I do it, I hit it with a fist if I am holding a note I need to pull to the moon. yes keeping the vibration up will help sustain, without vibration a pickup cannot work,that is what makes it sound off is the vibration of the strings over it. how the weight of the body to the string vibration works I do not know but I do know shaking a guitar, hitting a guitar or slapping it will cause the thing sustain.

I play the blues, and let me tell you that you are about to set out on a trail that will have you studying the rest of your life, the Blues is so much more than 3 chords and the blues scale. that is just the tip of the iceberg, blues players shift scales mid riff, have chord vocabularies most guys dream of,learn the fine art of not playing, and use each chord as a event. Be ready to learn to play lead in a whole new way as if you just run pentatonic scales you will be lost in mediocrity. And be ready to be judged on how well you can play rhythm, no one wants a blues guitarist that sounds like the last one, your rhythm chops you live and die by. All great blues players, no matter how fast or flashy they play lead, are great rhythm players, hey listen to SRV pound out a Texas Shuffle. In the blues there are no soloist, there are guitar players.

Saying that, I love P90s, I get a very fat tone that sustains for days and also can cut trough the crowd like a single coil only can, Chunky and Bright, the things are great. I own a 335 clone with PAF clones and love it if I am playing classic rock, but get me on the blues and it is my PRS or Tele both with P90s and I feel very comfortable and confident that my tone is doing what I want to hear, and that I am standing out from the crowd.

I would suggest you go to GC or Sam Ash and find a body style you like both the looks and the comfort of, I am a Tele nut, have loved them since the 70s, not to comfy as other guitars but the shape I love the looks of. Find a body you like to look at and feel comfortable with, then dream up what you can do to it and order one.

 

[B3Guy]

yeah, blues for me is also in the subtleties, especially in the "not playing" and in that "almost not playing" realm, which includes playing really quiet. To be honest, most strats I pick up are just not cut out for that sort of thing. Like I said, they feel dead like an LP, and if you try to play them with a light touch, the string just dies right a way sand sounds pretty pathetic. If I want to avoid this, are (in general) higher output or lower output pickups a better bet?

 

[B3Guy]

(note, I'll probably be getting either a loaded 'guard or loaded body off of the 'bay, and most of those are either some form of Standard strat, or something with "hot" or "texas" pickups.

 

[Jusatele]

I get just standard wound, where you will find the big difference is your technique. Learn to Hybrid Chicken pick, you will find out that those 2 or 3 fingers can add so much to your playing, I upstrum with the tips of my index and middle fingers, giving it a sort of chorusy feel. and if I want can down strum with those fingernails. plus if you just forget about the pick altogether, you start to include a lot of fingerstyle rhythm playing which is nice and fills in a lot of holes while not stomping on anyone at all. If you use fingerstyle in places lots of guys will be strumming you are going sound somuch cleaner in style. another point is to use each chord,or measure as an event. Ever notice a blues riff is one or 2 measures long, and a rock riff can go 4 measures? well that is the event thing, you are now able to riff, or comp, or switch back and forth, or do nothing, or a fill, because you are not having to do long riffs. Trust me, you study the blues as the nuances are things most guys never understand. I could go one for days.

 

[Jeremiah]

To delve deeper into the can of worms, I've always thought that if the body vibrating a lot was unquestionably a 'good thing,' then all the best sounding electric guitars would be hollowbody archtops. And maybe for certain styles of music this may be true; there's probably a good reason why jazz guitars are generally hollowbodies, though I'd also guess that tradition has a lot to do with it.

 

[Jusatele]

Dust off those Diatonic chord studies, get those arpeggio charts out, learn the slide step, the stormy slide, get familiar with melodic shapes, Start making the chicken claw and chirp, learn to make the train whistle howl, listen to the rhythm of a chain gang. Learn to imitate the sounds you hear when walking down the street.  ther are riffs in everything you hear.

 

[drewfx]

That's a really fantastic looking neck. When I saw it show up on RSS the other day, I was thinking, "I wish I had a good use for it". I'm glad someone here got it (and good move pulling the trigger quickly).

As for your questions:

1. My take on sustain is this (assuming we're talking about solid body guitars) - the most important thing for good sustain is a good rigid neck (which you should definitely have) and a good stable neck joint. And don't be confused by the acoustic response of the body vs. the electrical response - what the PU senses from the string itself is not nearly the same as what the guitar's body transfers to the air. And instrument that sounds a little "dead" acoustically won't necessarily sound bad electrically, and vise versa.

2. In terms of PU's, I'm not sure what you mean by "sing". Maybe you can list examples of the sort of tone you're looking for? Hot PU's are generally higher output, more compressed, darker and less twangy. Vintage winds are brighter, more sensitive, more responsive and open sounding. Most people would put a hot PU in the bridge, as hot PU's can be too muddy in the other positions.

What gauge strings do you use? That makes a big difference in sound/sustain too.

 

[Jusatele]

To delve deeper into the can of worms, I've always thought that if the body vibrating a lot was unquestionably a 'good thing,' then all the best sounding electric guitars would be hollow body arch tops. And maybe for certain styles of music this may be true; there's probably a good reason why jazz guitars are generally hollow bodies, though I'd also guess that tradition has a lot to do with it.

only problem with that is controlling feed back at high volume high gain settings. that is why the 335 was developed, simi hollow.

 

[B3Guy]

Thanks, yeah, by sing I just mean a clear and full sound that holds and sustains well. In my experience, a full, open pickup can always be tightened down to hell, but it's very hard to make a tightass pickup open up. Sounds like vintage is more open and responsive, so that's probably what I'm after.

as far as the body question, I was referring less to the actual unplugged volume of the guitar and more to that feeling you get when playing certain solid bodies and you can feel them . . . humming along. obviously, this and unplugged volume may be related. Is this good for sustain or bad?

 

[bagman67]

To delve deeper into the can of worms, I've always thought that if the body vibrating a lot was unquestionably a 'good thing,' then all the best sounding electric guitars would be hollowbody archtops. And maybe for certain styles of music this may be true; there's probably a good reason why jazz guitars are generally hollowbodies, though I'd also guess that tradition has a lot to do with it.

Tradition definitely has a lot to do with it - it's hard to buck a trend that stretches back to Charlie Christian and before, and stretches through Wes Montgomery, Barney Kessel, Joe Pass, Herb Ellis, Pat Metheny, Pat Martino, etc., etc., etc.  But see, e.g., Mike Stern and  Wayne Krantz for examples of serious jazz on sold-body electrics.  There is a certain segment of the jazz playing community that basically has decided jazz guitar stopped evolving with Wes Montgomery, and his stuff reallly was so good that a lot of folks could be forgiven for copping his stuff and building a career around it - but as with any attempt to directly copy a single player, it's an aesthetic dead end.

And speaking of dead ends -   I love the blues as much as the next guy, but nothing makes me want to turn around and walk out of a bar quicker than yet another note-for-note cover of a Stevie Ray Vaughan hit.

 

[bagman67]

Also, DAMN YOU for getting the exact neck I wanted... congratulations, she's a beauty!

 

[B3Guy]

not going for Stevie . . . my hands just like his neck profile  :icon_thumright:

I don't play the blues as a profession, or for others' benefit. I play it because I love playing guitar with other people, and in the jamming' world, blues/rock is the easiest stuff to just sit down as a group and start grooving' to. jamming is primarily what I'm after here, with a bit of laid back performance here and there.

 

[bagman67]

not going for Stevie . . . my hands just like his neck profile  :icon_thumright:

I don't play the blues as a profession, or for others' benefit. I play it because I love playing guitar with other people, and in the jamming' world, blues/rock is the easiest stuff to just sit down as a group and start grooving' to. jamming is primarily what I'm after here, with a bit of laid back performance here and there.

With the B3, and a drum machine, you can be a one man Jimmy Smith Trio!

 

[B3Guy]

Also, DAMN YOU for getting the exact neck I wanted... congratulations, she's a beauty!

yeah, about that . . . . it was never your neck. it was mine. they clearly made it for me. it was to my EXACT specs, which blew my brains out when I saw it. and to think . . . I almost sprang for that Wolfgang one a couple days relier, because the profile looked "close enough" to the SRV . . . I think that one is still out there btw. there's a HUGE influx of al-pau choclatey goodness in the showcase. head over there and eat your heart out.

 

[B3Guy]

not going for Stevie . . . my hands just like his neck profile  :icon_thumright:

I don't play the blues as a profession, or for others' benefit. I play it because I love playing guitar with other people, and in the jamming' world, blues/rock is the easiest stuff to just sit down as a group and start grooving' to. jamming is primarily what I'm after here, with a bit of laid back performance here and there.

With the B3, and a drum machine, you can be a one man Jimmy Smith Trio!

sorry, but drum machines are THE DEVIL. there's no substitute for a great drummer. If you can't get the real deal, just go without. A good B3 or guitar player don't need no stink in' drum machine to enjoy playing.

 

[Strat Avenger]

I find it intriguing that you have over 1000 posts and have never built a Warmoth yet.
It's good you're finally getting around to it. I can't suggest anything, because your playing style or music preference is what determines the components you should select.

Oh, and B-3s are way cool.

 

[B3Guy]

yeah, I was really pretty serious a year or two back about amping up my guitar skills, but I'm a "right tool for the job" kinda guy. I like to get the right thing the first time and not dink around. After playing my way thru the shyttewall at Guitar Center, I just got the feeling that there really should be an easier way to get more specifically something suited for ME, and a friend pointed me towards Warmoth. Of course, that blew my options wide freaking open, which (with the kind of person I am) dictated some pretty heavy research. UW Forum is honestly the only place I've found a real wealth of no-nonsense knowledge, and I've been asking questions and have been reading most every thread for over a year now. About 2 months ago, my neck research settled down to something pretty defined . . . THIS NECK exactly, spec for spec. Naturally, when it miraculously showed up a couple days a go, I had to snag it. The rest of the guitar is still a big ? for me (at least in terms of where I'd like it to be someday), but for now I'll be more than content to slap my dream neck onto a basic start configuration and start playing it.

 

[B3Guy]

The B3 is kinda really my thing, and that had to come before a guitar, as did my filmmaking equipment (which is what I'm in school for . . . which is what I should be spending ALL of this on, really  :hard: )

I'm actually just now starting to really think about P90s, or at leas one, either in the neck or middle position. thoughts? (I feel like the bridge needs to be a hotter, bitey pickup, just to have the option of banging out crunchy rhythm stuff.) Where would you put one? more useful in one position over another?

 

[B3Guy]

Pics  :blob7: :blob7: :blob7: