What seems goofily appalling to me is there is NO objective work being done, to generate a pool of knowledge that's trustworthy. The guitar magazines are totally sycophantic, because any sort of real "shootout" were ruin their advertising income. If they started actually saying Brand X is
better than Brand Y, not only would Y transfer their ads to a magazine that never said anything bad about anything, but but Brand X would be forced to cancel their ads eventually too.
A) This magazine can't be
trusted to run reviews that are just our rewritten press releases;
B) Brand Y is killing them on ads in that other magazine.
About 10 years ago Tone Pros came out with a locking bridge which they claimed at the time would increase sustain, make groupies rip off their clothes etc. A lot of Tone Pros customers did the obvious thing - unlocked it - and proved that the ads were lying (unless Tone Pros really hadn't ever tested their own bridge). So that claim quietly slunked off, but I just read a review a few months ago where the reviewer said something to the effect that "of course the legendary Tone Pros bridge dramatically increased sustain and tone!! Eeee, eee, eee". It has
become a "fact" through repetition only.
You HAVE TO use the biggest string you can stand, because "you need big strings for big tone".
John McLaughlin .008's
Ritchie Blackmore .008's
Carlos Santana .010''s
Duane Allman .009's
Jim Hendrix tuned a 1/2 step
down .009's
The latter bit is one of some dozen or so "hangovers" from acoustics. Like, the reason that SRV's and Rory Gallagher's sounded so great is because all the finish wore off, so the wood can breathe. So the new meme over at Harmony Central is that nitrocellulose is best, because it wear off quickest, and then your new guitar will sound good.
Ummm... how many times in a bleep about finishing guitars, that at various points you need to put on a sealer, so that this-or-that doesn't get absorbed into the guitar? You're building up layer after layers of a WATERPROOF BASE COAT....
HEY JOE -
WHERE YOU GOIN' WITH THAT CAN OF
GRAIN-FILLER IN YO HAND....
Grain filler, base coat, sealer, slurp this-or-that until it's PERFECTLY SMOOTH? Solly Chollie, the only way THAT guitar can "breathe" is through it's strap buttons. Now, don't get me wrong, why some of my best friends have nitro skin, I like smooth guitars and I like the looks of nitro. But if my guitar starts
BREATHING on me, that guitar's goin' off a bridge and I'm going to the hootchie house for a nice long vacation.
(hey - did I post this in the right category?)