6/14/23 10:20 AM

UPS Friday inbound.

I almost never buy an actual new Guitar. Especially not a Telecaster being I make them.

But the 25% off On US/AM Corona, CA limited edition lured me. Because Fender makes so little Limited Edition guitars. not.

https://www.fender.com/articles/instruments/70th-anniversary-esquire

6/15/23 9:22 AM

I like Teles. A lot. But I have never completely understood the Esquire's appeal. I find the bridge pickup on Telecasters to be hard on the ears, and if I really want full-on sharpness in a standard Tele, a toggle to disable the tone control is an easy addition.

The nicest Tele I ever played (and the one I would want if I was to replace my current fronkensteen) was a Squire model with a humbucker in the bridge position and a single-coil (actually a Strat-style, IIRC) for the neck, no cover on either PU.

BTW, I was in New York the past few days and saw an enormous electronic sign in Times Square showing off Fender guitars...[/i]

6/15/23 10:03 AM

I equate the esquire to a Fixed bike. As a result of the limits you 'have' to do thing differently.

So you coax it more, picking locations, pick attack, spinning the pick to a rounder edge etc.

Anything modeled after early 50s Fenders are more raw sounding and best applied for snarly uses I find.

2007-8 I made a DIY 48 Proto Tele. One pickup, and I went crazy potent on the pickup with a 13.5k Dimarzio Pre-B1 broad/no caster PU. This is the guitar for ZZ top covers and jam night. The actual 48 had a tone circuit, mine does not. Volume and a jack neck to it, 9" of wire total. It is about my fav guitar to play, but like the fixed gear, your sessions are more work. It even lived with a scalloped neck I did, fun.

I also have a few tone bypasses with Humbuckers, or Neck PU by-passing the tone circuit altogether. There are lots of knobs both on guitar and amp to work out any abundance of brash/brightness. ;) And I lean ALnico speakers which compress a lot when pushed and loose more bright than ceramic speaker do. So knobs and that... Dirty strings help too.

I also have a PRS SE-One. Bridge PU only, it has a toggle to run the HB coils series, parallel, or one of the coils only. And a tone control. ;) When I say 'has' it is because I wired it that way.

You loose the ability to cover tones of specific material perhaps, but at this point I always sound like me anymore. I used to sound like Page mostly 30 years ago. It took Nashville and Telecasters to shake that outta my fingers..

In fact, I bought a 60s Tele in early 70s. Being a jumbo fret playing LesPaul diddler, I was unable to manage the vintage frets or find tones or do much more than fight with it. Sold it off... Like to have it today re-fretted with tall of jumbos. ;)

6/15/23 10:07 AM

If you are so inclined, this youtube show the 70 ani esquire VS an original.

I sure would find no use for the original forward switch position on the orig. Cap value nowhere near anything I use that tone for. You could just dump the tone control with certain value tone cap to do that if you wanted to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3WtBbreAQk&ab_channel=RobertBaker

If you've run your WAH pedal 1/2 cocked for that super middy sound, highs cut.. I found a cap value I like to do this with out the extra pedal, or sans pedal board playing. Have in a couple DIYs, and I use them.

Last edited by Sparky on 6/15/23 10:13 AM; edited 1 time in total

6/15/23 10:10 AM

That's a looker, Bob. Bet it sounds just as good. Upload some vids when you get it.

My first bass was a Squier and the action was so high it was almost unplayable for a beginner and I ended up selling it. Maybe if I had a year or two of experience/finger strength....

I'm still looking for one to fill out the final hanger...a 6 string is far beyond my capabilities atm but I want to get there eventually. Also been thinking about an 8 string (octave-tuned) but got an octave pedal arriving today and I'm going to see how that sounds first. A Fender P or J bass is an eventual must-have, though.

GAS is just as bad with music as it is with cycling. Le sigh....

On a sad note, the Fender amp is just 6months old and it just stopped working last week. Closest Fender authorized repair is 120mi away. >:( And yeah the stool is cheesy but it was cheap.

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/8qekYSN.jpg" width="750">

6/15/23 10:20 AM

I've come close to getting an acoustic bass several times. I bet that is similar to the extra work to coax as in my Fixed analogy.

The 5 string is a B below the E, yes?

I still have one bass, an old Cort P copy. I started life as a bass player. After accordion that is. ;O Dead PV keyboard amp with a 15 I run a PA amp and pre-amp for bass occasionally. One day when you may visit PNW ever, you can stay here and we might diddle. ;)

How old is the Ampeg?


And how's the new Strong/Pursuit rolling?


Side note: I had an amp have no sound recently. Some exploration netted my finding a mouse ate thru the flexible tinsel wire from terminal to cone. Easy fix, but old vintage speaker I really like. Initial reaction was 'shit' ;)

Last edited by Sparky on 6/15/23 10:30 AM; edited 1 time in total

6/15/23 10:28 AM

The acoustic is fun because i can take it in the back yard and practice in front of the fire but it's hard to get any volume out of the E and A strings unless you're far down the neck. Open E can be damn near inaudible unless i give a very strong pluck.

5 is BEADG, yes. Ampeg is less than a year old.

Pursuit rolls like a dream. Insanely comfortable, climbs and accelerates like mad even with my fatness on it. Only issue is those 404s are so damned light the slightest side wind pushes them around pretty easily.

I'm still convinced electronic shifting is a solution looking for a problem. Is it better when you're riding and it's working? Yes. But I'm not sure it's that much better to warrant all the added complexity. Def prefer it much more for front shifting than rear.

That being said, I like the bike so much I made a 30s video spot for Carl to use if he wants to.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10DtoynCAU7vrD8ut2m2_EYO-ps2XDT4t/view

6/15/23 10:34 AM

Yeah, I enjoyed your VID when you posted the non truncated version previously. Is this the career change you eluded to? I don't have your contact info anymore or I'd have followed the suggestion to discuss off forum.

Regarding very light wheels, unless going up, as a clyde I find I feel like I am chasing them on flats. And not really finding/needing the acceleration ease much of use anymore riding.

I am deep in Di2, have been. But I really like my EP and SR11s as much/better.

Last edited by Sparky on 6/15/23 11:58 AM; edited 1 time in total

6/15/23 11:08 AM

Ah, forgot I posted that here. Was WAY too long for any production use.
[first] dot [last] at the g

6/15/23 8:05 PM

I made my current electric out of two POS guitars--a Behringer body that was sort of (but not quite) strat-like, and a Canvas pseudo-tele neck. I got the Canvias because I liked the look of the neck (because of the 3/3 tuners) but when I got my hands on it, the neck was the most like my '73 Martin that I've found (save for a $10,000 Alembic). I had to modify the neck to make things work (the screw holes were different) but I got them together and it sounds nice. I put in two EMH passive pickups. There are two 3-way mini toggles, so each pickup can be single coil, off, or humbucking, and everything feeds into a single volume/single tone control. It's ugly, but it works. I found over time that Gibson-scale guitars felt muddy; the longer Fender scale feels right to me, and makes the tone clearer.

From time to time, I'm tempted to add some active electronics (as I did in the '70s) but then I think about simplicity. Gimme a guitar, a cable, an amp with a little flanger, a little reverb, and I'm happy as a clam.

Photo here (sorry, Google--there's likely a better way):

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AJFCJaX6Prorj-uAfuSSC03zFWQD36qPjlXGQxGWn_WthZ3VtMcMAsami-zyApGv8DC9rSv-oINpGolKAwJa050HqMuKx-FS7kjnMu0qfN58iqu4bBe6yMkCilKmmkUAWuvIOs0AXg7yGoNMiJYEHDCEY6CQs4-odBAs3cJ3K1sSc7vWHsFYfGVs17ODHsAsJKj4f6F8EmsRZCsa95jYXCOqnbOGX6qXn7etqAmu0CMEng8zGJQiQXVFF72LccXVNFYvs0QlKPnUkHtVK7krWq_lnStUpM6AhVe4w69GMMFUgeS14isqVwmvLfx-YMmhlJf7atvQ3r61QgHsBIt52MLojvoPbXrtChAX4a8pH9213vIhsuC2GpciI_0nkgW_7zzicKVHn9no1tC2mQ7uNJsfqUU0RXdsLCtoSPjmLt2wRRtWcdlUrsRR-AcSLDycAfRssh7IMzKDsd4rLgfoGmnDuONaO_5mZ39yWZTcK2lL-WpiacR_HP47-6CREEpFY133rEP_ikTUHnrl-d93m3CYIN5bsQ6TKiEidtAA47smdGaeHVGwCYap4QomWtZIaRyZsygcMUHk4JlGrfANCLodyy1nBxMvBYkDJQTWWxvlKYlm516LDUVp8P8RYAbmRbWxTHvi1GR5dWQ-A9BenCGhMVe6piXeyNCf4IeXf-Z5aeruYjWfCYmghaaA7sSbkzDW7nii3mo79IetR57mHc2Ne1kSSOhfgtO0iOBUFqrr-vKOrfYgc7qwEVoA-KKB_NE6i44x1pwi7CKBIjAH6ylBCMxutCgw6Um6lpzpmVGqXpMaCEGE1yID2kKeSLWqSFR6dLmXNL2dSvy80fUgACdQFGpQwbLCGcfOZoNXYeTJZ46r6oiWJonjFzh3NPa_C7da9BCrR1DaC2ObWXfuL5AU0DbtSA=w412-h868-s-no?authuser=0

6/15/23 8:50 PM

looks shredable, nice jumbo frets too. Link broke fast though...

I mentioned this appropriation in a tread, but didn't post a pic that I recall. This was new 2 years before I got my 1st LP. ;)

1971 Les Paul/Norlin Era Clown burst Deluxe. Always wanted one.