rockabilly69

the horror

Years ago, I played in a country band and we did a lot of winter gigs in Wyoming. We would do 2 nights at each bar, and we would leave our amps in the equipment van overnight. It would get cold as hell up there, sometimes below 0 with windchill. I didn't want to leave one of my expensive tube amps out in the cold, so I bought a Peavey Special 130 which was like a Bandit just more powerful. I paid a few hundred bucks for it used and it never falted once. When I quit that band, I gave it to a close friend who needed an amp. But while I had it, I was surprised how good that amp sounded! I had a simple pedal board that I made with a piece of scrap plywood painted black, that had a volume pedal, Rat distortion, Danelectro DanEcho Delay and a Boss tuner. That was all I needed to get the job done with that amp. Talk about a cheap rig! My guitar was an early seventies Les Paul Deluxe.

And they weighed a ton! My friend's 2x12 combo buckled my knees when I lifted it, I imagine the 4x10 combos weighed a bit too

I like the neck joint too, but I'm not groovin with the ash. It just looks out of place on that guitar.

When I saw him it was two Musicman amps. They were 4x10 combos. The Musicmans were loud too.

You know what, I never considered flats on a Fender style guitar, but more and more I heard how great they sound with Jaguars. I just happened to have a set of flatwound .010 light Thomastik JAZZ strings, so I put them on one of my two Jags. That way I could compare the flats directly with a set of roundwounds. I was pleasantly surprised at how good they sounded. I thought they would be too dull sounding for a solidbody, but instead they had a great round sounding high end. It was like I just slightly rolled off the high end to where I liked it. And they felt great too! Here's a demo from the day I put them on. Both guitar parts are the Jag with the flatwounds...

I like Seths they are consistently gread sounding pickup. When I was doing installs for people I installed alot of them and they always sounded great. That's really a beautiful guitar, some serious flame maple there!!! Millies like yours remind me of GIbson L5s guitars which are my favorite Gibsons. And yes, getting older does motivate you to get things done! Go out and rock that new guitar!

Those double white DiMarzios look much better than the zebras that were in there. But I would really like to see that guitar with some covers on the pickups. That’s just too upscale of a top. Also, some better reflector knobs the ones that really reflect. That top is worth it. It’s a great looking, Guitar. Glad to hear that. It sounds great too..

I think the raspy sounds like the amp/rig he's playing through, you can tell as he turns up the gain. In my opinion this demo is totally missing the great sonic aspects of this type of guitar.

sounds like connection to me

That is one great looking guitar. Congrats on your new guitar day. And how cool is it that you brought home the best of the lot, the one that you felt a connection with! Rock on!

Cool looking guitar Brent. I love ebony fingerboards, and cool Sperzel tuners, much better than the Grovers. What the he*l did that guy do to his thumbnail though in that picture of the back of the guitar Looks like he was a player. He turned the neck pickup around. A lot of people do that to get a slightly brighter sound and clean up the neck tone, especially when you drop the pickup into the ring and bring up the pole piecers a bit. Check out my Guild. It made a significant difference tonewise.

I just don't get this mystique, but maybe I play the wrong kind of music to appreciate these pickups. A close friend of mine used to be a Heritage dealer so I've played a few sets of HRWs, but I always preferred the sound of Duncans in the Heritages I've heard, with my favorite being the Antiquities or Seth Lovers. One thing I do like though is the double adjustment screw for the angle as Iike the pickups to be parallel with the strings. I wonder why more people don't do that and just supply the pickups with new rings.

In my experience if you can a great clean sound out of guitar, it's nothing to get a great dirty sound, and I heard all that I needed to hear in the clean section of your demo. Those pickups really sound good. I love how clear the neck pickup sounded, and there was some great harmonic content in the chords that you were playing on the bridge pickup. I would leave those pickups in that guitar, it's a great match.

Not horrified, just wishing you record that current setup so we can hear the tone of that beast.