Leaderboard

For the last several months, I've been having financial issues and had to sell off most of my name brand guitars. I ended up refinancing to ease the pain a bit. Living on less than $100 a month is not fun. And I have equity in the house, so I'm releasing the pressure and living off of it. It's not like I have heirs to pass anything to. The payout will happen this week, so things will be much easier after that. I just found this on Reverb at a price too good to pass up. It's a 2022. I've been getting away from flame maple, etc. While I appreciate the beauty, I'm far more interested in function right now. So I've been looking at black and oxblood and was torn between a Les Paul Standard and an H-150. The H-150 won. I'll bring it to PSP. And I'm not rebuilding the collection to what it was before. I'm fine with what I have. The guitar should arrive within the next week.

I was looking for a dedicated performance photo thread and didn't see one (apologies if I missed it!), but wanted to share a few photos since I've been playing the '94 H150 as my primary live guitar lately. Band has had a wave of local gigs lately and hoping to have debut album out August/Sept: https://makingfriendsasadults.bandcamp.com/track/bad-time

Marv told me he never made a prototype. They are all Marvbirds to me. According to Marv he made them all. He did all the tooling and templates for them. His best estimation of how many he made was around 75. He told me he wished he would have kept a complete list of them. He said he named the model a 357 was a little dig at Gibson for their Firebird 3, 5 and 7.

I have a H-555 on order.

And it has a flame maple pickguard like the originals! 😍

They are just saying that the goal of PAF was to sound like a PAF without the noise. There are many people, including the early pickup designers that feel the P90 is the best pickup that was ever made. And some of those early PAFs do sound quite a bit like an hot Balckguard Tele pickup.

While surfing the inter-web, I found this ad for a Heritage Guitars coffee table book by Victor H. Dvorak. It was published in 2012! I never knew this existed! I didn't order one ($82.00 is a bit hefty) but wanted to pass the info along to ya'll. Click on the link below for a page-by-page preview: https://www.blurb.com/b/3614926-the-heritage-guitar-inc The Heritage Guitar, Inc. of 225 Parsons Street Kalamazoo, Michigan by Victor H. Dvorak

I have the first Marvbird. it’s an AA code

That version of the tailpiece and bridge was made by Schaller of Germany. They still sell the roller bridge, but I don't think the tailpiece is a current item. Thomann is a Schaller dealer. https://schaller.info/en/bridges/ If you want to change the style to a more common bridge and tailpiece, many people here swear by the Faber units. The trick it to make sure that you use the correct spacing.

I've never heard a set of the '59s that I really liked. But I have had some good luck with the Seth Lovers and Dimarzio 36th Anniversarys. 36th Anniversaries are what the higher Zemaitis reissues shipped with, so I have had mulitiple sets, and I left them in two of my Zemaitis guitars and they are getting the job done. I swapped out the original Pearly Gates pickups that my newer H150 had in it, for some some Seths and I liked the Seths much better. I later swapped the Seths for a set of Duncan Custom Shop non potted Peter Green pickups (without the reversed magnets), and they sound great! But the best sounding low gain PAFs I've heard from Duncan is the lowly Jazz pickup which most people just use in the neck, I loved the Jazz bridge pickup, I got some killer tones out it with my Marshall amp...

Well, one thing is that they do sound different than the Schallers they once were. It's hard to put that difference into words. The bridge pickup seems brighter. You can get a dental mirror for a few bucks if you don't want to pull the pickup. The truth is that it is faster to loosen the strings and look for the sticker on the back than it is to get a mirror and futz around with it and a flashlight. I recommend getting a fiberoptic scope. It comes in handy for all sorts of things. https://www.amazon.com/Endoscope-Borescope-Semi-Rigid-Smartphones-KEEMIKA/dp/B0F2PQTT1G/ref=sxin_16_pa_sp_search_thematic_sspa?content-id=amzn1.sym.2da95b6c-f59a-4699-bc43-d0ff036c6388%3Aamzn1.sym.2da95b6c-f59a-4699-bc43-d0ff036c6388&cv_ct_cx=Fiber%2BOptic%2BEndoscope&keywords=Fiber%2BOptic%2BEndoscope&pd_rd_i=B0F2PQTT1G&pd_rd_r=ebd8a8ea-c575-4304-8839-bbacb633b3ed&pd_rd_w=t4eyH&pd_rd_wg=jWuCz&pf_rd_p=2da95b6c-f59a-4699-bc43-d0ff036c6388&pf_rd_r=YFHZAEV3BGXF2SCBWR0E&qid=1749560793&sbo=RZvfv%2F%2FHxDF%2BO5021pAnSA%3D%3D&sr=1-4-6024b2a3-78e4-4fed-8fed-e1613be3bcce-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9zZWFyY2hfdGhlbWF0aWM&th=1

@rockabilly69...Very cool thread and great playing, as usual. You rung out that old rig. Here's another historical reference to Leo Fender (and many other heros of electric guitar and amp fame) that is a great read. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Birth_of_Loud/VDxqDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover

I think it's the same as G uses, most music stores should have a truss rod wrench that fits

Victor is a member here. He was at several PSPs. His HOC handle is Totonka. I haven't seen him around for a while, though.

What? You found something on the internet that you don't believe? Hard to imagine.

This guitar plays with the lightest touch of any that I've tried. I love this thing. It's also light for a 150 at just 9 pounds. I installed the set of JS Moore humbuckers that I had. Phenomenal.

I received it today. It's as nice as you think it is. I'm not convinced that the pickups are original. They overdrive my tube amp at low volumes when I'm not using overdrive. I'll look at it later. I have a set of JS Moore humbuckers that are going in it.

Marv made an all walnut Marvbird for CJ Stanley from wood that he provided to Marv. CJ owns probably about 1/3 of the Marvbird's out there. Part of his collection.

Thanks I got a new preamp in the house, a Sebatron VMP2000VU, I use the 4 channel version of this in my studio, although my studio one doesn't have the VU meters. I don't think there's better multi-use tube preamp for home and project studio use. I love it on everything. All the drums you heard from my studio were through the Sebatron. And it sounds great on bass and guitars too. I recorded a cleaner and slightly longer version of this song with my Jaguar through the same mics and pre...

Suggest using an additional thumb screw to lock it to the top to prevent more rocking that could gubber the threads. Rocking torque will mess up your intonation. Best solution, replace both screws with a Faber steel studs and bridge and lock it down tight.

I owned the brown one w/gold hardware on the right, back in 2015.

Honestly, the P90 is one of my favorite pickup sounds. Just wish there wasn't the hum. I know that they have all these "hum free" versions, but they are never quite the same. Then there's the staple top, which I have unfortunately not gotten a chance to really own. I have a Jazzmaster, and also like the sound of those pickups, but again, wish there wasn't so much hum. My favorite humbucker pickups are always the vintage style ones with lower output. Yes, they don't push the amps as hard, but they just have a type of snarl that the higher output pickups lack. I'm fine with SD '59s, Seth Lovers, or Dimarzio 36th Anniversary PAFs. While I admit the high end PAF style pickups are enticing, I feel the law of diminishing returns is definitely in effect.

Looking forward to hearing this combination. Heritage Guitars Favorites · 1h · Tone that truly inspires. The Custom Shop 40th Anniversary Edition 225 Classic Humbuckers are the very heart of our 40th Anniversary H-150 and H-555 models. Meticulously wound right here in-house with Alnico 5 (neck) and Alnico 2 (bridge) magnets, they deliver incredible note separation and dynamic response you have to hear to believe.

My recollection about the classics is that these were ordered by Jay Wolfe and had Gibson-like bridges and tailpieces. I also think they had SD pickups. The maple neck was common back then but inconsistently done. I've had a one piece, two piece, and three piece on H-555s made in that era. Custom select could mean anything, but the select probably refers to the woods. They probably charged extra money for each of those two words. Currently those words are custom core.

I thought this might be a fun thing to talk about. Last night I spent at least 8 hours playing through a really cool historic amp, a 1941 Fender amp, which you could read about here in these two articles... https://reverb.com/news/the-vibro-set-where-fender-really-started https://www.fretboardjournal.com/video/hear-one-of-leo-fenders-first-musical-instruments/ (that's actually me playing the Strat and the ES125 in some of the videos posted) Last night I was recording the tones of the amp with some different guitars than the ones we used last time. All of them belonging to me, except for one (see below). And the owner of the amp, famous guitar historian Lynn Wheelwright, had me test it out with a new speaker that was custom made for the amp by the Jupiter Speaker company. Lynn built an external speaker cabinet for it, which was probably a good idea, because I was playing with the amp at almost wide open volume at times. The amp itself had just gone through a tune-up, so we were checking it out how to see how it was performing. The amp was plugged into a brown box voltage regulator. The amp performed great, and even after 8 hours of being on, there was no sag in tone that I could hear. And it was really a quiet amp compared to many of the vintage amps I've played through (most every model 50's tweed, and 60's blackface amps). Here's a picture of the Vibro amp (only one volume control which works on the mic channel only, no volume for the normal channel) with the external cabinet miked up as it was set up in my studio (brown box to the right)... I had some rhythm tracks recorded before Lynn got there, so I just played the lead fills on each guitar, so we could compare the sounds of each if them through the amp. I played my Strat, my Tele, and my Gretsch G6120T 55VS (DeArmonds) through it. I chose the Strat and Tele guitars because they are partscasters that I built, and both are better than my Fender Custom Shop guitars. They are three of my favorite instruments, which I have played through some great vintage amps, and Lynn really wanted to know how I felt this original '41 amp compared to these amps. We had already tested the amp with vintage guitars a while back (55 Strat, 56 LP Special, and an early sixties ES125). Lynn may have some reproductions of this amp made in the future, so we were doing some research to see how well the amp played with some modern guitars, and how it compared to modern boutique amps. I say if they got the reproduction right, this would be a cool amp to own because it has some really cool tones. Especially for someone like me, that really likes slightly dirty vintage guitar tones. It gets great clean tones with lots of harmonic content, and some pretty great dirt when cranked, but I really loved it with just a bit of hair on it. It just has a unique voice. I ran the amp through it's paces playing from whisper quiet, to rattle the external cabinet loud. And like most amps, it had it's sweet spot were it revealed the qualities of each guitar. There really wasn't a guitar that it didn't like! The only thing we hadn't tested it with was a humbucker guitar. Well Lynn just got a new Nacho Les Paul, and I told him it would be cool to test the humbucker sound with it. He was thinking the same thing, so he went home got his Nacho, and brought it back to my studio. Here it is... And we plugged it in and it sounded great. It sounded very vintage. The body was very resonant, and the pickups had the microphonics that people associate with a good PAF. The action was a little high, but low enough for me to get the job done. I got the takes with the Nacho on the first pass. I really wanted to hear more of the Nacho, but it was getting late, so I asked Lynn if he would leave it and the amp with me, so I could see I could find some really good tones. Only thing, when I was testing out the other guitars, I was going for some fast picking on the Gretsch, which had on some heavier .012 flatwounds, and I developed a blood blister on my fingerpicking hand (I rarely use a pick). So I was mainly looking to play less aggressive with the guitar while testing for tones. I thought it would be cool to find some tones that would be unique to that guitar and amp combo. While I was twiddling the volume knob on the amp, I heard this really cool acoustic like tone out of the middle position of the Nacho, very Stones like, so I wrote a little slide guitar song around it. There are three tracks, the first rhythm on the middle position, slide guitar with the bridge pickup, and a little solo with the bridge pickup for the third track. BTW I was plugged straight into the amp, no pedals here As a matter of fact if you listen closely, you can hear those Nacho pickups getting some cool compression and double tones. And the amp was just turned up enough to get a litte hair. This is what I came up with...

I just previewed that book on google. A really good read. Will track it down & buy it thx for the headsup

Tim, that is one of the best music books that I've ever read. I'm glad you posted it as I hope others get turned on to it! And thanks for the nice words on my playing and listening to the song.

That's why Page tried to make his Les Paul so much like his Tele Frankly though, I kind of do the same thing. I wired my humbucker Zemaitis guitars with a high pass filter so I can make the humbuckers sound like singles when I need to. I got that idea from the PTB (Passive Treble Bass) cicuit that's in my G&L Legacy. And my Teye guitar has what's called a mood control that does the same thing. I think Page moved to the Les Paul because he preferred the way the his Paul could conjure up the heavy tones with his stage amps, and when he backed up the volumes, the PAFs could get into the Tele zone.

That's exactly why people work so hard to make their LP sound just like Page's Tele on the first LZ album. They're really the same, just different!

Meant to say "the goal of the PAF was to sound like a P90 without the noise" whoops

I have it somewhere here. Great pics of the great guitars the old guard put out.

This is a convoluted statement of logic: "The characterization that a great burst Les Paul sounds like a Telecaster on steroids is really talking about how a humbucking pickup succeeded in sounding like a quiet P90" WTF I've never heard anyone say a great burst Les Paul sounds like a Telecaster with P90's

Great book! Basically pictures and not much text/info at all. Still a great book though! I'm just stating, if you get a chance to grab one thinking there's a lot of info to read, facts, etc, there is not. Great photos of old school Heritage though!

I thought about ordering an "H-357 Magnum" once How would you spec that out? I was thinking of gunmetal blue/grey paint, matching headstock, reflective metal pickguard a la Neil Young, vintage firebird spec pups

A 575 case will work just perfect.

beautiful, I like that "thick black" guitar enjoy it

This one is ebony.

My understanding is the profit went to Marv. When he made the new neck for my 575 I made the check out to Marv not heritage.

I believe he has #2, the twin to mine. They were always made in pairs.

The black and white photo looks like mahogany "wings" and could be maple in the mix. What the old guard could not do is call it a firebird just as they never called H150 a Les Paul.

Nice looking H-150, congrats and enjoy!!

Beautiful H-150! Enjoy!

It’s listed as “tr blue” on the label. That’s a super nice guitar I bet it sounds great too!

this the Sebatron...

He's also a fine guitar player, and as such adds such useful touches to the designs; for example the footswitch for the Drive King has two 9v outlets for powering pedals.

Glancing at the homepage, today I found this: It just seemed a bit confusing for a second. The H-150, 530 and I believe 575 are all available as Custom Core models as well.

I guess we'll see. F-brand and G-brand still continue their made in USA standard lines, at the apex of their standard lines. It is undeniable that inexpensive guitars sell in higher volume and make up the bulk of revenue, at much thinner margins. The lure of inexpensive off-shore products is undeniable. Pretty much everyone with some volume is doing it. I think it waters down the brand, especially if not clearly labeled in a way that is clear what it is. Strangely, Gibson will make some Epiphone models in the US from time to time, despite its position as their off-shore less-expensive line.

Ken Rambo made the first floaters Heritage used. There were 2 or 3 different pickups designated by stickers on the bottom. Heritage floating pickups are now made in house and they are Fab.

well- the JAN 6L6wgb were disappointing. kind of dull and lifeless even after rebias. then when removing them the center plug with the notch on it snapped off of one. Fortunately it did not get stuck in the socket. So, I put in some telefunken 6L6gcs. really good. very hi-def. TAD6L6WGC-STRs also very very good. I'll leave the TADs in for a while. They came as a matched pair but are a good 5 mv apart. Sounding good so far. I might go back to the JJs. They sounded great, so if its not broke, don't fix it.