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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

I have a H-555 on order.

Okay, so Brother Bolero shamed me into looking at the Heritage offerings . . . I find this one really looking good to me: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/H150CSFSOTB--heritage-custom-shop-factory-special-standard-h-150-plain-top-electric-guitar-original-tobacco-burst I'm curious about H's choice of Lollar Imperial pups instead of the Seth Lovers H puts in the lower end 150s . . . And this one's in the discussion: https://eddiesguitars.com/product/gibson-catalogs/gibson-custom-shop/gibson-custom-shop-psl-58-les-paul-standard-reissue-vos-sunrise-tea-burst-8-4-83129/ Part of a special run for Eddies Guitars with a focus on lighter weight, great price for a CS guitar, I think. I'm really drawn to the plain top R8 look. Observations and flames requested. Looking forward to being at PSP in about a month!

Stock market has been good to me lately, solved the "dilemma" and purchased both! Time for a cold 🍺

I got this today from Ren, the historian at Heritage:

I am assuming that even though the tuner is covering the brand, it looks like an H-530. This guy gets a nice smooth tone on those P-90s.

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.

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

for the 150/LP devotees

I started building amps a couple of years ago and really enjoyed doing it. I started taking them to all my gigs and then sold all my other amps (aside from a ‘62 Concert). Then one day after a gig I was approached by a guitarist that wanted me to build him an amp. Hmmmm, so I do it or not? Well I did it. First I got business insurance and an LLC then I got to it. A few weeks later I sold him an amp and Southbound Amplification was born! The Cypress model is what he bought. It is based on a 6g3 only channel one is cleaner and two is dirtier. There is also a master volume, a cut control, a negative feed back switch and a boost for channel two. The picture is the amp he bought. I have a Cypress amp that looks like this too, which I gig with but I don’t have a cut control on my amp. I really don’t think it needs the cut control imo. I’m still experimenting with features and design for what I think is the perfect 6g3 type of amp. This amp has the ability to run either KT66 or 6v6 tubes for 30 or 20 watts. With KT66 tubes and a Alessandro neo GA-SC-X speaker the amp weighs in at 25 pounds which is still portable. I added test ports to rebias the tubes without having to pull the chassis. The switch in power tubes does require a rebias since it is a fixed bias amp and the transformer I’m using supplies a switchable voltage variation. The KT66 tubes sound really good in this design. I’m super excited about building amps and have other models I’m working on with more and less wattages. Who knows if I can make it a successful business, which for me would be just a small supplement to a retirement I hope to take in a couple of years.

I believe they were the 101s, whatever they claim to be PAFs. I primarily play through Metropoulos remakes of Marshall 1959 and/or JTM45-100. The Imperials are a far better pickup IMHO. I was getting noise through the throwup 101s and was told by the owner that I had to pay to assess the defective product that is “guaranteed for life.” I’ll never use their crap again. It seems to me that I pulled 101s from a H-150LW and improved it with HRWs

And, what with this encyclopedia of The Heritage and the treasure trove of info in threads over time relating to our blessed Heritage(s), we have our place If one wants to do any Heritage Guitar “deep diving”. Sometimes it’s not the cume, (defined as cumulative # of people coming through the door), but “Time Spent Listening”. As in my background, radio. Hit radio. And two roads to Rome as far as the radio ratings game worked— we have a lot of time spent reading. at any rate— HOC has a place and what a resource to any Heritage fan or curious type! carry on.

FYI- I purchased a 2016 new old stock H155M in vintage wine burst last year at the plant. It was hanging in the showroom and I couldn’t resist. They made me a very sweet deal. They buffed it, gave it a PLEK job, and a setup before shipping it out to me. Heritage takes care of their HOC constituents.

The guitars that I have played at the factory were every bit as good as my 2005 535. I don't think you'll find CNC robots making the H535s. I believe that they might be rough carving the necks (not sure if this is absolutely true), but putting together a semihollow body is a multistep process that doesn't lend itself to CNC manufacturing. The top and back are a 3 piece laminated sandwich that is then steam pressed in a form that gives it the arch. The center block is a solid block with the pickup areas cut out, and there is a piece that matches up to fill the gap between the top and block. Then you have kerfing that is applied to the rim before the top and bottom are glued. The pieces are then assembled by hand to form the body. Rough cutting the neck profile means that the starting shape should be more consistent in terms of thickness and curvature, but there is still a lot of handiwork to finalize things. If you've ever watched someone hand rolling a neck, there can be a lot of variation. It doesn't take a lot of sanding to go from a fat to a thin neck. In the past it was all done freehand, checking it with a pattern every so often. If you think about it, the old duplicarver was a primitive "cnc" machine, minus the computer. It's akin to the patterns that someone like Hillerich & Bradsby uses when carving baseball bats. A CNC just follows a computerized form to cut the wood.

Time can alter memories. I do remember Pete telling me about the buried PAFs. He said it was a matter of them taking up space, along with some other stuff. The PAF was no longer put on Gibsons. They advertised an improved pickup on their models. There were also a lot of other things discarded. For example, Charlie Christian pickups were tossed. The high volume discards were wood in various stages of evolution into guitars. I remember the conversation pretty well because the military buried a ton of leather flight jackets at the time. This was in the news. They dug a crater, dropped in a large number of jackets, and bulldozed dirt over them. The news article said there was a reason not to flood the Army surplus market. I told Pete that new old stock PAFs could fetch $500 each at the time. He told me that McCarty wanted them taken to the dump. Gibson had a pickup truck that Pete put a couple of heavy boxes filled with them into the truck along with other stuff and disposed of them. No one thought the PAFs were particularly special, and they were of no use to Gibson. I heard from a few sources that those who worked assembling guitars were expected to bring anything with a flaw on it to the shift supervisor. There were spring loaded stamps that would imprint the back of the headstock with a 2 for second or BGN for bargain. If the employee wanted a particular guitar, they would not retract the spring and would leave a very shallow impression of 2 or BGN that didn't go into the wood. The employee had to show the supervisor the headstock stamp. If approved, the guitar could be acquired by the employee for a very low price. The 2 or BGN could easily be sanded and touched up once taken home. This came up in my discussion with Pete Moreno because a friend of mine had a LP Custom with a very light 2 on the back of the headstock. I showed him. He said that there was probably a small ding somewhere that happened in the factory, possibly intentionally. The guitar being quite old at the time I showed Pete, there were a number of dings and scratches. The guitar was white. He said with the yellowing now it would be hard to match. Later, Aaron Cowles confirmed what Pete told me. It all depended on the supervisor and the employee as to how that worked. Whether Pete took the PAFs to the dump or not, he told me that McCarty asked him to do that. Dump runs were common for Pete. Pete picked up wood discards from Gibson and Heritage for many years and fueled his shed heating stove with them.

I've changed a few Schaller bridges/tailpieces and I can confirm that both the Schaller and Nashville bridge posts are 5mm thread, so you don't need to change the inserts if you're replacing the Schaller bridge with a Nashville bridge. Same with the tailpiece studs, thought the thread is 5/16" rather than metric. On my H150 VSB I'd replaced the Schaller with a Nashville setup, and decided to replace the Nashville with the Faber ABR-1 conversion. This involved using a 5mm bolt to gently extract the bushings. I needed to make the hole slightly deeper, but aside from that the process was pretty straightforward. Some photos of the procedure...

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

They have had ear protection available for years. I remember Jim Deurloo cutting a backplate during a tour and he had in a pair of earplugs. They also have safety glass available. Everyone who goes on the tours is required to have a pair. I took my own since I had to use them at work.

The one on the right is from a special run of '58 plain tops done for Eddie's Guitars in St. Louis. Several of the ones on Eddie's website have lighter FBs and some are darker. I liked the top on mine and it weighs 8 lbs. 4 oz. which is why I chose it. All things being equal, I probably would have had a slight preference for a darker FB. A non-issue for me.

Well, it just arrived . . . I'll unbox it soon and give a report . . . the Gibbie showed up a couple of hours ago and it's a keeper! btw, I have a Wildwood Spec Lester and it's da shizzle!

Pictures, cause people like pictures... Gotoh 510 standard 18:1 Gotoh Luxury Engraved 510 21:1 Schaller M6 Schaller M6 top locking back view Schaller M6 top locking top view...

I've switched between Gotohs 510s and Schaller M6s, for both aesthetic reasons and for different tuning ratio, 21:1 on the Gotoh 510, and cannot hear a difference. I personally love M6 tuners. I have them on a PRS and 3 Zemaitis guitars. You sure you got genuine M6 tuners, I've never heard of sharp buttons.

are they the same weight? heavier tuners will affect sustain & sonics, weight makes a difference remember those weights they used to sell, people would attach to the headstock?

Suggest that if ya really going into the gibby path which they are indeed more vintage accurate but if ya like the less pricey LP heritage will be ya thing ... both are high quality instruments on the wood package but with gibson ya get more hardware goodness still... Forget about murphy labs they are too far fetch on price... getta well used R8 from their 2007 2004 2003 era and if your lucky u could spot a special madagadcar board which they fetch warmer tone

Love the Gotoh products, did you change the strings when you installed the M6s?

I'd highly recommend looking into ABM -- they make fantastic hardware. I put an adjustable wraparound of theirs on my H-137DC and it's perfect in all regards. Sustain in particular was improved.

Agreed, probably a customized SAE. Heritage, especially very early on, would do a lot of customization, and was exploring lots of different ideas. This is from the 1989 catalog.

It appears to be a SAE model.

Get off my lawn!

of course, they had to use a PICKUP truck to get them to the dump! 😃

Built 40 years after the plant opened in 85.

While the Ascent and Ascent+ lines are good entry levels, they aren't made in the same factory as the standard and Custom Core ranges. Len, you should join us for this year's PSP, and see the way things have changed. While many things are still being done "old school", there are some improvements, like the spray booth where the air is filtered (no dust to get on the finish, and safer) and the PLEK machine to make sure the guitars have consistent setups. Heck, you might just find the exact guitar you want while you're there!

Thanks so much for the answer, Rich. I purchased their Ascent+ model earlier this year, and the playability of that guitar, especially considering the price, is so good, I now want to upgrade to a Standard as a Christmas present to myself. Since I'd prefer to buy new, mostly because I like the idea of helping a great company, l just wanted to make sure that I wouldn't be making a mistake buying new instead of something prior to the Bandlab ownership. I took the tour in 2017 and was so impressed by the guys building the guitars, that I've wanted one ever since. So again, thanks so much for the answer.

I should add that the Faber posts came with a metal tube that fits over the thread so you can use a hammer to (gently!) tap them in. Also there was a fine-tuning version of the Schaller tailpiece...

Beauties!! Cherry Sunburst is such a classy finish

Here you are... with it's H150 brother

People will buy anything these days if it says it's limited edition. FOMO is a powerful driver of sales. "How can we sell a $130 pickup for $500?" "I've got it! We can put them in little cases like the guitars and call them a special edition." "Good idea! The boys in accounting will LOVE this one. How many can we make?" "We need to do a thousand to get a break on the little cases. Otherwise the cases will cost more than the pickups." "Perfect!"

Is it just me or did anyone else find it odd to be buying these pickups in a "Lifton Presentation Case" when you are (ideally) going to put the pickups in your guitar? So then what do you do with the case? When these came out I suggested to Larry Dimarzio that he put out a limited run of his 50th Anniversary Super Distorion Humbuckers in a fancy case and sell them for $1k a pair. He declined the idea.

They really seem to have pared down their lineup, though after the leadership transition and issues that's to be expected. When I put my H535 "back to stock" years ago, they still had the tailpieces, but now they seem to no longer be offered. The roller bridges are still relatively popular for use with bigsby and other tremolo style tailpieces. I've never really noticed a huge deficiency in sound quality from using the bridge, and still remember Vince Lewis saying he liked that bridge because he said it gave him a warmer sound. Still, I don't play my H535 much at all anymore. I've tried to love the stock Schaller Golden 50s for years, and they are great clean, but I really need to get around to having them replaced with something else.

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.

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

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

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.

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.