Leaderboard

Hello everyone from Rome! This picture says more than one which shows the details of the wood

Gotta say, Heritage has made some darn pretty gee-tars.

It's hard to choose favorites. Here are two. The first is a Johnny Smith 18". The second is a H-530 custom made with humbuckers.

Multiple favorites for different reasons, but here’s one (if i have to pick just one):

I'll add two more pics. This is one of their Gretsch Synchromatics.

My favorite Heritage and me waiting to go play at a jam. 2001 H535 in blonde, with HRW's. I put the Faber bridge and tail on it, and a set of lightweight Gotoh tuners. The heavy Rotomatics were really stiff from disuse. I got this one used a few years ago. It was absolutely pristine with virtually no sign of play. I picked it up browsing at a guitar shop, wasn't even looking. But it instantly had "the sound" that I look for in a great semi-hollow 535 or 335 style guitar. It had a problem that explained the utter lack of play. The fretboard was like a roller coaster. Some heroic efforts to level the frets on the wavy fretboard had been done to it along its history. Some of the frets were tall as brand new wire, others were under .030 tall, what most of us would call worn out. The fret tops were level, but the board wasn't. The neck itself, straight as an arrow. The surface of the board was nuts. I tried everything I could think of, but just one day said, "this is it." and grabbed my fret puller pliers and took them all out. I put some fine grit paper on my leveling beam and lightly sanded, which revealed all the high and low areas. Pretty much like a lunar landscape it turned out. Also, I measured the radius at around 9.25 inches which kind of meandered up and down the neck. Clearly, this one escaped the factory with a wonky fretboard. The fret nibs were all intact, so no question it was built this way. I leveled the fingerboard and flattened the radius down to about 10". I was already sanding into the pearl dots by then. Didn't want to get into replacing inlays, so I stopped about there. Put in a set of Dunlop medium jumbo wire. With the board leveled out, the frets went in nicely and only needed minimal leveling after installation. I put in a CNC-cut nylon 6/6 nut. Nylon was used on the Gibson's of the late 50's and early 60's. It is a fabulous material for guitar nuts. Hard, durable, and extremely slippery. The Faber hardware went on after. The Schaller stuff was shiny and clean without a single speck of corrosion, but I'm so used to tune-o-matic bridges, I changed it. The most amazing bit of that were the deep bushings Faber offers for their ABR and the tailpiece. They sink much deeper and tighter into the wood and really get in that maple center block a lot better than the short and skinny Schaller bushings. The tone change from the bushings alone was remarkable. And here she is. This is a 100% keeper for life guitar. It's everything a semi-hollow guitar should be. Plays like butter, sings like a bird.

Mostly because Marv’s DNA is all over this one.

Here is a pic of my new axe. Purchased from Sweetwater. Just love the color. I have played both the H530 Custom and the H530 Standard and there is quite a bit of difference in the tone (at least to my ears). The Std sounds a bit more compressed while the Custom has a very articulate sound. The guitar came ready for action right out of the box. No adjustments needed. I had to post a pic from Sweetwater because my pics have too large a file size

This is from when it was new 10 years ago. Not just my favorite Heritage but my favorite guitar since then. Just got it back from the luthier where it had a new nut put on, fret dressed and new bridge slots. Ready for another ten years.

@Steiner.....If I decide to sell this Chestnut triple-set lady, you'll be first to know, my friend. 👍 My favorites: Of course, there’s your Fine 157 in chestnut sunburst, the 3 holer @Gitfiddler, I understand it’s a sin to covet another’s beauty but that guitar has haunted me since I first saw her.

Did you forget the Katie's Psycho Popsicle H-150?

OK I could not commit or admit any one of my 6 are superior to the other 5. These guitars are cardiac and I do not wish to hurt their feelings, otherwise their necks could warp

My favorites: Of course, there’s your Fine 157 in chestnut sunburst, the 3 holer @Gitfiddler, I understand it’s a sin to covet another’s beauty but that guitar has haunted me since I first saw her. Since I’m on a trip down memory lane… @Millennium Maestro’s half century H-150. Possibly the best custom guitar built. It comes with a boatload of stories going back to his first purchasing the wood. There’s @kbp810’s 157 with possibly the world’s prettiest wood. Not forgetting @Spectrum13’s H-575 custom in mahogany and spruce. His nestles in between G’s L4 and L5CES made throughout of solid, natural tonewood. There’s @DetroitBlues’ 137. Someday I may just own that beast… @TalismanRich’s and @High Flying Bird’s chestnut sunburst guitars. I’ve seen an H-155 Eagle in CNSB that I’d really like to own. One of our seldom seen members (Brian?) brought a hollowbody to the hotel back in the barn days that I recall being floored upon first seeing. I don’t know what I’d do with it but, hey, look at it! Back in the @skinslammer days there was another member from this area who stopped by the ranch with his custom 150 he had. @snowplow (Pete) built it to mimic a ‘59 LP. That piece had a life-force I've experienced only once or twice since. There are SO MANY other beautiful Heritage guitars I’ve seen and played over the years. I’m sure I’ve forgotten many guitars that touched me but, you know, Father Time has a habit of erasing pure, exhilarating moments.

I know, this is a silly, maybe even sophomoric topic. But, that said, this is the Heritage Owners Club, right?! 🙂 And haven't we all thought about all of the many Heritage gitfiddles we've owned, played or lusted after? You know, that uber-flame-top H-(whatever) model that you never should have let go. Or maybe that sweet axe that you've worn down the frets on, and rubbed the finish off, due to its irresistible tone and feel? It doesn't matter if your favorite is an Ascent, Standard, Custom Shop, Core, Artisan-aged, Custom one-off, or an old school from the early days of Heritage. Bring it! And share a photo if you have one. No model is off limits as long as it is a Heritage Guitar. I'll kick things off with my all time favorite model...it's the no longer in production H525. I've been blessed to own two of these great instruments, but my all time favorite is the one-off custom that Marv built to my specs back when they built almost anything customers or dealers asked for. Here's a photo of Marv just after spraying it, taken by our dear friend, Ron (High Flying Bird) Warren. OK, YOUR TURN!! LET'S SEE YOUR FAVORITE HERITAGE!!

Yessir!!!! The mighty KB!

Gitfiddler, you’re killing me! There is none more fair across the land. Now that I think about it, I haven’t a 157…

So many Fab guitars. How about the "Centurion" while we're at it?

The three pedals on my board that are the most important are the Revival Drive, which is my core tone, the MEQdriver, which is my lead tone, and the Space Echo which is always on and beat timed to the song I'm playing. The rest of the stuff (other than the tuner of course) is just icing on the cake. I only use trem and reverb on one or two songs a night. And the Sunface, an excellent fuzz, doesn't really get the use since I got the MEQdriver. And I don't really need the sex drive if I have time to dial in the two other gain pedals for the venue I'm playing in. And actually I could get away without the MEQ driver if I have time to dial in both sides of the Revival Drive, because it has variable mid boost, but the MEQ driver is easier to dial in my lead tone with on stage. Frankly I was always a plug straight in to the amp kind of player but this band of mine covers a lot of different tones in the songs I write, so having the pedals makes it bit easier because I'm not having to tweak the amp from song to song. When I record the song demos though, I almost never use pedals. It's just an amp, and an attenuator if I'm recording at night. I almost always prefer that tone to pedals.

Lot's of beautiful guitars in this thread! I have 4 Heritage guitars and it is really tough to choose which one I like the best - My 2018 H137 is a real blues rock monster!

Well done review. I'm a little bummed to think women on the Internet might not really like my photo. Could that true?

For some odd reason, I couldn't include text with the pic above. That's my '21 Custom Core 150. 8 lbs. 4 ozs. Now sporting a pair of '61 PAF's out of a Barney Kessel. As was the case with a lot of hollow bodies, the pickups are out of phase. Middle position does that marvelous Peter Green thing. This is a fabulous instrument.

These are my favorites, A Heritage Johnny Smith and its Mini-Me The Heritage Millennium SuperLight.

Jason sent this concept. In MOP

I agree that the half & half fretboard inlays were not the best design. I had Heritage correct that with a Millie custom build in 2011. Sunburst Spruce Millie from 2011 on the right Millie SuperLight from 2017 on the left. I had a change in guitar philosophy in my later custom builds preferring more wood less shell.

Does exactly what it claims to do. Super transparent overdrive. Simple - three dials, no fuss. Works best at 18v. I’ve got it in front of my Lovepedal Blackpanel Deluxe pedal. They sound great together. Or i can use either as an always on. Trying to decide which one. Great combination. I think i like the Lovepedal always on, then use the Lightspeed to push it sometimes, but i’ll keep tweaking and see how it plays out. Excellent pedal.

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...