DetroitBlues

Beautiful 530! Congrats again Rich

I've sort of stopped chasing down tones in my head and chasing tones in my ears. I went down the rabbit hole for tone quests and found that tone in a room sounds different than tone on a recording. Pickups, guitars, strings, amps, speakers, microphones, where you pick the strings, how you pick the strings, post preamp equalization.... its maddening when you start to dig into it. I've only changed pickups in recent years for noise and feedback reduction. I think you'd be amazed how that beautiful H535 sounds depending on the amp and the use of the tone controls. I really love the middle position, I turn the volume on the bridge pickup to around a 7 or 8, roll back the tone to an 8. Then on the neck position, I'll roll the volume back just a touch at a time until it just adds a bit of warmth to the bridge pickup, usually it ends up around 6-7. When I need a bit for a lead solo, I'll go to the bridge and sometimes raise the volume up a bit. All this is accomplished to get a tone that I can clearly hear against the band and sounds good to me. I stopped chasing my hero's tones and just play to the song. One of my favorite tunes lately is Marshall Tucker's Can't You See. I'll play the flute and the lead guitar tracks with any of my guitars; by adjusting the controls I can make any of them sound pretty close to each other and they all have different pickups.... H150 with SD 59's, H137 with Mojotone Quiet Coil P90's, H535 with a Railhammer Neuvo in the neck and a Red Rock A3 humbucker in the bridge. I can use any of those guitars and achieve a tone that sounds good to me even if there is a slight difference in sound. Audiences don't know the difference. In other words, don't get too caught up yet on pickup being a problem, there is a lot more to the signal chain besides the pickups.

is that so you don't roll over and fall out of bed?

Hope the doc prescribed the fun meds... or is that prescribed for glaucoma?

Congrats Rich!

I think that Heritage was his reward for his internship.

Nice pics!

or quoted phrase as a matter of fact....

Hence the title, NFS. It's going to a display case, most likely in someone's office.

Didn't know it was an option, left a hole in my soul when I look at the empty space where it once shook the floorboards of the house...

May have to arrange that since I had to give up the Metropoulos back to its rightful owner.

For those who were at PSP this year, there was the oddest (perhaps ugliest ever) Heritage H-137 hanging on the wall. After seeing this rather unusual guitar on the wall, I asked about it. According to the folklore, Manny's Music was famous for not allowing people who weren't buying a guitar to play anything hanging on the wall. This was a problem for someone wanting to try an amp or pedal, so the solution was to use this aftermarket painted yellow Danelectro guitar that someone traded in for use on demoing gear. Didn't matter if you were someone off the street or a member of the Rolling Stones, you played this Danelectro if you wanted to try something out. For years, everyone wanted that ugly guitar because it played so well. According to an article, George Harrison offed $200 back in the early 70's to buy that guitar and was denied. So what does this have to do with this odd H137? We all know Heritage is partially owned by a corporation that bought the rights to Sam Ash and Manny's music. The RnR HOF owns that yellow Danelectro now and has it on display because of its history. The leadership team at Heritage decided to put their Custom Shop skills to the test and re-create that broken Danelectro with a Custom Core H137 painted up to resemble that beat up Dano. Here's the article: https://www.culturesonar.com/rockeology-old-yellow/

Of course, this is amazing too!

This explains that odd finish on some Heritage guitars... "I got a hold of 3M in Minnesota and we worked out the formula for 18% gray. We sprayed it on a card. We ended up spraying a lot of them here at Heritage for several years and sold them to all the photography stores. That 18% gray was also what we used for the finish on the 101 and the 105 Heritage guitar and bass. You didn't even have to sand it. You just made the body, sprayed it with an 18% gray and that was it. " So now we know (for those of us like me who didn't know) what that paint was on the 101's. The paint was actually a Ren Wall invention!

Maybe a collectors item to Roy Clarke fans, otherwise, not really a collector's guitar. Very few if any Heritages are collectors instruments unless they were celebrity owned (and documented of said ownership).

I’ve heard of such infamous gatherings. Alas, my granddaughter will be 1 that same day, therefore I must regrettably decline such divine sonic extravaganza.

It’s okay Brent, I’m sure you’ll break even in a month or two when you sell it.

I've had many Heritages over the years, one had a twisted neck and one had a truss rod that was maxed out. But that is two out of about a dozen I've had.

I think it’s a matter of poor customer service rather than tone.

Took my 535 in last week for a new pickup to be installed in the bridge position. The Railhammer Hyper Vintage was a nice sounding pickup, but really bright. I found myself constantly adjusting the tone controls. I've come to realize that pickup design works best for people who tune down a lot and use lots of gain. Not exactly the type of pickup commonly found in a semi-hollow body design. So I had a custom-made Red Rock Alnico III humbucker made for the H535. Since this is a semi-hollow body, I don't trust myself to install it. Instead I paid for an old tech of mine to do the work, to me, its worth the price paid. However, the point of this thread is not about Red Rock pickups but more about the old tech I used. This gentlemen ran a very popular music store in Royal Oak for a couple decades that provided guitar tech services, gear rentals, and even lessons in guitar, bass, and drums. (Fun fact, his drum instructor at the store was Chad Smith right up until he was recruited to join the Red Hot Chili Peppers). In those years, he has seen hundreds of Heritages guitars come through that front door. While he sold the business/building years ago, he continues to work out of his shop in his basement. He is rather amused how much I like Heritage. He kinda of shakes his head about it but ended up telling me he's seen a lot of bad ones come through his door. Recently had a 575 come through that had some weird pickups that were solid black (a lot like an EMG). What was not noticeable until he did a pickup swap with a normal pickup with pole pieces, did he notice the bridge pickup was so poorly misaligned. He said there was about a 1/4" offset to the pickup. He's never seen one that bad but mentioned how many of the Heritages he's serviced have terrible quality controls. I agreed with him to an extent. We all love our Heritages, but until they went under new management and manufacturing standards did Heritage's quality control improve. Heritage had its charms of being unique, custom, hand-made instruments from 1985 to 2015. However the uncontrolled environment and build methods would sometimes lead to a varying degree of quality. Just like Fender and Gibson in the 70's, Heritage also suffered from loose quality standards for many years. There are a lot of gems out there but also there are some dogs... So when people ask for the best years, its all subjective. For unique finishes, appointments, and typically slim, fast necks, go for the older stuff. For a consistent quality, choose newer stuff. Just my $.02.

Don't need to be big to be loud these days. Plus just about everyone mics their amps anyway...

Can't deny some of these small solid state amps can get the job done. Never played anything from Hotone, but they have a lot of good stuff out there that is inexpensive but makes some great sounds. I personally have a Quilter Interblock 45 as an emergency backup amp for playing live. I've had to use it in the past and it worked fabolously. I would assume this little guy also packs a serious punch and can be a primary on-the-go lightweight amp or as a backup.

That Gibby on the right has a rather light-colored fretboard. Gibson used to stain them darker, wonder if they stopped?

Now that makes sense, I've heard about some problems with the tuners, I've had my Heritage H150 for a couple years now without issues. I gig my H150 regularly and hardly ever have to adjust. But part of quality is consistency, if there is a variance between one set of tuners to the other, there is a quality issue. I've had many Heritages over the years, one of which is over 40 years old and still has the same Grover tuners on it that have no issues.

I cannot help but wonder if lack of sustain contributes to a darker tone? Consider the strings contact the nut to the bridge, I wouldn't think it makes a difference either with the tuners unless the original tuners absorb some of the vibration? There is also the idea behind the tailpiece and the weight and type of metal used impacts the tone. Since I seldom play clean enough to notice such nuances, it doesn't really impact me. If I'm playing clean, I'll have some sort of modulation going, delay, reverb, chorus all of which impacts the tone. Of course, when playing dirty, I really don't notice because I'm hearing more of the amp and pickups more than anything else. Curious though, why did you change the tuners out? I have the Heritage branded tuners on my H150 standard but only considered swapping the tuners for locking tuners for quick string changes. However, I think I need to learn the luthier method of stringing up a guitar instead of the loop, pull, and bend over the string method.