TalismanRich

After playing through that one, I'm tempted to replace my old TS-9 Tube Screamer. I listened to a few comparisons of the Blues Driver vs Tube Screamer, and I think the Boss is more the sound I am looking for.

CVS, I just got my H-530, but I see no reason I can't play any of my normal music on it. Heck I've played Allman Bros on a 525 and Billy Holliday on my Millennium. CSN on an H-157 and Stray Cat Strut on a 535. I've even played Led Zeppelin on my acoustic! It's all good.

An update.... after letting things settle down, I've done a bit of setup work. A 1/4 turn tighter on the truss rod, and some adjusting on the bridge and it's playing nicely. 5/64 for the low E string, about a business card worth of relief around the 8th fret. It's much closer to my 535 now in feel. RE: the sound. I'm actually surprised it's darker/deeper sounding that the 525, even though they both are maple and have Lollar P90s. I brought the poles up on the G B and E of the neck pickup and took the low E down a bit. Sound is more balanced between strings now. It rings very well. And just like the 525, if you have the amp up a bit, you can get it to howl on a nice A or D string! Eternal sustain!

Having just been through the factory 2 weeks ago, things are a bit more modern, but it's still a relatively small operation compared to a Fender, Gibson, Cort or World Music. There aren't any conveyor belts carrying a hundred guitars around the building. What you see is people at benches with a guitar, maybe 2 people in the spray booth with a rack of 15 or 20 guitars hand spraying the guitars as they did for decades before. On one side, there's a guy hand wrapping binding with a half dozen guitars hanging next to him as the binding. My oldest Heritage is an 87 H140, and my newest is a 2025 H-530 that I got yesterday. I play all my old ones, I'm sure I'll play this one just the same. I love 'em.

Yes, hollow (notice the trapeze tailpiece) and P90s.

I don't need to! FedEx said that it was scheduled between 12:40 and 2:40. I got to the doctors office a bit early, and got in right away. I was out and home by 1:20. The truck showed up at 2:08, so it all worked out. I gave it a couple of hours to cool down from the FedEx truck (it was almost 90 around 1:00). I've tuned it up and made a slight adjustment because the low E was buzzing from fret 5 to about 12. Give it a day or two at tension, and I'll check the relief and set the final action. The rest of the strings were fine. I gave it a quick workout with some Sultans of Swing and Come On Part 1. So far, so good. It's a nice weight, and well balanced.

And the waiting begins.....

Welcome Les. It's good to have some more members from the UK. Sweet looking H150. Its funny how certain guitars just really feel and sound so "right". It's almost like you don't want to even change the strings lest it loses that magic feel.

There's a cool little blue pedal that you can plug into and get a really nice "woman tone". Pete Farmer loaned me his pedal for PSP.

At this age, being "on drugs" means BP meds, cholestrol meds, heart meds, NSAID meds, and a little blue pill to help you "rise to the occasion". 👴

Thinking about the pickups, if the guitars were late 60s or early 70s, they probably had Gibson T-Tops. Guys like Seymour Duncan and Larry Dimarzio didn't really start making after market pups until around 72 or 73. As to how they were made, according to this article, they would be Alnico 5 with polyurethane coated wire ~7.5 ohms. That's pretty much the SD-59 recipe, isn't it. https://musicalilluminism.wordpress.com/2009/04/28/vintage-gibson-humbucker-specs-and-general-pickup-tech/

Something else to remember is that Pat will quite often fingerpick his electrics. That's going to give a different sound that using a pick. Here's a shot of Tom Johnston playing an ES-150 on Midnight Special.

Usually Pat Simmons is playing an acoustic and Tom Johnstons's primary guitars have been PRS for many years. Back in the mid 70s, Pat would often play a sunburst ES345 but the Varitone was disconnected. He also had a natural finish ES345 with gold hardware in 74. He had a red ES335 that he sometimes tuned to DADDAD. As to what he played on any particular record, it's hard to say. Tom Johnston had a couple of Les Pauls, a black Custom w/ a Bigsby and a gold top w/P90s. I've seen some videos with him playing an SG. He also played a 335 on occasion in the early days of the Doobies. For South City Midnight Lady, Pat was probably playing his Ovation acoustic. Skunk Baxter was playing steel guitar. Don't know what Tom was playing, but I read that Pat did solos on his 335. From the concert photos I've seen, they mostly had Fender amps.

Mine should arrive around Tuesday. I have a Drs appt to check on my cataract surgery (which went fine - it's SO nice to be able to see) on Tuesday at 12:45. I might have them hold it for pickup. The FedEx office isn't far from me.

These are the Lollars, not the 225s. I have Lollars in my H-525 and they do great in there.

And here he is wringing out a Custom Core 150

Back in 2017 at PSP, Zach Avery played several tunes in the shipping area. Zach was working at Heritage at the time. He was a damn fine player. I happened to run across this video of his band at Chicago Music Exchange. He's STILL a damn fine player...

Definitely NON artisan aged. I like my guitars shiny. 😁

While at PSP, I was checking out a few guitars, but since I had to get over to the VFW, and had little room in the car there was no time to sit down with Mike and discuss things. So yesterday, I gave him a call and now there will be a new addition to the family.....

Sam Ash is owned by a Mexican group. They had bought Manny's in 1999 and closed it about 10 yrs later. Eventually all the stores on 48th St closed up, Rudy's Manny's, Sam Ash were all there. The building were demolished around 2018 and now have high rises with a Hampton Inn and Hard Rock on those sites. If you go to Google maps, you can look at street view from the days when they were all there. Manny's Music is now owned by Vista/Bandlab. They bought the name, trademarks etc from Sam Ash in 2024. They are mail order only, and sell Harmony, Heritage Ascent and Ascent+, Mono cases and Teisco pedals.

It definitely stood out from all the other guitars in Ren's pickin' room.

Y'know, the amp has a little bit to do with the tone of a guitar, too!

I wish I could stick around, but I'll be heading back to attend a memorial service for a good friend's wife.

This is a fairly small club. There are mics on the amps, but that's only for the video feed that they use for Facebook. It also appears that the Katana is the house amp along with the bass amp and drum kit. Some acts bring their own amps, but I was looking over a few videos of other groups and they all have the same bass and guitar amps.

A friend's band was playing a local club a few months back and I noticed that the harmonica amp was crapping out during the last half of the show. Last night, I saw he had replaced the old Fender with a new tweed Blues Jr. The guitar player also changed amps, going from an old Fender Deluxe to a Boss amp.