TalismanRich

Another 2.45 inches and it will be just like Willie's Trigger!

So, our group had a tee time at a golf course on the other side of the river, which meant that I paid the toll to get to Indiana. While I was over there, I decided to run by a local shop, Maxwell's House of Music. This is a sister store to Mom's Music which happens to have been started by the drummer of the first band I went to see as an 8th grade graduate. (Ok, enough back story...) My thought was to see if they had a Blues Driver in stock. I would rather support a local store than Guitar Center. Two local shops I check didn't have any in stock. Maxwells had the standard pedal, and the guy was more than happy to plug it up to try. "What do you have for an amp?" He pulls out a Princeton Reverb for me. "What do you play?" That's a bit trickier. I explained that I've got several Heritages with humbuckers but recently got my H-530 with P90s. We walked over to the wall and I pulled this one down from the wall. It was a choice between this ES-330 and a 335 next to it. It was a very nice guitar, but was it nicer than my 530? Nah! It does have some nice grain. Other than the block inlays, there's wasn't any real advantage. They played very much alike. I still don't like the plug on the front rather than the rim. At $3500, it was priced between the Custom Core and the standard. A fellow about my age was picking up a white Tele and he and I jammed a bit on some blues. He said he's still got his father's original '64 ES-345. In the end, I left with a Blues Driver. I'll be pulling out the pedal board later today and cranking it up.

Lets see..... I had an original Fuzz Face. Got stolen around '72. I didn't think it was great, but it was one of the few pedals that you had back then. You didn't have 247 different fuzz pedals! Replaced it with a Jordan Boss Tone that plugged into the front of the Jaguar. Great for doing Satisfaction and Inna Gadda Da Vita. I eventully traded that for an EEPROM burner many years later. The knobs were broken where the whammy bar would swing around and hit the plastic. I covered it up later with a piece of Erector set with electrical tape on it to protect it. Got a Fender Blender. Very fizzy. It did fuzz and octave. I don't know where that pedal went. I probably left it at the bass players house. All told those 3 would probably fetch you 2 or 3 grand today. At the time, I was out about $100 total. Pedals back then were much cheaper! Most of the time, I simply turned my Guild Thunderbird amp to 10 and if you toggled the 3 way tone switch between two settings, it was almost like doing the jumper on a Marshall. The amp was only about 35 watts, so it would really distort when full up. Today, I don't use fuzz, I prefer the OD. Klon style and Tube Screamer have been my mainstays, although I really like the Blues Driver that Pete Farmer lent me at PSP. It wasn't so midrangy like a TS. Haven't bought one yet but it will happen. I haven't decided if I'll get the standard or WazaCraft model. I have a Soul Food, but I replaced it with a NotaKlon. It sounded smoother to me, and was less noisy. My preference is for a smoother, creamy overdrive, not a harsh biting sound. I like the sustain for soloing.

Glad to see you're still out there playing gigs. I agree completely. You can cover most all bases with the 535. I've heard you play that 535 enough at PSP to know that it's a killer. It's good that it's still in your arsenal, even if it is "on loan". Your band must have been playing REALLY LOUD if you coudn't play without feeding back. On the other hand, it's perfect to get the acoustic feedback going when you want to sustain a note infinitely! Turn away and it should go back to normal.

A friend's band plays down at a local blues bar, and the venue has amps for the bass and guitar, along with the drum set. The guitar amp is a Katana, and most bands just plug in and go. Guitar players bring their pedal boards of course.

Rob, you should be proud... you fed a family for close to a month!

I don't know if simply buffing would have fixed it, but the advantage of nitro is that it could have been resprayed with clear and then buffed out. I don't know that Heritage would do it but Arnie Hileski or Dave Teske might have been able to do it.

I don't think that any of us have been privy to the current practice. Some years back they had the LW series which we saw, and of course we are familiar with the Millennium. I don't remember seeing any H150 body blanks with chambers when we visited back in August. Tim Pierce just did a video about his special guitar and their new Standard II guitars.

No worries.. As you know, it's always so easy to work on the electrics of a semi hollow guitar. 😕 When I was working on my 535, somehow the lead from a tone cap broke off. Turn the knob and ... nothing changes. So it's pull the harness out and do it all again.

BTW, I like the way you named it. It's good that you got it in before my trademark came through. You got to use it for free!

It's always fun to spend other people's money! 😁 I'm looking forward to the tone report. Will it sit midway between the 530 and 535?

Yeah, it might look like real play wear, but my question is WHY? It's easy enough to beat up a guitar by playing the crap out of it and not being careful with it. Get rid of the nice stand and just lean it in the corner of the stucco wall, let it fall down a few times. Lay it on the ground when you're not playing it. Leave it in the trunk in the middle of winter, then bring it in the house to play it. Wear a big ol' pointy metal buckle and sling that guitar low. I don't need street cred to come from my guitar's wear and tear. Now, if you're actually trying to recreate a famous guitar, like SRV's #1 Strat, I can see that as a goal, like making a copy of the Mona Lisa. Good for a collector, or for someone who is doing a SRV based show, much like Beatles imitators. But to think that fake wear makes it sound like an old guitar is too much of a stretch for me.

I was looking at Wolfetone's website yesterday and it looks like they will make any of their humbuckers in P90 dogear setup. https://www.wolfetone.com/product/dachswolff/

Feels like an Old Friend (50 yrs) _____________________ New Friend ( 5 wks) Neither one has the finish worn off.

I don't think the Standard II is an entry level guitar. They are basically the same as a standard. The Ascents are more entry level. So I guess, you have the choice of the Standard C (.88 to 1.0") or the Standard II 60s (.84 to .92) neck. The biggest problem is that not everyone prefers a fat neck. If you make them all baseball bats, the there will be folks like me that won't be comfortable. But DetroitBlues will be ecstatic! Were they bolt on necks, you can have 2 or 3 profiles, and then someone could choose their favorite. That's not possible for a set neck. I remember early on when G&L had about 5 different neck profiles, and if you ordered a guitar, you just told them which style you wanted. I think they even offered different radius and nut widths. Keisel still allows you to choose thick or thin, and 5 different radius options.

OUCH! How bad was the damage? I've seen a few cars that had major damage... bumper, grill, hood, windshield, airbag.

Really? $150 for a Squire Strat, $2.59 for a can of Zippo lighter fluid, $.99 for a box of matches. PRESTO! It's like printing money! 🔥🔥

I've seen girls buying new jeans that look like this! I've worn jeans with fewer holes to paint the garage. When we were kids, if our jeans looked like this, my mom threw them in the garbage! Who knew that they would be worth $100. RE: your reliced car. How much extra did the dealer charge you to do the relic job. Did he also put some sand in the crankcase so it would wear out the bearings and seals and burn oil like a car with 200,000 miles?

Look at you using financial restraint, just like an adult!

Nice.... I like the natural finish in this style. This is turning out to be the year of the H-530!

Sorry to hear this. RIP LedZef.

Don't feel bad about the 575 not fitting. I don't feel comfortable when I was playing them either. The 525 is slightly thinner and felt better. I bet you could play Girl from Ipanema on that 530. This morning I've already played Lying Eyes and Fire on mine. That's kind of a wide spread.

It really doesn't matter what reality is... you can find opinions going both ways. More weight = more sustain. Light resonant wood = more sustain. As to what qualifies as "tone", that's entirely whatever the person wants it to mean. I remember playing a Guild Bluesbird that was chambered. It rang very nicely. Millenniums do as well. I can't say my Mille is missing anything in the tone department.

This is more H-530s than I've seen in a long time. I must say, I'm really enjoying this guitar. It sounds really good plugged in, but it also does great unamplified. I play a lot just sitting in the den, and for a while, it has been my ASAT that sat on the stand next to the recliner. The ASAT is now in it's gig bag, and the 530 is next to me to pick up and play on a moments notice.

I wonder what the weight relief scheme is for these guitars. I don't think they will be full chambered bodies. I remember when Heritage came out with the LW guitars. I don't remember ever seeing what their chambering scheme was. The Guild Bluesbird was designed as a chambered guitar. Of course the Millennium is chambered and it sounds great. Heritage obviously has the history to know that the mahogany part of the body needs to weigh to achieve a target weight.