Gasalcoholics anonymous? whoever said this was a help group?

[dubkitty]

jeez, i’d never heard of that so i Googled up a demo and good god, but that’s an amazing piece of kit. totally beyond my percussion abilities for sure. just from the demo my brain boggles thinking of the possibilities. makes me wish Zakir Hussain had gotten one, grateful (no pun intended) that Mickey Hart hasn’t. the guy from the Flecktones would absolutely kill on it.

[dubkitty]

i’m getting to like the bridge pickup. which is good because due to the different casing/cover heights the Originator single may not raise high enough above the pickguard to work. i need to listen to some of the Waterslide Guitars demos that got me hooked and see if what i have now will do.

having spent the last couple of months optimizing project guitars, it’s really nice to play something that doesn’t require any tinkering. i literally haven’t done anything to it but twiddle the height of the bridge pickup. everything just works.

[dubkitty]

i’m starting to reach the point of having too many electric guitars. with the Wandré i’m up to 16, and there really aren’t any redundancies (the PAF guitars all are noticeably different, as the two Filtertron guitars will be when i finish the Double Jet). with the pendant projects i’ll be up to 19. fortunately there isn’t much else i really want, a Tele with WRHBs, my long-planned project Tele with the mahogany neck and Suprocaster bridge pickup, and a Strat with 1969-style pickups, a rosewood board, and the tremolo set to float. something with gold foils would also be nice. but i’m running out of places to put them in the apartment. there’s other stuff i like but don’t need, e.g. the Guild Surfliner and Kim Thayil Polara, but they’re kind of duplicative of the Jazzmaster/Galaxiemaster and the SG respectively.

i never thought that i’d have this much gear. it’s a bit intimidating if i think about it too much. that being said, i still would need a Starfire Bass if i played bass more often.

[dubkitty]

and if the opportunity arose to have a guitar with repro Bigsby pickups i’d be all over that. unfortunately the ones i’ve seen available are painfully expensive. i just can’t see spending $400-500 on one damn pickup.

back in the 00s there was a Gretsch outlet store, i think in Savannah, GA, that had several prototypes of a proposed line of Bigsby reissue guitars. i’m still kicking myself for not getting one because i’m quite sure i’ll never see one anywhere within artillery range of affordable.

[Zork]

i highly recommend Alvarez jumbo 12-strings…i’ve had mine tuned to concert pitch for 15 years and the bridge ain’t moving at all. it’s an odd design, but damn is it ever stable. IIRC it was a Stupid Deal of the Day on Musicians Friend, something like $315 out the door.

Thanks for the tip but a Jumbo is about the opposite of what I want. I want a relatively small and quiet guitar with a light and more mid focused sound all of which the Fender seems to offer along with a smallish neck. If only I could try it out in a shop...

[dubkitty]

that’s the curse of modern times…there’s literally tons of stuff you’ll never see in the shops, e.g. any electric Guild or Yamaha, G&L, Reverend, Duesenberg, high-end Gretsches, and on and on. i never saw a single Lead II/III reissue in the shops, so i got it online. amp testability is even worse. and bass? fuggedaboudit. i would have felt less worried about getting the Wandré if i’d been able to play it first, and i would have never expected that the Epiphone Uptown Kat is a giant-killer had i not stumbled across one at Sam Ash (RIP). in the shops that exist near me anything unusual is rare. i’ve been meaning to hit a couple of the big stores in the DC area, Chuck Levin and the like, but it takes 3 or 4 hours to drive to. the stores in Richmond are only (“only”) an hour away but they suck, except for the used pedals at Guitar Center. losing Sam Ash was a blow…they were literally 100 yards apart across a driveway and kept more interesting stuff than GC. take it from me: the Uptown Kat through a Marshall Origin combo amp kicks flaming ass.

that’s something i truly miss about living in the Bay Area…there’s so many great places to gear shop.

[dubkitty]

i spent some time playing the Wandré along with Waterslide demos of their builds with the repro Davoli pickups and though the bridge pickup isn’t quite the same i think it’ll pass. i really like guitars i don’t have to do anything with.

[Zork]

I tell you! When I lived in Berlin, there were many very cool vintage and second hand shops, a big fat professional retailer with a literal departement store for all kinds of gear and then all the crazy synth shops like Schneiders Laden. Now I live in Bremen, there are two shops. Both carry cheap beginner's stuff only. The next bigger shop is in Cologne which is about three hours. But even in Berlin, many shops closed down because they can't compete with Thomann. Friends there told me it became nearly impossible to check out certain gear. So they order online, too, now. Modern Live Is Rubbish...

[dubkitty]

i have a certain sympathy for the retailers in that there's a tough-to-negotiate boundary between Stuff You Think Is Great And People Should Try, and Stuff That Will Sell So I Can Make A Living. i understand why the little Music and Arts shop here doesn't have much high-end stuff--a couple of Gibsons and Fenders--because the market for less usual brands is tricky. i was surprised they got a single G&L Tele recently. there's no percentage in keeping several hundred thousand <currency> worth of guitars in stock, especially in the US where you have to declare inventory as an asset for tax purposes. it's just a drag that for anything really interesting my options are YouTube demos or nothing. if i'm even that lucky. the thing is, video demos don't tell you if the neck will fit your hand or the body to stand/sit comfortably. fortunately i'm pretty tolerant of neck differences, but it'd still be nice to confirm things without spending $100 to ship back your mistake.

[dubkitty]

and if i was primarily a bassist it'd be ten times worse. it's rare for anyone smaller than GC to have more than 5 or 6 basses in stock, and good luck finding an amp loud enough to get over the drum kit.

[Deltaphoenix]

Very cool I’ve always wanted to try one of those things

They are very fun and really interactive.

jeez, i’d never heard of that so i Googled up a demo and good god, but that’s an amazing piece of kit. totally beyond my percussion abilities for sure. just from the demo my brain boggles thinking of the possibilities. makes me wish Zakir Hussain had gotten one, grateful (no pun intended) that Mickey Hart hasn’t. the guy from the Flecktones would absolutely kill on it.

I played percussion when I wasn’t playing bass in High School band. I keep a few drums around and have had an e-kit. I am not mind blowing good but I am decent. I think that being even decent allows to get a lot of mileage out of the a frame.

I am super excited about getting one again.

[dubkitty]

i saw a demo and was slightly interested in the Chase Bliss Blooper for a hot minute, until i searched on Reverb and they're going for $400. fuck that.

in the interests of keeping things in the most reasonable space, i'm moving further posting about the Wandré to "Let's see your guitar." it's no longer something i'm GASsing for, it's now something i have.

god, i hate it when i look at posts several days old and spot glaring typos i need to fix.

[Deltaphoenix]

Chase Bliss stuff sounds great. I have a buddy with a bunch of their pedals that he has midi mapped controllers for. They are dope for what he does in his studio but it no way compares to using them as a pedal on a pedal board.

I can confirm they being primarily a bassist makes trying a lot of cool stuff that I like out at a store next to impossible. Luckily, I now know what I like and have a few basses and other related gear that I really, really like. It took a lot of trial and error and tons of buying/selling to get here.

[chuckjaywalk]

Dude, the Sam Ash pain is real. Here in Cincy, the Sam Ash and the best Guitar Center in the region were in separate strip malls that shared a parking lot. I loved it.

[le lambin]

Boss DD-20 hath arrived- a lovely piece of gear. Somehow I have never played one until now. Unfettered access to 23 seconds of delay- freeing. Simple and fun to use UI- refreshing. Creating manual modulation baked into the loop by manipulating the delay time in milliseconds- joyous. Great box, wish I had one twenty years ago.