@Superficial
I just use the THR for noodling but where I am living I can’t use volume so if I want to get serious I go through phones or via USB into the iPad, elsewhere I just bang it through my new Stagesource L2m
The Core has lots of different out put IRS for different amps, plus you can load your own, so with the THR set in one of the flat options I can find something to work with.
If I am just learning a song I usually just stick with the THR on its own.

I haven’t experimented with different ways of connecting E.g. instead of using the Aux-in, using the Helix 1/4″ line-out (in mono) to the guitar input on the THR, then using the ‘flat’ response + a bit of Reverb. Obviously you’d lose any stereo effect.

The bridge feels a couple of mm too far towards the treble side.

From the pic it looks like the neck needs centering, Eddie. Just slacken the screws, and tip it to where you like and tighten. I tip my necks slightly up so the low E is close to the neck edge so it’s easy to get my thumb over. It also means I don’t roll the high e off the frets doing vibrato or being clumsy.

Well the love affair with that Strat is over. I had a couple of minor niggles when I bought the guitar that Andertons solved on the spot.whilst looking at the string alignment problem I took the neck off and that exposed an open can of worms, or rather where worms had possibly been so I took it back to Andertons for a total no-quibbkw money back. And now here I am with a new American Professional II Stratocaster in Miami Blue with a maple neck.
Note to self: move further away from Andertons. 🙂

Nigh on 5 hours later and I have finally broken away from playing the new Strat.
Simply epic. It feels better than any other new guitar I have ever picked up and the sounds are simply amazing. I need to take it down to Weymouth to compare it with my ’96 Custom Shop relic 50’s Strat, but I think I know it will blow it away in terms of both feel and playability due to the new heel shape. Sounds will inevitabyl be different but the new one seems so versatile.
Simply brilliant, and Miami Blue may be my new favourite colour.
Time for a quick coffee and back to the playing.

Something more modern then. What do you think of the tall narrow frets on it? I really like Fender medium jumbo frets they’ve been using on most of their guitars for years. They put properly jumbo frets of the American specials a few years back which required a light touch and they’ve put tall narrows on the Sqier Classic vibe butterscotch Tele recently.

Sorry to interupt your noodling. 😉

And now here I am with a new American Professional II…
Simply brilliant

This was my experience with the pro II Jazzmaster, the tall frets were noticeable when first taking it out the case but second time I’d already forgotten…

It had me seriously looking at at pro II tele (but that I’ve already bought three, no four, guitars this year I decided I really need to stop).

And, yes, the extra sounds available are useable and useful.

The pro II jazzmaster now officially my fave guitar…

@Edukator
Like @metalheart I hardly noticed the frets although they are massively taller than the frets on the JTV59.
In fact I hardly noticed anything as it just fits and does what it is supposed to do the plug in trem is faultless (the adjustment to vary if it rotates or stays where you left it works well.) The push push switching pot that brings in the neck pickup in with any other combinations looks a bit odd but works perfectly and gives a couple of very usable sounds and the overall pickup sound is brilliant – in every sense. I’ve never had to roll off quite so much treble before yet at the same times they are very balanced. I think there is an extra upper presence there without affecting the mids and bottom.
It just works. I’m struggling to think of anything to improve it other than the addition of locking tuners, but I’ve not had any reason to worry about the ones fitted, I just find lockers easier for string changes.
In summary it looks like a Strat, quacks like a Strat and feels like the Strat I always dreamt about.
Have I mentioned the rolled fingerboard edges and the excellent fret finishing yet… 🙂

We’ve got a gig! Yes, the ‘dad rock’ band I’ve been rehearsing with since last spring (full lockdowns notwithstanding) appears to have snagged the bass player’s daughter’s friend’s* engagement party gig at a rugby club in November.

So, apart from super-rehearsing the 30 or more covers that we’re doing (everything from Message in a bottle to Ace of Spades…) I’ve got to work out what guitar I’m going to play, what amp, whether to bother with any pedals (apart from a tuner, of course) and what outfit and matching boots to wear… 😉

Looking forward to it!**

(* Something like that… friend of a friend, kind of thing. I’m not entirely sure how appropriate a load of (loud) ’70s and ’80s rock is going to be for the occasion, but I imagine that we’re very cheap… :-))

(** And then I’m going to have to fire myself from the band (after 18 months and one gig) as I’m moving house again out of the area… Boo!)

And then I’m going to have to fire myself from the band (after 18 months and one gig) as I’m moving house again out of the area… Boo!)

Steal their amps, sleep with their wives and girlfriends and blame it all on addiction (to bikes?). Yes, I’m reading Steve Jones’ autobiography!

We’ve got a gig!

Congratulations 🙂 I know you know this but get the setlist together and all the other decision making becomes easier because you can focus on practising those songs and getting the gear sorted. As for the outfit, you don’t need any encouragement from us !!

Yep, set list is coming together (although the graceful ebb and flow of the arc of the set is yet to be determined… Saying that, though, everything is pretty loud and pretty fast-past. There is no real ebb…) 🙂

Nice one.
I may be guesting with one of the ex’s bands next time I’m down the coast. Luckily I know her sets pretty much off pat. And equally she knows my abilities so there’ll be no tricky stuff in there. Pretty much blues and soul covers.
Just the Strat and the mini pedal board will do it and run it all straight into her PA.
Which is a shame as I finished this today (bit big to carry on the train though…)

GigRig for the power supply and I love the patchbay built in, all I do just plug in the power cord and the guitar and then outs to the PA or an amp o FRFR. I just have to do decide how to mount the expression pedal. (And even decide if I actually want it on the board or an a fly lead off to one side.)
First proper pedalboard ever.

Nice looking board! I love the patchbay too…

I think you need to get the set-square out on a couple of those top row pedals though… 😉

Set-square? – thats the day job. I don’t do right angles after 6pm. 🙂

One day I’ll sort out a pedal board, one day. Thanks for the inspiration.

Your comment “favourite” had me thinking “which is my favourite guitare”. The acoustic is easy, my Epi Texan with a 41mm nut. The electric is far more complicated. A guitar will be left hanging on the wall for months then get taken down because it’s good for a particualr tune and stay down for months as I readopt it. I can’t even decide which is my favourite neck, two are more or less identical (Fender), but the others are different widths, radii, frets, woods, profiles, finishes… . As I sit playing a Warmoth shredder neck with a 43mm nut I think “should I have ordered it with a 41 or 42mm nut”. Spoilt for choice. Or just plain spoilt. 🙂

Favourite and Best?

My ‘best’ guitar is my least favourite, and I’m not sure what to do about this situation. It’s a Les Paul Standard which is a work of art. After 6 years at university, I spent my first paycheque on the first instalment, the guitar I wanted ever since I started playing. All my guitar heroes had one. It’s got a flawless flamed maple top with honey burst, and hanging on the wall, it looks <chef’s kiss>.

But… I don’t love playing it and I’m always reaching for the Tele first. The LP is a bit lardy, the neck is a bit big, the sound a bit dark for me. Perhaps I’m just a Fender guy? It feels weird playing a (relatively) cheap Mexican Tele or Strat and leaving the expensive thing collecting dust. But at the same time, it’s a lovely object and it represents a particular period in my life, so I don’t think I can bring myself to sell it. Perhaps the answer is to buy a really expensive Custom Shop Strat so I can end up playing my ‘best’ guitar all the time. Does anyone else feel guilty for neglecting an expensive guitar? WWSTWD?

My best and favourite guitar is a quilted maple top Japanese Tokai Les Paul from the early 2000s I’ve had from new.

Best playing and sounding out of any of my guitars and with an HB-sized P90 in the neck and treble bleed caps it’s also the most versatile.

The one guitar I’ll never sell.

I do normally play my Dean Z explorer on stage though as it’s cooler looking

Strat update: https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/my-lockdown-project-complete-guitar-content/#post-12064532

Am I allowed to call it ‘Red’?

Been doing some looping recently. This is a pretty ambitious one. Realised I’m ok if I can scrub out mistakes, but doing it flawlessly in a single take is really hard. Single pedal loop, one take.

Anyway, it’s good fun.

I like that a lot. Nice work.

Good work and topical. I’m intrigued how you do that with just one loop. How about doing a Youtube?

I thought about doing a video (dressed in Tux, naturally), but it seemed like a lot of work!

Brief explanation: It’s one loop, overdubbed. Using my Helix floor which has a built in looper.

Start the loop, did the first two bars you hear, then close the loop. Overdubbed the ‘drum’ track (muted strings), then stopped overdubbing while playing the main theme. Overdubbing back on for the rest of the mix, with various layers of effects and bass sim at different times. I struggled to end it coherently, I just ended up abruptly stopping the loop and playing the last bit as a normal guitar part.

I have done a better ‘mix’ with stereo panning of different parts which sounds cool (and a slightly more accurately timed loop) but I found it too complex to fit it all into one take.

Who knows about Tremolos?

I want one of my guitars to have a trem.

My current one is a Harley Benton PRS copy. It’s a really enjoyable thing to play. I’ve set it up really well, with the help of a local luthier who filed the nut for me. It’s now got Kent Armstrong noiseless P90s so I’ve spent as much on upgrades as it cost but the trem is awful. It goes out of tune as soon as it’s used so I blocked it off. It’s (or says it’s) a Wilkinson, but came as standard on a Chinese £200 guitar so who knows?

My future guitar is a Telecaster. Well, it will be as soon as I’ve made it. There’s a brilliant local maker near to me, MD Guitars, and Martin Dixon does “build your own” courses. As a carpenter – well, why wouldn’t I? I’ve seen some Telecaster tremolos from Wudtone and Super-Vee Maverick that have the brass saddles and ashtray bridges with the diagonal pickup cutout. Yes, I know they cost getting on for £200 but I’m going to be spending a fair bit on the guitar. Martin makes excellent instruments and he assures me the end result will be worth it.

So, what’s the chance of one of those being any good at keeping in tune? Or should I replace the “Wilkinson” on the Harley Benton with a good quality Strat type trem that should fit straight in, with minimum re-working?

Thanks for the explantion, Superficial, my ears told me a lot was going on and you’ve confirmed it. A nicely constructed piece.

I’ve managed to get every trem I’ve spent time on to balance and stay acceptably in tune, BigJohn.

Essentials are:

1/ strings sliding freely through the nut. Infuences are the position of string trees (I prefer just one on e and B and not too close to the nut), the cut of the nut (not tight), lubrication (a bit of pencil lead) and the strings (some cheap ones dont slide well).

2/ the 2/6 screws holding the trem on, the trem needs to move smoothly and return to the same point each time which it won’t if the screws are too tight or too loose.

3/ The height of the saddles. You can get the same action with low saddles and a high trem or visa versa. I find it easier to balance the trem if the saddles are quite high but this does limit how much the trem can raise a note – but means you can dive bomb lower.

My experience of trems suggest that most problems are set up or expecting too much from a non locking system.
A well made nut and good string trees are essential. Without these you will struggle to get back in tune. Crappy tuners can cause problems as can poor stringing technique with too many winds or overlapping winds on the posts.
The bridge itself has seldom been a problem if it has been installed and tweaked properly. 6 bolt Strat trems have a definite need to be understood before you tighten or loosen the screws too much. There are a lot of good videos on setup on the Tube of You.

The tone and note selection/fingering on that James Bond one above are nice but the timing makes me feel queasy.

Just trying to get Little Wing proper sorted and I found this great take of it with some signicant guys commenting…

“Does anyone else feel guilty for neglecting an expensive guitar?”

I struggle with playing more than one instrument in a given phase of my life. My first proper bass was a nice old Warwick, one I got that I defretted my beginner bass but it didn’t get used much. Then I had a custom five built and the Warwick got sidelined. Now I’ve got a StingRay and the other two have been sidelined. I got given a Wattplower and that isn’t really me. If I didn’t need them for work I’m not sure what I’d do – I don’t like instruments sitting around unused, it feels wrong!

Ironically 99% of my playing time over the last few years has been on a cheap acoustic bass guitar I got to play at home. Just came up with the bones of a new song on it:

https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/K8YAj8n5uixSsUZi6

I feel there’s a single-coil missing in my life. I’ve got a p90 loaded Les Paul, and some split coils on another Les Paul. But it’s still not that Fendery twang and spank.

What would you guys reckon is worth looking at, single-coiled. My head is just stuck in Strats or Teles!

Blues, and rock, and a bit of smashing it through a Hoof fuzz for fun.

How about a Duo Sonic? Short scale fun with a choice of a bridge ‘bucker or single coil.

Jaguar/Jazzmaster?

But you won’t go wrong with a Strat or Tele…

Hey guys
My kid has Solar guitar with a Floyd rose tremolo…he has had it a year now .
My question is do you need to change on this type guitar every year to keep the tune?

Do you mean do you need to change the strings often?

If so, it depends on much you play. And how much you care about tone and staying in tune.

Bedroom playing a couple of hours a day, I’d probably change once a month.

Playing a couple of hours a day? That means I’d have to change strings about once every two years! (I do share the playing between several guitars, though) 🙂

Yes sorry ..seemed to miss the word strings…lol
He hasd a problem with a certain string last month D I think….it was intune but 12th fret it wasn’t.
In the end I sussed it was because he had changed 2 strings in 12 months and they were changed to regular slinkys….and because the other strings were blacksmiths.. it was causing the Floyd Rose be out ( well its what ithink anyway).
So I changed all the strings to new reg slinkys and hey presto..its back in tune.

Wow once a month..he does play a fair bit, he likes his rock and thrash metal..so when he plays , he plays hard!!

He best get himself a part time job..ha ha ha

What would you guys reckon is worth looking at, single-coiled.

If you want a Strat, buy a Strat. Otherwise, a Tele.

I’ll elaborate a bit: Strats are great guitars, they’re obviously perfect for certain tones of some great musicians, and they’re super comfy/playable for me. So if you want a guitar to specifically emulate a Strat tone, there’s only one choice and a Teles can’t really get that near. But Teles are far more versatile – if you want a generally playable, do-everything guitar, I wouldn’t go for a Strat. I’d go for a Tele, ideally with some parallel–>serial switching. In your case if you have other guitars to cover that warmer humbucky ground, I’d be tempted by a Strat.

Obviously there are non-Fender options too. I keep ogling Yamaha Revstars. Or Jaguars. Or Jazzmasters.

But Teles are far more versatile – if you want a generally playable, do-everything guitar, I wouldn’t go for a Strat.

Bollocks.
I’d like to be polite but Strats are versatile.

A strat will do most of what a Tele will and then some more, they’re versatile. I’ve got both but whenever there’s a public I take the Tele. If I break a string it stays in tune and then there’s the sound. The first time I heard a Tele live was Slade at Birmingham town hall in 72. Nod was using his black Noddycaster and the intros to each song were glorious. This one in particular:

Slade take me back ‘ome

I will admit a weakness for country too: Vince Gill, Brad Paisley, James Burton… . And pop, the pretenders, Francis Cabrel… . And punk… . And. A Tele covers them all just fine. I like the P90 sound too, Téléphone in particular. Humbuckers? Plugged straight into a Marshall you get “that sound”. But most of the time I don’t want “that sound”. I’m forever flicking the split switch and wishing there was more bottom end growl and chime split, or not quite so much dirt in bucking mode.

Learning “Can’t find my way home” for a gig next month and after a bit of searching on the Tubes this opted up in my recommendations. I really like it.
BTW: No relation to Edukator’s Slade link…