I think that Fender has probably improved the pickups in their Squiers since I owned one which came from the mid 80s which is good. And Robert Fripp is indeed another Burny/Fernandes user with a guitar that is very similar to Hackett’s and both have sustainers onboard. I remember seeing the same guitar in a shop in Denmark street and I regretted not buying it once I found out how difficult it was to actually obtain one. Eventually I stumbled across a used one on ebay while visiting the UK and the guy selling it was only a few minutes away from where I was staying.
Another brand that has impressed me with their lower cost guitars is ESP LTD. They are made in Indonesia I believe, but they are almost as good as the ESP E-II models which are made in Japan.
That’s so interesting Ian because I have a soft spot for what people call progressive or symphonic metal (including Nightwish) and ESP guitars are very common in that genre and metal in general. They play very well, are apparently reliable for touring , and have pickups appropriate for that style of music.
Thanks for the link Lindsay, I’d forgotten about the auction. I originally preordered a catalogue as the EC one I have is a thing of beauty. Guitar porn off the scale! But decided to cancel, as we get older how many of these things do we need. Still, some lovely guitars in MK’s collection.
What an interesting - and surprising - collection. There are a lot of relatively ‘cheap’ guitars in there - quiute a few Teisco’s, some Dano’s and some Burns. Disn’t expect that.
I’m trying to buy this off a work colleague. He’s still on the fence. It’s a 1963(?). Obviously the neck pick-up has been replaced, and the body and pick-guard modified, thus now making it “affordable”.
Made even more necessary since my boss “gifted” me 2 days ago with a significant pay cut. (Merry effing Christmas.) My advice to all is never to work for an inveterate liar.
You might want to check out John Suhr who has his own line of great guitars. He built the original Pensa guitars in NYC working with Rudy’s. They make a guitar which is essentially Mark Knopfler’s old Pensa.
Absolutely. I have owned a couple of Suhrs and they are superb instruments no matter which version you get. I am lucky enough now to own one of the 100 Suhr Auras he built as a limited edition a couple of years ago.
This is one of the best I have seen… Because its not just his Guitar Tech (although he does the beginning), but actually includes Steve showing how everything works. Amazing.
I recently changed the bridge saddles on my Telecaster. These were originally the simple brass cylinders with screws with a slotted top. These had become sharp at the edges of the screwheads, which would scratch the heel of my hand or catch on my sleeve. I lived for a while with a Fender ‘ashtray’, but this made it impossible to damp the strings with the heel, which is something I do naturally. I decided to change the screw to those with an Allen key head. I discovered that Fender has used several different threads over the years, so not knowing which I needed, I bought new barrels too. These are slotted, to locate the string. I have no idea why they’ve done this; it seems like a solution looking for a problem. Now you can see there’s a slight string spacing issue - the gap between the machined slots is different to the gap between strings on adjacent barrels. Fortunately, however, this washes out so that it’s difficult to notice at the playing position (either that or I’ve adapted to it mentally)…
I reckon next time I need to restring I’ll try these screw in the old barrels. Of course, I should have done that first. Doh!
The string spacing does look wonky, particularly the B and E which look pushed way to the side compared to the body holes. How does the e-string look on the fret-board? Close to the edge? My guess is that you bought the wrong barrels. That doesn’t really explain why the spacing on a single barrel is shorter than the spacing between two strings on adjacent barrels. It’s like a bit needs to be shaved/filed off the ends of the barrels where they touch.
As an aside, there’s a weird discussion about whether strings should be spaced evenly “edge to edge” or “centre to centre”. To the extent I think about it I’m probably in the “centre to centre” camp, but the difference is very subtle, and is not what I’m seeing on your bridge anyway.
My Tele has a modern bridge with a smooth, snag-free top, and that allows individual string intonation. But a lot of people prefer the vintage look, so there are all sorts of 3-barrel bridges available. Did you consider a bridge with compensated barrels?
