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Designing A Working Man's Guitar


n8rofwyo

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To me, comfort and tone are equals in what I desire in a guitar. If it's not comfortable to play, I won't play it. If it sounds like crap, I won't play it. All the guitars I like are a combination of those two qualities: comfort and tone. I love Strats (I now own 3 of them), but I have the same beef about Strats as most people do with the Volume knob being in the wrong place. Still, you can make your own pick guard and fix that. I don't use the Tone knobs anyway.

I'd have to say that my Ibanez S470 is probably the perfect guitar for me. It's got a great profile, awesome fast neck, good tone/sustain, and overall is just about perfect. The only thing I don't like about it is the floating bridge, but I've always hated those. They make the SA line which is almost as comfortable (the backs are flat but the front is still contoured like an S) and come with more strat like or hard tail bridges.

And as others have pointed out, it has to be reliable. I'm thinking of pickin up a new S470 or S520EX this Christmas to try out the ZR bridge, which is supposed to be really reliable for a floater due to the setting mechanism in the spring area.

Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

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Thanks fellas, that pretty much summed up what I was looking for.

Southpa;

I was looking to take the most stated comfort issues and make a concerted effort to apply that knowledge to my own strat knockoff design. I had forgotten about easing the fret board edges, thanks. B)

Marksound;

Bedroom rocker through and through, man! The only problem is that my wife has a tendency of misplacing my guitar while cleaning. :D

The reason I asked here instead of running down to the music shop and treating myself to a goof off with every guitar in the place, is that there is a very limited selection at the local shop and I've just been too busy to leave town.

What prompted me to investigate the matter, though, was that something on my harmony(strat knockoff) just feels strange as far as the body is concerned and I can't quite put my finger on it. I play sitting nearly all the time and the body seems to dig into my leg... I wasn't sure if the body was just too heavy or perhaps the roundover is just to slight. Dunno, like I said the availability of other guitars to use as reference is limited right now.

Nate Robinson :D

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I never understood what the problem was people had with strat volume knobs. Until I replaced the pickguard on my strat copy with a tortoise one made for a*real* strat. Probably under a half inch difference in the volume knob position, but just moving it a little bit closer to the "real" position and it's very in the way, for the way I play. But discovering the wonderful world of pinky swells. . .

Sharp edges are a no, but I'm not big on body cuts, but that's because when I play guitar I have the whole thing slung so darn low. All my strumming movement is in my wrist (I'm getting both carpal tunnel and popeye forearms playing in my new, fast band) and my arm is fully extended downwards. Because my arm never really brushes the edge of the guitar (it's really uncomfortable to play sitting down for more than a set's length, it feels like I'm spending more energy holding my arm up than strumming) it never bothers me.

I hate guitars that don't balance - I had a bolt on firebird, I had to hang it like an acoustic because I couldn't deal with having to hold up the headstock the whole time I was playing.

I think the perfect guitar is an SG - light enough to jump around a whole lot, (I like to pretend I'm Pete Townsend, but I also drink too much coffee) but tone doesn't seem to suffer, hangs really well, the curves are right where I need them for the way I hold it, the controls are accessible but out of the way, the angled neck is just right if you have to step up to a mic stand, and that really weak neck tenon makes a cool vibrato if you swing the guitar around or push/pull on the neck. (I really abuse this feature - my SG made a really scary crracking noise from the neck at band practice the other day - my new guitar will have a trem and I'm going to force myself to learn to use it.)

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I really abuse this feature - my SG made a really scary crracking noise from the neck at band practice the other day  - my new guitar will have a trem and I'm going to force myself to learn to use it.)

That's what I've always liked about my Melody Maker...absurbly lightweight guitar...and it does an awesome neck vibrato (I used to freak other players out by doing that...especially strat players with those wimpy bolt-on necks :D )

I used to wear the guitar down low (long long time ago) but these days I have it up pretty high --just feels more accurate. And I'm not a young punk anymore...low slung guitars just ain't 'dignified' enough ....sigh...

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