GEdwardJones

It's just something you've got to get used to. A lot of people adjust their middle pickups all the way down for that reason (I did for years and years, also because the pickup was so far from the strings I could just flick to the middle to get a clean sound with a distorted amp). For me, when I go from playing a guitar with two pickups to one with three the trick is to remember to pick just a hair closer to the bridge. It might take a little practice, but after a while it becomes second nature.

Or, it's an attempt to capture a portion of a market which they are not in currently without destroying their brand image. Seems pretty smart to me, Gibson's your high end, Epi's midline, Spirit's low end. You don't sell Gibsons ar Toys R Us, you don't sell Spirits at Guitar Center. Everyone can buy your guitars, you make money. But, even if I take your analysis at face value (and I don't, mind you, but if I did). Yeah, you know that's why BMW has the 120 AND the 760. That's why you can buy a VW Jetta AND an Audi S8. If you're a large manufacturer it's not a bad idea to be able to serve your customer base at all levels of their financial development. I can, and I did. "We'll make a guitar out of the same stuff they make kitchen counters out of." Isn't really that far from "we'll make a guitar out of the same stuff they make kitchen cabinets out of." Those old Dan-Os and Silvertones were, in intent if not execution, the exact same as these guitars. That's not conjecture, that's not me theorizing, that's historical fact. You're either being disingenuous or delusional. Every single part of those classic Dan-Os and Silvertones were made because they were cheap. I am not making this up. The lipstick tube pickup was created because someone figured out that actual discarded lipstick tubes were an alright, cheap, way to make pickup housings. Those guitars were built to a price point. Any innovations they had came from the need to make the guitars as cheaply as possible. That is all. These were guitars that were made to be cheap, disposable learning tools for kids to get on Christmas morning. They were never meant to be classics. What Gibson has done is taken their designs and built them to a price point. The same as Silvertone did back in the day. Also, Epiphones, Kramers, Steinbergers and Tobiases don't come out of Kalamazoo Well, neither do Gibsons, being as how they're in Nashville. Now Heritage, those come from Kalamazooo Right, 'cos you'd buy a guitar from Circuit City? Someone in this thread stated straight out that all they needed to know that it was sold at Toys R Us. I don't think the $100 price point is one where a lot of innovation happens, innovation costs money. Money that you don't have to tack on to a guitar that you're selling for the bear minimum anyway. These guitars aren't for people who care about how innovative the guitar is. If you want innovation, get the digital Gibson. These are, by and large, for kids who will take their first guitar lesson on them. 's Funny, still seems like a bunch of people yelling about POS guitars to me. I wish my Global became a classic so I could find a pickup for it.

I still own every guitar I've ever had. Including the Global guitar and Harmony bass my brother and I got when I was 7 and the Cort EVH replica thingy I started taking lessons on when I was 12 (20 years ago this summer where's the "decrepit" emoticon?). If it wasn't for department store guitars (JC Penny's AND Sears) I probably would never have started playing. So, while people are in this thread screaming about how big POSes these things are (which, seems funny given that I don't think anyone's lowered themselves to the level of actually BUYING one and living with it long enough to make an informed decision) I'm sitting here thinking, "y'know, that's how *I* started playing." Not every town has a music store, and not every parent is going to order a guitar off the interweb. For a lot of kids these guitars are the only way they're going to get a guitar for Christmas. Period. Also, a lot of "classic" guitars were, in fact, cheap department store POSes. I'm looking directly at YOU, anyone who owns a Dan-o. Just because something's inexspensive doesn't mean it's cheap and just because something's cheap doesn't mean it's crap.

Actually, what you describe is "good business."

Well, my thing was for $125 it's worth a shot. I like the PODs USB functionality, but it came down to 90% of the functionality for 40% of the price. With the cheapest XT Live I could find at $300 and the cheapest XT Pro I could find at SEVEN HUNDRED dollars, $125 was cheap enough to make it almost disposable. My idea of what sounds "good" is always a little different than most guitarists (for instance, I won't touch a tube amp with a 10 foot pole) but I think I can find some fun/funky sounds in that box, especially given that my playing has taken a turn for the textural lately.

This all started because my local GC had just gotten a used Pod XT Live that they were willing to sell for $100 off. Which isn't a bad price considering it was (cosmetically at least) pristine. But, in the end I figured I'd go the Behringer route and spend the extra $150 on other gear. So far, so good.

The thing I love most about this thread is how people - who completely aren't these guitars' target market - are all up in arms about how bad these guitars are. Kind of like the Sultan of Brunei complaining about the quality of a Kia Rio. Seriously, the venting of your spleen over something that you'd never buy anyway. That's just kind of silly, no?

That's how I've endedup with most of my guitars...

All of my harmonizers are "dumb." I've heard conflicting accounts on whether or not the new Pandora has an intelligent harmonizer, but I'm at the point where if I'm going to start using rack gear then I want everything to be able to talk to everything else via MIDI or have it be controllable by my feet. Maybe the BOSS pedal is the way to go.

So far, the pre-sets are all a little over the top for me, but there are a handful of useable sounds there. I'm a bit disappointed that there's no harmonizer, but for $125, I can't complain too much considering what it DOES have. I guess the search continues for a good diatonic harmonizer. For direct recording it works better than my other modelling pedals, I haven't tried it in front of an amp yet, tho.

Alright, here's the deal. I scored a used V-Amp Pro from GC yesterda. Since I was looking for a new one anyway, the $50 off for used wasn't a bad deal. I played around with it yesterday. I like the sounds and I think that it's going to work out alright for my home recording futzing around. But then...I tried to connect it to my PC and.... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH So far I've yet to get the V-Amp editing software to recognize my V-Amp via the midi. Ok, seriously, as I was writing this I decided, just for giggles to swap my MIDI cables so that the one labled "out" went into the "in" of the V-AMP and, boom just that quick *headdesk* Alright, back to moddlling rack gear land for me.

The difference is probably purely distributional in nature. You sell Epis to music stores you sell the other brands to toy and electronic stores. The Epi's don't then get the "department store" stigma, and your still have a much wider distribution channel for your wares.

It just looks like an 80s Samick super strat. Samick was at one time (possibly still) the world's largest guitar manufacturer, making (along with Cort) the vast majority of the Epiphones, Squires, etc that you saw. Basically they were the kings of Korean manufacturing. The quality should be identical to that of other Korean guitars of the era. FWIW - The Kahler doesn't add anything to the value of the guitar, except if you like Kahlers. Also, G. Bennett works for Samick, he doesn't own the company. Their guitars are really, not at all rare, you can buy them at almost any mom & pop music store in the States..

Have you checked the phone book? I know there are a couple of shops in the Lawrenceville/Lilburn/Snellville area that offer lessons. I've considered going that route myself.

I have two guitars with those bridges on them. They work very well, but they've got a couple of things you have to watch out for. One, make sure that the bridge is mounted onto the screws correctly. The screws that connect the bridge to the body should fit into a little slot in the bridge. If you don't do this, the bridge won't hold tune and you're going to jack up your finish. Two, when using the fine tuners NEVER adjust them so that they're fully "sharp." I've broken three bridges that way. The "fine tuner lever" is pretty fragile. Always leave them a little space for additional adjustment. Three, you CAN adjust the saddles just like you can with a strat bridge. Finally, every so often drop a dab of grease onto the saddle rollers. I hadn't touched one of my guitars with that setup for over a year and when I did, one of the saddles had seized up, making changing strings an excersize in I want to kill myself.