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The So You Want to Buy A Guitar FAQ Should I Buy an Electric or Acoustic Guitar? What Are the Different Types of Acoustic Guitars? What Are the Different Types of Electric Guitars? What are Some Unusual Kinds of Acoustic Guitars? What are Some Kinds of Less Common Electric Guitars? What Kind of Acoustic Guitar Do You Recommend Buying? What Kind of Electric Guitar Do You Recommend Buying? How About If I'm Looking For an Unusual Type of Guitar? Should I Buy A New or Used Guitar?
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Music and Tools
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Gibson guitars cost too much for me (though I had a Gibson SG once), but for those times when only a thick and meaty humbucker tone will do, I deploy one of my tobacco sunburst settlement. \ On the left is a very nice mid 90s Samick LS450, their Les Paul copy. Samick makes the Epiphone Les Paul's for Gibson, but this several year old unit. looks to me to the equal to the top of Epiphone's line. But because it was a Samick and not a better known Epiphone I paid $150 for it. It had some grunge to clean off, and a REV105 sticker I removed (I thought about keeping it on, because I do miss REV105) and missing knob (a couple bucks to replace). The stock pickups had a nice character (bright sounding for humbuckers) but like the Epiphones of the same vintage they howled uncontrollably if you played them near a louder amp. So I replaced the stock units with a pair of Seymour Duncans (their PAF model is nice sounding pickup at a good price). The result plays and sounds as good as any other Les Paul I've run into. In the center is a Aria Pro II semi-hollowbody. The previous owner was a guitar tech and did an absolutely perfect setup on it as well as replacing the stock pickups for a pair of Gibson humbuckers. This model has the Varitone circuit that is a variable hi-pass filter. Turning it clockwise thins the sound out which is great for certain kinds of blues were you don't want the high gain rock tone. On the right is another Hondo, a Revival model from the 80s. Unlike many Hondos, this is a decent assembly of wood and hardware. It's a mahogany with a maple cap body (like the Les Paul) and it has a beefy fixed neck. The pickups possibly DiMarzzios that Hondo was using at that time. Hondo is a nameplate used by a US importer, but the actual manufacturer of this guitar is probably Samick. Good for powerful sounding leads. My friend Dave said there was something about the way it sounds the first time he heard it.
On the left, a close up of the Samick LS 450. You can see that it's been "played in" a bit with a couple of pick scratches. And if you look closely you can see a couple of my favorite no-cost Les Paul mods: the Peter Green pickup magnet reversal and the Duane Allman and Billy Gibbons' approved tailpiece wrap.
On the right, we zoom in to better show the Hondo's flamey top and that big chunk of Kahler trem bridge.
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