Let's see your GUITAR!

[dubkitty]

still five other electric guitars and a MIM Fender Jazz Bass. my big thing with electric guitars is getting as many different kinds of pickups i like as i can get...not that construction, woods, scale length, etc. don't influence the sound, but i believe that pickups are the most pivotal difference between solid-body electrics. put Strat pickups or FilterTrons in a Tele, and it no longer sounds like a Tele. Q.E.D.

[coldbrightsunlight]

Love that Gretsch collection!!!

[Dandolin]

That Electromatic Special Jet with the DeArmond 2000s was my guitar in a band that I miss so much - still love that guitar....

Also, that Alvarez 12 string looks hott

[dubkitty]

it's a wonderful guitar. i got it for a tad over $300 as a remainder from Musicians' Friend. solid spruce top, flame maple back and sides. it's an absolute unit...i've had it tuned to concert pitch since the mid-00s and it shows no evidence of strain. the neck is as straight as can be. i'm still trying to decide whether to add a soundhole pickup or bite the bullet and get an electric 12, but i think i need more ping and twinkle from an amplified 12. i also don't like the notion of drilling unnecessary holes in acoustic instruments even if it's just adding an endpin jack. acoustics are so much more affected by tiny changes. i refuse to even consider any acoustic guitar with one of those Fishman-style control panels hacked into the outside of the upper bout.

i love the Special Jet to pieces. it's the perfect middle ground between a Dynasonic-equipped guitar and a Les Paul Junior. as i've said before, i love mahogany slabs over all other solidbodies. my 3 favorite electric guitars are the SJ, a Tokai singlecut Les Paul Special, and the Epiphone SG which has incredibly loud/fat pickups. they blow the PAFs on the Tokai LP Standard out of the water. i don't know what they were smoking at Epiphone in those days, which also saw the Wildkats with those insanely hot metal-case P-90s...i think they were something like 12-13K?

[dubkitty]

i saw a Special Jet on Reverb with a Badass wraparound bridge and a shorty DeArmond-branded Bigsby that will haunt me for the rest of my life. it was only up for about 8 hours before it sold.

i'm a Gretsch fanboi in general, but i particularly love hot-rodding the budget models...the quality is excellent and i really enjoy taking cheap guitars and teaching them to kill. if you want a modding platform with a set neck it's hard to find better.

[Dandolin]

yeah, the OG Wildkat is a couple of inexplicable steps shy of a nice guitar-put lower output P90s in there, and fixx the Biggs tension bar, and ya got ya self a keeper

Special Jet killed my GAS for a Telesonic cold....

Some of the Alvys you can get on the SDOTD are crazy good - my Bari is one...
I've missed having an acoustic 12er since my Craviola went bad - it was pure magic with a godly neck, but def couldn't handle standard tuning, and I was too young and stupid to know better. I actually find that I prefer 12 strings tuned down a bit - I like the resonance....

[dubkitty]

there's a device called Brigg's Bigg Fix or something like that, which is an adapter that replaces the B5/B7 tension bar with a smaller-diameter roller and brackets that set it above the standard tension-roller position. i've watched demos and it looks like just the thing. if it had existed before i sold my Wildkat i might have kept it.

[dubkitty]

i knew a guy with a Craviola back in the mid-70s. weird-looking as hell, but it sounded great. Giannini instruments are generally, erm, not of the highest quality/workmanship; i had a Portuguese-style flat-top mandolin that was terrific until the cedar soundboard cracked.

the thing is, standard pitch works better with my voice, which gets a bit weird in the low register. it's really something that the Alvarez has stood up to 15 years at standard pitch with no ill effects...i find myself looking at it every couple of years and wondering why it hasn't exploded yet.

[Dandolin]

yep - works like a charm, and my used WK came with SD Antiquities and a varitone, so the Biggs Fixx was the finishing touch (and a graphtech bridge). I wish the new Uptown Kats were the same construction....

[dubkitty]

those are very interesting-looking guitars. i need something with Firebird pickups, and all it would need in addition is a Bigsby. the Wildkat felt really good to my hands/body, but the only thing it ever sounded good on was jamming late-period Beatles covers. you could also do a lot worse than an old Wildkat for a modding platform, and they're cheap as chips, going for $300 on the regular.

[Dandolin]

Well, yeah, the Uptown Kat is going to sound even more like a solid body - not necessarily a bad thing. I love Firebird pickups, and these are wound closer to vintage spec. Plus, I always love a "bridge" pickup that is further away from the actual bridge....

[dubkitty]

i would use a Gretsch bar bridge on a Kat, which drops precisely onto standard ABR-1 studs. the deep string grooves running around the bar's diameter allow me to use a B3C on the Pro Jet and the string tension/Bigsby action is perfect. i don't know that i'd want to deal with filling the B70 holes on those flamed maple tops, though. yes, the intonation isn't perfect, but what's a few cents between friends? I'm not playing at doom volume.

[Dowi]

Hey dub, you collection is sick and all those Gretches make me drool a lot. Years ago i was in NY and put my hands on the most perfect duo-jet i aver played, and have been on the edge of buying it - then i realized that if i did that wouldn't have the mony to durvive for the rest of the holiday - and probably the next months too. That being said, i don't know much about the pickups mounted on those electromatic models but from your description the woods and overall quality seem to be cool for the price, definitely gonna look more into those ones, maybe i can grab one for cheap.

[dubkitty]

they really are. the current Electromatic Jets and archtops come with what Gretsch calls "Blacktop FilterTrons," which are a growlier, more P-90esque take on Filters. some folks like them a lot, and if you don't it's simple to replace them with "real" FilterTrons. and you can do pickup swaps on the older Pro Jets fairly easily as long as they fit in the routs...P-90s are a drop-in. the one drawback to the Electromatic archtops is that they--like all of the budget archtops since the first 5120s came out in the 2000s--have the bridge pickup too far north of the bridge which screws up the highs. the 5125-5129 series of Electromatic archtops are an exception, and they also come with the DeArmond 2000s which are about 85% of the genuine Dynas they were designed to emulate. they also came in nifty colors: all white, none more black, sky blue, firebird red, and silver sparkle.

[gila_crisis]

My main axes:
- my number one Nude Guitars 013 Baritone
- Fender MIJ Jazzmaster