Let's see your GUITAR!

[Phosphene Audio]

there’s a lot of things i usually don’t like there—the Floyd, the trendy fade vs. sunburst, the burl-esque (heh) top, the reliced-to-a-fault pickup covers, the odd contrasty plastic parts—but for some reason it works visually. the pink knobs make my teeth grind, but i can’t think of anything that would work better and be visible on that background other than stone or exotic woods.

It's funny, because it came with plain black knobs and I decided it needed to be uglier. I found the knobs on Reverb in a store I learned about in the Power To The Purples thread.

[Phosphene Audio]

I got my first Floyd guitar last year and was shocked with how okay the experience has been. It has its points, though boomer bends with non-bent strings isn’t one since it’s at full floating. Not sure about the trade-off of setting it to drop-only. It’s not necessarily just pulling up; the guitar has been eerily in tune through seasonal changes, and I wonder if that’s because strings and springs have kept equilibrium.

Yeah, I find it is surprisingly stable, tuning wise. I swear it comes out of the case more frequently in tune than my hardtail.

Of course, like you said, bends with non bent strings don't work, so I use other guitars if that is needed.

I did put a trem stabilizer (the one sold on the Floyd Rose website as the Trem-Endus) in it, and I can still pull up, but I am much less likely to make it warble unintentionally.

[dubkitty]

as some of you might have seen in other discussions, i ordered an Eastwood Wandré Soloist which arrived over the weekend. it's surprisingly good...from all the stories i hear of less-than-great Eastwoods i had lowered expectations but there's really nothing i can bitch about but the rough spots at the ends of the insides of the headstock routs and a painting mishap in the very corner of the screened f-hole. if i wanted to i could be a bitch and send it back, but i'm getting to like it a lot.

the pickups are the whole point of the enterprise. they're repros (to an extent) of the Davoli pickups used on Wandré guitars. the Soloist comes with a single coil neck pickup and what they call a "Single Twin" bridge pickup with two coils, each reading 3 strings. the Single Twin design isn't OG Davoli (as far as i can tell; alert me, o reader!) but it gets in the ballpark. the contrast between the rather subdued neck PU and the snappy bridge PU is striking; it's a bit less pronounced since i got the D'Addarios off and my preferred Regular Slinkies on. i'll probably micro adjust the pickups for another couple of days yet because that's what i always do with a new guitar.

it really doesn't sound like anything else i've played or heard. the different vibes of the 2 pickups make for one of the more dramatic center-switch-position sounds i've heard, definitely not hiding in the background at all. the neck PU is softer, more distant-sounding, and vaguely reminiscent of a good gold-foil; the bridge pickup is snappy, in your face, and trebly enough to hunt Telecasters. i've always been a bit dubious about the the Les Trem tremolo, but it works quite well. more of a Teisco/Kay feel than a Bigsby. the guitar came with a roller bridge (also a Goldo part) which is the only example of that category i''ve ever seen that doesn't rattle AT ALL. the tuners are closed-back 3-on-a-strip, and astoundingly steady. you have to work a bit to turn them. not a millimeter of play i can find. strangely for this sort of design, the tuner shafts don't run all the way across their place but rather are styled like a regular Kluson-oid tuner whose post stops short of the other side of the aperture. this actually is a good thing, though, because you have more options when winding strings.

it's another small guitar, which i like because i'm small. wish the neck had more than 20 frets, though.

overall i'm quite happy with it.

[dubkitty]

apparently the two-coils Single Twin is an adaptation of a Duesenberg pickup. i can't find any reference to Davoli 'buckers anywhere.

[dubkitty]

i’ve been spending time with the Wandré and getting used to it. backing down the bridge pickup a bit made the pickups more balanced; raising the neck pickup doesn’t appear to be an option as the flange is right up against the bottom of the pickguard, and i’m not in a mood to take stuff apart.

the bridge pickup sounds more like a steel guitar than anything i’ve ever played. the neck pickup is kind of glassy and hollow-sounding, but they work together well. The neck PU is kind of stealthy...it sounds quieter than it really is until you switch over to the bridge PU. the middle position is very lively, in contrast to most guitars that sound muted with both pickups on. the more i play with the Les Trem the better i like it, but i wouldn’t put one on my actual (Tokai) Les Paul because it doesn’t fit the vibe.

so now i have several guitars i need to work with and get familiar with their sounds. it’ll take a bit to get to know the Wandré, Hopf, and the newly adjusted Kondor which is snappier with the pickups re-adjusted. i also need more time on the White Falcon and the DeArmond, and at some time with the Jetstar as well after the finish repairs there are done. at least i won’t be bored.

[dubkitty]

i’m pleased to note that despite its apparent oddness, the Wandré fits snugly in a generic Les Paul case. i was a bit worried that it would need something like a Gretsch Jet or Epiphone Kat case which is more expensive since they're less common. now i need to figure out the case fit for the Hopf, which won’t fit a Duo Sonic-sized case because of that honkin’ huge upper horn…it's 20.5-21" while the body compartment in a Strat case is usually only about 19" so i’d have to chop a section out of the divider/storage pocket and that’s kind of silly. i’m sure it’ll fit in a Strat case but will check dimensions on the Jazzmaster-sized cases.

update: the Hopf fits comfortably in the generic flat case the Kondor's been in. i'm sure the Kondor will fit a generic flat Strat case, so that's that for now. ordered a case for the Wandré, need to wait a few days for checks to land before getting the Kondor a case. for me, getting its case is the point where a guitar becomes fully operational. kind of like getting issued a uniform for McDonald's or the Army.

i'm kind of thankful that the pickups don't have individually adjustable polepieces because that limits the abount of obsessive tweaking of string volumes that always results when the adjustability is there. my options with the bridge pickup were "get it balanced with the neck pickup" and "adjust the treble side so the high E is balanced with the B and G strings." that's all, folks, but i still spent a couple of days trying to get it just exactly perfect.

[dubkitty]

in the interest of fairness and objectivity there are a couple of annoying aspects, mainly the controls. the original Wandré Soloists used a control box with big appliance-esque buttons for pickup selection, and volume and tone knobs on the back edge of the top of the box; Eastwood (reasonably) decided that was a bit too arcane, but the knobs and standard-issue 3-position pickup switch are oddly placed and inconvenient to use. i may swap the positions of the pickup switch and the volume knob, which would give me a more standard layout. the pickup switch is really hard to reach, and i think it needs to be in the closest spot to my hands. the switch is also a bit clunky and not as smooth-acting as i'd like. i also want to rotate it so the lever throw is perpendicular to the long center line, another thing i always do. it would also be nice if the Les Trem handle could do a full 360° of rotation to keep it out of the way-yet-accessible, rather than the central mount for the arm assembly stopping it. but those are really minor things. i can't find anything anywhere that resembles the knobs on OG Wandré Soloists in the usual places, so i'm inclined to just stick with what''s there, which is functional (thank you, white dots!) and readable. i'm inclined to leave the black switch tip since black appears to be the most popular color for Wandré plastics. i love that the more i mess with it, the more it tells me "there's nothing more to be done." gotta do the control swap, though, which hopefully shouldn't be too bad since they probably left a little slack considering the distance between the pickups and the controls. if soldering comes up, i'm beating my retreat (h/t Richard Thompson).

it's also pretty tricky restringing a guitar with horizontal tuners when the last time you touched a slotted headstock was maybe 1972. it would have been worse if it had regular classical tuners with the post connected to both sides of the headstock slot, but i had to do stuff with my hands and arms that was decidedly anti-ergonomic.

i must love it, because i came into the office to do some stuff today and really miss playing it.

[Chankgeez]

the pickup switch is really hard to reach, and i think it needs to be in the closest spot to my hands.

Slightly reminiscent of placement on those old Magnatones, but a bit more cramped:

if soldering comes up, i'm beating my retreat (h/t Richard Thompson).

[dubkitty]

i have a feeling that guitar's Eastwood version loses due to the pickups. be interesting to compare clips with an original. that's a really interesting guitar.

[dubkitty]

seems like rather than asking “how easily can you use the selector switch?” a lot of builders were asking “how can i keep the end user from hitting the switch by mistake?” i guess people used volume knobs more back then, at least in country-adjacent music.

[dubkitty]

i’m finding that adapting where on the string length i pick makes the pickups sound closer to each other. i typically pick fairly close to the bridge when on the bridge pickup which makes the notes POP more, but if i play over the neck pickup the difference in sound is much less jarring. i don’t have to dig for treble on this guitar…it has all the high end i could ask for and more.

that said, i plan to look into some 3D-printed Wandré repro pickguards i found on a Dutch website and see if the one that looks closest would fit with a bit of modification. it has a riser for the bridge PU which would possibly let me install the shallower single-coil pickup in that spot. probably not practical, but when has that ever stopped me?

here's the Wandré resting comfortably in its new Gator case. it's actually a bit small for the case, but if it's not stable i'll put some padding in. nowadays when possible i try to get cases that go along with the guitar's color scheme or at least contrast from each other...i wound up with 3 or 4 identical cases from Rondo and it's a pain to have to label the ends so i can tell them apart. since the Hopf will get the Kondor's Rondo case i'll get a brown one for it. i'll have to come up with something when i get the Double Jet ready because i already have three different Jet cases and don't know if other colors exist without spending way too much on a pro-level case.

the other thing about a guitar getting its case for me is that then i have it protected if it leaves the house.

[le lambin]

Picked up one of these bastards:

IMG_8809.jpeg (220.87 KiB) Viewed 315 times

It’s awesome. No complaints other than the pickups are insanely hot and have a shit ton of low mids. I will be replacing them with something lower output but otherwise, it may be the ultimate couch/travel electric guitar.

[dubkitty]

is that the Standard?

[backwardsvoyager]

Picked up one of these bastards:

IMG_8809.jpeg

It’s awesome. No complaints other than the pickups are insanely hot and have a shit ton of low mids. I will be replacing them with something lower output but otherwise, it may be the ultimate couch/travel electric guitar.

Ooh, nice.
For what it's worth - the EQ 'might' be less to do with the pickups than the the design of the guitar itself. I swapped pickups on my Salen a few times because it was super bassy, but everything sounded worse than the stock pickups. If they're too high output I'm sure it could help in your case, just my 2c. (Once I worked what kind of gear/settings it jived with and stopped trying to make it sound like a Fender I was happy.)

[le lambin]

is that the Standard?

Nah it’s the cheapest one they make.

Ooh, nice.
For what it's worth - the EQ 'might' be less to do with the pickups than the the design of the guitar itself. I swapped pickups on my Salen a few times because it was super bassy, but everything sounded worse than the stock pickups. If they're too high output I'm sure it could help in your case, just my 2c. (Once I worked what kind of gear/settings it jived with and stopped trying to make it sound like a Fender I was happy.)

Wise words- trying to make something sound like it’s not is guaranteed disappointment, and I am trying to keep an open mind. We’ll see how it goes!

What stock pickups are in the Salen, are they Suhr? And what did you try to replace with? If you’re willing to share.