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the kozy king
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12/10/2007 7:27:09 AM
Let's talk cheap guitars -- who's got'em or had 'em -- and loved them?
I just posted a song that features my fanciest rhythm work done on an $79 pawn shop prize. The fine neck and low frets make chording a breeze.
It's an ELLISOUND fender clone made in Italy by a former accordian manufacturer Crucianelli. Back in the sixties those who couldn't afford a fender or gibson could buy a japanese or Italian guitar instead. The Italians were a lot better IMO.
Here's a link to see mine on an Italian website:
http://www.fetishguitars.com/html/crucianelli/varie/ellisound_terry.html
Here's another of mine (a Zerosette JG) on the same site, and also bought at the same pawn shop for $135:
http://www.fetishguitars.com/html/zerosette/jg_terry.html
A great website to check out: full of groovy retro guit's.
What have you got?
And don't forget to check out my latest "release", which of course, is the ulterior motive for posting this blog :-)))))))))))
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Tony Vani and Debbie Hoskin
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12/10/2007 7:41:46 AM
I love the guitar work in this catchy song. I added it to my Soul Retrieval 2. Thanks for sharing it. deb
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Two Silo Complex
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12/10/2007 11:51:11 AM
My first bass was a Japanese no name single coil. The sound was terrible.
Now I play a Peavey Foundation S and have played this same bass for 20 years. Still sounds as good as the day I bought it.
My first guitar was a Charvette which was a copy of the cheap Charvel.
I played this guitar up untill last year when I finally retired it for a brand new Ibanez.
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Stegor
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12/10/2007 12:19:20 PM
All my guitars are cheap.
The first guitar I bought was an Aspen. It's sort of a Les Paul Junior copy. Thinner than a Les Paul and flat. Made out of Plywood. It used to be black but I stepped on the neck and it snapped right where the head meets the neck so I glued and screwed it back together and gave it a custom paint job. I'll post a picture of it when I get a chance. I've found a little bit of info on this defunct company, mostly good reviews. This guitar was a very low-end model though. It has a bolt-on neck and the action was so bad when I got it that I took the neck off and cut the front part of a cassette case to fit between the neck and the body when I put it back together and it actually raised the neck just enough. It was $120.00 used. I paid too much but it was the best $120.00 I ever spent. It has a nice sound on clean settings.
Beats my other cheap guitar, an Epiphone G400, hands down. Looks pretty, sounds pretty bad.
I also have a Lotus Les Paul copy. I think it's pretty darn good for a cheap guitar. Early '80's, under $200.00
I also have a Cort G series. $250.00? The strings buzz, the pickup switch works sometimes, I have to jiggle the plug. But when it works I like it a lot. Time for some maintenance.
I was shopping in Sam's Club yesterday and played with the Fender "Starcaster" they sell. Now there's a cheap, crummy guitar. The frets feel like metal shards on the edges, the E string kept popping out of the shallow groove on the nut and the action was awful. It's so frustrating trying to learn how to play on such a crummy instrument. When people tell me they are going to get their kid started on guitar and they are starting them out on a cheapie I just cringe. Buy something decent or they're just going to get frustrated.
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Hop On Pop
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12/10/2007 12:29:49 PM
I had a 1960's Harmony-built Silvertone; it was amazing looking: with blue metal flake paint and these groovy-looking decorative pickups.
Unfortunately, the looks were the best thing about the damn thing. Well, the sound was pretty good, if I could get the cheap-ass tuners to hold the thing in tune for more than 10 seconds. And, if I could get my hands around the baseball bat-like neck. Ugh.
Bought it for $50 and sold it for $100 a few years later to a luthier who Frankensteined the thing and used the (microphonic) pickups to build a very cool longhorn baritone guitar.
Oh well. Guess it wasn't all bad.
Although the guitar I play (a 1988 Squire Strat) only ran me about $300, and still plays and sounds beautiful. So, cheap guitars can be a beautiful thing.
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GuitarGunn
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12/10/2007 12:47:20 PM
My cheap guitar that i love to play even at some gigs is my Fender Squire.....its bright orange and only one humbucker....hehe
but this thing rocks and the neck is fast as hell.....but i paid $50.00 at the local Guitar Center because no one wanted it......
I also have an '89 fender squire strat...this is what i used on the songs posted here...but of course the Line 6 guitarport made it sound better than it really does in live sound.......but i only paid $125.00 for that...but now i guess they run about $300.00 or so on ebay.....my second cheapest guitar is a Jay Turser strat copy...only paid $75.00 at a garage sale for that one...but it hangs on the wall...the frets are very sharp on the edges and have cut my hand on them while playing....i know i should have them filed down...but that geetar aint worth the time nor money to do that.
anyway...Merry Christmas!!!
one last thought......a cheap guitar can sound really good as long as the person playing it is good!!....lol
GG
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the kozy king
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12/10/2007 1:21:27 PM
"I love the guitar work in this catchy song. I added it to my Soul Retrieval 2. Thanks for sharing it. deb"
Thanks Deb!!!
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THE JACK PADDLE COVER BAND
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12/10/2007 1:26:46 PM
Me's only got the one guitar!! It's a custom Patrick Eggle that me's acquired in a trade with some of the natives. I swapped it for some cactus powder and two of me wives.
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the kozy king
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12/10/2007 1:27:13 PM
"My first bass was a Japanese no name single coil. The sound was terrible."
I just bought a Jap "Fender Jazz" clone at a yard sale.
Also, WEAKEST VOLUME EVER. Sold it on eBay.
It had the the look tho' and played quite well. I'm sure the new owner had no problems getting some decent pickups on it. I described the feeble output quite emphatically in the eBay de_scription.
"I play a Peavey Foundation S"
I use a Peavey bass as well. A $300 Korean job, fairly new. Does the job, not even considering anything else. I've sold the Steinberger fretless and the old Hofner
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the kozy king
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12/10/2007 1:32:27 PM
"hen people tell me they are going to get their kid started on guitar and they are starting them out on a cheapie I just cringe."
The important thing to do is to take along someone who knows guitar, becuase some of that cheap stuff is quite good compared to what we had in the sixties when they only "looked like" electric guitars.
I found a "Zen-On" at a flea market, the first guitar I ever owned, bought from a catalogue. I told the guy that I was the only person in the world who buy it (because I used to own one when I was a kid) and I'd give him $3. He wisely accepted. It's rotting in the basement -- it's even worse than I remembered.
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THE JACK PADDLE COVER BAND
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12/10/2007 1:37:40 PM
Fancy a game of 'Strip Jack Naked'!!?? It's a game!! It's just a card game!!! What? You mean you've never heard of it!!?? Sure you have!!!!!
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Product Recall
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12/10/2007 6:22:40 PM
ok so my first ever guitar was this terrible Encore thing which cost me £90, it was so bad it wasn't even sold in a music shop, but it came with a fly spec amp and it had two double humbuckers, i boughtit for my 19th birthday and then began my long education, since then i have only ever owned cheap crappy guitars, my favourite was a red (cos the colour is important) squire strat, which i beat the shit out of for many years, by the end the wires and insides were held together by blue tack as i put in a seymore duncan hot rails pick up and know nothing about electric's, but the piece of shit still played on and desevedly earned the name of faithfull or old faith to her friends. since i have had rip off les pauls, sg's, i even scrapped the barrel and got a yamaha (yeah i know now) still today i play with a squire jagmaster which is a whole lot of fun to throw around. In fact the only time i have ever played a proper instument was when i recorded our debut album (Due to be released on Romulus X Records in the new year 'Liquor in the front, poker round the back') where i had the pleasure of playing a vintage strat (year dont know) A couple of les pauls (both 70 something) and a tele (dont know the year) and to be honest i couldnt really tell the difference they all kind felt and sounded the same (or at least how they were supposed to), but then i play through a line 6 spider III so to be honest every thing sounds great through that baby.
spread the love
old school
Product Recall
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the kozy king
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12/10/2007 6:58:02 PM
"to be honest I couldnt really tell the difference"
I like your attitude. Let's make music, not worship gear.
However I will admit to having really good (ie expensive) stuff as well, but that is a different topic that we can get into later maybe.
Thanks for the input -- totally enjoyable!!!
TT
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Michael Steele
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12/10/2007 8:04:07 PM
i do all my acoustic tracks on a Sigma acoustic that i got for
$80.00 in a pawn shop.it plays like shit,and has almost no
projection,and when played with other acoustics it just
dissappears,but it has an incredibly sweet recorded sound!
i've tried Taylors,Martins(who made the Sigma line),Gibsons,
and a bunch of others,but none of them records like the Sigma.
see ya'all.
Myke
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the kozy king
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12/10/2007 10:47:38 PM
"a custom Patrick Eggle"
That's not a cheap guitar, is it?
Sorry, Jack, somehow I missed your post earlier (when I was on a lunch break)
TT
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the kozy king
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12/10/2007 10:52:04 PM
Recording and live are two different worlds alright.
I know a guy with the best studio in his town who won't record harmonica through anything but the worst plastic microphones he can find.
Thanks for checking into my blog, Myke
TT
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BJ
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1/12/2008 8:31:08 AM
My first electric was in the mid 60s.....an Ibanez archtop acoustic to which I added a Teisco pickup at the neck. It was traded for a Hofner - many of the British "beat" bands of the 60s (including the Beatles) used these coz they were much cheaper than Gibson, Fender, Gretsch etc. That got traded too but I had a chance to pick up another one from that era some years back. Terrible action but great sound!
Cheap mikes? I use a 62 Strat through a Vibroverb amp for recording - close miked with a $50 Behringer SM58 clone to get that "muddy" 60s sound.
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the kozy king
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1/12/2008 8:42:21 AM
BJ
Thanks for bringing this post back to life -- it's been dead for a while.
My wife & I still get a kick out of Ring My Bell.
TT
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Andy Broad
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1/12/2008 8:56:31 AM
My "cheap" guitar is a Kalamazoo 1936 or (was that 1939 I forget now) L6 Acoustic.
It was the first "proper" guitar I bought, for only 100 (about 20 years ago). It spend most time hanging on the wall these days as it's way to fragile to gig with. It's got a great tone for slide playing though and I record with every now and again.
I had a Hondo les paul copy which I learnt on, but I passed that on to someone who needed a guitar quite some time ago. A moment of random generosity that I still slightly regret as was my fisrt guitar, but it was never one of those 'great' cheap guitar, a bit of a cheese grater really.
Just yesterday I tried out a 80 semi acoustic archtop in the local music shop, which was amazing considering the price, can't remember the make though.
My 'expensive' guitars are
- Mathew Carter Acoustic - a hand built acoustic guitar that out strips any guitar I played. It was better than a Martin in the same shop for three times the price. (So on that comparison I say it's a cheep guitar)
- Gibson Les Paul Gold Top Delux - nuff said (use it for the blues)
- Epiphone - Riviera Ant 335 type semi acoustic from before the "Epihone by Gibson" era (although it is made by gibson it's not that old) - I use it mainly for jazz and spare guitar at blues gigs>
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Hugh Hamilton
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1/12/2008 9:28:02 AM
Bought my 3-yr old child a Hohner child-scale nylon string guitar - tuned it to an open tuning...and played the thing MYSELF for a year, wrote a number of songs on it in that tuning (Time to Remember, What to Do?, We Cannot Have Tomorrow, Ballet Class are examples - it was the best fifty bucks I ever spent!!).
May I also suggest the $30-or-so Hohner Ukulele? I hope to have something a little classier than that eventually (build quality is absolutely terrible), but that led to a few song ideas which got stuck when a tuning peg screw ripped out of the headstock (wanna feel my biceps?) and after dabbling in the uke it was a breeze to pick up a banjo for the first time...
Rock on, axe-dudes and -babes...
H
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Hugh Hamilton
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1/12/2008 9:34:27 AM
Went to listen to the song - can't tell which one...?
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the kozy king
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1/12/2008 10:04:14 AM
Hugh: "Went to listen to the song - can't tell which one...?"
Here's BJ's page
http://iacmusic.com/artist.aspx?id=65615
Song is actually called "RING A DING"
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srm
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1/12/2008 12:26:40 PM
My first bass was a horrendous Teisco Del Rey, that I paid 40$ for in 1978. The neck was so bowed that the strings were about an inch off the fretboard. Later, I had a brace of Silvertones that I held onto for years. The two basses were both the Danalectro-made semi-hollow body kind, with the mother-of-diving board trim around the edge. I made one into a fretless. I also had a Jaquar copy Silvertone guitar. All three were almost weightless. They played and sounded great. I really miss them. During a 'hiatus', I loaned them to a 'friend' who promptly pawned them (without telling me) to buy some heroin. What a waste.
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