So, if you've been reading this blog, you can tell I have a few guitars. My big problem at this point in my life is using them, more specifically finding places to use them. My cover band is primarily acoustic. We've done electric gigs, and I do try sneak in my tele or strat from time to time, even at a practice, but 90% of the time it's my acoustic that gets the business for the cover band.
My original band, The Goodbye Theory has been a bit dormant. We did actually do a gig in 2018, and we have plans for doing our next Ep soon! Hopefully We will have some gigs as well! I love playing and working on new original material, but it's difficult getting gigs that work for us. But when we do get together I usually bring an extra guitar, just to experiment. But I still have a lot of guitars that I love that don't get that much use.
This past year, I got a Focusrite 2i2 interface, and loaded up the computer with Studio one. I've got a good selection of plugins, as well as a decent cab emulator pedal. Even my inexpensive Boss ME70 works great plugged into a DI. When I did my first "real" recordings in the mid 1990's, The technology available was nowhere near this. The cost to do my original recordings back then was also expensive, and needed tons of space to work. Now in the kitchen/dining area of our one room condo I have everything I need to do some recording on my own. So with all this technology at my fingertips, I've committed myself to put it to use.
So I've decided to record a series of songs featuring my individual guitars. My overall guitar parameter/mandate/rule for these recordings is just that one guitar gets used on that song. No layering a Tele with a Strat, I'll have a Tele song and a Strat song. If I want to do layers of the same guitar, that's ok. Certain guitars do certain things well, and I'd like to give each guitar in my collection a showcase as to what I really love about that particular instrument. That doesn't mean a Tele song will be a twanging country fest, or my strat will showcase a blusey element. It'll be how I use those instruments in musical context.
Now I will have Bass, and Drums on them, possibly even some keyboards. I don't know if these songs will have vocals or be instrumental, I haven't hashed that aspect out yet. I would like to be consistent with the overall output, possibly one a month. Ideally I could also use this as a way of collaborating with musicians that I haven't worked with in a while, or never worked with before.
The challenge will be to be productive consistently. I work a 40 hour a week day job, work part time writing for a magazine, play in an original band as well as a cover band. So you can see time management is going to be an issue. I'm already at a defecit for January, as I'm going on vacation for a week, as well as going to NAMM. I'm still going to try and have one idea done by January 31st.
I also have no problem in also expanding on these recordings, If one (or even parts of one) song ended up on a future Goodbye Theory EP, I'd be happy. If they don't, that's cool too. Being a big fan of 1970's & 1980's prog rock, and the fact that so many musicians migrated to other bands, it's not odd to hear a part or idea in one song, in a different song by a different band later on. The British prog bands like UK, Yes, Asia, GTR, Genesis, ELP, among others have similar parts sprinkled across them, due to that member cross pollination.
I have no problem with re-cycling either. There's alot of parts and material of songs and bits that have ended up in some of my previous bands materials. In some cases, i'd like to re visit this material, with fresh ears, as well as the drive to complete them as to how I originally envisioned them, but may have gotten changed through the band composition process. Some bits might be from recordings I did on my own years ago, but as I've aged, I'd like to see if I can take something old, and put a new polish on it.
I've also been dabbling with doing some video stuff, and some of this may end up on Youtube as well.
As we're entering the colder winter months, I'm hoping to spend this hibernation season being productive in a sense. And if all goes well, I'll be able to share some new media with you too. It's a pretty tall order, basically making a full album over the next 12 months, but I like a challenge.
So 2018 was pretty interesting overall musically on my end of things. It started off with a jump to Anaheim at the NAMM show. Tons of cool gear to check out, and of course I came home with a YUGE case of GAS. I have to say though cooler heads prevailed and while I did get some new gear in 2018, I kept myself under budget.
My resolutions for 2018 were to Play more, which I did!
My original band, The Goodbye Theory, wasn't as dormant, we actually did a gig this year, ST Patty's day at the Hard Rock Cafe in Boston! The gig went really well, and it was fun to play live. I'm hoping we have more good gigs like that for 2019!
On the cover band side of things, we started off slow, but really got alot of gigs in the Summer and Fall. The venue we played at said in October "we're booked for parties for November and December, but if we have openings we'll call you", usually that's not a good sign. However we ended up with 4 gigs at the same place after that! The gig money came in handy as well!
Guitar setups, and getting any mods needed for my instruments, were also on the menu for 2018, and while I did get alot of those sorted, I still have a long way to go overall. It's mostly tweaking and some refinements. I did get my mustang properly sorted though. It took a bit of work, with some amazing trouble shooting and work from Adam of AF Precision setups, but It's now a really fun and reliable guitar to play!
Recording. I did do a bit of it at home, it's been a learning process for sure, and I got alot of help from my friend Rob. I know I haven't shared anything with you, but I have some stuff coming for 2019!
Less gear obsession. I did acquire some new amps, my Blues Jr & Boss Katana. Both at good prices, and made deals that the previous owners were happy with. Pedals, I did win a Groff Imperial, as well as acquired EHX's ocean's eleven reverb. I downsized my pedalboard to a Pedaltrain classic JR, and went with a gig bag. Once I got that dialed in, I was more than happy.
I did get a new guitar, my PRS SE 277 Baritone. It's made some appearances at goodbye theory practices, and It may have a place in the band. But I know I'm going to use it alot on its own!
My final resolution was to be more interactive, through instagram, facebook and this blog. After all the facebook stuff that's come out, such as security, and negativity, I'm kind of making small steps to use it as needed, like when I have a gig, or an article I did for the magazine goes live. I do love instagram though. Twitter is ok too. I did drop the ball a bit on this blog in the fall. I'll blame that on the fact I got a promotion of sorts, and a bit more responsibility.
So,I don't think I really delivered on that. I kind of hoped that this blog would become a bit more of a dialog between my readers and myself. I admit that might be tough, as more people tend to gravitate towards youtube videos for music stuff. But even then, looking at the comments people leave on youtube, perhaps Its better this way. I'll admit when I was at NAMM last year I was standing next to Mary Spender, and I was about to say "hey!" then I realized that while I do follow her youtube and instagram feeds, its not a dialog. I have done some youtube videos, and this year perhaps I'll dive into that some more.
Overall it's been a great year, and I'm hoping and working on making 2019 a great year in itself!
So I've been using my Fender HRD since about 2009. I admit it's probably the longest relationship I've had with any amp. It's a decent size, hella loud, (and knocking on wood here) fairly reliable, with no issues to speak of.
That being said, it does have some downfalls:
1. It's super loud. I have to use a JHS lil black box to get it to function at a decent sound level. It's only 40 watts, but again, wattage does not equal headroom/volume.
2. While it's small, It's still kind of biggish. I know cab size makes a difference, especially with open back cabinets. But it does happen to take up some space in my trunk. The cab also In my opinion has a bit of flubbyness overall. For bluesy or Americana type stuff its great. I prefer a tighter low end response from a closed back cabinet. Also the speaker is offset in the cab. I can't tell you how many times I had to move the mic on my cab in a live setting as the Soundguy just threw up a mic in the center of the cabinet, no where near the center of the speaker.
I did start to map out the road to mod the amp a bit; change the tone stack, perhaps try to re-structure the gain to be more useful. I was kind of inspired by the Fender Mike Landau HRD. However I was steered away from this avenue, by a buddy of mine who said "there are a lot of great amps out there, you're gonna spend money on something, so find an amp that does what you want, buy it, and sell the HRD, it'll all even out." I kind of agreed with him, the costs of mods could out run me buying a new amp in the long run. I like tinkering and modding, but there's a time where you have to draw the line, and this was it for me. I like this amp, I don't love it. Life's too short for no love. So I started to look around to come up with some solutions
I wanted a low wattage tube amp that interacted with with pedals well. Combo would be cool, one of the many small format heads would also work, as I already have a decent 1x12 Enginater cabinet in my collection. I know it's probably not the best "name" brand amp cabinet, but it does sound good, and is a decent size. Fender, Avatar, Peavey & Mesa/Boogie all make 1x12's that are a bit smaller, and wouldn't break the bank to upgrade to one of them, if i really got brand-itis.
I looked into the Peavey Pirahana, mini head, the 6505 MH, The PRS tremonti MT15, the various Orange micro heads, and they all had plusses and minuses respectively, but nothing that was a super deal breaker overall. I decided to just play it cool, get a lil pile of cash that would cover the most expensive one, and then make my purchase.
Back in 2008, my bass player bought a Fender Blues Jr. She does play guitar, and she used it a bit, but not enough for her to really justify it, and in 2013 she sold it to a friend of mine. I was a bit bummed back then, as the price she sold it for was pretty great, and I would have loved that cute lil amp.
So last month my friend said she was now selling the Blues Jr, and was wondering if I knew of anyone that might want it. I asked around, but no buyers surfaced. Now this ticked off alot of the boxes I had for amp requirements. I had a couple of extra bucks, and I pulled the trigger on it. It sounds fantastic, I am thinking of going down some mods for it, but right now, I'm really happy. It does interact with my pedalboard nicely and seems to be able to hang with my drummer head room wise too!
Meanwhile, my cousin had fallen out of Love with his Boss Katana 50, and for $100 it followed me home. It's solid state, takes pedals well, and has plenty of effects options inside it. It can also hang with a loud drummer, so no worries there.
I still have my ZT lunchbox and matching cabinet, which makes for a great grab and go amp. I could easily do a gig in my MGB with this lil amp. As it has a speaker out it also pairs nicely with my 1x12 cabinet.
Smaller is better is my theme and i'm also still on for doing my mini micro head stereo rig, with the TC Mimiq, So finding an additional matching Enginater 1x12 cabinet would be cool. to do this rig.
Now this means My Fender HRD is kind of redundant, and will be for sale. I see the Version III's going for $500, and I think mine could go for $400, along with the Black box. It would be great for any player that needs to get loud, still be tube, and take pedals well.
What brought all this small package rig formats to my attention was the fact I have a Mini Coupe, with no back seat. The trunk is bigger than the standard Mini to compensate, but it's still tight. As my Mini is getting up there in mileage, I'm looking into new vehicles in the next year or two, I'm hoping I can find something I like that has a slightly bigger trunk, or at least a back seat. All I can say is, if I buy a Miata, I'm really screwed..
I don't often shop at GC. Generally, I usually don't find stuff that interests me there. If I'm looking for something specific I try to go to a smaller brick and mortar retailer, and if they don't have what I'm looking for, or offer up an alternative, I do either Amazon or Sweetwater. Where I live and work, in relation to a GC means a bit of a hassle, in mileage and time.
But, this summer my cousin was in the market for an amp. As it was a Sunday, we made a trip up to our local GC. I'm out of the "I gotta get it/have it" phase of my life, and I don't often go into gear lust, as I have a pretty strict budget for myself. Which means I don't tour the local music stores on the weekends like I used to.
So we walk in, and I tried to remember the last time I was in this particular store, it has to be at least a few years. I was blown away at how sparse it was. They did away with the huge counter area, and replaced it with iso booths for lessons. So the accessories/check out counter was now a smaller squared off island like station near the front showroom area. The walls were still packed with guitars, with a pretty decent variety. Pricing in retail these days is pretty standard, so any deals or specials come from coupons or price matching, so no big "oh my god, how expensive/or cheap this is" on any items.
What shocked me is the non music instrument related stuff they were selling. They had a T shirt bin, with semi-music related themes, socks & gifts, as well as Records. That was odd. It was like a newbury comics in a sense. I'm wondering if they'll sell Jimi Hendrix Funco pop stuff soon.
The middle of the floor space was a lot more thinned out; where there used to be double tiers of Combo amps, and rows of half stacks were now small islands with whatever could be placed into any spot, no rhyme or reason. The stock on the floor was in good shape, and reasonably priced, but not a lot of variety. I actually saw a few amps that interested myself. Overall the feel of the store was like how a typical Daddy's Junky music store was in their later years. It was kind of shocking and sad, especially knowing how Daddy's ended up.
My cousin ended up with a BOSS Katana 50, for $214, Along with some strings and picks, and all the taxes, which was a pretty great deal. I did a review of the Katana 100 awhile back, and if I had slightly less impulse control, I would have tried to score one of these smaller versions for myself at that price (HERE is a link to my review). A bedroom sized combo, with every effect, that could still hang headroom wise, for that price?!? Yeah..
Anyway, the sales people were pretty good, no haggling or attitude. I looked on my phone for any GC coupon codes and they did have one. When I asked about using it, the sales guy said "I'll make it work". No "um..well that doesn't apply to this sale" situation. Very refreshing.
When GC came to Massachusetts in the mid 90's, smaller retailers feared that they'd go out of business, not being able to compete with GC. Some did. Some stores actually did better, figuring out how to capitalize on music stuff that GC didn't do, like repairs or lessons. In later years, the recession did kill a lot of smaller retailers, and those smaller stores that relied on used gear trades took a hit from Craigslist, Ebay & Reverb, so the Music retail landscape has really thinned out.
A few days earlier, I was in a local mom & pop music store to grab some strings, and even my wife commented that the store seemed like it was on it's way out. I have to admit, even their string selection was pretty week. I did get some strings, but not my usual brand, and the price was a bit high, but I needed them, and I was already there. It's not a bad store, but their selection of products reads like they just buy cheaper stuff, thinking it will sell, and then it just sits there. Back in the day I used to spend at least one day of a weekend crusing music stores, and this one rarely made the list, because of its lack of cool stuff, even back then.
Back when I was re-doing my strat, I went to this same mom & pop store, to see if they had some pickups in stock. They didn't, but said they could order them. I asked how long would it take to get them, and I was told "couple of weeks". I get they probably wait to order stuff to save on shipping, and they probably only order stuff one day a week, but it was a bummer, and needless to say, while I like supporting a local business, it's tough to put down a deposit on something when you're now on their schedule, and not your own. Now I can't fault a store on having some weird pickups I wanted, but the string selection shouldn't be lacking.
Running any retail business is tough, and if GC goes away, or even downsizes (which that store I visited could easily do) will that open things up to smaller mom and pop stores?
Friends of mine have often said I should open up a guitar store. It is tempting, but carving out a niche in this limited retail landscape is scary. Throw in the fact I'd have to deal with musicians like myself, I think I'll stick to my day job.
As an Interesting P.S. to this story. My cousin reached out to me, and asked me if I wanted to buy the Katana from him. He liked it, but didn't LOVE it, and lets just say I scored a deal! I'll have a post on my amp situation soon!
It all started here, in the mid 1980s..My first guitar mag..
I'll be honest, I have recently been re-visiting the guitars of my youth. Maybe because I saw Def Leppard this summer for the first time live. Yeah, i'm re-defining Johnny come-lately. I started playing guitar in the mid 1980's (yes I'm old). The age of day glo guitars, of which I only skirted with my metallic coral/salmon Charvel. The time of spandex and hairspray, and shred guitar. The Guitar for the practicing musician magazines had all of the serious guys. All the guys that used to be in the ads for Shrapnel records decorated their pages on a regular basis. There were instructional articles in that now long gone magazine, one was by Joe Satriani. His articles were pretty simple in comparison, they covered basic concepts and ideas in an easy way to follow. It's not hard to realize why he was a good guitar teacher. If a guy that plays that well, can break down the things he does down easily, giving the student the confidence to tackle new things. I was immediately a fan. His main guitars were by Ibanez. But they didn't fall into the 1980's mentality of gimmics and graphics. In fact he used to do his own graphics with paint markers:
Ibanez first made a guitar called the 540R, The "R" meaning Radius. It was a thin body with an airfoil like taper to it; the lower bout was thicker, and the upper side thinned out. Along with their other guitars of the time, it has Ibanez's locking tremolo, and was available as a SSH pickup configuration as well as with Twin Humbuckers. Ibanez kind of names their guitars with numbers, like BMW's so it's easy to mix up model names. I thought I found one of these 540's in the want advertiser, as the seller stated it was like the Joe Satriani guitar, it turned out to be one of Ibanez's S540's. I had a guitar magazine with me, that had a pic of the guitar I wanted. After driving all the way out to Worcester, and then finding out it wasn't the guitar advertised. I realized it was no intentional fault of the seller, when I showed him the pic of Satriani with the guitar, he was stumped, as the guy at the music store who sold it to him was wrong, and perputated the confusion. Regardless, I didn't buy it, much to the seller's chagrin. I think he was more bummed that the music store told him it was a Joe Satriani Guitar.
Don't get me wrong, it was a nice guitar, it's a thinnish body. So thin that the 5 way switch needs a bezel to compensate for the lack of body thickness. The input Jack design is great too, no need for an input jack plate here.
When all I had was free time, I used to run around music stores. Mostly it was because I was looking for other musicians to possibly play with. But at times I came across a few interesting nuggets hanging on the walls and on the shelves of these Mom and Pop Stores. There was this lil music store in Belmont with wood paneling on all the walls, big amps and speakers crammed in there, making it difficult to walk around such a small square footaged area. They had a black SSH Ibanez 540R for sale used. The previous owner must have been a Satriani fan, as it had the Dimarzio quick lock guitar strap on it as well.
The guys that ran the store seemed pretty cool, and when I asked to try it out, I got a great "go for it" response. They asked what Amp I had and when I said a Fender M80, I expected to get pelted with insults. They simply responded with "well we got one in the back, but it's a full stack", I replied that this was not a problem. So there I am, wearing an acid washed denim Jacket, the Ibanez 540R strapped on me, with two 4x12 cabinets. I was in my teenage guitar heaven. It played great, and sound wise was really cool.
If I recall the asking price wasn't too bad, but I had just plunked down $400 on my Charvel model 375, as well as just paid for a brake job on my 1970 Dodge dart. I didn't think I could pick up enough shifts at Star Market to cover it, So I asked if they did trades, and they said yeah, and I said I'd be back tomorrow. I did briefly think I could do an even trade, but Something got in the way and the 540R became one that got lost in time for me.
Years later Joe Satriani's JS series guitars came out, based on the 540R. For some reason they didn't catch on a lot round these parts, either in players hand's or even on music store walls. Then in 1994, WHAM! They were everywhere. Of course at this point the Seattle music scene was all over everything. A shredder's guitar was way out of vogue. The prices were kind of high too, somewhere around 899ish. Considering I got my used PRS for 899 in 1995, I wasn't bumming for cool guitars in my budget.
One thing that did surprise me was around 2000ish, I started seeing them used for $599, but even a few years later, I was seeing new ones at that same price. I used to talk to a buddy of mine, and we used to have a wish list of the guitars we lusted for in our youth. In most cases we marveled at how the prices were far more reasonable, and the fact we didn't have to work our butts off bagging groceries, or running a register to come up with the scratch. His choice of a Floral Pattern Jem, brought me to re thinking the JS. I'm certainly not at a loss for any guitars, but If I was going to go down that Ibanez shredder road, I know who I'd be surfing with.
Nuances are important. It's the little things. The Devil's in the details. I can't tell you how many times I've picked up a guitar, and some little thing made me cringe. Some time's it's my playing; " I could have done that better" and such. Some times its a bit on my guitar that needs attention or is not quite right, like a switch tip or knob. It's kind of OCD, I know.
Since I got my Tele a few years ago, I've slowly been modding it, and during this process, I've been finding interesting things about guitars that I've never realized. The differences in the bridges, the pickups, as well as the aesthetics of it. I've considered it an exporation and analysis of my OCD issues. I played a lot of Tele's as research for mine, and while it's a nuance, the knobs on my stock Mexican Telecaster bothered me.
Yes, the knobs. My G&L asat had some cool knobs with a pretty good knurl pattern on them, plenty of grip, and felt solid. My buddy Adam has some cool dome style tele knobs on his Keith Richards Inspired Telecaster. I played a few custom tele style guitars and a few had a nice big knurl on them, almost cheese grater-esque. So I went down the rabbit hole trying to find some cool knobs for my tele, as the stock ones, are, well, Stock. I tried to look around and find some that would satisfy my perhaps OCD tastes. I looked at the usual places, like Amazon, & Warmoth, as well as trying to find a smaller builder that might make specialty parts.
I'm a big fan of instagram. It's probably my fave Social media platform. I used to go nuts with fliters and settings, but while I think that's cool that we can all become a digital Ansel Adams, the big thing is sharing your art. I found a company in Texas that had an instagram post on some custom guitar knobs that they did for a customer. They inserted Subway tokens into the tops of some tele knobs.
I knew I had a few old MBTA tokens floating around the house, and after I found those, I reached out to my family to see if they had any as well. and they did!
Most households in the greater Boston area probably have a junk drawer or old coin jar with a few of these in there. In most cases, back in the day, you'd buy a few tokens at the beginning of any trip on the subway, and due to the MBTA being inefficient, you might be able to get through a turnstile without paying. Sometimes it was too late for the T and you'd get a ride or walk.
Regardless, these lil pieces of metal are now out of date, as the T uses Charlie cards for payment. The MBTA gift store does sell the old tokens as souvineurs. Presumably as gifts to friends and family that no longer live in the area as a reminder of sorts. As a Kid the subway token was a ticket to a city adventure, to someplace cool and interesting out of the suburbs. Years later I would take the T to work every day for 5 years, and I'll never forget it, this time for the over crowded trains, the rusty outdated cars, reduced schedules, the derailments, power failures, delays, the vomit on the subway platform (sometimes it was mine, but I digress). These days, the T is kind of a sore spot for me. The cost of commuting into Boston via the MBTA is not outweighing the option of driving into the city. But I still have fond memories when you'd see an establishing shot of a TV show like Spencer for Hire, or Cheers, and the red line was scooting across the Longfellow bridge.
Anyway I ended up with 7 tokens, My Mom found two in a coin dish, and my Dad, who is a coin collector, had 2 as well. I sent them all off to Armadillo Guitars in Austin Texas, with instructions as to which side of the tokens to be revealed on the knobs. The price was a bit high for guitar knobs, but considering these were hand made by an independent craftsman, I can stomach the cost.
So who gets what? So my Tele gets the two with the T logo:
My Fender Mustang has the Subway icon side:
The 3 MTA (a precursor to the MBTA) tokens will go on my white Strat. Right now THAT particular guitar is getting some Floyd Rose repairs at Adam's place. But when it comes back, I'll put them on. This pretty much finishes off the mods to the Mustang, and to the Floyd Rose Strat. The Tele still has some work in its future, With an electronics upgrade, that might mean new pickups, along with a possible pickguard and control plate change, but that's a post for another day.
If you're a maker of anything, this is an example of how to use a simple instagram post to generate actual customers. Don't discount the power of social media.
If you're looking for some unique knobs and parts here's Armadillio's info:
http://www.armadilloguitar.com/main/
So as I said before, I'm kind of a frustrated bass player in a sense. I'll admit my Yamaha BBN4 totally covers any of my bass needs. I usually only use it for home demos and the like.
But this happened:
It's one of my Buddy's, who passed away last year. I've been helping his family out, by selling his equipment, and getting some well needed money to them.
I struck up a deal with Adam of AF Precision Setups to do thorough setups, cleaning, re-stringing, and generally sort out the instruments. It makes things tough for a prospective buyer to haggle on the price when an instrument plays great, and functions perfectly. I had a buyer claim a Kramer Focus 3000 that Adam did a thorough setup on played better than a brand new EVH Wolfgang and a new Charvel San Dimas. Adam has also become a Guitar archeologist of sorts, when we come across some odd instruments. A 1997 LP custom was a unique project, not only cleaning and a proper setup, sorting out the wiring, but also making sure it was a real Gibson (thankfully it was). Another thing is correcting some "fixes" done by previous repair people. It's a tall set of tasks overall, and he does great work, pretty much every guitar he set up made me want to buy them for myself. He's my go-to guy now, for my guitars.
https://www.instagram.com/afprecisionsetups/
Anyway back to the bass.
A bass player friend of mine & band mate in the early 2000's had 2 EBMM basses at one point, and from what I can remember, the necks were pretty beefy. One was a limited edition with a black sparkle paint job (and matching headstock) and an older, possibly 1980's one that had string mutes. He liked them but didn't love them, and eventually parted ways with both of them. They were cool, but I can get it when you don't bond with an instrument.
When I pulled this bass out of it's case, I immediately felt some cool mojo. The neck wasn't as beefy as the previous ones I remembered, and it felt really good overall, with a nice balance. It needed a general cleaning and a good setup, but It didn't feel tough to play. I'm a guitar player, so playing bass is fun, and I could do a set on pretty much any bass with a band, but it wouldn't be super easy. But on this bass it felt like it wouldn't be as tough. It felt fun and adventurous.
When I brought it to Adam, I played it for a bit, and he said he hadn't seen me as excitedly playing in a long time! When he picked it up, he kind of came to the same conclusion. We figured out what it's worth used, and he said he knew an EBMM fanatic, and would let him know about this bass's availability. I'm sure when it's all done it'll play fantastically, and sound great. Hopefully I can get some $ to my buddy's family, and get a bass in the hands of an appreciative player.
I have no need for a bass, and I do have a couple of my buddy's instruments in my possession as a reminder of him. There are also plenty of other Guitar/music related projects to dedicate my $ to (as well as paying bills) so there should be no GAS here, but for some reason there is. Ernie Ball did licence out their designs to a company called OLP, and They seem to be pretty reasonable, with a lot on Reverb & Craigslist coming in at about $150 or so. Modding one to get it up to spec wouldn't be super expensive either. I don't know if I'm going to pull the trigger on one of those, but I'm certainly looking at these basses in a whole new light.
Will I just start giving my Yamaha more attention, and investigate it's own low end, or will I part ways with it, to fund getting one of the OLP basses, and go down the road of modding it? Maybe, after playing this bass, I was a lot less frustrated.
Tune in next time!
