Closing out my Reverb.com Madness for this month [and for a while, I hope], my greatest gear obsession: The 12 String Guitar. Acoustic, Electric, Semi-acoustic, Semi-solid, National/Resonator/Dobro, even banjo and cumbus — if it has six courses of two strings each, I love it deeply but probably unwisely. We’ll start with what all budding guitarists …
Continue reading “Reverb Madness, 12-String Week Day One: Guild JF-65”
Closing out Strat Week, and transitioning into 12-String Week, we present a pretty spiffy twelve-string Stratocaster. Fender has had a 12stg Strat [the Stratocaster XII in Fender terms; they really like the Roman numberals when dealing with any guitar or bass that doesn’t have six or four strings] in production for at least a fat …
Continue reading “Reverb Madness Strat Week, Day Seven: 12-string”
You wouldn’t believe what a … I don’t if it should be called a subculture or a cottage industry — whatever it is, there are a metric shit-ton of guys out there making appallingly detail-accurate replicas of Eddie Van Halen’s iconic “Frankenstrat,” from headstock cigarette burns to automotive reflectors on the back of the body. …
Of all the mutant Fender Stratocasters I’ve seen, this one takes the cake: it’s finished in the baffle weave, black tolex and controls of a ’60s Fender amplifier — it even has an amp’s red indicator light! I’ve found that guitars sealed in outer skins like leather sound vaguely congested, a subtle lack of overtones …
Continue reading “Reverb Madness Strat Week, Day Five: Tolex”
Nothing will replace the Mary Kaye as the number one Fender Stratocaster closest to my heart, but this Custom Shop transparent finish does appeal to my wood-grain-across-the-contoured-body mania. Of the panoply of DuPont Duco custom colors Fender finished its guitar bodies in since the early ’60s, I don’t recall ever seeing an orange model. Orange …
Continue reading “Reverb Madness Strat Week, Day Four: Transparent Orange”
I’ve talked a bit about the all-rosewood Telecaster; here’s its not-as-popular sibling, the all-rosewood Stratocaster. This axe would weigh a ton unless they chambered [hollowed out] the body. They might, and that would explain why the body is a three-layer plywood — see the stripe running the length of the body’s side; rosewood is too …
Continue reading “Reverb Madness Strat Week, Day Three: Rosewood”
