The HSS guitar is not a good idea
Guitars with this type of setup may be usable, but the cons outweigh the pros.
HSS is a pickup configuration. It means humbucker/single-coil/single-coil. The way this is said is actually backwards. It should be SSH because the front of the guitar is the neck side and the rear is the bridge side, and you're supposed to label things on a guitar front-to-back and not the other way around, but whatever. The guitar industry calls it HSS.
Two things happen to almost every guitar that combines humbucker and single-coil pickups. Whether the guitar is HSS, HSH, S/H or H/S, if the two types of pickups are mixed, this crap occurs:
Problem #1 is that when you switch to the single-coil, there's a huge volume drop. It's so noticeable that you think something is wrong. There's not.
Problem #2 is that the single-coil either has too much treble response, or the humbucker doesn't have enough treble response.
What's going on here and why does this stuff happen? I'll explain.
Humbuckers have greater output than single-coil pickups. Sometimes a lot. When you switch from the humbucker to the single-coil, that's why the volume drops off a cliff.
Traditionally, guitars with single-coil pickups use a volume pot with 250K resistance. The goal of the 250K is to decrease treble since the singles have so much treble response to begin with. Guitars with humbuckers traditionally use a volume pot with 500K resistance. The goal of that one is to increase treble response since humbuckers will sound too "muddy" otherwise.
Then there's HSS. Which volume pot should be used? If the one with 250K resistance is used, the humbucker "muds" right out. If the 500K is used, the single-coil pickups produce too much treble.
Guitar makers will typically use the 500K volume pot, and that's why on HSS guitars the single-coil pickups just don't sound right. Too much treble.
Is there a solution to this problem?
Yes and no.
As I said above, almost all electric HSS guitars have this problem. One doesn't. Sort of.
At the time I write this, there is the new Fender American Ultra Stratocaster HSS. Part of the selling point of this guitar is that Fender did solve the "volume drops off a cliff" and treble response issues with some cleverly engineered electronics...
...but there are other solutions. Or rather just one solution.
The pickup configuration where a humbucker and single-coil can mostly live happily together is when you combine humbucker + P90. But this is all dependent on whether you actually like the P90 pickup sound.
Before I get into that, I'll explain the P90 in simple terms. Compared to the Stratocaster single-coil pickup, the P90 is physically larger, has greater output, less treble response and more midrange response. It's also usually mated to a 300K volume pot, but can still sound decent with mated to a 500K.
P90 does not sound like a Strat single-coil but still has single-coil character. Think of it as the middle ground between a Strat single and a humbucker.
I personally think P90 pickups sound great, but many players who try them do so on the expectation it's going to have Stratocaster or Telecaster sound character. Nope. P90 is P90 and you'd have to hear one for yourself to understand that fully.
The point I'm making is that if you have a guitar with a humbucker and a P90 mated to a 500K volume pot instead of a humbucker and two singles, that to most players would be a much more agreeable sound to the ear overall.
The better idea however is to keep singles and humbuckers in separate guitars. It's not a sin to own two guitars to get two distinct sounds. If that's what you have to do, that's a-okay.
Cheap Strat copy replacement necks are sometimes better than genuine Fender
The reason for this is something most players don't think about, but it counts.
When replacing a neck on a Fender Stratocaster guitar, you have two options. Go with the genuine article, or get a clone copy.
Fender does sell necks where you can simply outright buy one. They range from $200 to over $500 and do have the Fender logo on them.
None come with tuners, but Fender issued necks do all come with pre-drilled holes for them. I'm not talking about the pegboard holes but rather the smaller holes that don't go all the way through the neck on the back of the headstock for tuner installation. Depending on what you intend to do with your new Strat neck, this will either be a blessing or a curse.
If you intend on using Fender standard tuners, it's a blessing because it's a drop-in solution. Get the neck, get new tuners, everything goes together real easy, done.
If you do not intend on using Fender brand tuners, those extra holes on the back of the headstock will be a curse. With just about any non-Fender tuners, not only will you have to drill new holes but open ones will be left behind. Not a good look...
...and this is where cheaper Strat copy necks are sometimes a better option for a replacement.
When you search for non-Fender Strat necks, these things are cheap, starting at around 50 bucks.
The only pre-drilled holes on one of these will usually be pegboard holes and nothing else. Yes, this means the butt of the neck won't have any pre-drilled holes either.
However, there is one thing - and it's a darned good thing - which makes cheap Strat copy necks way easier to deal with.
The 10mm solution
10mm pegboard holes, as in the holes the tuners are installed into, are what you want to make your life easier.
This sounds seemingly insignificant but wow, does it make it easier to get that new neck installed quicker.
When you have a neck with 10mm pegboard holes, you can install Wilkinson tuners, Gotoh tuners or pretty much any inline Strat equivalent tuner set.
The best part? Two words: ONE SCREW.
All you need to do to install these style of tuners is drill one small hole on the back of the headstock for each machine head. It is stupidly easy to install these things. Moreover, it's a clean installation since you don't have to cover up any other holes.
Worry about other stuff, not the tuners
Things like leveling frets, getting a proper neck pocket fit, possibly installing/replacing a nut (TUSQ is always a good choice) and so on... yes, you should put work into that stuff.
But as for tuners, no. Those should be easy. Slap on a set of Wilkinsons or Gotohs, one screw for each, a washer and nut on the other side for each, done and done.
How do you get 10mm pegboard holes?
That's the nice part. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, any cheap replacement Strat copy neck should come with 10mm pegboard holes on the headstock for the tuners.
And by "explicitly stated otherwise", if the neck listing states it has "vintage" size pegboard holes, those are 11/32" (8.73mm) size, which are smaller than the modern 13/32" (10.32mm). The 13/32" is slightly larger than 10mm. But the 25/64" is 9.92mm. For all intents and purposes, that's 10mm.
Said another way, if the neck states the holes are 25/64", that means 10mm will also fit. It also means tuners stated to fit 25/64" holes will also fit 10mm and vice versa.
Also, if the clone neck listing does not state the pegboard hole size, you can safely assume a 25/64" a.k.a. 10mm size.
Also also, given the fact most imported necks have everything manufactured by by metric measurements anyway, it's more often than not true that any neck bought from an Asian country will have 10mm pegboard holes drilled.
Cheaper and easier?
When looking to save a buck, yes. But of course, clone necks don't guarantee an exact fit, especially at the neck pocket.
But at least things are a lot easier at the headstock side when fitting new tuners. You get a lot more choice when there are 10mm holes there.
This is most retro Casio watch released in almost 34 years
There's retro, and then there's really retro. Where 1980s Casio digital watch designs are concerned, this is as retro as it gets.
The watch I'm talking about is the Casio F-84W. For retro Casio enthusiasts, yes you've seen this watch before. It's basically a near-exact copy of the F-87W from 1986. The only difference is that the 87W has a red border and the 84W a blue border. If you look at the Casio F-87W, you'll see what I mean.
Is this watch for sale in the USA? Nope. (Update: Yes it is.) I had to order it from Japan, hence why you see the JDM packaging with the hang tag at top. Is it expensive? No. Mine cost slightly over $14 with shipping included.
Why did I buy this watch?
I have a Casio F-28W. Mine is in fairly good shape. When the F-28W was discontinued, it simply vanished. On very rare occasion you will see one pop up on eBay. It's always used, never new-in-box, and either really beat up, or the seller wants some ridiculous price for it. This model is clock-only. It doesn't beep, doesn't have a night light and has no alarm. Just time and date. The only other feature is the ability to switch from 12-hour to 24-hour and nothing else.
The F-84W is functionally identical to the F-91W in every way. If you know the F-91W, you already know the F-84W.
When I saw the F-84W had almost the exact same case shape and thinness as the F-28W, I jumped on it because I know this case very well.
The F-91W is slightly bigger and more angular. The W59 is slightly smaller than the F-91W but thicker.
With the F-84W, this is one of the lightest, thinnest watches one can wear that has the same super legibility of the F-91W. The only thing lighter would be a paper watch (which by the way are in fact real clocks that actually do tell time).
When I say this is the most retro digital watch Casio has released in almost 34 years, I'm not kidding. The F-84 has perfect mid-1980s digital styling. It has the older thinner model text, the "Lithium" word to promote the fact it has a lithium battery, and the alarm graphic right below that to promote the fact it has an alarm function.
Also, this is a very reserved design. The F-91W and W59 are slightly "loud" in appearance. Not the F-84W. It's very simple and pleasant to view.
Now of course, the original intent of this design back in the '80s was to look futuristic. But now it serves as a simple, well made digital timepiece that has a less-loud design compared to the F-91W.
Is the F-84W a tribute watch? No. It's the exact same thing they did almost 34 years ago. The only thing that's changed is the red to blue border and that it's made in Thailand instead of Japan. Otherwise this is literally the same watch from decades ago - and it's cheap to buy.
If you thought the F-91W was as retro '80s as it got with Casio digitals (which it never was since it was intoduced as a 1991 model), you were wrong. The F-84W is the king of the hill. The only thing more retro is a late 1970s era Casiotron model!
Will this ever be sold in the US? I guess that depends on whether or not Casio wants to spend the money to put this in a box, because that's the way all Casio North American packaging works for their watches.
At the time I write this, the F-84W is an eBay-only, Japan-only thing.
Lastly, is the F-84W better than the F-91W? No. As said above, they're functionally identical. Both watches have the same quality to them. The reason to buy the F-84W is for the mid-80s styling and the fact it's slightly smaller, thinner and lighter.
Cheap "metal beginner" guitars are the open secret to great blues tone
You've most likely passed by these guitars a thousand times. You might want to give them a look after learning how great these things are.
Take the Ibanez GRX70QA. It comes in several colors. This guitar sells for cheap new, and it literally has everything blues guys want out of a guitar even though they don't realize it.
I'll explain.
Guys who play blues that use solid-body guitars will of course naturally gravitate towards Fender Stratocasters and Gibson Les Pauls. Those are the two models that the most famous electric guitar blues players use...
...but with both you're going to work three times as hard as you would compared to using the Ibanez above to get a genuinely good blues tone.
This is what happens with the Strat:
You're going to set the action low only to discover you buzz all over the place. The pickups won't be "hot" enough to get those sustaining notes you're looking for. You will always have a problem finding the correct treble amount for both chording and soloing. You most likely will accidentally hit the top volume knob because it's so close to the bridge side pickup.
This is what happens with the Les Paul:
Goes out of tune almost every time you bend a note. It doesn't matter how much you stretch your strings or lubricate that nut, because all the strings are on an angle after the nut to the tuning posts and there's nothing you can do about that. You wish you had two more pickup positions like the Strat has but you don't - especially a middle position for "smoother" chording and lead tones.
This is what happens on both guitars:
The guitar only sounds good when you play on certain parts of the neck but not all of the neck. You either have a good chording tone or good lead tone, but can never seem to dial in a sound that covers the whole neck - and you can't figure out why.
I know why.
Enter the cheap "metal beginner" guitar
Strats and Les Pauls use pickups with AlNiCo magnet pole pieces, but they can sometimes be finicky when trying to dial in an all-neck sound.
The cheap Ibanez uses pickups with ceramic magnets. It's not that they sound any better or worse than pickups with AlNiCo magnets. It's that they're a lot more forgiving and moreover predictable.
Ceramic magnet pickups are typically voiced "flat", and the response you'll get out of them is much more even across the entire neck across all the strings. Some players consider this "boring", but I can assure you that where blues tone is concerned, flat-voiced pickups are better because there are no surprises.
In addition, you're never wanting for a "hotter" sound. All the response you want will be there, so that's one less thing you have to worry about.
On top of that, with the HSH configuration, you get all the tones. Humbucker Les Paul tones and that sweet middle pickup Strat tone. It's all there.
The configuration of the guitar is simple. One volume, one tone, one pickup selector. That's all you need.
The guitar will stay in tune. All the strings go straight from the nut to the tuning posts.
Fingerboard radius is 12", just like a Les Paul - and it's something all Strat players want but can't get on standard models. Note bends don't fret out on a 12".
Absolutely no neck dive issues. Note that the top strap button is directly over the 12th fret. That is the proper position to balance the guitar on a strap when standing.
Volume knob is in easy reach and does not butt against the bridge pickup. You won't hit it by mistake during play as you would on a Strat.
Action can be set really, really low. Even lower than a Les Paul if you like. And you'll still be able to get the good note bends without fretting out.
Why don't more blues players buy these things?
Simply put, it's not a Strat or a Les Paul, that's why.
If an electric blues player were to design a solid-body guitar that had everything he wanted, it would have the following: Predictable pickups with good output, good tuning stability, simple controls, humbuckers and a single coil to cover all the sounds, a thin neck with a flat 12" radius for effortless choring and note bending, and a design that has no neck dive, and cheap to buy...
...which is the Ibanez GRX70QA.
The only fault of the guitar? It doesn't look like a blues machine. But it can handle the task easily.
You can't beat a Gretsch in gold
Gretsch definitely does gold better than anyone else.
One of these days I'm getting a Gretsch. And it might be the G5232T Electromatic Double Jet.
I've seen my fair share of gold guitars. While true I could go cheap (as in under-$200 cheap) and get an Oscar Schmidt OE20G, a gold Les Paul clone, that would work but the Gretsch just has more class to it.
I like the skinny headstock. I like the 24.6" scale, which is slightly shorter than a Les Paul 24.75" scale, making for a ridiculously easy-playing guitar. I like the thumb pad style fret inlays. I like the master volume is in the most useful place (towards the front) while at the same time the other volume and tone controls are behind the bridge and completely out of the way when strumming.
This guitar is just designed well.
Oh, and the gold is also color-matched on the headstock, and the back of the body and the back of the neck and headstock too. And the construction is neck-through. No bolt-on here.
Everything is done right all around. This is why I said one day I'll get a Gretsch.