7 things you should know before buying a vintage electric guitar
My standard advice to anyone thinking of buying a vintage solid-body electric guitar is this:
Don't do it.
But being there are going to be those of you who are going to do it anyway, this is a list of things you need to know before buying one.
1. There is no way to fix a weak neck
Over time, the neck of a solid-body electric starts losing stability and eventually will never be able to stay in tune.
You have most likely watched a lot of vintage guitar demo videos on YouTube, and from that you've probably noticed the vast majority of the videos have the guitar slightly out-of-tune.
That is not the player's fault. It's the guitar's fault. The neck is weak and unstable from age.
Of all the vintage electrics that exist, the neck which is least prone to losing stability is a Fender with a neck made from maple that was quartersawn. The straighter grain of a quartersawn board is stiffer and takes a lot longer to lose its stability. Eventually at some point it will become unstable, make no mistake about that, but if you want a neck where you can be mostly assured it won't be unstable, quartersawn maple is what you want.
2. "All original" is not as good as you think it is
Some vintage electrics use an early plastic called Bakelite, and if it's over 35 years old, it will start to disintegrate. This material was used anywhere there was plastic involved. Tuner buttons, switch tips, knobs, pick guards, etc.
Another thing most vintage buyers don't take into consideration is screw heads. Those little screws have a nasty habit of the heads popping off because of metal erosion due to age, where even the slightest turn of a screw will break that head off. On a $30,000 instrument, just one screw head breaking makes the guitar lose $500 of its value. I'm not joking.
In other words, if you see a guitar that's real vintage but is not 100% original, give it a look anyway. Not only is it cheaper, but it's also probably true the seller is being more honest compared to others.
3. A vintage electric that has been refretted properly is a much better player
Original frets on a '50s or '60s electric just plain suck because they're awful. Fret wire of that era is tall and skinny. And if it's original wire, weird reshaping happens due to age.
If the guitar has been refretted, I personally consider that a good thing because it won't be a buzzy nightmare. It will still buzz because it's vintage spec, but not nearly as much with proper new wire on the board.
However, there are good fret jobs and bad ones. If you find a refretted vintage you like, ask who did the refretting. Hopefully it will have been a luthier with the proper skills that did the job right.
4. Turn every single thing that can be turned before buying
I mentioned screw heads having a nasty habit of popping off from metal erosion. Those screws and everything else that turns can suffer from the same thing happening.
Every single thing that turns must be tested before purchasing. Every saddle height screw, every tuner, every tuner screw holding the tuners in place, the truss rod, the knobs, the claw spring adjustment screws if it has them, every pickup height adjustment screw... all of them.
Also, let the seller turn everything that can be turned, and watch him do it. If he refuses to do it, walk away, because it probably means one or more turning points of the guitar is either broken or about to break - and he knows it.
5. If you think a pickup is dead, you're right
Some sellers will try to sell vintage electrics with dead pickups in them, then say "that's the way all these guitars are like." That, of course, is a boldfaced lie.
If you think a pickup is dead, it's dead. Trust your ears and walk away, because it's not like you're going to replace vintage pickups and wreck the guitar's value.
6. If you think something feels too fragile, you're right
When guitars get old, stuff on them gets fragile, including the overall feel of the instrument. If feel the guitar is too fragile to use, trust your instinct on that one.
7. Consider newer alternatives
"Vintage mojo" simply isn't worth it. You're better off with a Squier Classic Vibe Telecaster in Butterscotch. Or maybe a Mexico-made Fender Classic Player '60s Stratocaster. Or even if it's not either of those guitars, buy whatever you want as long as it's new.
Everything you ever wanted to know about electric bass guitar strings
A set of strings I just bought that will be coming in the mail soon is the Dunlop DBN45105 bass string set, as in a 4-string set. I figured that since I use nothing but Dunlop DEN0942 strings on my Jazzmaster and am very happy with those, maybe the bass strings will be good too.
I play both guitar and bass, but for the longest time I knew nothing about how to pick the right bass string, so I figured I'd write up a quick guide on that.
Long scale vs. Short scale
If you want the most usable, predictable bass sound, use a 4-string long scale bass. And what that basically means is to use a bass that has a "Fender standard scale length," which is 34 inches.
Don't worry, the vast majority of electric bass guitars use a 34-inch scale. Any bass that is short scale will make that fact known usually right in the model name, and kid-sized 3/4-scale bass guitars can be spotted easily just by looking at them.
The reason you use a 4-string long scale is because you don't have to worry about whether bass strings will fit or not. When using a 4-string that has a Fender standard scale length of 34 inches, any standard 4-string pack of bass strings you buy will fit properly, so that's one less thing to worry about.
5-string and 6-string
You may have the idea of wanting a 5-string so you can get that low B string, or maybe a 6-string so you can get the low B and a high C.
Note on tunings: A 5-string standard tuning is B-E-A-D-G, and a 6-string tuning is B-E-A-D-G-C.
I do not recommend using a 5 or 6-string because that low B will sound like absolute crap. The best way I can describe it is that the low B will sound "farty", and will be useless when recording. If playing the instrument live, you can get away with that farty low B. But when recording? No way.
If you want to do the 5-string or 6-string thing, go ahead. But you'll hate that low B sound, because more often than not, that low B is being used on a 34-inch scale length and the string flops around too much due to lack of proper tension, hence the farty tone.
A 5-string bass that has a much better low B sound is the Schecter Stiletto Studio 5 because it has a 35-inch scale length. That extra inch really does make a difference where the low B is concerned, and the nice part is that it's not some crazy-long neck either, so it is a comfortable player. A 6-string version is also available.
Steel string wrap types
There are three. Roundwound, "half-round," and flatwound.
A roundwound string has a wrap where you can feel the grooves in the string as you move from fret to fret. It's the noisiest string, but the cheapest and the most common.
Half-round is a D'Addario thing. It's a semi-compressed string where the wrap has been ground down slightly, making it easier to move from fret to fret. Feels sort of like a flatwound, but sounds like a roundwound... somewhat. Also, for some strange reason, the string feels sticky when new from some kind of coating D'Addario puts on the Half-Round string. It eventually goes away once you play the strings enough, but it just feels weird.
Flatwound is a compressed string where you don't feel the string wrap grooves at all. And unless described as a low tension string (a relatively new thing at the time I write this), it will be the tightest bass string you ever use. But at the same time, it's the smoothest-feeling string.
Steel string material types
The two main types here are nickel wound and stainless steel.
Stainless feels rough to the touch because it's a harder steel compared to nickel, but you get the most bass tone "punch." For playing heavy metal music with a pick, a stainless string set will cut through the mix very nicely. For funk and slap, stainless is also really good for that.
With nickel, there isn't as much treble attack as stainless, but it's a lot better for finger-style play where the goal is to have a sound that's not so in-your-face. They're also a lot easier on the fingers.
Something a lot of bass players do is use a stainless set and purposely play them until the string is "dead," resulting in a sound that has the attack but not the biting treble on top of it, so to speak. The only way to get this sound is to use stainless and just play, play, play and play until the strings deaden out.
What's the easiest bass string to get along with?
Nickel steel roundwound.
These strings are cheap (around $15 to $20 for a set of 4), readily available, have a softer feel so they don't wreck your fingers as much, bends easier than stainless or flatwound, aren't as noisy as stainless (again, from nickel being softer), and you have more brand choices.
Yes, you will have to change out these strings more often than you would a stainless or flatwound set, but since the cost of them is cheap, you won't mind it too much.
Yamaha RBX170EW review
New bass in the barn.
Here is review of the Yamaha RBX170EW bass guitar I bought.
It absolutely amazes me these days what some companies can push out for so little money, and the Yamaha RBX170EW is one of those types of guitars.
The regular RBX170, as in the non-EW version, is a model that's been around for probably 10+ years now and is already a great instrument on its own. In fact, the entire reason I bought a second is because I owned a blue one before. And in fact, Yamaha still makes it.
So why the EW? Simple answer. It was on sale for the same price as a regular RBX170, I've been wanting a 34-inch scale bass guitar, and it was available right now.
There were only two problems with the RBX170EW when I got it. The master tone pot was a little loose, and the output jack was a little loose. That's it. It took all of about a minute to tighten both of those, and the rest of the instrument was spot-on and was even intonated correctly right out of the box. The only other setup I had to do with adjust the truss rod slightly and adjust string saddle height, and I was done.
As far as how the RBX170EW sounds, it the same as the RBX170. No difference to my ears, which in this case is a good thing because my old RBX170 sounded great.
What impresses me most
My most favorite cheap guitars are ones that are good, solid instruments that look like they cost a lot more than they sell for, and the RBX170EW is definitely one of those.
What makes the RBX170 non-EW look cheap more than anything else is the headstock as it's just plain, non-tinted maple. If that were color-matched to the body, or if the front of headstock were tinted, that would make a huge difference, looks-wise.
The entire reason why many guitars don't have color-matched headstocks is because the painting process is entirely separate from the body, and that adds in extra cost. I don't know how Yamaha was able to get matching on the EW and keep it cheap, but I'm glad they did because it just makes the bass look so much better. The instrument seriously does look like something you'd pay $500 for easily, but sells for under $200.
First time I have ever re-bought the same guitar
If one year you buy a Squier Strat made in China, and a few years later you buy another that was made in Indonesia, that's not re-buying the same guitar. It might look similar, but it was made in a totally different place by a totally different shop even though the brand hasn't changed.
This RBX170EW I bought is the same RBX170 guitar I had before, made from the same company who still uses the same shop, and the only difference is that it looks fancier. I was okay with that, because that's what I wanted. I wanted that RBX170 I remembered, and got it in a nicer-looking package.
The main reason most people buy an RBX170 is specifically for recording, whether for pro or home studio. I didn't realize how good my old RBX170 was until I didn't have it anymore, and when I saw the EW model go on sale, I knew it was time to get another.
Would I recommend the RBX170? For guitar players, it's a perfect bass. For bass players, it's a perfect backup bass.
I'm glad I got mine. As soon as I plugged it into my recording rig at home and played it, I was very glad I got another one. And this time it's sticking around.
How often should guitar strings be changed?
Asking when strings should be changed is a loaded question because it can be answered in many ways. However, there are a few things that will make it pretty obvious when you need to change your strings.
Note before continuing: I'm only concentrating on steel guitar strings here and not nylons. I don't use nylons so I couldn't advise on those.
Blackness
If you see blackness start happening on the unwound strings, as in the high E, B and G, that's almost always rust. And rust is bad to dig in to your finger pads.
When you see rust, change those strings out immediately.
Also, if you see black "strips" on a brand new set of strings, those are rusted and should not be used. Take them back to the shop, show them the rust if you need to, get another set and inspect them before you leave the store. Chances are if one set is rusted, a whole bunch of them are rusted.
Dents
This usually only happens on strings that are really old. It's when parts of the string start getting fret dents where you will see little "humps".
If the strings aren't rusted (or of it's a stainless steel or coated type), you technically don't have to change them, but you should because strings with dents result in nasty fret buzz.
Constantly going out-of-tune
Over time after being picked a lot, a steel string starts losing its stability and will be more difficult to keep in tune.
This is a bit of a weird one because your strings may still look good. But even if they look good, if they constantly go out-of-tune and are over a month old, it's time to change them.
Things that do NOT require your strings to be changed
Feeling sticky
Sticky-feeling strings is either the result of you not washing your hands before playing, or the guitar being in a room where dust is flying around and collects on the strings, or you're putting something on the strings that acts like dust and makes them sticky (like talcum powder/baby powder).
Nut "kink"
Some players think that the moment you hear a string make a kinking noise in the nut, the strings must be replaced.
Not true.
It is totally possible to install a brand new set of strings and hear the kinking sound at the nut. And that means the nut slots need to be cleaned out. You can clean nut slots with dental floss. If there's still kinking after that, lubricate the slots with lead shavings from a pencil.
Loss of sheen
New strings are shiny. Used strings aren't. However, your strings will go from looking shiny to being not-shiny quickly after your hands get on them, and that's just the way it is.
As long as there's no rust, no dents and the strings aren't old, no string change is required.
How soon will it snap?
In my experience, I encounter the most early string breakage from bad string sets. I don't snap strings often, but when it does happen, it's almost always from strings that are just junk.
Now when I say "junk", I'm not referring to any particular brand of string. Sometimes it just happens where you'll buy a pack of strings and they will just be bad right out of the box.
What I personally do to avoid that crapola is purposely buy strings online, because in a guitar store, you never truly know how long a pack of strings has been in the shop.
For example, you may see your brand of string that you like in the store, and the packaging looks very new. Well, those packs of strings for all you know might have been sitting in the back storeroom for over a year, and the store only opened that box last week. If you have ever had two packs of strings break really quick one right after the other (and yes that has happened to me), it's pretty much guaranteed you bought those strings from the store and they're really old - even though they looked new.
When I buy my preferred Dunlop DEN0942 strings, I get them from Amazon, and to date I've not received a bad set yet. However, for the same string I buy from my local guitar store, I've had several bad sets.
Why does Amazon deliver better sets of guitar strings? Because they constantly rotate the stock when it needs rotating. That, and if they keep getting complaints that some company working with Amazon is selling bad strings through them, Amazon cuts them right out and gets someone else that delivers proper quality merchandise.
Do I spend more on strings when buying through Amazon? No. The time and fuel cost it takes to get to my local GC, along with the fact that at times I will get a bad set of strings from them (or no strings since they have stocking issues with my particular brand choice), I actually save money when I buy from Amazon.
Why I still use RAR instead of 7z
Nerdy computer crap time.
Long ago back in the days before the modern internet when most people used 486 PCs (or maybe a PC with a Pentium if you were fancy), I used BBSes. And pretty much every BBS had a files area where you could upload or download stuff. The vast majority of that stuff was in archive files.
First it started with ZIP files, then LHA and then finally ARJ before the BBS fell out of favor with the masses once internet came around.
Even though ARJ was vastly superior compared to more or less everything else at the time, ZIP became popular again because of Windows. Specifically, it was Windows XP because that OS and every Windows since has native support to extract ZIP archive files where you can just double-click on one to open it up.
Time goes on, and two other formats start getting popular, RAR and 7-Zip or 7z for short.
RAR was never free unless you used the mobile version. 7-Zip has always been free...
...but I'm still using RAR, and I'll explain why.
7z, while the superior format that crunches data better and does it faster, suffers from a few things that make it inferior compared to WinRAR.
First, you can't preview images in a 7z file. If you have a 7z archive full of JPG images, open it up and double-click, you'll get an error in Windows that says the image can't be viewed. WinRAR on the other hand has no problem previewing images.
This has been a very longstanding complaint of 7z users, and to date, nothing has been done about it, and it's probably true nothing will be done about it.
Second is the ridiculous .001, .002, .003 file extension crapola for 7z archives split into volumes.
The way RAR does it is that when you split an archive into volumes, the file names are file.part01.rar, file.part02.rar, and so on. And the cool thing is that with all the files in the same directory, you can click on any one of them and the whole archive will be opened up.
The way 7z does it is file.7z.001, file.7z.002, and so on. And, of course, .001 is not an automatically associated extension when you install 7-Zip, so double-clicking on the file doesn't do anything. You have to know to go into 7-Zip options and set that .001 association.
All 7z archive files should end with .7z, period. But they don't. When you split, you get the numbered crap.
Third - and this is a biggie - 7z has no internal way of making a recovery record. This one takes a bit to explain.
The absolute best feature of RAR is that you can add in a recovery record that allows the archive to be repaired if the overall file(s) get corrupted. When you select the option to use a recovery record, it will increase the size of the archive by a percentage you specify (usually 1% or 2%). If at some point the archive gets damaged, it can read the recovery portion and fix it so the archive works again.
7z has no recovery record option whatsoever. The only way to do it is by creating a PAR file and then appending it to the 7z. Screw that. I mean, yeah, it works, but why bother when it's built right in to RAR?
Why bother archiving anything?
Whether you use RAR, 7-Zip or something else, there are a few good reasons to archive things.
- It's the easiest way to put a bunch of files into a single file. Collections of photos, videos, documents, a combo of all three, whatever.
- It's the easiest way to archive projects. For example, recording sessions usually produce a good amount of files. After making a bunch of them, your hard drive gets clogged up with these things. Putting each project in an archive and then dumping elsewhere (DVD, memory card, external drive, etc.) makes managing that stuff a whole lot easier.
- It's the easiest way to securely store stuff. If you have sensitive documents you don't want other people seeing, stuffing them into an archive with a strong password in front of it and file encryption on top of that (which both RAR and 7z have) would be a very tough thing for someone to bust into. Not impossible, but really difficult. If there is anything you're putting in webmail or the cloud right now you consider sensitive, archive it first, choose to use a password and encrypt the file names, then upload it to the cloud.
There are legitimate reasons to use archive files. RAR makes it easier for me to archive stuff.
Said honestly, if 7-Zip had the ability to preview images properly, I'd probably switch to it even though it doesn't have a recovery record option. When I archive my digital camera photos, I like easy preview access from within the archive, but 7-Zip just doesn't do that. I could deal with the no-recovery-option and the stupid .001 files, but no image previews? Total deal-breaker.