The Epiphone "E" truss rod cover installation
The "E" truss rod cover that I ordered was received today. Total cost + shipping was $8.50. And yeah, I know that's a lot to spend for a little piece of plastic (even though it is cheaper than a Gibson cover), but I'm very happy with the result.
Installation was easy. First, I loosened the 5 string (as in the A string in standard tuning) so I could move it over as it was the only string blocking a screw, then it was three screws out, old cover out, new cover in, three screws in, tighten appropriately, put the 5 string back where it was, tune to pitch, done. It doesn't get much easier than that.
Was the cover an exact fit? Yes. My Epiphone Les Paul Special I P90 was made in China, as was the truss rod cover, so the screw holes lined up perfectly.
The only thing I didn't do was use the new screws. I purposely used the ones that came with the guitar originally because the threading on the new screws didn't look the same as the old, so I played a safe card there and just went with the old ones (which look fine anyway since the guitar isn't old).
The color of the E is actually not white but rather a very light silver. This is actually better than if it were stark white because it has a more regal appearance to it.
Does a cheap piece of plastic with a logo really make the guitar look that much better?
In fact, yeah it does. Instead of the guitar looking like an $89 axe, it now looks like a $350 axe. I'm not kidding.
You know how much people like that Fender logo on the headstock for Fender guitars? Well, the same can be said for the Epiphone logo. While not as much of a storied brand as Fender is, that E is still a very distinctive thing.
Why E and not a Gibson cover?
Well, first of all, a Gibson cover won't fit on an Epiphone at all. But even if it did, my Les Paul is not a Gibson, and I don't want it to be a fake Gibson, because you get no respect playing a guitar pretending to be a brand it isn't.
The guitar, even though cheap, is a real-deal Epiphone, from the logo on the headstock to the stamped bolt plate where the neck meets the body.
Epiphone truss rod covers are almost exclusively used on Epiphone archtop guitars, and other than just one very cheap model, you never see them on Epi Les Paul guitars.
Do I feel the truss rod cover is worth what I paid for it? No (it's not worth more than 50 cents at best), but with it I now have some exclusivity and bragging rights with the guitar. That little cover distinctively says "I'm an Epiphone" even from a distance, which I don't consider to be a bad thing. The logo works very well with the shape of an Epi Les Paul headstock (which is distinctively different than a Gibson as it's much more "curvy").
When I look at the guitar now, it has a bit more class to it. And now that I think about it, yeah, I guess that was worth $8.50. :-)
Expensive guitars that I would actually spend the money on
This is a list of guitars that had I the money, yes I would spend the money to get them, and I have very specific reasons why.
Prices listed at those at the time I write this in June 2013.
G&L SC-2This is a dirt simple guitar, very similar to my Epiphone Les Paul Special I P90. Two pickups (both single-coil), one master volume, one master tone, a 3-way selector and nothing else. For a two-pickup guitar, that's as simple as it gets.
The SC-2 is not a vintage design but rather something that came about originally in 1982. It's just a smaller, compact shape with meticulous attention to detail. Weighted right (it's alder), bolt-on "C" shape neck, and hot G&L MFD (Magnetic Field Design) pickups. Players who swing their picking arm hard would really love this guitar design because the knobs and switch are set away from the pickups and put further back on the body (again, similar to the Epi P90 Les Paul).
The pickups basically have a hot sound that's a cross between a Strat single-coil and a P90. It's a sound that would very much agree with my tone style.
I would not treat this guitar gingerly and would readily play the crap out of it, as it's the type of axe that just begs you to rake those strings and bang it around proper.
Epiphone Les Paul Ultra IIIThis is absolutely loaded with tech goodies. In addition to the Probucker 2 and 3 pickups, there's a third "Nanomag" for acoustic tones. It's a chambered guitar so it doesn't weigh a ton either. In this guitar is also a built-in tuner plus stereo output along with a USB port on it as well.
The Ultra III is one of the most techy electric guitars that exists, but has tech in it that's actually usable and is in fact priced correctly for what's in it - and one of the very few where you get absolutely what you pay for. Sometimes on rare occasions, Epiphone releases an upper-end guitar that's priced right, and the Ultra III is one of them.
Gibson SG Tribute '50s Min-ETune
Gibson's original Robot Tuners just plain sucked and were way too complicated to operate. But the Min-ETune system on the other hand actually works correctly. Where the original robot tuners failed, these succeed.
I would have a genuinely good use for this as I could quickly switch from standard to DADGAD tuning to open G tuning and so on in just a few seconds rather than a few minutes when tuning by hand.
I specifically prefer the Tribute '50s over the Tribute '60s because - you guessed it - P90 pickups. Most other players would want the '60s because of the humbuckers, but I just really dig the sound of P90 pickups and single-coils in general. And besides which, for humbuckers I'd have the Ultra III as mentioned above.
Oddly enough, the Min-ETune I want in the '50s version is actually the lowest priced guitar Gibson makes that has it. All others go up in price from there.
Do I need any of the above guitars?
No, I don't need them. All are "nice to have" guitars.
The SC-2 in particular is the one I need the least. I just like it because it looks cool and has great-sounding pickups.
The Epi and the Gibson on the other hand have stuff I currently don't have - all of which are techy things. I wouldn't buy them for tone at all (other than the Ultra III's Nanomag for acoustic stuff) but rather just for the goodies.
Do I have any idea how any of the above guitars play? Nope. I've never tried any of them. But if I had the money, yeah I would go try them out and potentially buy all three, because with those three I cover the spectrum of just about every possible tone I want. Well, except for Strat and Tele tones, of course.
Some players dream about owning a Fender Custom Shop Strat or Tele, or maybe some super-expensive Gibson reissue or something along those lines. I don't. With me, if I had the cash to blow on expensive guitars, I'd be sure to buy axes that give me something I don't already have now. The SC-2 would basically be my "workhorse" guitar as it's a nice smaller-bodied comfortable player, the Ultra-III has the tech goodies for easy connection to my laptop along with the Nanomag for acoustic stuff, and the SG allows me to quick-change tunings while at the same time having a cool P90 guitar that should (keyword there) sound good.
Like I said, I don't need any of the above guitars. But they'd be nice to have.
Epiphone's "E" Logo on truss rod covers and pick guards
The Epiphone "E" logo as I've mentioned before is one of my favorite logos as far as guitar brands go. I just like that E, what can I say.
There are two E logos that Epiphone has. Standard and italic.
Much the same way Fender uses the old-style "spaghetti" logo and the modern "transition" logo, Epiphone does the same by using both E logos depending on what guitar they're featured on.
Where is the E logo used on Epiphone guitars?
The only Les Paul that Epiphone makes that actually has an E logo is the Les Paul Junior, of all things...
Yes, as in the dirt cheap single-humbucker LP Junior that usually comes with a "game bundle" (as in video game bundle).
Other than that very specific Epi LP, none of the other Epi LPs have the E logo. And as for the SG, no Epi SG exists that comes with an E logo anywhere on it either.
Usually, the only time you ever see the E is on archtop Epiphone guitars, starting with the Epiphone Wildkat on the truss rod cover; it uses the italic logo version.
And no, a truss rod cover made for a semi-hollow/hollow-body Epiphone guitar will not fit on the Les Paul or SG, because the shape and the screw hole positioning are different.
You start seeing the E logo on both the truss rod cover and the pick guard on the Epiphone Dot "Royale" Limited Edition model.
This is a weird one because yes, the standard E is on the pick guard and the italic E is on the truss rod cover - on the same guitar. Epiphone just does weird stuff like that. While I'm sure there's a reason why there's a standard E on the guard and italic E on the truss rod cover, I couldn't tell you what that reason is because I don't know.
With the more expensive Epiphone models you start seeing the E a whole lot more, but on the lower end it starts with the Wildkat and special edition Dot models.
The Gibson 2-screw and Epiphone 3-screw "bell" truss rod cover of a Les Paul/SG
On Gibson Les Paul and SG guitars, the truss rod cover is in the shape of a bell and is mounted using two screws.
On the Epiphone version, the truss rod cover uses 3 screw holes instead of two, and the bottom is flat instead of having the "bell ringer" hole placement.
What this means is you can't buy a Gibson cover and put it on an Epiphone because it just won't fit right no matter what. And yeah, I'm certain this is done by design to make it more difficult for people to "reengineer" an Epiphone into a Gibson, so to speak.
Using the "big E" on the truss rod cover of an Epiphone Les Paul
I have no interest whatsoever in "reengineering" my Epiphone into a fake Gibson, but I do have interest in getting that big E on the headstock like the archtop Epi guitars have. It is an Epiphone, after all.
Fortunately, I found a cover for an Epi LP with the big E and bought it.
It should arrive in a week. Total cost was $8.50.
Being my Epi Les Paul Special I P90, the cover should be a near-perfect if not a totally perfect drop-in (or rather screw-in) fit.
Was it easy to find this truss rod cover?
No, it wasn't. I had to dig around to find one, and that's why I was willing to pay $8.50 just to get the thing.
And by the way, if you were to buy a real-deal Gibson replacement cover for a Les Paul, guess what? That's 13 bucks at the time I write this. Yep, 13 bucks for a piece of plastic, and that's not including tax or shipping. So when you look at it that way, $8.50 (which was my total final cost) really isn't that bad. I mean, yeah, it is bad to pay that much for a dopey piece of plastic, but still... I'm still better off compared to buying the Gibson version.
Why is an E-logo truss rod cover so difficult to find for an an Epi Les Paul or SG?
Probably because with the exception of that one Junior guitar, nearly all Epi LPs have the truss rod cover actually state the model name of the guitar, such as "Standard" or "Studio" or "Studio PRO" and so on.
Why do I even want the big E on my Epi's headstock?
Well, first of all, my truss rod cover on my Epi is just black with no logo, so pretty much anything is better than nothing, looks-wise.
And of course I dig the fact that I'll probably be one of the very few Epi Les Paul owners that has an actual Epiphone E logo on the truss rod cover. A little bit a bragging rights there. Not much, but hey, it's cool.
Quick Review: Fender Modern Player Jaguar
I went to Guitar Center Tampa to pick up some strings and picks, and while there scanned the guitars for the refreshed 2013 Squier Affinity Stratocaster series (new headstock logos and new colors). They didn't have any, but there was a "2 Color Chocolate Sunburst" Fender Modern Player Jaguar, which comes with Fender's version of the P90, the MP90.
Being that I'm into single-coil pickups, I tried it out.
The strings weren't stretched at all, so I spent a few minutes doing that.
After I was done stretching, I plugged into a little Bugera amp and started noodling around on the MP Jag.
Surprisingly, I really liked the way this guitar played. Yeah, it has a gloss-polyurethane neck coating with tint, but play-wise it was really easy to get used to this thing. It definitely "felt like a Fender".
Also, the body on this particular Jag is insanely comfortable. The shape just molds right to your body because there's not a single sharp edge to be found anywhere. The Jag body is even more smoothed out than a Strat body is (which is already smoothed out to begin with). Very easy to get used to sitting or standing. And the weight of it is just right too.
The "Chocolate" sunburst looks far better in person than on the internet. Every internet photo I've seen of the MP Jag in this color makes the guitar look like it's unfinished (as in "not completed"), but when you see it in person, oh yes, it's totally finished and a very nice looker; it could easily pass as an expensive-looking Fender.
Speaking of price, that's my first of three knocks against this guitar.
The only reason this guitar has a $399 price tag is because there's a Fender logo on the headstock. This is a China-made Fender, remember. If the only thing changed were the headstock logo from Fender to Squier, this guitar would be priced at $275, which in all honesty is what it's really worth. Even if it were priced a little higher at $325, that would also be acceptable. But $399? Nope, too much.
My second knock against this guitar is the "Gibson-like" setup. It's basically set up just like a Les Paul except it doesn't have 4 control knobs. Three-way toggle on the top horn, master volume and treble below the pickups, bridge + tailpiece just like a Gibson (which Fender calls an "Adjusto-Matic"). This guitar would be so much better off with the 3-way on the bottom horn instead of the top, because on top it just feels weird being there. Also, the control knobs just feel all wrong (black "top hat" knobs or textured metal knobs should have been used).
My third knock are the MP90 pickups. What a P90 is supposed to do is "growl" while at the same time have some "honk" to them. I know that sounds weird, but if you've played enough guitars with P90s in them, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
The MP90s do growl, but they don't honk at all. Now it could very well be that the little Bugera is what was causing the MP90s not to honk like a P90 is supposed to, but I doubt that. The honk of a P90 (usually heard best when using the middle bridge+neck pickup selection) can usually be easily heard no matter what amp you're using. But on the MP Jag all you've got is growl, which would be fine for some, but not for me because the tone just doesn't have a character I go for.
Final verdict: If the knobs were replaced with the kind with proper texture to them and the pickups replaced with P90s that have some honk as well as growl to them, this guitar would be a winner. The price is a bit steep for an Asian build, but it's a solid guitar all around that only needs very little to sound as great as it plays.
xanga's impending doom, yet another web 1.0 internetting casualty
Xanga.com originally launched in 1998. Yep, it's that old. And in July 2013 it will probably shut down. Either that or it will "pull a Friendster" where it will be rebranded/retooled into something else and totally lose the flavor or what it originally was...
...and so goes yet another early-internet site.
Xanga is a blogging site, and people do like to write stuff on the internet whether it's short-form like Twitter, semi-short form like Facebook or long-form like Blogger or WordPress. Whatever it is, people do like to express their thoughts online in their 'personal space' in one way or another.
The problem with personal space web sites is that they all ultimately fail due to herd mentality. GeoCities was at one time 'a thing', as in trendy, as in The Thing To Do On The Internet, and then the herd got bored with it and moved on. LiveJournal was 'a thing', and the herd moved on from that. Friendster was also 'a thing', MySpace was 'a thing', etc.
Xanga was also, of course, 'a thing' at one point in time with a monster amount of active users. But that time has since long passed and the herd has moved on.
Right now 'the things' are Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram. And every single one of them will at some point fade into obscurity and the herd will move on just like it always does.
The really crappy part about sites that die off (or change enough to where anything left of the original is gone) is that any content you posted there usually goes away forever. Yeah, the site will probably send out a broadcast email that says, "Hey, on [date here] we're shutting down go grab your stuff off our site before that happens!", but the thing is that for really old web accounts, the original user probably signed up with an email address he doesn't even use anymore and just forgot to update to the current email address used, so the notification is never received. Then the end date passes, the content gets whacked, and... yeah. Totally screwed.
What a lot of site owners have found out - myself included - is to always host everything yourself whenever possible. I basically host everything but video because video files are too huge and consume too much bandwidth, but as for text, images and audio, yep I have all that here. Sure, I share it out to other sites (like the way I share out Radio Free Menga to iTunes), but the point is that there's always a copy here just in case the places where I share stuff out to goes down.
I used to tell people to get a free blog, but I don't do that anymore. What I tell people to do now is to register a dot-com/net/org/whatever instead, pay the yearly registration fee and pay for web hosting. Hosting for most companies get either be paid by month or by year. Better to pay by year if you've got the cash because it's cheaper that way, and starts at between $75 to $100 for a full year of hosting depending on what you use for a web host.
Yeah, hosting your own domain is a totally computery, totally nerdy thing; it's not easy and not free either. But at least you know what you put there stays there and doesn't vanish like a fart in the wind because the site you were using just up and dies due to herd mentality.
This is, incidentally, why sites like DreamHost (a web host provider, and you can also register your dot-com/net/org/whatever there too for true one-stop-shop domain'ing) have been in business since 1996. The only way I know of for a web host provider to up and die is due to massive fiscal bungling since every account is a paid account. But that's so rare it's not even funny. Registrar/Host providers like DH have way, way, way more staying power compared to any free blog service because they're actually making money on every account. Yeah, you pay, but your stuff stays and won't vanish just because a particular free web service ceases to be trendy for whenever that happens. That alone makes it worth paying for.