DON'S GUITAR RANTS
Want to make your solid body or hollow body electric guitar get acoustic sounds? Wish your flat top fingered and played like an electric guitar? Then we have a great product for you. LR Baggs is well known for its great acoustic pickups and preamps for acoustic guitars and now tremolo acoustic bridges for that type of guitar and tunamatic acoustic bridges too. This is amazing technology that was first introduces to me when I purchased Godin LGX and LGXT solid body guitars back in 1999 (I think).
These guitars have two voices and multiple sounds, also like the Godin Flat 5X (my main guitar) featured and tested a few months ago with the tunamatic peiso bridge pickup.
LR Baggs also manufactures controls and preamps that mix magnetic pickups and acoustic pickup signals too, two amps or stereo out to one amp or more if you want.
All of the LR Baggs products are now available at Elfner Guitars.
This rave is all about installing and testing the LR Baggs T-Bridge and Ctrl-X into a Gibson ES 333 (disc.) hollow body. Being my first install of this nature I picked the 333 because of the route out in the control area. (A lot easier than working through F holes only)
Right out of the box the instructions state installation to be preformed by an experienced luthier, so ya gotta take it to someone like me to install. Anyhow, we got it finished in quite a few hours, because I had to read the instructions and I'm (according to my wife) not too good at that. I'm not going to elaborate on the install to much. We went with 1 tone and 1 volume on the magnetic pickups. That left us with two holes to put the Ctrl-X and extra switch in. I didn't get any instructions with the Ctrl-X so I did the soldering on the T-Bridge first. I downloaded the instructions for the Ctrl-X from LR Baggs.com. A few hours later it was finally installed.
Test Time!
The next day was test day. We now had a Gibson 333 with acoustic tone. The new switch in down position is full out magnetics, middle position is acoustic electric mix and up is all out acoustic. The Ctrl-X mixes more or less acoustic/electric tones. I love it! Hope to put this in your guitar sometime!
For more info on this product: www.lrbaggs.com.
Pricing T-Bridge - from $339.00 (chrome)
X-Bridge - from $219.00
Ctrl-X - $199.00
Installation and taxes extra.
Contact Don at Rants@ElfnerGuitars.com if you have any questions.
DON'S GUITAR RANTS
If you can't afford to go out and buy a pro model axe, small bucks can make yours better. That's what I'd like to talk about this time.
How's the action (string height from fingerboard frets), playability, buzzes or pings, up and down the neck? These are things to look for. Look down the neck. Is it dead straight or is it back bowed? Dryness in winter or humidity in summer affects the neck adjustment.
Something else I want to mention is how your guitar sounds. If it's electric and you want more tone, maybe a pickup change would beef up your sound. If your acoustic just doesn't seem as loud or rings like others, replacing the plastic nut & saddle with bone ones will make a great improvement. Changing your plastic nut to a bone nut on your electric will also improve sound and sustain.
I also haven't met a guitar yet that didn't like new strings. The heavier the string the better overall tone. The lights and extra lights play easier, but don't sound as loud and my opinion is they don't pull the neck up enough and a dead straight neck might backbow on you and stay that way. I've had a couple guitars come in like that and now the necks are just patterns.
Costs of these mods should be in our pricing page. Just e-mail me or call me with any questions.
Later
DON'S GUITAR RANTS
What's new? The V-Stack pedals that are made in Canada, as seen in Guitar One's holiday issue. Want the sounds of British or USA amplifiers, clean or dirty? These are it. Incredible amp emulation and quite. Tested them myself. They are included in my rig as of now!
We're taking orders now for these incredible "Made in Canada" pedals. $260.00 each.
Check out all the new stuff and holiday specials on our other pages.
Till next time...
DON'S GUITAR RANTS
Hello, it's October already and there's lots going on. I'm gonna make some guitars and we have new product lines in now.
Fernandes Guitars
Tacoma Guitars
Epifani Bass Amp Cabinets
Carlsbro (world class p.a. & amplification systems since 1959)
Johnson Guitars & amps
For those within driving distance, stop in and see our revamped showroom and new guitars.
New Guitars:
Dean Evo (set neck) Quilt
Carved top. Awesome sustain - List $1329.00
One Only - Our Price $ 899.00
Digitec RPX400
Multi effects processor - List $ 529.00 (new demo) - Our Price $429.00
Godin Flat Five
Two voices, many sounds. Like I said last time, this guitar has become my main axe in our band (Over 40). I played my first Godin years ago, but was a solid body LXG with humbuckers and acoustic X bridge and eq. Played it for 3 years and bought the Flat Five. I thought I needed a larger guitar, but not as heavy. I look better and feel better and also gained better sound. Being the only guitar player in the band, the electric and acoustic tones sound out and fill in nicely almost like two guitars are playing. For Flat Five specs. Go to www.godin.com.
Things I like about Godin Flat Five:
* Two voices, many different sounds
* Acoustic sounds better than LGX (solid body vs semi hollow)
* Bigger body
* Great looking, sharp appearance
* Playability, nice setup right out of the box. Intonation almost bang on
* That Godin fast neck
Things I dislike about the Godin Flat Five:
* Pickups are good, but not Seymore Duncans like the LGX
* Pickup covers tarnished early
* Tuning pegs seem good but not Schaller
Overall Review
If you're the only guitar player in the band and want to sound like two, any of the Godin 2 voice or more guitars could be considered. In the price range of $1300-$1800, I think value for the money is second to none. I love 'em. I traded a Les Paul to get my first one and I also love Gibsons!
We'll be having a Guitar Show/Grand Opening Saturday, November 27, 2004 from 10 am to 5 pm.
Hope to see you all here!
Until next time, happy guitar playing
DON'S GUITAR RANTS
Dean Guitars has pulled the plug on our distributor, so we're not sure of our status as a dealer right now. More news on that next month.
Right now you can take advantage of great deals on new Dean guitars in stock.
V79 list $1329 internet special $899
Evo Bolt list $529 internet special $359
Performer Key Largo Exotic list $1329 internet special $999
We have t-shirts to give away, so why not put an entry in the Lick Contest? I'll make it real easy for you, but you have to play to win!
Next month I'll be reviewing the Godin Flat Five. (My main guitar)
Till next month
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