Ibanez JPM P100 Gets New Pickups

I was playing around with the pole piece height on the bridge pickup of my JPM recently and I think, as a result, I somehow damaged the winds on the pickup. What really sucks is the fact that they are the original pickups and I really wanted to keep the guitar stock. The bridge pup squeals pretty uncontrollably now on any amp with any sort of high gain combined with high volume settings.

So I decided to order some replacement pickups, and store the older ones for later should I want to make the guitar all-original again. I ordered some super-cool colors... the exact ones that Petrucci used on the video "Rock Discipline"! The only thing is DiMarzio screwed up the colors on the bridge pickup, as it should have been black/purple, not blue/purple. My GC guy, Devin, is getting this straightened out with DiMarzio but in the meantime I am free to use the blue/purple pickup until the correct one arrives. How cool is that?! :)





I ordered a Steve's Special for the bridge and an Air Norton for the neck (purportedly the pickups that were used on the original JPMs... either stock or slightly modded to Petrucci's tastes). Installation was simple. I just removed the tremolo with strings attached and placed it off to the side. I then removed the old pickups and soldered in the new ones, popped the tremolo back on and I was done! Easy as that.

I can definitely say the new pickups are very close tonally to what was originally there. I took the time to raise the pickup shims (this guitar uses direct mount pickup cavities) to get some more gain and balls from the guitar. I love this guitar, and it looks even cooler and sounds better than ever now with the new pickups.

New Amp!! Peavey JSX 2x12 Combo

Based on my last entry on the Princeton Recording-Amp, it's no surprise that I decided to return it. While I was at Guitar Center I saw a Peavey JSX 2x12 combo that I remembered playing when I demo'ed my R9 Les Paul. So I worked out a deal with my sales guy, Devin, to return the Princeton and put that money toward the JSX. You can see some pics of Devin (last photo) and the local Guitar Center here in Memphis, below:





After getting this amp home I have found that the distortion is pretty fizzy. I am not a fan of the super fizzy, Mesa Dual Rec. sound and this amp really has that "buzzing bees" sound to it with each note played. Now that I have spent a few hours with the amp at home, I am pretty sure I'll be returning it as soon as possible. It gets very loud and sounds great at volume, except for the fizz. The clean channel is pretty nice, but not quite as ballsy as I would have hoped. Tons of headroom, though.

Overall, not too impressed with this amp.

ES-335 Gets Locking Tuners

My friend Christian Arena (with whom I often play guitar) bought a brand new Gibson ES-335 over the summer. It is has a lovely Vintage Burst finish and plays really well, but Christian was having trouble keeping it in tune. I recommended the Planet Waves self-clipping, locking tuners for better tuning stability and the convenience of the self-clipping action.

I happened to have some Planet Waves Locking Tuners in my workbench storage that belong to my friend, Nik. He was never planning to use them so I sold them to Christian, and proceeded to install them. They retro-fit perfectly so no drilling was necessary. Once I got these babies on I went ahead and thoroughly cleaned the guitar, set it up, smooth sanded the saddle slots and re-intonated the bridge. Now the guitar plays and sounds better than ever. ;)

New Amp!! Fender Princeton Recording Amplifier

I have been wanting one of these for a while now, so I finally ordered one. I returned the Blues Jr. to help finance the purchase of this amp. The very first Princeton Recording-Amp I played at Guitar Center sometime last year was defective, so I waited to see if Fender would resolve what were rumored to be production problems with this amp. It appears that they have now fixed whatever component(s) that caused the amps to stutter, lose volume or simply fail.

I really like the cleans on this amp, but they do strike me as being a bit sterile. The included effects (overdrive and compression) are a bit muddy sounding and somewhat difficult to dial in to a good sounding tone. The reverb is fantastic, however. One of the biggest and coolest features of this amp is its power attenuator. You can crank up the amp's volume to drive the tubes harder and then dial back the attenuator to lower the volume without killing the tone that only hard driven tubes can produce. It works on this amp, but the distorted sounds become very fizzy at lower, attenuated volumes.

The Princeton Recording-Amp has a lot of very cool features, some of which I hope to see in other Fender amps some day, as well as amp models from other makers. Apart from the attenuator, one of those features is the speaker emulated, XLR output. Speaker emulated outputs are great and they allow completely silent recording and can produce a tone close to that of the amp miked up. Very cool.

Overall, I am not too impressed with this amp after spending some time with it. I have decided
to return it and keep looking for something else. I really like the Blues Jr., so maybe I'll just buy that one again.

New Guitar!! Gibson Les Paul - 2006 '57 Goldtop Reissue!

Well, I am officially addicted to the V.O.S. (Vintage Original Spec) Gibson Les Paul series. I liked my '59 Reissue so much I decided to check out a beautiful 2006 1957 Goldtop Reissue that was hanging around down at the Guitar Center. :) The '57 is brand new, despite being made in '06. They make lot of the '57s (a.k.a. "R7"), so occasionally an older serial will pop up now and then. I decided to return my first Goldtop, which was the much cheaper Classic Les Paul, as I didn't see the need of having two Goldtops. The R7 is a huge upgrade on the Classic, anyway. ;)

This guitar is as lovely to play as my '59, but it does have a slightly different tone. I find it to be a lot brighter and more aggressive sounding. The R9, in comparison, has a much rounder tone that seems to be better balanced between the high and low frequencies. I love that they have such a distinct tonal difference, because it would be pointless to own two guitars that sound too much alike, in my opinion. The neck carve is also slightly different (not on purpose, but just due to the different building techniques of the luthiers). I love the way the guitar feels! It is a toss up between the R9 and this one in terms of playing feel, but I still lean towards the R9 in the tone department.

As is fairly common on most Custom Shop Gibson models, you'll find sloppy workmanship on the bridge saddle slots (amongst other places). On this one the bridge saddles were particularly bad, and I ended up needing to practically re-radius the whole bridge! The ABR-1 bridges are built with the 12" radius curvature of the fretboard already, but you also have to take into account the varying thicknesses of the strings themselves. Unless the saddles are notched deep enough for the heavier strings to sink down into saddle properly, they will sit too high and the string radius will be thrown out of whack. I just file a high saddle slot down a tad bit, tune back up and test string height with a depth gauge ruler on the 12th fret, file some more if needed... then follow up with some 1200 grit sandpaper to make sure the slot is as smooth as silk. Pretty easy stuff!

I am really pleased with both of my Les Pauls, so far. My only real complaint about them are the pickup covers. The covers on these guitars are not properly installed by Gibson, in my opinion. For any song that has enough gain and a loud amp these pickups will feedback, and not in a good way. I'll likely be forced to remove the covers at some point to avoid this, but I really hate the idea since it ruins the look and changes the sound of the guitars. Time will tell, but I am afraid the covers will have to eventually come off.

Overall, another great guitar!

Gig - Macy's Runway Party :)

My first gig out in a millennium and I play a Macy's runway party. WTF!? :) Actually, the demands were light, the sets were the shortest in history and we had a lot of fun. I was playing lead guitar for my friend Christian Arena who is a great singer/songwriter here in the Memphis area (and a fantastic guitarist, too).

Since we knew this was going to be a pretty loose gig, we didn't even rehearse! Despite no rehearsal (or even a set list), we knocked it out of the park. There is something special about the way Christian and I play together... the chemistry is there and we just lock in tight. I always enjoy jamming with him. I played my beautiful and awesome R9 Les Paul all night through my Atomic 1x12 15 watter with the Pod XT. ;)

We played a few covers, (the names of which I cannot remember), one or two of Christian's songs and a couple of free-form jams. We had a blast and would have loved to play longer but the party was over and it was time pack and leave before we knew it. :)

New Guitar!! Gibson Les Paul - 2007 '59 Reissue!

Wow! I just made my biggest guitar purchase yet... a V.O.S. (Vintage Original Spec) 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard, Cherry Burst (a.k.a., the "R9") with a beautiful flamed top! This guitar is absolutely ridiculous in every way. The tone is unreal, the top is gorgeous, the neck feels awesome and the weight is just a touch heavy at 9.12 lbs., but I don't mind heavier guitars.

I went to Guitar Center just to check this guitar out because I have been reading a lot about the R9 Les Paul lately and I had remembered seeing one at GC the last few times I was there. So I plug it in and start playing and find that I really like the bigger 50's style neck, and the fret work (which is done with a Plek system) is superb. This must be the smoothest, most accurate fretwork I've ever had on a guitar (thanks to the Plek)... and it is a really pleasure to play. Unplugged this thing is loud and resonant, and plugged-in the tone is very well balanced. It has a round, warm tone overall with plenty of mids and a nice spike of upper mids that really help to keep the sound even keeled. I simply haven't stopped playing it since I got it.

The overall fit and finish is good. There are some flaws, but that is to be expected. The R9s come with a slightly distressed finish and aged hardware (pickup covers and bridge). It looks and feels like a well worn, played-in guitar. The Gibson V.O.S. series is very similar to the Fender Time Machine relic collection with the main exception being that Gibson only offers one level of lightly aged guitars instead of the several levels of aging that Fender offers. I cannot stress enough how much better these Custom Shop instruments are than the regular production stuff. That goes for Fender as well as Gibson. It is well worth the extra cash for these guitars.

The R9s come with wider, more modern-like frets which were actually standard equipment, and first introduced, on the real guitars in 1959 (a real innovation at the time). The Burstbucker pickups are very cool sounding, vintage-style Pus that have plenty of warmth and just enough "bite" to keep the tone hot and allow you to cut through the mix. In addition, this guitar is wired 50's style with bumble bee capacitors! For the first time in a long time we are now able to buy Les Pauls that are as close to the original year models as have been made since the 50's and 60's. Plus, there is no doubt in my mind that with current production techniques and modern technology, these guitars are more reliable, better constructed and can hold a tune throughout an entire set instead of just one song. ;)

So far this might just be my favorite guitar, ever. It looks hot, plays great and sounds unreal. Those are the ingredients for "mojo", my friends.... when a guitar has the look, the feel and the tone that just draws you to it over any of your other guitars, you know it is special.

Rick Hancock Leaves for PRS

Since getting the Power Jet back from Rick I have noticed a high 13th fret. I originally had Rick fix the 12th fret end that had popped up (it was like that when I received the guitar new). Since gluing down the 12th fret end, the 13th is now causing a slight fret out when bending the high E string at the 12th fret. This would be no problem, except for the fact that Rick is no longer working in Memphis. He landed a fantastic job at Paul Reed Smith guitars where he will be a Master Luthier building the PRS Private Reserve instruments... the top of the line PRS's! I sure hate to see him go, but I am very happy for him. He certainly deserves it. ;)

I guess I am going to have to go ahead with those luthery classes I have been threatening to take for the last few years now. Heck, maybe I could even get enough business to make some money now that Rick has left a void here in town. We'll see...

New Guitar!! Gibson ES-339

Well, I couldn't resist getting this guitar once they got me to play it at my local Guitar Center. I didn't think I'd care that much for it, but once I plugged it in I couldn't believe how well it played and sounded.

The ES-339 is a Memphis Custom Shop based on the larger ES-335 semi-hollow electric guitar, but is smaller and lighter than its larger sibling. In fact, it's about the same size as a Les Paul... yet it still retains the same fat tone that the larger ES-335 is famous for! A pretty amazing feat of guitar design. I briefly had the Vintage Burst 339 (pictured left), but after I got it home and began setting it up I realized that the neck had a hump in it starting at the 12th fret. It was a really bad case of "rising tongue", which is when the fretboard inclines upward on the high frets. This is a very undesirable condition and so I returned the guitar to Guitar Center, only to find out they had just taken shipment of another 339 that hadn't even gone out to the floor. This one was the Antique Red that I now have. After careful examination and many hours of playing I am satisfied that this one is an excellent specimen.

Gibson put their '57 classic humbuckers in the 339 with the "Memphis Tone Circuit" (basically a capacitor that preserves high-end when rolling off volume) . The tone of this guitar is just spectacular. It is exactly what you'd expect of a good ES-335, warm fat tone on the neck pickup, which can really fatten up with the tone control for smooth Jazz... and a nice aggressive, punchy bridge pickup that can do everything from dirty blues to compressed 80's shred distortion. In a word, this thing is "versatile". Plus, the Antique Red is simply a gorgeous finish that really gives this guitar a classic look. The neck feels unlike any neck I've tried. It is super comfortable, however, the fretboard feels a bit crowded up high for my big fingers, but I still manage to solo on the high frets just fine. My guitar has the slimmer 60's profile neck, but the 339 is also available with the fatter '59 profile.

I have the bridge setup with the stopbar screwed down flush and the strings reverse wrapped for now, but I may try stringing straight through next time to see if I prefer the tone of the guitar reverse wrapped or normal. So far I am very impressed with this guitar! It really helps me round out my collection with a good quality semi-hollow guitar, and one that's beautiful to boot! ;)