Let me just say, it has been ages since I have posted on this forum. I hope everybody is doing good.

Now for the new topic at hand. Does anyone play guitar? Please tell me about it. Tell what kinds of guitars and amps you have. Here is the thread to post all your guitar thoughts.

Anyways, I've recently been checking out the Fernandes Sustainer on the Fernandes Ravelle Elite. I'm thinking of getting one. Here's a pic of the Ravelle Elite.

http://www.fernandesguitars.com/rvlesbk.html

"Play" is such a strong word. I own one and it's very pretty...when I take it out:

Strat

My guitar-foo is weak. My career inspires me to gnaw my fingernails down to a nub which is not compatible with the notoriously close strings at the top fret of a Strat.

Sweet Strat. Looks very cool. Also, love the Marshall amp.

I've played for about 16 years. I used to be a bit of a gear-head and have owned upwards of 90 guitars, 50 amps, 250+ effects pedals, etc. I play guitar and bass and used to drum.

After a car accident and an accident with a kitchen knife my left hand just isn't the same as it used to be and I just don't play as much anymore. This past year I've been purging instruments in order to pay the bills. I sold my Marshall Silver Jubilee, Musicman Stingray, Taylor 514CE, Strat Plus, and currently in the process of unloading a Les Paul Standard and SG Standard. I also purged all of my vintage effects pedals.

My primary "rig" right now is a Marshall JCM900 4102 2x12 100 watt combo with a JCM2000 401 1x12 40 watt combo as a backup and a Peavey XXX EFX40 combo as a mess around amp. Guitarwise I've mainly been playing a 1986 Kramer Focus 1000 (Japanese-made Baretta) in order to rehab my hand but I usually play SG's and Pauls. I still have 1 Strat, 2 Pauls, 2 SG's, and the Kramer and a few acoustics.

Whoa man sounds like you were quite the musician. Sorry for what happened to you. Anyway let me know if your still selling anything. I might be interested in some of the gear your selling.


BTW, I was looking at the latest Shonen Jump magazine and this caught my eye. Check out this guitar. It's a special Bleach Fernandes Nomad signed by Tite Kubo himself.
http://bleach.viz.com/rockstar/

Growing up i played on Les Paul and Rickenbacher 12 string. Tho it's been several years i still try to pick up my Fender Jazz Bass once in a while.

Fernandes makes some decent stuff, but IMO, their peak value instruments were the Korean-made models that came out ~'98-'03. That was when Korea was still getting underpaid wages for their guitar building but they had really finely polished their craft and were creating high quality instruments. I'm not sure where Fernandes are made right now, but I know those years were very high quality in terms of bang for buck and were superior to the ones that came out immediately after (same models but made in China I believe). Hamer had a similar type of quality decline when they pulled production out of Korea around that time.

While I used to play $1000+ guitars, I now specialize in finding the best sub-$500 guitars. The Korean-made PRS SE's were solid, but the newer ones are made in Indonesia now. If you are going for a set neck dual-bucker, have you looked into Agile guitars at all?

Also, I've owned like 120+ pickups and worked in a recording studio, so if you have any questions on tonal stuff I might be able to help in that regard. I'm kind of a tone-whore and used to help bands design their gigging rigs based around budget, etc.

Hey Zentropa, you sound like quite the expert on what electric guitar to get. I just recently started playing about 8 months ago and man I'm having a blast. I was wondering, I have my mind set on a Fernandes Ravelle Elite. Before I had my mide set I was looking into getting a Fender. To be specific I was looking into getting a 65 Fender Mustang. Somehow I was just drawn to the Ravelle, it kind of spoke to me if you know what I mean, lol. Anyways I was just wondering if you could compare both of them to me in terms of sound, size, and everything else that is essential in a eletric guitar. Any info in greatly appreciated, thank you very much. Oh and PS, I want a tone that sort of like Green Day and Guns N Roses. I aslo like a little metal, but not to much. Thanks again.

well... Green Day and Guns N' Roses have fairly opposite tones.

Slash plays Les Pauls with vintage (PAF) styled humbuckers.

Billy Joe used to play strats but after a quick google I see he's now playing a Les Paul Jr. Les Paul Jr's and strats have single coils or any Les Paul styled guitar with a P-90.

Amp and the type of guitar pickups will dominate the tone more than anything. You NEED a high gain tube amp to nail either of their tones.

I would shy away from a Mustang because they aren't very tweakable and the tremolo is a nightmare to keep in tune. They are also short scale (24") and not really representative of what is out there... not to mention over-priced.

I would shy away from the Ravelle because it's too expensive for what you are getting. The Ravelle elite is a $1000 Korean-made Les Paul styled guitar. You can get Korean-made Les Paul styled guitars for like $200-400.

Never, ever, spend more than $500 for an instrument that isn't made in the USA or Japan.

The pecking order of where they are built:
1. USA
2. Japan (higher QC than USA, but lower quality components)
3. Korea (big drop in quality from #2)
4. Mexico (slight to moderate drop from #3)
5. Indonesia (big drop from #4)
6. China (almost equal to #5, but usually terrible QC)

QC is highly important because poor QC makes buying an instrument hit or miss, it might be nice and might be a piece of crap.

For $1000 you could get a nice Agile Les Paul (Korean) and an actual Gibson Les Paul Jr or Melody Maker (American), so that alone would make me drop the idea of the Ravelle unless you found a used one for like $400.

I never buy new instruments unless it's a model with a very high value retention and I can find it for cheaper/same price new as used. However, if you are in Hawaii your access to used instruments is likely limited. If you want a Gibson, do a search for "Wichita Band instruments" and their EM Shorts guitar dept. They sell Gibons's for ~$300-600 less than Guitar Center/Musician's Friend. I've purchased about 7 guitars from them.

Ibanez and PRS have the best QC on imported instruments (Korean/Chineses/Indonesian-made stuff). With their stuff you will only find a "bad one" like 1 in 100. With an off-brand it might be 1 in 3.

Keeping in mind that you are relatively new to guitars and that P-90 guitars have garbage resale value on the used market (they depreciate > 50%), I would recommend spending less than $500-600 on your instrument and dropping a push-pull volume pot as a coil tap into something with a bridge humbucker (that can "fake" a Green Day tone). Rarely does spending more money get you more value.

A few recommendations (in no particular order):
-Going through Wichita Band for a cheap Gibson.
-Getting an Agile Les Paul (make sure it is mahogany body with maple top)
-Getting a PRS SE series instrument (Santana, Tremonti, Custom 24, Custom 22, Singlecut, Doublecut, etc.)

If you don't already have a tube amp, save the rest of your money for one of them.

What do you think of the Epiphone standard les paul.

Mixed feelings.

The 80's Japanese Matsumoko built ones are the whale's balls, but those will also fetch upwards of $800 unless someone doesn't know what they have.

The 90's to early 00's Korean built ones had pretty terrible build quality especially when it came to fretwork, inlays, electronics, and hardware.

The current ones (that have Grover tuners) have much better parts than the previous ones, but I consider them to be over-priced, so unless you can snag a used one with a HSC for like $350 or less that is in solid shape, I wouldn't recommend them. To get stellar tone you are looking at a pickup/pot swap and ideally a new stop bar and bridge.

New Epi Paul Standards are around $500 and I just couldn't see myself dropping that one one of them when it's not too hard to find a used Gibson (might be a weird Paul model) in the $600-700 range. Also, the Agile Pauls can be had for like $350 or less new and ~$200 or less on the used market and are actually of higher build quality and QC than the Epi's are.

I'm a huge stickler on value. With Epi Pauls you are basically paying an extra 30-40% just to get the actual "Les Paul" name on it and unless you go with an actual Gibson (that has 75% or better value retention going from new to used), I don't think they are worth the money unless you find a killer deal used. If you do go for one, Wichita Band is likely $100-150 cheaper than MF on those.

Unfortunately, people are a lot smarter now than they were 10 years ago, so most of the lawsuit era Japanese copies now sell for nearly as much as Gibsons (Bradley, Ibanez, etc.) whereas you used to be able to get them for like $150-250. However, some of the other countries have gotten quite good at building instruments (when the QC is there) and you can get a tremendous amount of value in the $300-400 range.

A few other Paul styles that are a better value:
Medusa (high QC Chinese copies).
Schecter C1+ (crap resale retention, can be found in the $300 range with case)
LTD EC1000's (high quality Korean-made Paul copy with terrible value retention. ~$1000 new = $500 used).

did you do any more research on stuff?

Hey man, I ended up getting a brand new Epiphone Les Paul Ultra 2 for only 400. I thought it was a big steal.

Anyways, now I'm having trouble trying to get the tone I want. I only have a small Marshall amp (MG series) that I think is 10 to 15 watts. Everytime I strum with the distortion on it's really fuzzy. Is this because the Amp sucks? I'm trying to save money to get a tube amp like you said, but in the mean time, do you think overdrive and distortion pedals would help?

Not bad (I hope it came with a case though). Is it Korean made?

Small amps (under 20 watts with a single speaker of 10" or smaller) will never really yield a good tone unless they are tube, and even then there's only a handful of tube amps at that size that sound decent.

I'm guessing your idea of "fuzzy" is in a bad way? Try turning the gain down a bit. IMO, you should save every penny towards a tube amp unless you can find a distortion pedal for under $20. They do help, but they are basically just a footswitchable version of the transistor/diode distortion circuit on the amp you have, and assuming you pick the right tube amp, they'll be obsolete when you upgrade.

As for tube amps, $400 (or possibly a bit less) will get you very good tone, $600 will get you great tone. Combo amps tend to be harder to come across but yield better value.
Here's some specs I'd recommend:
power: Class AB, 20 watts or higher (Class A will not get you the tone you want)
speakers: 1x12, 2x10, or 2x12
channels: 2 or 3 channel
preamp tubes: 3 12AX7's or more.

Here's a few amps to check out... * = highly recommended.
under $400: Peavey Valve King VK112, Peavey Triumph (1x12), Peavey Ultra 112*, Peavey Prowler, Peavey Ranger, Marshall 4203*, Peavey XXX*, Laney AOR/AOR-II* (aka pro tube), Crate Stealth/Blue Voodoo, anything by Sovtek or Red Bear you might find in this price range.

under $600: Marshall JCM900 4501/4502*, 4101/4102, 2501/2502, 2101/2102, Marshall JCM600 601/602 combos, Marshall JCM2000 DSL201/401/602, Peavey 5150 combo*, Mesa Subway Rocket/Rocket 44, Mesa .50 caliber, Mesa F-50*/F-30/F-100.

I would stay away from any used Fender/Music Man amps as they don't fit the styles you described to me (with the exception of Fender's Super Sonic/Pro Sonic, The "Evil" Twin (not the twin reverb), 75, or Super 60/112 combos). I would stay away from anything with "Vintage," "Blues," or "Classic" in the name and nothing with a tweed covering as they also won't fit the tone you have described.

Lastly, I would steer away from Crate unless it works perfectly and is under $200. They had too many design issues that caused pre-mature burnout.

Always keep in mind whether or not the amp has a footswitch, and if no, how much getting a footswitch for it will cost.

Yes it's Korean made and it did come with the case. Thanks a lot for the help. You really are a big help.

Hey man someone offered me a Boss OS-2 overdrive/distortion pedal for 70 bucks? Is it worth it and will it help my tone or should I just save for the amp?

Hey man, I think I'm going to get the Peavey Valve King VK112. It sounds real good. Gotta start saving.

cool. Sounds like a decent paul.

The Valve Kings are ok... like, sufficient. They don't sound bad, but they don't sound all that great. Out of everything I listed, I would consider the Valve King to be LAST on that list. Every other amp model I listed will outperform it, but the VK112 is likely the cheapest of them all. I got one for $159 used a while back. It was okay. They are made in China.

I used to find those Peavey Ultras for ~$200-250 a lot, now they are more like $350 but they are made in the USA and are pretty much a 5150 Jr.

The OS-2 is a nice and very versatile pedal but not worth anywhere near $70. $40 is about as high as I'd ever go on one of those, but you can probably get one for like $25-30. The OS-2 won't help your tone as much as a new amp will.

Hey, Zentropa. Hope all is going well, first of all. I come to you with another question and to see your take on this matter. I'm trying to decide on what Fender Stratocaster to get. My sister actually agreed to pay 3/4 of the price, yes yes. I want one thats not to expensive, maybe in the 1000 to 1500 range. I'm probably gonna get an olympic white Fender American Standard Stratocaster. Here's a link to it
http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/produ...ELAID=142131441

Anyways, I don't know what kind of neck to go with. The Maple or the Rosewood? I like the rosewood better, but only because I like the look better. What's your take on this and the overall guitar considering what other people say and the specs of the guitar.

First-off, I would not buy a new American Strat. Used ones still go in the $500-700 range (although there's lots of people with used highway 1 strats trying to pass them off as american strats).

For $1000 you can get a used version of pretty much any of their upper end stuff... and with something like an American Deluxe Plus, Ultra, or Strat Plus from the 80's/90's you can probably get one for like $800.

Keep this in mind: all Mexican, Japanese, Korean, and American strats (non-squiers) all use the same wood for the neck and bodies. The only differences true are the pickups, electronics (5-way selector, knobs/pots, input jack). You'll find different tuning keys and bridges on different models, but for the most part there's only two styles: vintage style tremolo (6 screws holding it down with vintage style saddles) or modern (2-point fulcrum hinge with modern saddles). Tuning keys have modern style which you'll find on the Mexi/Jap/Korean/American models, and vintage style that you'll find on some of the signature and resissue strats. A few higher end models have locking tuners.

Basically, you can upgrade the electronics on any of them... it's like $20-30 for a better quality than their American strat electronics and pop them into a Mex/Jap/Kor and not lose any quality that way. Then, what you are looking for is a strat that has pickups you like and has the features you want (trem style, tuning keys if you want to replace them, etc.). Most strat pickups are really noisy and it doesn't really matter if they are Mexi or American, both are noisy (but the american ones do sound better).

Here's about how much you SHOULD pay:
Mexican/Korean Standard Strat - $225-300.
Japanese Standard Strat - $350-400.
US Highway 1 Strat - $450-525.
American Standard Strat - $500-625.
American Strat Plus/Ultra/Deluxe Plus - $600-750.

Other notable models worth investigating:
Mexican Jimmy Vaughn Strat - $400-500.
Japanese '57 or '62 reissues - $500-650.

There's a few shred strats out there that are completely undervalued but that's probably not what you are looking for.

As for maple vs. rosewood, maple is better for lead playing but rosewood is better for rhythm. Maple is brighter with more attack and bite, often-times better suited for country if you are doing rhythm work. Rosewood is warmer and thicker, darker and smoother, more of a rock tone.

Don't ever... ever... ever... spend more than $1000 on a strat. They are basically parts guitars and once you have a good body and neck you can basically replace every piece of hardware on them to be whatever you want it to be.

Also keep in mind that if you buy a Fender you are basically paying for the brand name. For $90-110 you can get a brand new SX SST strat that will be equal quality to a Mexi/Korean Standard Strat. Fenders have better resale value, but there's plenty of other options that will yield more bang for buck.

How's the strat search goin?

From the looks of it I think I'm just going to get two Gibson Les Pauls. My favorite local guitar shop has offered me a special price (450) on a Gibson Les Paul Studio. It's in really good condition, they even let me test it out. For the second Les Paul, I might just get a Billie Joe Les Paul Jr. Why not? I mean I'm a big fan of Green Day.

Anyways man, my acoustic/electric (Epiphone PR5-e) stopped working one day for a reason I don't know. I plan to take it to the guitar shop. But I was wondering if you have any ideas to what's wrong with my guitar. It has a built in tuner that turns on, but it does not read the strings anymore. Since it turns on I don't think there is nothing wrong with the battery, I might be wrong. Also, when I hook it up to my amp the guitar doesn't work at all. There's no problem with the cables or the amp because my electric guitar works just fine. So if you have any ideas to why my acoustic/electric is not working, please tell me.

$450 on a studio is good, i'm guessing it's a faded one, but that's still a good price. i would pass on the billie joe les paul jr... as it's just a more expensive les paul jr and he himself doesn't even play a billie joe les paul jr, just a regular one.

as for the PR5 the battery could be weak, strong enough to turn on, but not strong enough to function the preamp. the other thing is that the pickup might be f'd up.

Hey man about the broken guitar. I took it to the place I bought it at about a little less than 4 months ago (turns out nothing was wrong with the battery or anything else but the pickup). It's an Epi guitar and they said to leave it with them and they will contact Epiphone and see what they can do. Anyways, I was wondering if you had any ideas of what might happen. Like will Epiphone fix it or replace it, or will the store I bought it at charge me any fees to get it fixed.

it should still be under warranty and if you bought it new there should be no issue whatsoever. Epi will likely pay for the repair or replace the instrument at no charge.

Thank you very much. I thought the exact samething. It looks like this thread is turning from "Anyone in to guitars" to a "zaraki ask zentropa for guitar help tab." Lol. Thank you very much for your help though, I really do appreciate it.

np. i enjoy guitar mentoring :P hehe.

most guitars on the market are either junky, or a terrible value. i hate watching people overpay or get ripped off. or worse, chase tone in the wrong way (e.g. modelling amps vs. tube amps).