Good point, Jay. Like I said, I'm lucky. I think that for the tone it makes I got a screaming deal by paying $1,500 for a '62 Reissue. But it took months to find. I must have played nearly every '62 Reissue in Mahnattan in order to find the one that fit.

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Custom Shop '59 Strat with John Cruz Master Design Pickups
Vibro King
Fulltone Clyde>Deja-Vibe>TS-808>TS-9>Boss Tuner

Multiples is correct! I had settled on an American Standard in '05 and still couldn't figure out why I couldn't get the great vintage tones that are heard on all my favorite records.. Then I realized that my Strat shared nothing more than a shape and name with the guitars featured on those great records. That's when I looked into reissues.

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Custom Shop '59 Strat with John Cruz Master Design Pickups
Vibro King
Fulltone Clyde>Deja-Vibe>TS-808>TS-9>Boss Tuner

And wood type maybe. Which brings things back to my initial belief that the basis of the sound of an instrument is in the wood as a base it is then further enhanced and overshadowed by hardware. Like all people in construction guitar builders rely on a good foundation to acheive desired results. After all you wouldnt build a skyscraper on house spec foundations. It would just make the job incredibly hard and probably end in disaster.

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Hi Nikininja,

I assume this is directed at me, as you are using my axes as examples, but I am not understanding why you are saying this to me. I missed your point here....sorry, can you explain?

I never meant to indicate that all these guitars sound the same. I was saying that there are many varieties out there today, with almost any combination of woods and hardware imaginable, that I don't see the need to buy a guitar that does not nail the sound you want so you have to come close as possible and then build on it. I just don't see these limitations exist today. Maybe its because we have a lot of guitars stores around that carry everything you possibly need

BTW, you do know that Jimmy Page used a Tele thru a supro amp for the first Zeppelin album right? Sounds like a Les Paul through a Marshall to me

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Guitars:
1. mid 70's Ventura MIJ Gibson l6-s clone (Pre-lawsuit) in Black with Rosewood FB and EMG 81 BR/ 85 Neck
2. ESP KH2 Neck Thru
3. 2008 Am Std Strat in 3 tone sunburst

Firstrat it was directed towards you and i should of made it a bit better in delivery. Please take no comment of mine as offensive. That is not the reason i post here. I do question (unendingly according to the missus) though.
I completely agree that there is a guitar for every aspect of modern music. Your guitars sound nothing alike which is why you bought them. I Chose my guitars for different reasons. Hotrod and 50th anni for collection and CS, tele, charvel cx291, lp clone, mex modded strat (clapton'd), jackson and esp for sound playability differences. Indeed the esp and lp clone are nothing more than ornaments hung on the wall as my personal tribute to pete green and jeff hanneman. The esp ltd being of horrible tone and the lp clone not being lifeless.
Of my guitars the clapton modded mex offers the greatest variance of tone. If i play a set of multiple styles as i had to do at 24 hours notice a month or so back, thats the guitar. It does everything from near acoustic sounds to Iommi's most bludgeoning.

I like you play many styles from day to day mainly i play country blues or a sedate lounge kind of jazz. My highgain metal days are over since the advent of boo (youngest offspring).

As far as jimmy page goes ive never found him interesting enough to listen to but i'd argue that recorded material can be eq'd to sound like anything.

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Firstrat to explain the post in question it was a mixup of meanings on my behalf. Sorry mate.

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No I did not take offence, but I was not sure why you directed that at me. I thought maybe you misunderstood something I wrote when I quoted you and offered a different opinion on guitar selection. Maybe I am missing something, but I just feel no need to alter my guitars. Buy what you want upfront, pay the extra $$ and spend the next 10 enjoying is how I have done it.

As far as quality and variety of sound goes, I have always focused on the amp more than the guitar. The guitar signal going to an amp is tiny. Signal processing is where it becomes what the final sound is. If an amp would not color the tone, and just amplify the small signal, I don't think any of us would like the sound of the electric guitar. The differences in that tiny signal between the most opposite electric guitars is small, and are only amplfied by the amp. The difference between a rosewood and maple FB can be eq'ed and compensated for. But my guitar sounds vastly differnet going into a clean Fender amp vs. my mesa at high gain. This difference is much greater than a body, neck or FB wood change. However, in the quest fo the ultimate tone, there are many factors. I still believe the biggest factor to tone is the initial preamplification stage. Find a great preamp, and you will have good tone through almost anything you play it through. I have two preamps, and I have plugged them into several amp types from SS power to Tube power, to SS combos to tube combos. I have also plugged them into bass amps and stereos. I was able to get decent tone everytime, even though these various amps added their own character

_________________
Guitars:
1. mid 70's Ventura MIJ Gibson l6-s clone (Pre-lawsuit) in Black with Rosewood FB and EMG 81 BR/ 85 Neck
2. ESP KH2 Neck Thru
3. 2008 Am Std Strat in 3 tone sunburst

I think rosewood is better

Now theres something else i agree on. Albeit to a lesser degree. My biggest concern is that mesa amps always seem to overpower the natural sound of a guitar, alot of boutique amps are guilty of this. Whilst its a good tone it doesnt matter what you plug into it the natural characteristics of the guitar never come out its all amp. Compare that to a plexi, those amps are as transparent as water. Plug a bad sounding guitar into them and you know about it. I think its pretty much standard with modern amplification that to get a certain sound you have to go to the right amp which gives rise to vintage reissue stupid prices.

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Transparent amps are golden!!

_________________
Custom Shop '59 Strat with John Cruz Master Design Pickups
Vibro King
Fulltone Clyde>Deja-Vibe>TS-808>TS-9>Boss Tuner

I like mesa's. But I think what you are saying is a generalization. They made many different amps over the years. They are not the be all end all. I just use a mesa power amp, and its wonderful. I use a Marshall 1960 AV 4x12. I use a couple of different preamps, and would like more. My ADA mp-2 has 10 voices, and I have found most of them useful. I am sure with more time, I would find all of the voices have a place. This has to be one of the most malaligned preamps ever, it was a huge improvement over the mp-1 and can nail all the mp-1 tones, but with more effort tweaking. Many will tell you the mp-1 is better, not me, I 've owned both and kept the mp-2. It was way ahead of its time, and I bet it would put to shame many of todays modeling amps. I also use a digitech 2101, which has nice cleans and mid gains stuff, but is not my favorite for metal. I have three kids, I still like metal and play it. Its not all I do anymore though

_________________
Guitars:
1. mid 70's Ventura MIJ Gibson l6-s clone (Pre-lawsuit) in Black with Rosewood FB and EMG 81 BR/ 85 Neck
2. ESP KH2 Neck Thru
3. 2008 Am Std Strat in 3 tone sunburst

I dunno i've always been under the impression that mesa make an amp for its particular sound mk2's sound nothing like triple rec's but both have a very dominating tone that seems to overpower everything else in the chain. The only reason i cant play metal anymore is that my metal amp is a jcm800 that sounds god awful below 6. Not good for a temperamental 16month old girl who likes row row the boat or wind the bobbin up and doesnt appreciate phantom lord or ghosts of war .

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Kepp the tradition, force that metal down her throat untill her head starts bobbing with every chug of the low E string.

You may be right, but part of that is the deal with ultra high gain amps. Many people just don't experiement with gain levels and tone controls enough.

When the ADA mp-2 first came out, I seen a guy demoing it with his guitar. He had a high gain tone dialed up, and was trying to roll off the volume to clean it up and flipping his toggle. He said it sounds the same no matter what you do, I'll keep my marshall. He did not play with the settings and voices. So I plugged in and went to the vintage brown channel put the gain at 50% and tried the same thing. Suddenly the amp cleaned up when you rolled off the guitar volume and the toggle made a vast difference as it should. I guess he did not notice that the ADA had way higher gain levels than his Marshall preamp

I bet many lesser amps get purchased because of their ease of getting tone over superior amps that have a higher learning curve. Mesa's are more complex than some amps, and you have to dial in your tone a bit more. If you crank the gain, all guitars will sound similar

I still believe that all guitarist should have a good dedicated multi-channel tube preamp.

_________________
Guitars:
1. mid 70's Ventura MIJ Gibson l6-s clone (Pre-lawsuit) in Black with Rosewood FB and EMG 81 BR/ 85 Neck
2. ESP KH2 Neck Thru
3. 2008 Am Std Strat in 3 tone sunburst