Know what you are selling

I came across this listing  last weekend - seller was selling an 'Ibanez electric guitar 'as titled. However, we see different models depicted including a non-Ibanez.

So I prompted him & it entailed in the above conversation. Folks, it's important to know what you have when you are letting it go. If you are unsure, state it as such. Highly likely, there will be someone who knows & you will get your details from that source. My concern when trawling the after-market is that my fellow enthusiasts gets the maximum probability of selling his / her pre-loved gear. Ambiguous / doubtful details don't help. More often that not, I will recommend others your listing if I think you have a good one or your gear is a value-for-money deal.

This is another example; depicted is the Fender Blue Flower Telecaster, not a Paisley. The Pink Paisley version looks like this:

Some seller will edit their listing upon prompting, others will stand their ground. We are not here to tell others to mend their ways (or errors in this case), we are just being helpful. One more time - it's a small gear community we have here, we are better off helping one another.

Pic: behngipseng

In the pink of health

Played my pink paisley Tele yesterday, just needed to hear some single coils in action.

Before that happened, managed to ask Beez to have the Seymour Duncan Hot for Tele set installed as this guitar previously featured the Lil '59/Alnico II pairing. This is one of those Fenders that feature thin, vintage frets much to the dismay of modern players but I managed to have a low action here so it sort of made up for the 'shortcomings'. 

My last set of D'Addario 9s & everything went well.

Pink jazz

New for Fender's Japan offering. Want. Checks pocket. 😓

DC vs Paisley

Nah... I'm not pitting these two against each other, they are awesome in their own rights. It's the first time I played them sequentially in a single sitting.

Took the DC out to hear the pickups in action more than anything else. This is one of the guitars whose default pickups I'm happy with- the Lithium humbuckers. The fatter, rounder neck profile is also a break from the Paisley's which I've been playing the entire week.

The Paisley was played after the DC as a psychological reminder of what I've been used to for the last few days or so. It's a return to familiar settings of sorts but it didn't affect my playing in that way. The only familiar feel that I would call 'familiar' is the Ibanez neck profile as I've been accustomed to this neck type for the longest time. 

OK so the real 😁 reason I played them this morning was to feel the difference in fretboard radius; flat (Kiesel @ 14") vs curved (Fender @ 7.25"). The Kiesel did well for both solos & riffs, especially for the latter. The Fender's curved profile manifested some challenge in terms of riffing especially at the E & A strings. The fingers tend to work harder resisting the curvature as notes get muted easily if you don't observe/ maintain a certain arching. For someone who riffs incessantly with furious right hand movements & keeping ideas at the lower neck register, the flatter radius wins it. However, I tend to legato better with a curved fretboard radius & this is indeed a recent discovery (OK maybe not that recent as in this morning); my picking hand is more relaxed. So ladies & gentlemen, if you think fretboard radius influences the fretting hand exclusively, know that the picking hand gets affected as well but not as much. It becomes more apparent if you hear your playing through recordings, you'd realize the degree of extraneous noise presence changes when playing different guitars with different fretboard profiles. However, this is not a marked occurrence because implements like the noise gate & fret wraps play their role effectively to make sure you are what you play without those little things getting in the way. 

Thin shreds

This was another lesson in snob appeal. I entered guitardom with a shred-type guitar (whatever that means) & honed my speed on the tried & trusted formula of thin profile neck + jumbo frets with regards to fretting hand dexterity. Along the way, I was indeed drawn to other neck profiles from other brand names due to the music I listen to; who could really resist a Fender temptation after listening to SRV, yes? I did try many guitars along the way but rejected the less familiar feel of both the neck carve & fret profile. 

The Fender Telecaster you see here is a Japanese Pink Paisley model with a rather slim neck but a much rounded carve (a C if you will) & narrow, short frets the industry deemed as vintage (again, whatever that means). I actually had second thoughts about this guitar because it was rather off my preferences; it was hardly shredable, to put it bluntly. However, guitardom consists of people who can shred on any guitar because of their ability & not about the tools per se- Danny Gatton & John Lowery (that's John 5 to the rest of us) are just two among many to underscore this understanding. After handling it in the stores with lots of gain in the mix, it's indeed one of my most shred-worthy guitar I came across despite the 'wayward' spec. The only annoying thing I have to deal with is the tendency for the strings to scratch the fretboard each & every time excessive pressure was applied. 

The weekend (2)

Dead pot, dead 3-way selector... was at Beez's after lunch.

Seen here, Beez dissecting my Tele. Replacement parts were the ones featured here: CLICK Need to remind myself that just because it says Fender on the pack doesn't mean parts are guaranteed to fit. Beez did some widening to make sure American parts fit into a Japanese guitar. Damn, Fender!

Always good to have something dead brought back to life so the rest of pre-dinner time was my Tele time. Have a great week ahead, everyone.

Duncanized Paisley

The Paisley tele had undergone its initial makeover phase.

Pickups swapped out to Seymour Duncans:

• Neck: Alnico II Pro
• Bridge: Lil '59

Also- Gotoh brass saddles with rotation capabilities. Much twang was compromised here largely due to the pickups but I have other twang-worthy teles so no love lost, really. This guitar has a nut (factory) slotted for low profile settings & I'm grateful for that.

Pink!

This very much concludes my Fender Japan adventure. To be appraised (soon).