Selling: Aria Frontier 615

It had been a wonderful adventure but time to say goodbye to my Aria Frontier 615. FYI, the guitar had been refinished in this brown hue without a lacquer overcoat so not for the fussy people who worry their instrument body will dent easily at the slightest knock.

• ARIA Frontier 615 (no bag)
• Input jack is in tact, so is the ground wire
• Selling as is- no pickguard/ electronics/ pickups
• Self-collect at CCK mrt station
• No reservations/ trades
• Queries/ conformation: subversion.sg@gmail.com
• Price: $99 (non-nego)

Weekend noodling

It's the weekend. I kept things simple:

• Aria: 615 Frontier
• Maxon: OD808
• Marshall: JVM 1W

There were no intentions to dwell in the clean realm so the JVM was utilized along with the OD808. The Aria has a high output humbucker in it so it was an all-out dirt affair. I had been in chromatic mode for some weeks now. It's not an attempt to revise my phrasings but it just opens up more connections between metal & non-metal ideas. If you embrace chromatics, you'd discover quite an endless avenue of what works. In fact, everything works, it's up to you to fit these chunks of ideas into your compositions. Isn't that great? You are in control of your ideas instead of being enslaved to finite scales.  

Anyway, this school of thought had forced me to utilize 4-notes per strings ideas more extensively & it worked wonders for finger strength. My left hand is currently quite independent from my right. Under lots of drive, I do not have to pick every note & that cleans up my playing tremendously.

Aria: 615 Frontier (3)

All done.

Roller string tree replaced the default vintage type which I don't fancy (even in Fenders).

Since the guitar features a single bridge pickup only (, I had a single volume control while the rest of the components were removed. Many of us find this objectionable- leaving blank what should be residing in their rightful places but I'm keeping things simple. The pickup in there is a Giovanni GCT-73, an Alnico V pickup with a midrange spike, my kind of tone preference.

A look at the Aria from the back.

Time flies. This marks the end of June & we are beyond half of 2014. I'm taking it slow for the later half of the year as I plan to have a custom guitar done. That is if nothing enticing crops up at Summer NAMM :-)

Aria: 615 Frontier (2)

The finished article- in brown. It screams boring but I'm with less conventional colours these days. Yes, I'm doing away with the neck pickup so this guitar will join club single.

Aria: 615 Frontier

Aria's 615 Frontier is a very wallet-friendly Tele-style guitar. Despite being conceived to appease the budget conscious players, it's a well-made instrument, not one to exude an upper class experience but enough to get a deserving recognition from discerning players.

So it's an easy decision for me after trying it at the store. I don't quite fancy the sunburst finish though so it shall make way for another hue. The arrows & circled holes were not defects but they were indicated for the person who's refinishing it for filling. I have other plans in addition to the new coat of paint :-)