re: What guitars do you have, and which is your favorite ?

I have two parts-o-casters.

- MIM Squire body ( I know they're bad, but its so light), American Maple Neck, & American hardware. This guitar is absolutely amazing. Play ability and tone for days.

2 - American body, Mighty Mite CBS style neck, & Humbuckers. Aka a Jimmy Herring Strat. (Think PRS or Les Paul tones)

#1 is my favorite. My level of playing will never improve so I dont need a huge collection of guitars anymore. these two get me all the tons I need in any setting.

Warmoth custom-made Explorer - Flame maple transparent top, jet black everywhere else, no inlays, no pickguard, she’s a beaut. SD Jazz at neck and SD Duncan Distortion at bridge, about to change to SD P-Rails at neck and SD Custom 5 at bridge and black out hardware.

Alvarez acoustic/electric - ivory nut, saddle, pins going on this weekend

Ibanez acoustic/electric Uke

Epiphone Acoustic - first six string. Nut/saddle/pins/action adjustment couldn’t bring her back to life. Dicking around in C and C# lately so I just keep this one tuned down.

Alvarez gets the most use by far but Warmoth is the favorite. Partial to Elixir Polyweb Lights.

Sold:
Dean ML Bass
Yamaha Bass (first instrument, still miss this thing)
Squier Bass
BC Rich Warlock

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Honestly the cheap PRS plays better than all of the others.

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I had a PRS SE Soapbar Maple II. Great guitar. I wish I would not have sold it but I needed the cash at that time. I think I made $50 or broke even.

Two MJT strats with Musikraft rosewood necks. 9.5 radius. One is S/S/S with the bridge pu wired to a tone pot instead of the rarely used middle pickup, the other is a H/H strat with two volumes and one tone post w a three way switch. I can blend both pickups in the middle position. The single coils are Fralins, the humbuckers are Don Grosh.

A Decava double cut solid body with two Grosh Humbuckers. Handmade from scratch. He only made two in 1987 and I have one of them. He’s a builder of exquisite jazz guitars. Les Paul’s and PRS play like barb wire next to this guitar.

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A nice Martin OM. A rare, one of 24, Washburn chambered solidbody classical, single cut.

I’m playing through a Kemper now. I route the output into a pair of Neve preamps and Pultec Eqs into a pair of frfr cabinets.

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These are the holy grail of electrics. He creates everything by hand. Everything. Even the screws. I’m planning on getting one in the next couple of years. I’m 58. It will be my last guitar purchase.

Here's my herd.

First up is my Number 1, a Taylor 612ce in all maple with a torrefied spruce top. This really isn't a strumming guitar; I play it exclusively fingerstyle.



Next is another acoustic and this big ol' dreadnought definitely is for strumming. It is a 1987 Avarez-Yairi DY59. Top is Sitka spruce and the back and sides are Brazilian rosewood.




If I have a Number 1 electric, it's this one. This is a 1974 Strat that I bought at Specialty Sound in Monroe. I think I paid $350 for it and a '66 Princeton amp. I've upgraded it quite a bit and given it a bit of a Gilmour look and sound. I've replaced pretty much everything on it. The pickups are: neck-SD SSL-5, middle-Fender CS '69, bridge-SD SSL-1. I also rewired it so that the second tone knob blends in some bridge pickup in addition to whatever I have selected on the blade switch.



This is my other Strat, a 2008 Mark Knopfler model. It has Texas Special pickups, a '59 swamp ash body and a '62 rosewood neck.



This guitar is a bit of a partscaster. It's a Fender MIM neck on a body of unknown origin. The design on the body is silk cloth decoupaged onto the body and then a blue sunburst around the edge. Same design on the back. It has two very different pickups in it. The bridge is a SD rails humbucker and the neck is a Wilde L202-TN lipstick.



This is a cheap Jay Turser, Korean-made semi-hollow body. I paid a couple of hundred bucks for it then invested in some better pickups and now it actually sounds pretty good. SD Seth Lover in the neck and '59 in the bridge.



Of course I can't leave out the 1959 Les Paul Jr. that FretShack restored for me. If the house was on fire, this is probably the first thing I'd grab.



This is a Rickenbacher Electro B "Tuxedo" lap steel from around 1945 (exact date unknown). I can play it a little but I don't devote the practice time to it that I should.



Finally, a Gretsch Alligator resonator. One of these days I'm going to learn to play Romeo and Juliet on it.

The A team:



1981 Les Paul Custom Black Beauty - Deal of the century, bought new for $599 from a store going out of business. My second guitar and first electric.






CF Martin GPC-MMVE - Been wanting a Martin for over 40 years since I played a friend’s and fell in love - bought Christmas ‘17 because who can pass up 48 month 0% interest financing.



The B team:



Jackson RR3 in Crimson Swirl - bought around 10 years ago and pretty much the only thing I played during that time.

Jackson Mick Thomson Soloist - bought this Christmas and my favorite guitar now.

Jackson RR3 - bought this Christmas just because. Didn’t need it but have always loved the looks since I saw the guy in TSO play one a few years ago.

The C team:



Fender 12 string - always wanted a 12 string but rarely plat it because I suck at guitar and 12 strings are hard because I only have 10 fingers.

1965 Gibson LGO Flattop - My first guitar. Someone left it in a hotel room where my uncle worked and no one ever claimed it. He gave it to me in the late 1970s and it started me on the path.

Gretsch hollow body - went to guitar center and couldn’t decide between an acoustic or an electric, so I compromised.

The others in the first pic are an Alvarez nylon string acoustic, the red one is an Electra-Westone Dynasty c. 1984, and the blue is a Squier Strat I bought for my kid. I love the Dynasty and played it almost exclusively for 20 years - the Les Paul just got too heavy to play with my bad back, so I needed something ligther. Played it until I bought the first Jackson RR3. The pickups don’t work any more but eventually I’ll get them replaced.

Damn nice collection, Baw.

In the spirit of full disclosure, my collection FAR outweighs my ability.

I'm 52 and have been playing since jr. high. I can't play lead to save my life and basically just crunch out barre chords to same '80s/90s metal tunes that I've been playing since my school days (Metallica, AC/DC, Judas Priest, Ozzy, etc.). For the past 20 years I play maybe 2-3 times/month for a half hour or so, and playing much more than that even sitting down bothers my back. Basically I'm a very mediocre rhythm player. But I like guitars, and every now and then buying new guitars makes me think I'm going to start playing more and learning new stuff, then I realize there are many other reasons why I can't.

Tigrrrrdad,

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