Ceriatone Forum

Hi,

Sadly due to financial problems I have to sell my Gibson Les Paul Standard but I am looking for a cheaper guitar to go with my Tele. I'm looking for a classic design guitar, as long as it isn't a Fender-like guitar  :P

What guitars do you guys own and which go well with the OTS (and which don't!) ?

Telecasters are a freaking DREAM with the OTS. I have a 4 way switch on mine and that 4th position is pure bliss with the OD engaged. Generally I think the OTS 'likes' longer scaled guitars for their brightness and snap which IMO compliments the warm overdrive of these amps quite nicely. LP seem a little mushy with these amps in my opinion, with some EQ tweeking they do sound good though.

My current guitars I use with mine are
Custom tele
G&L S500 (stratlike)
MIJ Strat (alnico 2 pickups)
Acoustic.

In general i think the OTS doesnt respond well to "shredder" type guitars with ceramic magnets, the amp lets the pickups shine through and those magnets sound grainy and thin to me. "classic" type alnico pickups sound better to me as they have a sweetness to the tone.

Yeah I agree. I have a Hamer Studio and a Strat but my Tele sounds best

Another tele guy here... out of all my guitars I prefer tele, no doubt about it... on the other hand, I prefer tele with any other amp as well not just D-.   ;D

Totally agree guys, I absolutely love my homebuilt Tele through the OTS, it is a perfect match. I'd like to have a fatter sounding guitar in addition to it though (something with P90s maybe...).

Did you guys found any other great matches?

What about a Gretsch  :)

What? Tele? Oh noooo!!!
Never liked Tele till recently I’ve built one and now I can’t play anything else, Just LOVE it. But I guess it’s only looks like Tele otherwise it has noiseless strat pickup in the neck and super humbucker in the bridge with a coil tap for single coil Tele sound.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jZFNtL1cbg

And here is a true Tele jam with my new love.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tXej9nO2oM

My favorite is my Les Paul Standard, I also have a 61 reissue SG, and an ES-135LE. The OTS is very good for bringing out the individual character of almost any guitar, and making in shine.
The ES135LE (The LE edition has humbuckers, 57 classics) and can usually be bought used on Ebay for $800 - $900.
I think this is one of the best deals on a Gibson guitar going - this guitar sounds very good through my OTS.

i have a collection of guitars and i must say they all sound great through the HRM

my favorites are my 80's Yamaha SG1500 and my early 90's edwards les paul
both guitars are reasonably priced and much better sounding than most gibson LP's

my firebird also sounds like heaven through the amp.... mini humbuckers are so sweet  and yet can get nasty when you want them to.

every guitar needs its own amp setting though, depending on output and brightness.......

hi emeil
i will finish my gretsch/gibson-clone tomorrow... its like a 335 with a bigsby and filtertrons..... i will let you know how it goes.... i expect it to be excellent too.... my last one was similar and a great guitar..... but someone made me a ridiculous offer and so i sold it to him... lol

Nice! Please send me some pictures and more information on that one. Looking forward to your opinion how the filtertrons work with the OTS amps. I managed to try a couple of nice (new and old) Gretsches and really loved them... even more than the expensive Gibsons and Fenders that day... for me my Gibson LP and the OTS is sort of a love/hate relationship, sometimes it sounds great, sometimes not while my Telecaster is a perfect match. Unfortunately I'll have to sell the Gibson but nevertheless I'll keep an eye out for a bigger and creamier sounding guitar next to my Tele...

hi emiel

my first gretsch-like guitar was the perfect rock machine.....semi-solid like a 335 so you can turn it up and it had plenty of sustain. and of course the bigsby trem is a must as it adds its own chime to the guitar. today i fitted a roller bridge to it to maintain tuning stability. and tomorrow i need to make some wooden plates into which the filterons will mount. filtertrons screw into the body like P-90's and therefore normal humbucker routes must be adapted for this to get the correct height.

i build lots of retro style guitars for people and the HRM seems to like all pickups humbuckers, fender singles and P-90's....i expect the filtertrons to be excellent too.

i will post pics and maybe a recording for you to hear the results.

fabian

By the way. I also own 2 strats with EMG's and Floyd Rose trems. Don't care much for the combination with the OTS.  Others get good results with EMG's though.

Hi,
In the near future I'm going to be working on a OTS HRM BM 100 watt model. Anyone else out there have an opinion on using a strat  with these models. I'm using a Fender Deluxe with noiseless pu's. Thanks

 The BM is great with a strat . I switched to humbucker equipped guitars almost exclusively shortly after I got my 100w BM although.

my HRM is also fantastic with a strat.......they really go well together

Thanks guys. I appreciate your info. I do also have an ES 335 which of course does the job well and maybe a Tele somewhere down the line

hi emiel

as suspected... filtertrons rock through my HRM!!!!!
really sweet and also able to get really full on and bluesy
also great for ACDC!!!

some pics of the guitar as promised (i get to a recording in the next few days)

(http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss192/mr_fabulous_guitars/DSCF8355.jpg)

(http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss192/mr_fabulous_guitars/DSCF8354.jpg)




i missed my last guitar... now this one sounds even better!!!

regards

fabian

Fabian, that is just.... fabulous looking!!

Did you build it yourself? Do you take orders :P? Would love to hear some clean 'n dirty clips with this great looker... superb work!

Thanks Emiel

actually i do this for a living.... however i get them manufactured in china.... and upgrade all the guitars here

they are all made to my specs and my designs

and very well priced. i play and gig  my own guitars too.... thats my benchmark...

and yes i take orders...... (i have another one of these guitars tucked away waiting to be set up!! hehehe)

here are a couple of pics of my customs:

(http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss192/mr_fabulous_guitars/DSCF8292.jpg)

(http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss192/mr_fabulous_guitars/DSCF8283.jpg)

fab

New member here.

I just ordered an OTS FM 50 and a 2550!!! WOO HOO!!
I am a custom guitar builder in Dallas and play my own stuff. Humbuckers, 25.5" scale that adds pop. I cant't wait to try these out.

www.brianpaulguitars.com

hi brian

welcome to the family!!

you will find these amps will bring the most out of your guitars......and your playing!!

Mr. Fabulous

Thanks for the welcom. This will be fun.

 Brian,

 I checked out your site, great guitars you make. I'm jealous! Maybe I'll be callin ya up to build me an axe in the distant future. 

Bold,

Thanks for checking us out. I am glad you liked what you saw. I can build you one anytime.

I should send one to Nik just for making such great amps!!!!!

 :o Brian,
those are nice... beautiful work.
 ;)

Mcinku,

Thanks for looking in.

Telecaster, Dumble and skilful hands, what can be better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfgSCzUWUXw&feature=related

Wow that is phenomenal tone and playing. Just a shame about his singing voice ;D

Well I can think of one thing... it's me playing like that.... at least close to that
 ;D

It's a good marriage between a Tele and a Dumble. Thanks for that clip. Very nice!

This one sounds really nice -
(http://home.comcast.net/~sduck409/ampkit%20039.jpg)

for you gear heads, that's a warmoth swamp ash body, warmoth padouk/pau ferro neck, EMG DG20 pickup set, wilkinson tremelo, graphtech nut, sperzel locking tuners. Goes from super vintage sounding to modern high tech sounds. It plays so nice that I sold all my other guitars even!

^^^^ niceeee checkout my Pau Ferro tele or at least the top half;D

(http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k201/jd0x0/P1020018.jpg)

Sduck, nice picture, nice guitar! I see you are using EL34's in your HRM? Interesting that you like the EMG's with this amp as Steven didn't like them with his OTS?

JD0x0, give us a picture of the whole guitar please. Looks stunning mate! Warmoth build?


Funnily enough, I put a pair of TAD 6L6WGC-STR's in my OTS and suddenly my Les Paul pairs up with it much better... :)

I made an EMG pickguard with two SA 'single coils' and a 89 in the bridge position.

I've always liked Steve Lukathers tone a lot, but it doesnt really work for me and especially not when playing dumble style amps.

I guess the EMG's had the hey days back in the 80s when we used a lot of noisy effects in racks and TOTO was THE band.

These days, I prefer Duncan antiquities in my strat with a telesounding Duncan twangbanger in the bridge position. It really makes my strat sound like a RF tele in teh bridge pos.

They're JJ 6L6GC's.

And I love my EMG's - not about to change them. I couldn't give a damn what Steven thinks, whoever he is.

It's great that your are respectfull and in love with your EMG's.......

'Steven' aka Steven_nl, just happen to be one of the king people at this forum, who tries to help a Dumble novice like yourself, by answering a lot of questions from newbees.

I'm sure it's not your intention to insult anyone, but we like to keep a good tone in our posts on this forum - not only in our amps. If you get my drift.

I'm sure it was meant in a friendly way ;-) . It reminds me of a photo of Keith Richards. In it he wears a T-Shirt with the tekst "who the fuck is Mick Jagger" LOL

@ Bluesfenderblues Thanks M8.

It's never my intention to insult anyone. Just to share my personal observation. Tone is a very personal and subjective thing. Plus it's my observation about one perticular guitar/pickup and amp combination. Maybe my srat with EMG's sounds great with Sduck's amp.

 :D

Oh don't worry, I absolutely meant it in the most respectful way - I had a pretty good idea who was meant, and I was pretty sure he would understand where I was coming from. Don't worry Steven - I love you man!

Steven said it best - "Tone is a very personal and subjective thing". I find I'm happiest as a musician when I'm using MY ears (and those in my immediate vicinity) to develop my sound, and not coloring it with opinions from magazines or forums - in fact, my involvement here has been quite an anomaly, and I'll probably fade away fairly soon. I've got a new amp that I'm thrilled with, and want to learn lots about it, but eventually my interests drift, ifyaknowudImean.

I haven't properly introduced myself here - while I don't play guitar gigs anymore, I started out as a guitarist back in the late 60's, and played in lots of bands in the 70's and 80's, nothing big, just average rock stuff. My last gig was a country pickup band for a songwriter here in Nashville in 1990. I was usually the hired gun flash lead guitarist, and have always been good about learning songs fast so that worked out pretty well. My day job is also as a musician - I'm a symphony cellist, playing with the Nashville Symphony for the last 26 years. So I've been around guitars for a long time, and some of the great ones at that. One of my huge influences for guitar tone is Vince Gill, who's someone I've played with a lot, and I've played his guitar a few times even. He uses a fairly similar EMG setup, and a pair of blackface Deluxes. If I knew him better I'd try to get him to try my new amp - I'm sure he'd be impressed, although I doubt we could pry him away from the fenders.

For a laugh, take a look at a list I made once of all the guitars I've owned - warning - this web page was originally created in 1993 (!!!) before there was such thing as web page editors, and was (and is) very primitive - although I've updated it sporadically, it's still extremely primitive looking - http://home.comcast.net/~sduck409/Stevesguitars.html (http://home.comcast.net/~sduck409/Stevesguitars.html)

So anyway, I didn't mean anything - just showing off my guitar, as per the thread at hand, and responding in an off-hand way to an off-hand comment - nothing serious meant!

Oh - and I'd like to add this - guitar people are funny. Funny as in Ha Ha! and also funny hmmm....

For instance, I could have written:

"You'll note that the pickguard isn't the original one that comes with the EMG DG20 set. I originally found the sound of the pickups kind of brittle sounding in the high end, but upon removing them, I notices that the pickguard seemed extremely stiff and inflexible, and tried switching it out with a regular thin, cheap, more flexible pickguard I happened to have, and it smoothed out the tone a lot, enough that I now really liked the sound, and have kept them on."

... and somewhere, someone would have believed I was serious, and tried the same thing, and had an epiphany, and repeated the experience as gospel, and a whole new myth about guitar sound would evolve.

So Steven, (and please, I'm just kidding!!!) maybe you should try changing out the pickguards on those strats with EMG's? I'll bet you'll like them then with your ots!

Man you should have kept some of those guitars you had... you would be rich at this moment...

 ;)

<cowardly lion voice> Ain't it the truth... ain't it the truth</cowardly lion voice>

That early PRS alone would probably pay my daughter's college tuition. It was a really early specimen - serial number 4 or something like that - there were earlier handmade ones, but this was literally one of the first of their mass produced ones. I bought the first one in Nashville I think. Dickie Betts played it for a few hours on a trip I made back to the store for some setup work, and ended up buying one later.

Damn. it seems I have to install a pickguard on my quilted maple body strat
 :chairdance:
(http://home.kpn.nl/s.scholten17/Strat.jpg)

Ha! Yup, that would do it.

Beautiful guitar! I never really took to those Loyd Frose tailpieces, although I had one on the HM strat, and it worked ok on that one.

Thanks

Yeah I agree. it was a thing of the time I guess (Lukather etc). I would get rid of it if I could and install a wilkinson or somehting simple, but that would mean drilling new hole and closing the existing ones. I guess I have to keep it like this.

Pics as requested :)
 Sorry about the cell phone pics
(http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k201/jd0x0/IMG005.jpg)

(http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k201/jd0x0/IMG006.jpg)

(http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k201/jd0x0/IMG007.jpg)

that is one sweeeeeet tele JDOxO,
I hope it sounds great too.

Cheers