Has anyone ever found the "perfect" guitar for themselves?

Hanky_Pooh · March 2, 2018, 8:02pm

I’ve never found a guitar that I am 100% happy with. They just don’t make what I want in a production model. There is always at least one thing I don’t like, that is un-changeable about every guitar I’ve ever picked up. I wish I could be like Nuno and Jerry Cantrell and SRV and have a guitar that I love and play for years.

I want the current spec Yngwie Stratocaster without the scalloped neck, without his name on it… Dimarzio Injectors instead of his pickups… and I want it to weigh no more than 7lbs… EVERYTHING ELSE THE SAME! fretwire, etc… Will I ever have this guitar without babysitting a Master Builder in the Fender Custom shop through the whole process, and paying over 5k?

I guess I have to make the damn thing myself. Damn. This is why I get depressed at music stores I think. Nothing I pick up is THAT guitar. Here is a Vlog I made of going to some guitar stores. I haven’t been in a while.

NCASO · March 2, 2018, 8:19pm

NCASO · March 2, 2018, 8:20pm

My Ibanez RG 30 anniversary premium.
Can’t say enough about it…

NCASO · March 2, 2018, 8:21pm

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element0s · March 2, 2018, 8:44pm

Honestly that Charvel 650xl I posted in a previous topic is probably the closest thing for me. Maybe the Dellinger II-FX-AM I played in 2016. It’s all about the neck.

TheCount · March 2, 2018, 8:55pm

I have! And… to anyone else it’s probably not that special! It was my first ‘good’ guitar. Standard Ibanez RG350. I eventually replaced it with a jem, but still liked the neck far more on this one so decided to upgrade it. Emgs, new tremolo and gold hardware! Now the poor jem hardly gets a look in. It’s not really anything particularly unique or special, but what can I say? It works for me, I recorded my first album, currently recording the new one with it, play it every day. Maybe a lot of that is sentimental value, but i’m lucky my ‘perfect’ guitar is actually a reasonably cheap one!

Drew · March 2, 2018, 9:14pm

Honestly, I don’t think this would be TOO hard a project guitar to put together. You basically need a Fender 21-fret neck (a Mexican strat would probably be fine, especially a newer one - Fender’s been killing it lately, I’d feel comfortable going into a shop, playing a bunch of maple boarded Mexi strats, and leaving with your favorite maple boarded one), a refret to 6000, a set of Injectors, and the lightest Warmoth body you can find, in vintage white. This one’s under four pounds:

http://www.warmoth.com/Showcase/ShowcaseItem.aspx?Body=2&Shape=1&Path=Stratocaster&bFinish=320&i=PS12793#.Wpm93OjwaUk

About the one thing that would pose you any trouble is the CBS era headstock, but I’ve always thought that was hideous anyway. If you REALLY wanted that headstock, Warmoth offers it as an option (and they do GREAT work, and as an added bonus you could spec 6000 on the build), but you’d either have to go with a Warmoth logo (I did, on the one I put together) or find a source for a Fender logo for it.

For me, my Suhr Modern 7 is as close as I’ve found - basically an alder or ash H-H superstrat with a maple board and OFR. Thing smokes.

Hanky_Pooh · March 2, 2018, 10:19pm

Yeah, it’s gotta be the fat CBS headstock. Cool info man. I am thinking about getting a maple board American Special Strat and throwing Injectors in it. That will be about $1300 there. Then it won’t be Vintage White. Won’t have the 6000’s. It’ll be 22 fret… I guess that is ok.

@TheCount nice guitars man, I had a RG370 that probably had the same neck. That thing shred. But it was heavy as hell. 9lbs. Honestly, the satan cream Strat I play a lot was a old purple Squier Standard. I spent hours making it how I wanted it. I had just got out of jail and had no cash. Got it for $60. lol. I drew the logo on it with a Sharpie and cleared it.

@element0s yeah the 650xl I had was sweet man. But these guitars all have that middle pickup. I can’t stand it, my pick hits them. On a Strat, I can lower it all the way flush with the gaurd… Most other guitars, it won’t go flush. I pull the SOB’s out of the Kramers I got.

@NCASO Nice guitar man. Does that come without the middle pickup?

NCASO · March 2, 2018, 11:17pm

Thx. Guitar is awesome.

Check this out:

http://www.ibanez.com/usa/products/New/index.html?utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Ibanez&utm_content=New+For+2018

Medium_Attempt · March 2, 2018, 11:42pm

This might be a very simple question to me, a person who has only one guitar and who hasn’t tried that many guitars. Honestly, I haven’t touched any other guitar for……it must be at least 10 years. And I don’t even crave for another guitar. Sure, there are some guitars I’d like to try and perhaps even own but I have never realistically considered buying another guitar.

After all this writing about my faithfulness, I guess I should unveil what exactly I’m talking about. My beloved guitar was probably the cheapest model of Carvin at the time I bought it. It is Carvin Bolt-on or something like that. Basically it is a Fender Strat. Actually, I originally wanted to buy a Strat (because I was a fanboy of Yngwie) but I heard many rumors about some quality problems Fender had at that time and then I found Carvin. I tried it, I liked it, I bought it, I’m still with it. Ah, what a love story I will definitely not tell my girlfriend about this post

RockStarJazzCat · March 2, 2018, 11:47pm

I have over a dozen (lost count) guitars. None are perfect. Some are more inspiring than others.

RockStarJazzCat · March 2, 2018, 11:48pm

And in fact, I don’t think any one could be. They all have different features and uses.

Hanky_Pooh · March 3, 2018, 1:16am

Yeah I see Ibanez has some cool guitars. You notice it looks like they’re trying to copy Suhr with the headstocks on some?

@Medium_Attempt that’s why I want to find a guitar I can settle with. I’m tired of not being satisfied with them.

I’m going to try to find a lightweight USA Strat with a CBS headstock and then I’ll just have to modify it.

@RockStarJazzCat I hear ya man.

Horganovski · March 3, 2018, 11:54am

It’s funny you mention the Yngwie strat… I played a PRS as my main guitar for years (custom 22) and it’s a fantastic guitar but 4 years ago I was looking for something different, I’ve always liked big frets and strats but not the single coil noise, so I took a chance on a YJM signature … and totally fell in love with it. Now it’s the guitar I always reach for first while the PRS, an Ibanez Universe and several others look on with jealous looks…

Full disclosure - I did change the bridge for a Callaham one as I found the vintage string spacing on the narrow neck left the high E -way- too close to the edge of the neck for me. The Callaham has modern string spacing with vintage screw holes so it was an easy (but expensive) fix.

I’ve never found a ‘perfect’ guitar out of the box though, I had the PRS refretted with jumbos not long after I got it as I found the frets too small, and I’ve replaced the pickups in the Ibanez…

Kevinwhite338 · March 3, 2018, 4:09pm

I have a schecter km6 and a km7 and I can’t imagine a more perfect guitar for me. I love these things.

Tom_Gilroy · March 3, 2018, 5:58pm

Yes, I think I’ve found the perfect guitar for me.

This is my guitar:

This headless guitar was built by Rick Canton. The guitar is hollow-bodied, with a plain maple top and an alder frame and back. The neck is flamed maple, the fretboard is ebony. The fretboard radius is 20" and the frets are the tallest available. It has a JCustom vibrato system, which is supposedly superior to the original Steinberger S-trem.

The electronics are quite simple. Two Seymour Duncan '59s, with individual parallel/off/series switches. Master volume and master tone.

The ergonomics are excellent when standing, or when sitting in a good chair using a strap. The way it hangs from the body allows unrestricted access to the entire neck. It accommodates for large stretches without too much discomfort, and it’s easy to maintain ideal fretting hand forms.

The only complaint I have, and it’s so minor it’s barely worth mentioning, is that the standard length and angle of the vibrato bar is not quite right for my hand and technique, but I’ve bought a few extra bars and I intend to cut and bend them to my preference soon.

I understand that the aesthetic is not for everybody.

Hanky_Pooh · March 3, 2018, 10:04pm

@Kevinwhite338 @Tom_Gilroy nice axes guys.

Yeah man!!! Those are good axes. I just don’t like the scallops anymore. And I don’t want Yngwie’s name on my guitar. And speaking of the Yngwie and Fat headstock strats… I used to have tons of them. “Just say no” kids. You’ll lose it all, and go to prison. later @Horganovski

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Hanky_Pooh · March 13, 2018, 9:17pm

Ok, so here is another thought I’m having.

Do you guys think that playing on the same guitar all the time makes your playing real tight? VS playing different guitars all the time? I’m having guitar variety depression. My playing gets tight as hell on a Stratocaster. Then I switch back to a Floyd and sound like a beginner. Pisses me off.

Ian · March 13, 2018, 9:39pm

I think it’s better to switch up and play on at least a couple of different guitars. I played the same strat for almost 20 years and it made it really hard for me to play anything else. Got so used to the neck and string tension/height that any other guitar felt weird and uncomfortable.

Costanza · March 13, 2018, 10:11pm

My perfect guitar was the result of modifying a prexisting guitar I owned to my exact preferences.

I took a 2001 American Stratocaster with maple neck and sunburst finish and had my luthier take off the poly paint on the body down to the bare wood. I then had it refinished in a thin surf green nitro lacquer. After that, I had him remove the satin urothane finish on the back of the neck down to the wood again and refinish it with oil. The neck is incredibly smooth and feels similar to the EVH guitar necks and has started to darken and age from me playing it so much.

I then replaced the entire stock tremolo kit with a Wudtone vintage model. This converted my strat from the traditional American Standard 2 post to a vintage 6 screw stainless steel bridge with vintage saddles and a full-sized stainless steel trem block. There are however, some minor differences to the string spacing: the vintage Fender string spacing is a bit too wide for me because the high E string would sometimes slip off the end of the neck. The string spacing on my bridge sits right between a vintage and modern spacing, so the strings are as far apart and even from one another as they can be without sliding off of the fretboard on either side. Wudtone products are comparable to Callaham if you don’t know about them. They are a great English company.

I then decided to have a master volume and master tone knob. I removed the volume knob because I was tired of hitting it while playing and accidentally turning the volume down. This is probably due to my downward pickslanting supinated wrist position and the fact that I play close to the bridge. It is, however, a complaint I’ve heard before about the strat.

I placed the volume knob where the tone knob was and then placed a master tone knob where the second tone knob was which controlled all three pickups. I also had a switch put in to turn on and off the neck pickup which gives me 7 positions instead of 5.

Fretboard radius is 9.5 with medium jumbo frets and rolled edges. When I get a refret down the line I would like to have jumbo stainless steel frets put in. I’m also interested in putting in locking tuners and possibly trying two humbuckers.

What I am left with is a custom, custom shop strat in a way. I’ve played many guitars over the 15 years I’ve been playing and I can honestly say I haven’t found one I liked betterin in terms of feel, regardless of price. I am a bit more privy to humbuckers in terms of sound though, which is why I want to throw some PAF style pickups in there and get that Jimmy Herring tone. I think once that happens I’ll be done.