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Recent content by thejaf

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    Single Coil Guy’s battle with a neck Humbucker

    treble bleed. It works.
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    Tube rolling: V2 tone stack driver tube versus V1 preamp tube questions

    If you want to tube roll, start with V1. Try each old tube you have and pick the one that sounds best to you. Then move on to V2 and do the same procedure. Then V3, etc. Even the phase inverter can make an audible difference.
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    Pickup question

    How does it play and sound acousticly? If it really resonates and rings out, then pickup swap may definitely help for the sound you are chasing. That's been my experience for 35-years of playing . YMMV.
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    what is the impact of selling with new tax law?

    Just have the funds wired directly from China or Ukraine to a phantom LLC, then you won't be taxed. Sorry, just had to do that.
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    Who makes an under 30W head that REALLY sounds like a Plexi!?

    Any luck yet Ed? In my experience and to my ears, 6V6 breakup sounds more like EL34 than the other lower wattage tube (EL84). I picked up a Bogner Goldfinger SL45 last year, and I think it comes pretty close to the Plexi sound with a bunch of tone shaping options. Just using it through an old...
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    Stopbar height?

    I raise the stop tailpiece up high enough so the strings don't touch the bridge. Been doing that for 25 years with great results. Tried top-wrapping, but it was too slinky feeling with 10-46.
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    Which do you think are the most important tonal qualities of a good Les Paul?

    That is very true. Same argument could be used to say we don't need our historics at all, as an Epihone or Kay would sound near enough the same from an audience member at 1:30am. But we, as artists with so much practice time and money spent, we want inspiration and the tone in our heads, which...
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    How to clean nitro!?

    Spit on a rage to clean off the dried beer and drool. I've used fancy car wax (Zymol IIRC) once or twice a decade with good results. The stuff smells like a tropical nude beach, so that's a plus.
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    Which do you think are the most important tonal qualities of a good Les Paul?

    Fallacy for some maybe, but all the historic Les Pauls (except one) that have made me pull out my wallet in the last 20+ years have been constructed of arrow straight wood grain. The one exception is my chambered R8, which has a tiny bit of swirl to some of the grain. But, well it's chambered...
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    Which do you think are the most important tonal qualities of a good Les Paul?

    I almost always liked the tone of those Les Paul historics that have very straight grained mahogany backs. Don't know why, but most often they're just "more" when the body wood grain is straight. Oh, and it'd be a great bonus if it could walk my dog at night when I've forgotten.
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    Can someone explain Ultra Linear operation in guitar amps?

    Without going technical, it's powerful and clean. Good for bass and the 1960s clean pop sounds that were popular at the time I suppose. I'm sure it had its purpose in the studio, where Page worked his wizardry with using weird and cheap stuff that was at hand.
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    For Sale: Used & Well Played Gibson Custom Shop 2000 Elegant, Sienna Burst

    Hail Forum Brothers! :salude ***Price Reduced*** to $3,000 for forum members. Here's the Reverb.com listing https://reverb.com/item/34348561-gibson-custom-shop-les-paul-elegant-2000-flamed-maple-top-sienna-burst Up for sale is my year 2000 Les Paul Elegant. I've owned this guitar for 19...
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    Some little tone tricks, thought I'd share

    I modified the volume pots on my Elegant last year, but waited to share this only if I found the changes useful. Now a year has gone by, and I really like them so here goes. These are most useful to those of us that use the volume pots a lot instead of channel switching, effects, etc. These...
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    What effect does the grain pattern of the mahogany body blank have on tone?

    Mostly long time lurker here, sometime contributor of small thoughts, but this one's been nagging at me a while. There was a brief discussion here back in May 2007 about this, but I thought I'd bring it up again. I've noticed that fellows in the historic section are usually a little more keen...
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