MusicRadar

guidewell wrote:

Sun 21 Sep 2008, 6:57 pm UTC

• Message guidewell

:WHERE'S MY STUFF?
OK, I look my age (I was born in 1950) which probably qualifies me as a rock dinosaur or even a skiffle-head but it's a bit alarming not to find a single piece of my kit on MusicRadar. So what if some of it is nearly 50 years old? It still plays.
KIT LIST
My first electric guitar was a 1962 Hofner Verithin (the one with single-coil pick-ups and rounded rather than pointed cutaways - I can never remember which are Venetian and which are Florentine), red sunburst with Bigsby tremelo and added Tune-O-Matic Bridge in 1965. I had to fit new chrome enclosed Schaller machine heads some years ago when the original open brass ones wore out so I no longer have the original abalone pegheads mounted. The big feature of the Verithin is one you never see, the bookmatched maple back beautifully mated in two halves. Mine is wired for a stereo jack so that each pick-up feeds to a separate mono output jack (this wasn't available as standard until 1963).
The combination of a light hollow body and single-coil pick-ups with no separate pole heght adjustment (you can move the whole block of each pick-up nearer to or further away from the strings) make this a tricky guitar to master as it's easy to induce feedback at any volume and the strings vary in loudness (the second string being the most pronounced. The huge 'dishpan' body is not to everyone's taste and the neck strtap has to be fixed in a loop around the headstock because the top cutaway could never support a mounting boss.
But it's a great instrument to play and it's so big and bright it makes a definite statgement nobody can miss.
There have been a number of attempts to re-introduce the model, often under the name of 'Verythin' because of copyright reasons. Looking at MusicRadar's review of the new Vox Virage I wonder whether it has any similaritise but I don't happen to have £2099 to spare to find out. My Verithin cost me £50 (knocked down from 75 guineas because of scratches in the varnish).
In 1967 my teacher Bill Tringham asked me to get a classical guitar for exercises. I found a very early Japanese contender, a Soloist made by one of the Yairi brothers. I used it for classical playing and also in folk clubs where I prefered its sound to the ubiquitous steel-strung Yamaha FG that all the clubbers seemed to use. It looks to me like any other classical guitar but people tell me that it really stands out and the singing tone is much coveted despite its advanced age. It's a sweet instrument to play and seems to come alive in your hands.
I've had to leave off playing both these instrumgents following an accident that permanently damaged my right ribs and shoulder so that I could no longer wrap my arm across them. My wife, a classical pianist by training, decided to take them over and learn to play. She's never been very happy with fretted instruments though, having been brought up on the cello so I had Mr. Godin build her a hollow-bodied nylon strung fretless 6-string with synth access. This is teamed with a Roland GR33.
I thought my guitar playing days were over until my wife surprised me on a recent birthday with the ideal instrument for my deformed right side - a guitar I had often mentioned to her that I would like to have owned. It's a Thinline Telecaster - hollow-bodied with a 1972 pattern scratch plate and twin Humbucking pick-ups. it fits me just nicely and I can strum away to my hearts content, though I'll no longer be able to emulate Jimmy Page, Rory Gallagher or my favourite guitarists of the old days, Sam Mitchell and Nic Jones.. Fender's Mexican facrtory was doing a short run of these and my wife got hold of one - natural ash body and silver over white pick guard. She equipped it with a Rolamd pick-up so that I could use the GR33 as well.
It needs a home-friendly amplifker. I've never owned a practice amp because I hated their tinny tone. So I was surprised and delighted with the fruity tone of the companion Laney LC15R powerred by vacuum tube circuitry (yes, I'm a valve man even unto the heart of my hi-fi).
I thought I'd better reciprocate so I bought the piano accordion she had her eyes on. Now she's got going I think I need to save up for one of those Roland digital ones. She's also hinted that Roland are making digital hrpsichords again.