Main Menu

Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 11:52:54 AM

Login with username, password and session length

The Flying V

Started by kalowski, January 25, 2019, 11:05:18 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

buzby

Quote from: NoSleep on February 04, 2019, 09:20:07 AM
I've heard of other artists hording bits of gear they like, so they they never need to look for a spare. It's insurance of your sound. Geordie from Killing Joke has done the exact same.
It's no good unless you use them semi-regularly though - the electrolytic capacitors will die unless there is current passed though them on a regular basis (we have to rotate our power supplies in work every 6 months to ensure the spares are kept working).  You can recap them easily enough, but these are the sort of people who probably believe the sound is affected by replacing the vintage caps in a power supply.

NoSleep

So all they have to do to maintain them is have them used now and then? Simple.

buzby

Quote from: NoSleep on February 04, 2019, 11:04:59 AM
So all they have to do to maintain them is have them used now and then? Simple.
Quote from: Flouncer on February 04, 2019, 09:07:40 AM
I like to call him Joe Bonamasshole. There's not really any need to buy thirty of the same vintage amp and keep them all in a big room where you never use them.
Going from pictures of the size of his amp collection there's no way he could ever end up regularly using all of them, and he's posted on Facebook about blowing up a vintage Fender Tweed amp that he had just bought by powering it up without getting the PSU capacitors checked first.

NoSleep

I was more interested in defending the idea of collecting spares of gear you can't do without rather than Joe Bonamassa. I've got got a spare of the mixing desk I use every day (and use as a summing mixer) because I love the sound and would not want to be buying something to deputise while I searched for an exact replacement.

If I had the space to store the number of amps Bonamassa has I'd probably have a tech guy maintaining them, too. Then again, if he's only blown one, so far, then playing the numbers game seems to be working in his favour.

a duncandisorderly

he's still a bell-end but.

Shit Good Nose

#95
Quote from: Flouncer on January 27, 2019, 05:32:05 PM
I have a bit of a thing for Gibson harp guitars from the early 1900s - they're pretty useless but amazingly built and sort of beautiful. I'd love to have a fuckabout on one.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi-SnEiRs-A





Four pages in and no mention of one of the most synonymous V players - Wishbone Ash's Andy Powell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBVijZ9R4c0

I like them a lot and I know, like a lot of Gibsons, they're not the easiest or most comfortable to play but, also like a lot of Gibsons, there are sounds which are totally unique to a V which you can't get from any other guitar and all the effects pedals in the world.

But then I also like PRS guitars, so what do I know...

mojo filters

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on February 03, 2019, 01:35:50 PM
Personally, I don't much care for the Telecaster. I find the design a little bit ugly (and that metal tray thing that the bridge sits in is a knuckle shredding hazard) but it's more about its 'working man's guitar' image. There's a sort of inverse snobbery about it, as if playing anything fancier is just for rich ponces.

The great thing about the Telecaster is that it makes such a fine platform for such a variety of different configurations. The Strat might have a slight ergonomic advantage, but that design has hardly evolved since Leo Fender originally designed it.

By contrast the Tele has been constantly refined over the years. In the 1960s there was the original Custom and Roger Rossmeisl's (sp?) Thinline. Then the addition of Seth Lover's Wide Range Humbucker in the 1970s allowed the development of three further classic models.

More recently Fender have offered an even wider variety of options, such as the Cabronita models with Gretsch style "toaster" pickups. Recently Squier then Fender added twin P90 pickup custom models.

The sad thing is how lazy Fender approached their reissued WRHB pickups. Fortunately there's now a thriving cottage industry via experts like the Creamery in Manchester, offering appropriate replacements.

Personally I think the Telecaster is by far the most attractive electric guitar design, though as the slim headstock is an integral part of that, it means mass market copies are not a good option. To be fair, the hideous fat CBS era headstock on the '70s Deluxe is also cursed with less than stellar looks!

I can understand folks disliking the original ashtray bridge, for practical playing purposes. Fortunately there are plenty of variations and after-market modifications that easily take care of that.

Maybe there is a degree of inverse snobbery involved here. I do find the Strat rather unnecessarily ostentatious, with more functionality than most folks need.

I admire the craft involved in fine Gibson and classic Epiphone designs, but the genius of the clever and smart simplicity of Leo Fender's finest design still wins for me.

As far as Flying Vs go, I don't particularly like them but I assume the design allows a single piece body similar to the Firebird - which certainly benefits the unique tone on the latter.

Their greater sin is the subsequent influence on ugly modern iterations from brands with a catalogue full of designs that appear to be aimed at those with absolutely no sense of aesthetics!

Geoffs~Cape

Albert King loved a Flying V:



And that reminds me of another bluesman, T-Model Ford. Saw him live shortly before he passed away and he was playing this ugly Peavey metal thing (a Razer I've since learnt) through an old Peavey solid state metal looking amp. Sounded bloody brilliant! Apparently most of those hill country blues players like R.L Burnside, Junior Kimbrough etc. favoured cheap Peavey amps because, well, they were cheap! And Peavey originating from Mississippi meant they were easy to get hold of around there.


Shit Good Nose

Quote from: Geoffs~Cape on February 08, 2019, 12:18:14 PM
Apparently most of those hill country blues players like R.L Burnside, Junior Kimbrough etc. favoured cheap Peavey amps because, well, they were cheap!

Back in my guitar playing days I had a Peavey matched up with my early 70s custom SG (the remaining major regret of selling it I've mentioned several times over the years on CaB) and it sounded ace.  When I was shopping around for amps I demoed several at my price point (which did include second hand Marshalls and WEMs), and the Peavey sounded the best by far.

That was about 25 years ago now, though, so for all I know Peavey might suck ass these days.

Icehaven

The guitarist in my band, who has no compunction whatsoever about looking like an 80's hair rocker, in fact that's generally what he's aiming for, used to have a flying V but the neck was way too heavy for the body so it was difficult to play as the neck naturally wanted to drop and the body stick up in the air, and when playing it he found he was constantly holding it up at the same time. So with heavy heart he got rid of it.
And I second (or third or whatever we're up to) the veto on basses with more than 4 strings. Just play the fucking guitar then already.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: icehaven on February 08, 2019, 02:47:55 PM
And I second (or third or whatever we're up to) the veto on basses with more than 4 strings. Just play the fucking guitar then already.

Oh, yeah - I totally disagree.

When Mike Rutherford (who I regularly bring up as one of the most under rated bassists of all time) played 6 string bass he was able to play more melodic higher register bass lines, at the same time as having a deep rumble at the low end with bass pedals, which he'd play simultaneously.  It's an absolutely magical and unmistakable sound, and one of the things that set Genesis out amongst a lot of their contemporaries.

Spiteface

Quote from: mojo filters on February 07, 2019, 03:08:50 PM
The great thing about the Telecaster is that it makes such a fine platform for such a variety of different configurations. The Strat might have a slight ergonomic advantage, but that design has hardly evolved since Leo Fender originally designed it.

By contrast the Tele has been constantly refined over the years. In the 1960s there was the original Custom and Roger Rossmeisl's (sp?) Thinline. Then the addition of Seth Lover's Wide Range Humbucker in the 1970s allowed the development of three further classic models.

More recently Fender have offered an even wider variety of options, such as the Cabronita models with Gretsch style "toaster" pickups. Recently Squier then Fender added twin P90 pickup custom models.

The sad thing is how lazy Fender approached their reissued WRHB pickups. Fortunately there's now a thriving cottage industry via experts like the Creamery in Manchester, offering appropriate replacements.

Personally I think the Telecaster is by far the most attractive electric guitar design, though as the slim headstock is an integral part of that, it means mass market copies are not a good option. To be fair, the hideous fat CBS era headstock on the '70s Deluxe is also cursed with less than stellar looks!

I can understand folks disliking the original ashtray bridge, for practical playing purposes. Fortunately there are plenty of variations and after-market modifications that easily take care of that.

Maybe there is a degree of inverse snobbery involved here. I do find the Strat rather unnecessarily ostentatious, with more functionality than most folks need.

I admire the craft involved in fine Gibson and classic Epiphone designs, but the genius of the clever and smart simplicity of Leo Fender's finest design still wins for me.

I tend to skew more "Gibson" than "Fender" but as someone who also currently owns three teles, I cannot argue with any of this.

Also, "Motorcycle Emptiness" by the Manic Street Preachers, for years I thought that riff was a Les Paul, only to find out a few years ago, it's Richey Edwards' old thinline Tele:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gslKjS155Q

He still plays that tele live, too. Usually open-tuned for stuff like "Tsunami" and "Kevin Carter" although I've seen him use it in standard, too.

I like the '72 Thinline though: All the benefits of humbuckers, but still "Fender-y" in sound, resonant enough that you can just practice at home on it unplugged and like most Fenders, bombproof but piss-easy to find and fit new parts.

Ferris

Anyone played one of those Fender Baja Telecasters? I like the idea of having a classic looking tele but with the option to go in/out of phase on the pickups.

Spiteface

I have one. Got it for the big neck more than anything (have a Squier CV which is nice, but a skinny neck), and it does all the good tele tones, with the added out of phase setting via the S-1 switch and the "series" setting is good for a thicker version of the middle position. Probably one of the best "Bang for your buck" options in the Fender line.

Spiteface

Quote from: NoSleep on February 04, 2019, 09:20:07 AM
I've heard of other artists hording bits of gear they like, so they they never need to look for a spare. It's insurance of your sound. Geordie from Killing Joke has done the exact same.

I believe Stuart Braithwaite has quite a few Danelectro Fab Tone distortion pedals. They were mega-cheap and as such prone to breaking, so this makes sense, as it is a big part of the Mogwai sound.

Noodle Lizard

Just for a little counterpoint, I've played a few nice PRS models, and Opeth and Steve Wilson used them more or less exclusively for a while which is at least some endorsement.

Flying V, really depends on the person using it.  Not that they necessarily sound bad, but if you're in Take That or a terrible high school cover band, you'll probably look like a complete cunt.  Same could be said for people who reckon playing a Les Paul is any substitute for actual talent, though.  I'd never buy one, but I know too many guitarists I love who use Flying Vs for me to have too much of an issue with it.

kngen

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on February 12, 2019, 03:26:41 AM
Opeth and Steve Wilson used them more or less exclusively for a while which is at least some endorsement.


Granted, but it's more the issue of the 'Saturday afternoon in the guitar shop, look at my blues-scale noodling' geezer who favours them, innit? Like that breed of person that insists they need a 5-grand Pinarello to cycle round the local park because that's what the bloke that won the Tour de France uses.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: kngen on February 12, 2019, 12:15:12 PM
Granted, but it's more the issue of the 'Saturday afternoon in the guitar shop, look at my blues-scale noodling' geezer who favours them, innit? Like that breed of person that insists they need a 5-grand Pinarello to cycle round the local park because that's what the bloke that won the Tour de France uses.

You can say that about most of the recogniseable guitar models.  There's always going to be people with more money than sense, and/or are quite happy to splash out on something they clearly don't need.  Like all the petrol heads in this country who talk about horse powers, top speeds and low profile tyres - good job we've got all those long autobahns with no speed limit in the UK...

Sherman Krank


The Bumlord

Quote
Super clean, 100% original and totally unmolested.


a duncandisorderly

Quote from: Sherman Krank on February 12, 2019, 09:15:10 PM

I just found the Joe Bonamassa of Flying V's.

"Left to right:  1969 Walnut, 1967 Sparkling Burgundy, 1967 Sunburst, 1967 Sparkling Burgundy and the elusive 1966 Sunburst Prototype."



mate, maybe if you didn't have fifty identical guitars, you'd be able to find that one more easily. ffs.

I have a lot of basses- probably over forty- but that site.... I lost the will to live, halfway down the first page.

Ferris

I've probably owned 20 guitars in my life, and I don't think I've ever owned 2 of the same model. What is point? I've had 3 or 4 telecasters over the years (and still own one) but a thinline/50s reissue/custom/partscaster I have now, and that's the closest I've come. They're all still quite different beasts.

This lad needs to get out more.

Edit: I tell a lie, I've owned 2 fender mustangs, but with a number of years in between.

a duncandisorderly

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on February 17, 2019, 08:20:29 PM
I've probably owned 20 guitars in my life, and I don't think I've ever owned 2 of the same model. What is point?

I've got three of the same peavey bass, but it's the midibase (sic) & when I was actually using it, I needed a backup & a spare for parts. in fact, they all work.

but I've molested them, so mr flying-v wouldn't be happy.