Why don't I want a new guitar?

Why don't I want a new guitar?

  • You're crazy.

    Votes: 9 15.8%

  • You're growing up.

    Votes: 22 38.6%

  • You haven't found the right one yet.

    Votes: 13 22.8%

  • You're nuts.

    Votes: 4 7.0%

  • Because you haven't played a.....

    Votes: 9 15.8%
  • Total voters
    57
M

marsonic

Power User
So...wedding anniversary is coming up. I'm notoriously hard to buy gifts for. If you haven't noticed, I tend to hold very strong opinions. So...rather than figuring something out, my Wife suggested I just buy a new guitar and suggested a ballpark budget.

I also have a couple Epiphones I could part with to add to said budget.

I mostly play my Gibson LP Standard or my S2 McCarty 594, for whatever that's worth. I strongly prefer the Gibson.

It kinda makes sense to get one of the new Revstars. I've played a few and do like them, and one of my local shops tends to have a few in stock. I borrowed a friend's Tele for a few weeks a while ago and...I just don't think they're for me....there's a snap to the attack that I don't like. I've had a G&L Legacy as my only guitar for a long time, and I'm pretty sure I don't want to go the strat-y route again. IDK...maybe. I could sell the Epiphones and my box-ticking acoustic and get an actually-decent acoustic...but I feel like it would still just be ticking the box and not get played.

I probably just need to hit some shops and see what jumps out at me. You never know, right? But...I wonder if I really am just not a collector and actually don't want anything. Whatever it is, it still feels like it would be a gift, which I wouldn't want to sell. And I really can't think of a "lifer" guitar right now.

I mean...I can, but I don't have that kind of dough lying around.
 
 
I understand what you're going through. It is a wonderful gesture to have someone gift you a guitar, but if it isn't something you really want or see yourself playing it feels wrong to accept. It sounds like you are happy with what you've got currently and you'd need to spend substantially more than the proposed budget to get something that actually piques you interest.

I'd say go ahead and play a bunch of guitars in the price range and see if anything stands out. If not, perhaps suggest redirecting the funds to another music related bit of gear. For instance, at the price of a mid tier guitar you could get a really killer set of headphones.
 
Many years ago I took a break from playing. My wife really likes to hear me play. I started getting back into playing and found a tele that I liked. I started looking at a cheaper one but ended up picking one over twice the price. It was a much better guitar. My wife bought it for me as a gift to get me playing again. At one point, I decided to upgrade to a different guitar. I had a discussion with her about it before I made the deal. She said that she was fine with it. The purchase had the effect she wanted in getting me playing again. I made the deal and played the new guitar for a good while. I eventually sold it and by then it was all water under the bridge. Thankfully my wife was good with all of that or I would still have the original guitar and it would probably be setting in the case in the closet and get pulled out occasionally.
 
 
∞Fractals said:
Got one of them Brondel Nashville Honeycasters on order. Gets started later this month!
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Cool! Jealous!

(Or you could just buy this one and have it in a few days, less if you're in the Boston area and can pick it up (and try it out!))

Really, I'm less excited about the first 2 on my list, though they're cool too, but all the rest seem wonderful to me. If it wasn't for money...
 
If you like LPs check Panucci guitars.

Very high prices (if you manage to pick one up) but not stupidly high.
 
Dave Merrill said:
Cool! Jealous!

(Or you could just buy this one and have it in a few days, less if you're in the Boston area and can pick it up (and try it out!))

Really, I'm less excited about the first 2 on my list, though they're cool too, but all the rest seem wonderful to me. If it wasn't for money...
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I have another guitar by Laurent Brondel… stype … So I’ve have a relationship with him directly. I put a deposit down in December… originally was going to go paisley, but changed my mind and went back to something more like in that photo.

Laurent turned me onto Ron Ellis … So thankful for that. Truly remarkable pups in my opinion; another maker dedicated to his craft with results!
 
The poll results aren't really what I expected....I thought it was going to be split between crazy and nuts.

Thanks for all the comments! They were actually very helpful, all of you. In the end, I decided that I was going to go with my gut and not get a guitar. It just didn't make sense.

I did find something that made sense, though. I ordered a set of Seymour Duncan CS Skinner Burst pickups. (For twice their original price and 4x what I've spent on pickups before....feels a bit crazy, but whatever)

I'm just about certain that they won't sound substantially different from my other PAF replicas, but I'm not sure that actually matters to me. I'm just about certain I won't sell them. And my Wife was cool with it. She called pickups "magic wires" after I tried to explain them to her, and I did tell her that they're probably not substantively different from the $200 Seth Lovers that I already own. They're also almost exactly the same price as what her gift is going to be. (She's a girl...it's jewelry.)

But...

Bonamassa is probably my Wife's favorite of "my" musicians, and she was absolutely floored when we drove a few hours to Nashville to see him a couple years ago. That was a really fun concert...I got to talk to Josh Smith for a bit after the concert, and we also got to see Reese Wynans and Michael Rhodes with him.

On top of that, I really like MJ's story (the woman who runs Seymour Duncan's custom shop), and it would be cool to have a set of pickups that (I'm pretty sure) she actually wound with her own hands. And, they're signed by JB and Seymour Duncan, which is cool. (Maybe that means he wound them, which is also cool.)

Plus, Principal Skinner is my favorite of JB's guitars because he used it on my favorite recording of his. The times we've seen him, I'm always a little disappointed that he brought other irreplaceable vintage bursts rather than that one. And the serial number on the pickups happens to be a palindrome, which is cool because I'm a dork.

I've been kind of thinking about trying a set of Antiquities in my Les Paul (it has the Seth Lovers right now) just because. But...I've been thinking about that for at least a year and haven't bothered. These....I just kinda randomly searched Reverb, talked to her, and bought them.

So....here's to hoping they don't show up broken.
 
marsonic said:
The poll results aren't really what I expected....I thought it was going to be split between crazy and nuts.

Thanks for all the comments! They were actually very helpful, all of you. In the end, I decided that I was going to go with my gut and not get a guitar. It just didn't make sense.

I did find something that made sense, though. I ordered a set of Seymour Duncan CS Skinner Burst pickups. (For twice their original price and 4x what I've spent on pickups before....feels a bit crazy, but whatever)

I'm just about certain that they won't sound substantially different from my other PAF replicas, but I'm not sure that actually matters to me. I'm just about certain I won't sell them. And my Wife was cool with it. She called pickups "magic wires" after I tried to explain them to her, and I did tell her that they're probably not substantively different from the $200 Seth Lovers that I already own. They're also almost exactly the same price as what her gift is going to be. (She's a girl...it's jewelry.)

But...

Bonamassa is probably my Wife's favorite of "my" musicians, and she was absolutely floored when we drove a few hours to Nashville to see him a couple years ago. That was a really fun concert...I got to talk to Josh Smith for a bit after the concert, and we also got to see Reese Wynans and Michael Rhodes with him.

On top of that, I really like MJ's story (the woman who runs Seymour Duncan's custom shop), and it would be cool to have a set of pickups that (I'm pretty sure) she actually wound with her own hands. And, they're signed by JB and Seymour Duncan, which is cool. (Maybe that means he wound them, which is also cool.)

Plus, Principal Skinner is my favorite of JB's guitars because he used it on my favorite recording of his. The times we've seen him, I'm always a little disappointed that he brought other irreplaceable vintage bursts rather than that one. And the serial number on the pickups happens to be a palindrome, which is cool because I'm a dork.

I've been kind of thinking about trying a set of Antiquities in my Les Paul (it has the Seth Lovers right now) just because. But...I've been thinking about that for at least a year and haven't bothered. These....I just kinda randomly searched Reverb, talked to her, and bought them.

So....here's to hoping they don't show up broken.
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You did good. Guitars are too expensive to buy unless you're pretty attracted to them and it feels right.

Good luck with the pickups!
 
I didn't vote but my experince with my vintagy MiM strat has been that even though I am not a big fan of strat based tones, and struggle with getting a distorted sound I don't hate out of it, forcing myself to play the guitar pushes me toward dialing in tones (and playing) in very different ways from what I'm used to with my beloved humbucker guitars, and so it is a guitar that I value among the ones I have.
 
skolacki said:
Just kidding you. New pickups are always fun too. Cheers and happy anniversary!
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Thanks.

Yeah...it was always meant to be in good fun.

sprint said:
I didn't vote but my experince with my vintagy MiM strat has been that even though I am not a big fan of strat based tones, and struggle with getting a distorted sound I don't hate out of it, forcing myself to play the guitar pushes me toward dialing in tones (and playing) in very different ways from what I'm used to with my beloved humbucker guitars, and so it is a guitar that I value among the ones I have.
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I totally get that.

I think I'm still scarred from that G&L, and I don't know why. I don't think I've played a strat-style guitar since I sold it. Or wanted to.
 
 
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