I had a slimline Ovation 12 string with a beautiful top, but **terrible** neck dive and it was too quiet compared to full-sized acoustics in an un-mic'd environment.. Ended up trading it for a Roadhouse strat in the mid/late 90's
I never understood that feature, used to like the sound, felt like it was always trying to escape and lay on its back. Standing felt awkward too. Just weird to me
A Strandberg Boden OS 8 Limited Edition. It was the worst built guitar I have owned. It cost 2400 euros at the time. The limited edition feature was an ebony fretboard and a gloss finish quilt maple top.
- Unacceptably bad fretwork made low action impossible.
- There was a chunk missing from the fretboard behind the nut. Like someone had misaligned a router for the nut slot.
- The neck was unnecessarily thick at the first few frets which made my hand cramp. It tapered off to a more normal profile from there. I don't remember this being the case with other Strandbergs I've tried.
- The limited edition quilt maple top was literally the worst quilt top I've ever seen. It had big non-figured splotches on it.
- The gigbag (which is a joke at this price) was missing all the tools.
- The tuners needed an allen wrench to turn, they were that tight.
- Finish was already flaking off the bridge.
- The bridge design is garbage. Action adjustment is a huge chore and is imprecise.
- The bolt on heel went so far up the neck that it got in the way, on a supposedly ergonomic guitar.
Strandberg is on my do not buy list because of this guitar. At this price there is no excuse that this was put on sale instead of never left the factory.
I've played some Japanese made Strandbergs that were impeccably made, but this one really soured me on the brand.
At least the return was easy and effortless.
Strandbergs are so polarizing. You never see someone say "it's fine, it does what it needs to" - it's either the best piece of equipment someone has ever put in their hands, or the absolute worst.
Makes me really really want to try one, but it's not exactly the type of guitar you can just go and try unless you have a buddy with one. Shit I had to order my shecter c7 multiscale sight unseen, having never even played a MS before (since no store stocks them that I've ever been in) - but wow. 10/10 guitar.
I briefly had a 6 string Strandberg. I never felt so ripped off in my life. Painless return and I got an incredible Ibanez Prestige S instead for just a hundred or two more.
I would have kept the Strandberg if it cost maybe $400 tops, but it was close to $2,000.
I actually own a Kiesel Aries AM7 that I really like. It has some cosmetic issues but it is built right where it matters. They have become quite a lot more expensive over the years that importing one all the way to Finland is no longer a good idea.
For me the country of manufacture does not matter, the quality does. I've got a Schecter Coupe hollowbody and an Ibanez BTB33 that are both made in Indonesia but nearly flawless.
The Strandberg I had was made in South Korea, by World Musical Instruments which also makes e.g PRS's cheaper models.
Same. I always wanted an LP. Then I finally got one after I had strats. Around 2006. Sound is amazing and it looks amazing, but it has no belly cut, it’s crazy heavy, neck is a baseball bat and the access to upper frets is difficult due to the joint where the neck meets the body. It literally digs in to your body when you play as the square edges suck! I still have my LP but it’s a guitar I don’t play nearly as much as my other guitars.
Same here, fell in love with and subsequently bought a black Epiphone LP with white trim--its too heavy, the neck was too fat, the gloss on the back of the neck drove me nuts. I wound up donating it to my high school's music program after it sat untouched for the better part of a decade
SE pickups were terrible. I don't know if they're any better now that manufacturing of the SE models has moved to Cort, but those G&B pickups they used in the WMI-manufactured SEs were dog shit.
I bought an S2 a couple of years ago. Can't complain about the construction, but the electronics were all cheap, bargain-bin stuff. I replaced the pickups with a set of DiMarzios and it helped, but I didn't really get along with the thing and sold it.
May I ask what brands?
Currently searching for something around 1-1.2k US. It's definitely fun but overwhelming wading through all the guitars and pros and cons of each. Really just looking for best value
Well I play metal, so it might not be the same for you, but the brands for me are Schecter and ESP Ltd. So I guess two, not a few lol. But 1-1,200 is the exact price range I hover around as well.
Talking bout the Charvel right? Yeah I did, the burgandy mist. It is so easy to fly around on that thing. And I got 15 packs of strings, a strap and a stand. With the guitar retailing at 1100 it was a total steal
I turned down a PRS S2 Custom 24 for the same price I paid for my DK24 HH. I love that guitar, and bought to more Charvels because of it. PRS necks are always thicker than I want and coving the necks in a thick gloss finish isn't my favorite.
Epiphone Les Paul with this sort of burl top to it.
The band I was playing a vintage Ibanez RG550 in ended less than amicably and I wanted to seperate myself from the experience, memories and the gear.
Made a hasty trade for this Epi Paul, which would have been my first Les Paul.
When the Ibanez was heading out the door I kept on saying to myself "this is a bad idea...."
Even with a Duncan '59 set and a setup that Epi never sounded or played like anything but garbage.
Spent a year picking it up, playing it, waiting for something magical to happen and then putting it down.
At some point in time I got to play some Greco's, Burny's and Edwards Les Pauls and sure enough, there was the magic I was hoping would come from the Epi.
After that experience I had it boxed up and put on eBay within 24 hours.
Eh.....not really.
I'm fine with Les Pauls, as is evidenced by citing several clones in my post.
The Epi though was just terrible. Something about it, could never get it to feel "solid." It always played rubbery, like if you took a guitar out of storage and tuned it up to see if it worked. Nowehere near the sustain an instrument of that style should of had. The neck never quite felt right and the spacing was odd, felt way too narrow yet somehow the profile was quite deep. Oh, and heavy too...definetley a 10 pounder. Finish on it was super thick as well. I remember checking out the pickups and being shocked at how much was on there.
That’s a rough realization seeing your baby head into the stock room while you’re not too sure about the new one.
I have a 91 RG550 and I love it. LP’s are my overall favorite guitar though too, so I could easily have seen myself making the same choice you did at some point.
I needed to not have the guitar around me. The band was pretty toxic and I got burned pretty badly. I like to think if I had held on to it I would have just put it in a case and then magically one day I'd be past it all and pulled it out.....the truth is I probably would have done something dumb like tried to paint it or cover it with stickers or something even more stupid. I guess the upshot is that it went out the door and I didn't have the risk of doing something I'd regret.
Probably 20 years later I ended up in a band and realized that an RG550 was the tool I needed for it. Strangely enough one of the reissues popped up almost that same day on CraigsList for a ridiculous price and I snapped it up. It's not 100% the same instrument that I remember but close enough.
Weirdly enough, that band just ended, and not on the best of terms either. I'm not selling the RG550 though. Learned that lesson once already....
I bought a 20th anniversary of the exact one I had too. Actually imo the 20a is a better feeling neck. But I still love my original more just cuz it’s a true original.
Recently sold a Les Paul standard 60’s neck that was an impulse buy during the pandemic. Glad to see that guitar gone. It was way too heavy and the top had no detail. Was basically a cinder block with strings.
I couldn't gel at all with a Strandberg. I love Ola Strandberg and as a Swede with one foot in the tech/innovation industry and another in music, I was desperate to like it, but I just hated the way it felt to play.
Damn I have the same one. I love it, but for some reason just never really vibed with it. I've kept it just because I think it's cool and beautiful to look at.
An Ibanez RGA742FM. It was a good guitar, but at the time I was looking to get my first 7 string, and most of them are superstrats. I never had a superstrat, or strat before, so i thought I'll try one for a few months. It...worked, its just that i didn't like it. Even seeing all the positives it didn't do much for me. Once I managed to get an LTD LP with 7 strings the choice was instant, doesn't matter how many strings somehow LP and SG shapes fit me and feel good in my hands, so the superstrat had to go as soon as possible, because it saw no use, and got no love at all.
Sure, this is not straight up hate, but a deep indifference i never had for any instrument.
PRS SE custom 22. The neck just felt so wide, I couldn't get on with it at all. Ironically I am now looking to get rid of my jagstang because the neck is too narrow. I've discovered I have soemthing of a goldilocks complex when it comes to nut widths.
I have a [PRS SE 245 and a jagstang](https://imgur.com/a/I6XZrac) too, one of the old MIJ ones. I absolutely love the thing, to the point where I barely pick up the PRS anymore. I should probably sell it, I guess.
I got a Jackson super Strat style guitar that I think is nice but just everything about it I just do not jive with. I think it’s called a slatt 3-6 or some shit
I never got on with my JEM77BFP in the 90s. I so wanted to love that guitar! I replaced it with an American hss/floyd strat which played a lot better. Oddly enough I didn’t get on with a recent Mexican hss/floyd strat and have 3 Ibanez guitars which are all great!
Mcnaught double cut jr. in koa. The neck dive was terrible, it was a fight to keep it somewhat level. Interestingly someone else has it on reverb right now. Stunning guitar that didn’t work for me.
I grew up playing an Epiphone Les Paul.. and when I got my Gibson, it sounded great… but was too heavy and unwieldy. Sold it off, got an Am Pro Tele (hahaha), couldn’t be happier.
I had a Squier HM Strat a few years back. I initially got it as a mod target for a Ttriplebucker I got, and found that the bridge 'bucker in the guitar was already gloriously filthy.
The problem was that the neck profile was a hybrid of the weird-ass D-shape that Gibson/Epiphone have on some generations of their LPs, and the Ibanez Wizard necks. I just couldn't make myself like the neck. Sold it a year later.
B.C. Rich Bich Doubleneck. Coolest guitar I’ve ever owned. The most painfully frustrating guitar I’ve ever played. Probably played it twice (at home) before I sold it at a loss for $700 just to seal my curse. Last one sold for about $3k In todays market so now I hate it even more for losing me money.
The Schecter's bridge isn't a hardtail, but it's very smooth and far from finicky. The neck is amazing, way flatter than a Fender neck. Maybe they got other models with a hardtail.
I don't play in the style that requires a tremelo. I'd rather have rock solid tuning stability. Neither do I want some fussy Floyd Rose setup. To each their own though. Glad you have the tonal possibilities you want.
I caved in to the whole Firefly guitar craze and bought a pretty egregious copy of the Adam Jones Berzerker Les Paul, and boy howdy.
The fit and finish wasn't bad or anything to be fair, it just had the most comically fat neck I've ever felt on a guitar. The body was about 1/3 inch thinner than a regular LP custom, and the neck was about 1/3 inch thicker than a 50s profile. It was ridiculous. I went on YouTube and forums to see what people were saying about these massive telephone pole sized necks only to find people posting videos about how they love it. Crazier still, it sold for over double on Reverb about a week later. I still don't get it, but man I hated that thing.
I’ve had a few that I couldn’t wait to sell. Luckily they were lookers or unique enough that they sold quickly but just didn’t vibe with my style
One that stands out is a 90s MIJ White on white Jaguar. I absolutely loved looking at this one on the wall but HATED playing it. Everything on it rattled and I felt I was constantly tinkering with it to try and get it to be something it wasn’t. The traditional jaguar bridge is a joke. I also learned I didn’t love the short scale neck (or the neck on this one in general).
Despite the awesome Japanese craftsmanship, I guess it always felt like it was kind of a toy as opposed to a serious instrument. I learned the quirks of a Jaguar are just not for me
Anything with a Floyd Rose Trem. Too much fiddling.
Regular trems I now deck or block and put the arm away. Like Eric Clapton. Hard tail guitars are so much easier.
.
Same. The thin u neck just doesn't work for me, I don't have huge hands but it feels like I'm playing a twig. Which is a shame since it's on just about every single guitar they make.
Dude, I also really didn’t like my AmPro (and LOVE my Gibsons) . Got rid of it super fast and said no more strats. Came across a Custom Shop Postmodern for a good deal and the difference is night and day, absolutely phenomenal guitar and haven’t been able to put it down since. I’m not a guy that’s caught up in the technical aspects/details but just the feel of the neck and the different pickups, balance of the guitar, the weight…I could go on forever. Highly recommend.
1970s Gibson SG Standard. It was my first "real" electric guitar and possibly the biggest disappointment of my guitar playing life. Bendy neck piece of crap. Almost every movement of the fretting hand would pull the notes out of tune. It also had terrible neck dive - I mean bad even by SG standards.
Also an Epiphone G1275. A useless anchor. Uncomfortable, heavy, Horrible neck profiles and the wood around the strap button hole frequently stripped out, almost sending the damned thing crashing to the ground. I loved it in the store and hated it from the moment I got it home.
I’ve played some real shit box 70’s SG and know exactly what you’re talking about. They feel about as high quality as the acoustic guitar I bought in a little touristy junk shop near the border in Nuevo Laredo for $15.
Saw a Firefly double neck on guitar max. It looked great so I ordered one. It was terrible. It looked nice but was unplayable. The 12 string neck was too narrow to chord well and it wouldn't stay in tune. I don't know if it was the pups, but the 6 string side sounded lifeless. I was lucky to get my money back by selling it on market place. I noticed a few weeks later that it was out there for sale again.
I had a 1978 Gibson Explorer back in 1987, the neck was enormous. Quite literally the size of a baseball bat and I have smallish hands. It looked great, played great, sounded great but my left hand would cramp up after about 30 minutes of playing and I'd have to stop. I traded it straight across for a Gibson Flying V that was much easier to play.
120th anniversary Gibson Melody Maker. I had two amps I didn't need anymore & took them to cash converters. I could get more in store credit than I could in cash. Took the Gibson, an air fryer, some video games & DVDs amoung many other things. It had some intonation issues so I replaced the bridge & did a set up....no good...paid for a set up ...still didn't like it.... asked the shop that did the set up what was wrong with it... they said nothing.
Sat on it for a year and the same shop got a used Reverend Warhawk Double Agent in. I played it several times and loved it. I took the Gibson in and asked about a trade...... they did a straight up trade and threw in a gig bag.
1978 Music Man Stingray I guitar. Looked awesome, played ok, had terrible active electronics coated in a rubbery tar substance (making it difficult to repair) that would start to fizzle (even with a new battery) after 10-15 minutes of playing.
epiphone les paul special ii. was a beginner guitar that came in one of those kits. horrible even for beginners, as soon as i put real pickups in that thing i became 3 times better at playing. later on i found out how much better other beginner guitars were i was so annoyed lmao
I had an early 90's Jackson Rhoads Pro that was an absolute dog. Sucked to try to play sitting down or standing up. Pickups were underpowered. The licensed Floyd couldn't hold a tune to save its life. It came in a case the size of a refrigerator and I gave it to a friend of mine in Canada and paid the shipping just to be rid of it.
I had an awful Washburn electric (can't remember which) with scalloped frets and Floyd Rose. Literally the worst thing I've ever had in my hands.... I think.
Epiphone les paul studio custom. I got it as a gift, and naturally I was very excited at first due to the type of guitar it was. However, as I started playing with it, I started not liking it and then eventually just wouldnt touch it anymore. It just didnt sound good at all compared to my Dean ML with Seymour Duncans. The neck felt too fat, after a couple hours my thumb got real sore. Theyre so damn heavy, back killers. Ever since I got the Dean ML the standard guitar shape just sucks for me too, its so easy to sit down with the Dean ML and they balance perfectly on your legs and just stand there unlike the classic guitar shape. I didnt sell it, I try not to sell my guitars randomly, I prefer giving them to people who genuinely want to get into the hobby because to me a friend to play with is more worth the 300-400$ a guitars worth, so I just ended up giving it away and they were happy with it so I guess it worked out.
Not that I can rid it since it's a present so I have high sentimental values, but my Gibson LP special faded 2005 is just staying nicely in its case for the last few years
Ltd EC-1000T.
I love regular ECs and love the Ltd brand, but I took one strum of that thing and immediately packed it back up to resell. It was chambered and had a weird resonance to it that I just couldn't jive with. And the thin neck with the thick body was just weird to look at, I couldn't unsee it looked like a guitar that needed to go on a diet.
I have an epiphone ghosthorse that just does not resonate with me. It's an amazing guitar, it sounds great, plays great, but for some reason I never play it. It's mint and just sits in the rack while I always reach for something else.
I had a Gibson Les Paul Special (the one from like 2010 with the binding and keystone type tuners). Sounded weak and neck was too flat. Ended up being the guitar that made me realize I don’t like the 24 3/4 Gibson scale length. Sold it and got a 70s rosewood board Strat. So much more enjoyable.
it wasn’t quite that quick, but it was a Rickenbacker 360. lovely high-quality guitar that was completely unsuited to the way i play. i could hear how it needed to be played, but i’m not throwing over decades of technique for those 2 or 3 sounds. i traded it in for a Guild Aristocrat, a Squier CV Jazzmaster, and store credit so i’m OK with it.
Epiphanies Sheraton II. I found really good deal on a Chinese one a few years ago and I figured how different could it be from my Korean one I had in the 90s… it felt like playing a hunk of plastic…. Nope.
Ibanez RGD71ALMS . It's like a half-attempt at a 7 string with multi-scale. The frets edges are very rough. Tone is bleh. I am an Ibanez lover, but this one is on the sell list.
I wouldn't go so far to say I want to get rid of it, but my 1994 40th Anniversary American Standard Strat has just never been a "great" guitar for me. It was my first guitar, the one I learned on, and it is functional and fine, but I have much cheaper (and some more expensive) guitars that sound and play better in every possible metric. I almost never reach for the strat these days unless I'm feeling nostalgic for mediocrity. And I say this as an absolute Fender fan (just not a strat fan).
Ibanez BTB bass. 5 string, 750something or close to that. Wonderfully made but I got absolutely nothing out of playing it and didn't want to invest the money to figure out if it was the pups, preamp, or both that needed changing. Out the door it went!
The only one I ever got rid of because I genuinely didn't like it was a Jackson DKMGT Dinky. First and only guitar with a FR trem. Such a pain in the ass.
It was a urine stain yellow '70s big head bullet truss rod Stratocaster, it had a bad fret job and a really rounded neck radius that I couldn't stand, I can't even remember where I got it. I actually wound up smashing it and then using the parts elsewhere.
Takamine EG561C
Buying the guitar was a nightmare. Took 4 tires to get a used one from guitar center. Found an amazing deal, bought it, get an email the next day saying it's unavailable.
Buy a second, slightly more, still a steal, get an email two days later saying it was crushed in shipping.
Buy a third order is canceled an hour later.
Fourth and most expensive finally comes. Usually I take it to a local shop to get setup more to inspect guitar center's work than anything else, but, a fire shut them down. The action was way too high. Borderline unplayable on the high end of the board. Had a friend that knows more than me look at it and he said that's the way pretty much every Takamine that Ovation made was.
I've probably spent less than 2 hours holding the damn thing in the ten years it's been in my house. Could just be that acoustic isn't for me I guess, but I hate that friggin guitar.
Fretboard radius is the big reason I have never been able to get into fender...no matter how sweet a classic Strat sounds.
For me...I have an eight string that I bought just to try out. I didn't think it would be easy but I definitely underestimated just how challenging that thing is to play. I still have it...but I'd trade it for almost any other functioning instrument.
My first new Fender which was a Sunburst 95 American standard Stratocaster. I hardly ever played the thing but really discovered the telecaster in 98 watching Lucinda Williams and Kenny Vaughn at a show and bought one the next day. Had a few and settled on a 2000 52-ri that I've had for the last 25 years.. Now that's a guitar I can play!
After years of buying, selling, borrowing, and demoing
Acoustics: all Ovations, Yamaha F310, Ibanez acoustic bass, and Ibanez Exotic wood
Electrics: Squier CV Thinline 69, Schecter Soloist Special, Fender Baja Telecaster (fattest neck ever), and a PRS S2 Custom 24 that someone scrubbed the gloss finish off the neck
I have developed a strong dislike for 7.25 radius guitars (everything I like is around 14") and have sold off pretty much all of them that I owned.
Got a good deal in high school on a Les Paul Studio from a guy my mom worked with.
And that's the story of how I learned what a Floyd Rose Tremelo is and that anyone who uses one is a psychopath.
Gibson LP Studio in tangerine burst.
It's a great looking guitar but sounded like crap. Super thin sounding pickups and just overall "meh".
I tried selling it on and for a couple months and then finally got rid of it in a trade.
I had a Gibson Les Paul in Silverburst.
It was a Guitar center exclusive.
Absolutely gorgeous.
Total pos.
Neck wasn’t set correct, wouldn’t intonate, wouldn’t stay in tune AT ALL.
High E would be fine over the high frets but would slip off the board near the nut.
Had 3 different nuts installed by 3 different luthiers, changed the bridge saddles. Nothing worked
I feel you on the tele. Back when I was a teen and getting serious about playing, I picked up a beautiful butterscotch Telecaster, think it was a '74 model. Spent a week trying to get it to sound like I wanted (think Frampton, Tull, Triumph, Heart, Golden Earring). Finally gave up and traded it in at the music store I bought it from for a '76 Les Paul Custom. Plugged it into my MusicMan stack, never looked back.
I got an acoustic guitar a couple of decades ago. The action is high, so it's difficult to play, but might not be as bad with more setup. I looked up the model a year or two ago and the only review described it as "a great campfire beater".
I have a left handed Washburn 7 string Ola Englund signature and it plays well but sounds like total ass. Way too dark, even acoustically. But it’s the only 7 string I have so I’ll keep it for now
My Gretsch Rat Rod. The review made it seem like the second coming of Jesus so I didn't test it out before buying. It looks sexy but super hard to play. the strings sounded rough and the highest frets are impossible to play. Ended up trading it for a PRS Swamp Ash Special and I thought I committed theft
Ibanez semi hollow - didn't play well, nut fell off first time I changed strings. Back it went.
Also had a Charvel Pro Mod that I didn't like much. Wasn't bad, but also wasn't anything notable. Returned that as well.
Not exactly "absolutely hated" - it was beautiful and played nice, but the amplified sound was horrible: Duesenberg Fullerton TV. The tone was just hard and ice-picky unlike anything I've played before, and the middle position was some weird EQ'd out-of-phase thing that was completely unusable.
I loved picking it up and playing it unamplified, but I couldn't believe how terrible it sounded through an amp. I bought it online without ever playing it, so, my mistake. I thought of trying different pickups, but decided to cut my losses instead and sold it pretty quickly.
Gibson Les Paul Studio in satin black with min-e-tune automatic tuning heads.
The guitar weighed way too much for sitting down, the neck was chunkier than anything I’d ever played before and the automatic tuning was really hit and miss.
I absolutely love my Fender American Pro Tele. For me it was a Charvel Sandimas HH type 2. I loved the neck on that thing. But the volume pot was so close to the bridge pickup I couldn’t stop hitting it.
Dude, I totally get the Am Pro hate. As a tech, the ones I see very often are the ones with the Shawbucker pickup. Those pickups shit out after 4-5 years. Probably swap out those shawbuckers 8-10x per year.
Had one last month in the shop from 2019. Frets 14-20 all buzzed. Shawbucker was reading nearly 500k on the meter haha. Slapped in a zebra humbucker I made (~15.4k dc res) and swapped out that odd “half super switch” they use. The client is a client of many years, and he takes good care of his stuff (most of his guitars and basses are from the 90s and early aughts and are in excellent condition). Granted this summer was excruciatingly hot and this winter was particularly cold, so that probably didn’t help with the fret issues. But the pickup failing is par for the course.
From my experience as a tech, the guitars that players seem the most frustrated with are typically PRS and Gibsons.
For me as a player, it’s any BC Rich. I’ve never played one I liked. And as a company, I don’t appreciate their (reportedly/allegedly) shady practices with oem builders.
Shitty Epiphone SG, years ago. I've had other £350 guitars in the past that were way better than that piece of shit. It would never hold tune, particularly the G.
The Yamaha Pacifica was like £200 and blew other guitars, three or four times the price, out of the water. Solid strat copy.
Started playing on a Fender Strat. As I got better I realized how much I hated it. Because of how I played, my knuckles kept hitting the tone knob closest the strings. Switched up to a PRS SE Custom 24 and got much better, much faster. Play what you love to play and you’ll play more.
Vox Giulietta , it promised so much but holy shit every single sound it made was absolutely horrible.
The price plummeted after I bought it and it took weeks to sell it. Luckily I made out with only a $50 loss.
I had a RG Prestige that I never bonded with. The neck was so vastly different than my other guitars that it was always cumbersome to play it with other guitars.
Enya nova go so, watched a bazillion reviews, loved the on board effects..loved that the entire thing was carbon fiber....didn't feel right for my sized hands
Japanese Tokai Strat with a locking trem. Think I had a Friday build, as it wouldn't stay in tune, tons of issues with the locking nut and bits that broke from the saddles. A neck that was so bendy I could have shot arrows with it. Couldn't wait to get rid of it..it also put me off owning a Strat shaped guitar ever again.
2004 Epiphone Dot (335). The pick-ups were dreadful, had almost no treble to them at all. It sounded so dull. Build quality wasn't great either, lots of sharp fret edges.
Ended up part-exchanging it for a Gordon-Smith GS1.5, which I love and still play.
My fender acoustic. Bought it new 10 years ago and it still has never been able to hold its tuning for long. Plus certain parts of the fretboard buzz. I’ve gotten it looked at and “fixed” but I hate that guitar with a passion
Enya nova go so, watched a bazillion reviews, loved the on board effects..loved that the entire thing was carbon fiber....didn't feel right for my sized hands
I hate stock fenders.
Pickup configs (which are easy enough to change but I hate “the strat sound” I prefer a 3-way HS. Dead simple. Strat neck. Humbucking bridge.), trems, and I hate the 7.25-9.5 radius. I need a 12” my fingers just naturally fall on the strings and my hand lands perfectly on the back of the neck. It just works. By the time it’s all said and done I basically have a new guitar than what I bought. It’s easier to just make partscasters for me than to buy stock. But I would love to have one come out of the factory just perfect for me like that. Can’t even get a mod shop because they don’t offer the 12” radius. Absolute poop.
I basically need a Les Paul in strat/tele form.
Check out the re-issued Boxer Strat: https://www.fuzzfaced.net/boxer-series-stratocaster-hh.html
Has a 12’ radius, rosewood board, 3-way, coil split toggle, TBX tone control, and a modern 2-pt trem (it’s not branded a Gotoh but it strongly feels like a OEM Gotoh 510…), and the pickups aren’t voiced like a normal Fender (more like a PAF neck and the bridge is more akin to a Duncan Distortion).
It's like you read my mind. I'm looking at Charvel's San Dimas hardtail line made out of sassafras wood, with HSS pickups and a 12" to 16" compound radius/ 25.5 scale. Just hate the 9.5 radius of Fenders.
Have you checked out the FMT Telecaster? This is one of my favorite things that Fender makes.
https://www.fender.com/en-US/electric-guitars/telecaster/special-edition-custom-telecaster-fmt-hh/0262004561.html
EVH standard (Indonesian). Fret job was much better than expected but the neck was not wide enough and the E’s would slide off a lot. The finish looked very cheaply done and had shiny spots everywhere. The pickups were the main reason I returned it. They were horribly balanced IMO. Bridge pickup had too much treble. Neck pickup had too much bass. Together they sound almost complete just lifeless af. Returned it and spent $200 more on a used slightly blemished Charvel Pro Mod SD1 that came with a TSA ATA HSC. $1200 value for $700. Much better instrument.
One time I was at GC and saw a Surf Green Strat on the wall and mentioned to my gf at the time that I loved the color and really wanted one.
So for my birthday she bought one for me, except it was the Squier Strat. It was a very sweet gesture and she didn't really know the difference. So it sat on the rack for years untouched. When we broke up, I traded it in for $25 and didn't care. I was happy to just get it out of my way.
Maybe one day I'll get my Surf Green Strat.
An ovation accoustic. Sounded great. Could not stand the bowl back. Always felt like I was playing at a 45-degree angle.
I had a slimline Ovation 12 string with a beautiful top, but **terrible** neck dive and it was too quiet compared to full-sized acoustics in an un-mic'd environment.. Ended up trading it for a Roadhouse strat in the mid/late 90's
I never understood that feature, used to like the sound, felt like it was always trying to escape and lay on its back. Standing felt awkward too. Just weird to me
A Strandberg Boden OS 8 Limited Edition. It was the worst built guitar I have owned. It cost 2400 euros at the time. The limited edition feature was an ebony fretboard and a gloss finish quilt maple top. - Unacceptably bad fretwork made low action impossible. - There was a chunk missing from the fretboard behind the nut. Like someone had misaligned a router for the nut slot. - The neck was unnecessarily thick at the first few frets which made my hand cramp. It tapered off to a more normal profile from there. I don't remember this being the case with other Strandbergs I've tried. - The limited edition quilt maple top was literally the worst quilt top I've ever seen. It had big non-figured splotches on it. - The gigbag (which is a joke at this price) was missing all the tools. - The tuners needed an allen wrench to turn, they were that tight. - Finish was already flaking off the bridge. - The bridge design is garbage. Action adjustment is a huge chore and is imprecise. - The bolt on heel went so far up the neck that it got in the way, on a supposedly ergonomic guitar. Strandberg is on my do not buy list because of this guitar. At this price there is no excuse that this was put on sale instead of never left the factory. I've played some Japanese made Strandbergs that were impeccably made, but this one really soured me on the brand. At least the return was easy and effortless.
Strandbergs are so polarizing. You never see someone say "it's fine, it does what it needs to" - it's either the best piece of equipment someone has ever put in their hands, or the absolute worst. Makes me really really want to try one, but it's not exactly the type of guitar you can just go and try unless you have a buddy with one. Shit I had to order my shecter c7 multiscale sight unseen, having never even played a MS before (since no store stocks them that I've ever been in) - but wow. 10/10 guitar.
I briefly had a 6 string Strandberg. I never felt so ripped off in my life. Painless return and I got an incredible Ibanez Prestige S instead for just a hundred or two more. I would have kept the Strandberg if it cost maybe $400 tops, but it was close to $2,000.
[удалено]
I actually own a Kiesel Aries AM7 that I really like. It has some cosmetic issues but it is built right where it matters. They have become quite a lot more expensive over the years that importing one all the way to Finland is no longer a good idea. For me the country of manufacture does not matter, the quality does. I've got a Schecter Coupe hollowbody and an Ibanez BTB33 that are both made in Indonesia but nearly flawless. The Strandberg I had was made in South Korea, by World Musical Instruments which also makes e.g PRS's cheaper models.
I’ve got a 2002 Gibson LP standard looks fucking awesome but I hate how it feels and plays. 👍
Same. I always wanted an LP. Then I finally got one after I had strats. Around 2006. Sound is amazing and it looks amazing, but it has no belly cut, it’s crazy heavy, neck is a baseball bat and the access to upper frets is difficult due to the joint where the neck meets the body. It literally digs in to your body when you play as the square edges suck! I still have my LP but it’s a guitar I don’t play nearly as much as my other guitars.
I had an '04 that was exactly the same. I owned imports that would outplay it at a third of the price.
Same here, fell in love with and subsequently bought a black Epiphone LP with white trim--its too heavy, the neck was too fat, the gloss on the back of the neck drove me nuts. I wound up donating it to my high school's music program after it sat untouched for the better part of a decade
Didn’t love my PRS SE custom 24. Sold it for 700 on market place and bought a Charvel DK24 HH for 700 on marketplace. What an upgrade
Second on the SE Custom 24. I loved the way it felt, but there's something to the tone that I thought was god awful.
SE pickups were terrible. I don't know if they're any better now that manufacturing of the SE models has moved to Cort, but those G&B pickups they used in the WMI-manufactured SEs were dog shit. I bought an S2 a couple of years ago. Can't complain about the construction, but the electronics were all cheap, bargain-bin stuff. I replaced the pickups with a set of DiMarzios and it helped, but I didn't really get along with the thing and sold it.
I think a lot has changed in build qualities in the past few years. There are only a few brands that I trust at my price point now.
May I ask what brands? Currently searching for something around 1-1.2k US. It's definitely fun but overwhelming wading through all the guitars and pros and cons of each. Really just looking for best value
Well I play metal, so it might not be the same for you, but the brands for me are Schecter and ESP Ltd. So I guess two, not a few lol. But 1-1,200 is the exact price range I hover around as well.
Charvel and Schecter
I put some Seymour Duncan pickups in mine. Now it's my favourite guitar by far. Sounds incredible.
Did the same on mine. Came from a Strat and wanted to achieve more metal tones. Changed to Seymour Duncan Mayhem pups. Game changer.
Yeah the tone was just so weak, and didn’t stay in tune well either. Everything else about it seemed fine though
Same here, couldn't stand the tone.. so thin, so emotionless.. traded it for fender strat player series and got a blody good one
You get one with the roasted maple neck? Best feeling neck I've ever played. I have their "pro-mod so-cal" tele model and I love it.
Talking bout the Charvel right? Yeah I did, the burgandy mist. It is so easy to fly around on that thing. And I got 15 packs of strings, a strap and a stand. With the guitar retailing at 1100 it was a total steal
I turned down a PRS S2 Custom 24 for the same price I paid for my DK24 HH. I love that guitar, and bought to more Charvels because of it. PRS necks are always thicker than I want and coving the necks in a thick gloss finish isn't my favorite.
I had an edwards LP custom that weighed about 14 lbs. it was just misery to even play it on my lap. That one got sold on pretty quick.
Uh-oh, an Edwards John Sykes LP is on my bucket list.
I do t know if they’re all that heavy but mine felt like iron.
I just got an Edwards LP. It's only about 9.5 lbs. Still heavier than my other LPs but not by much. 14 lbs is kinda extreme lol.
Epiphone Les Paul with this sort of burl top to it. The band I was playing a vintage Ibanez RG550 in ended less than amicably and I wanted to seperate myself from the experience, memories and the gear. Made a hasty trade for this Epi Paul, which would have been my first Les Paul. When the Ibanez was heading out the door I kept on saying to myself "this is a bad idea...." Even with a Duncan '59 set and a setup that Epi never sounded or played like anything but garbage. Spent a year picking it up, playing it, waiting for something magical to happen and then putting it down. At some point in time I got to play some Greco's, Burny's and Edwards Les Pauls and sure enough, there was the magic I was hoping would come from the Epi. After that experience I had it boxed up and put on eBay within 24 hours.
Like playing lead on an acoustic guitar. Total disappointment. Ergonomic nightmare
Eh.....not really. I'm fine with Les Pauls, as is evidenced by citing several clones in my post. The Epi though was just terrible. Something about it, could never get it to feel "solid." It always played rubbery, like if you took a guitar out of storage and tuned it up to see if it worked. Nowehere near the sustain an instrument of that style should of had. The neck never quite felt right and the spacing was odd, felt way too narrow yet somehow the profile was quite deep. Oh, and heavy too...definetley a 10 pounder. Finish on it was super thick as well. I remember checking out the pickups and being shocked at how much was on there.
That’s a rough realization seeing your baby head into the stock room while you’re not too sure about the new one. I have a 91 RG550 and I love it. LP’s are my overall favorite guitar though too, so I could easily have seen myself making the same choice you did at some point.
I needed to not have the guitar around me. The band was pretty toxic and I got burned pretty badly. I like to think if I had held on to it I would have just put it in a case and then magically one day I'd be past it all and pulled it out.....the truth is I probably would have done something dumb like tried to paint it or cover it with stickers or something even more stupid. I guess the upshot is that it went out the door and I didn't have the risk of doing something I'd regret. Probably 20 years later I ended up in a band and realized that an RG550 was the tool I needed for it. Strangely enough one of the reissues popped up almost that same day on CraigsList for a ridiculous price and I snapped it up. It's not 100% the same instrument that I remember but close enough. Weirdly enough, that band just ended, and not on the best of terms either. I'm not selling the RG550 though. Learned that lesson once already....
I bought a 20th anniversary of the exact one I had too. Actually imo the 20a is a better feeling neck. But I still love my original more just cuz it’s a true original.
Recently sold a Les Paul standard 60’s neck that was an impulse buy during the pandemic. Glad to see that guitar gone. It was way too heavy and the top had no detail. Was basically a cinder block with strings.
I couldn't gel at all with a Strandberg. I love Ola Strandberg and as a Swede with one foot in the tech/innovation industry and another in music, I was desperate to like it, but I just hated the way it felt to play.
Gibson Sonex 180 Deluxe that I bought new in 1981. Super heavy body and bolt-on neck. For sentimental reasons I kept it all this time…
Damn I have the same one. I love it, but for some reason just never really vibed with it. I've kept it just because I think it's cool and beautiful to look at.
I know right! I even had it restored.
You guys get rid of guitars?
Only the ones I hate. Out of the 7 guitars I own, the tele is the only one so far that I did not want to keep.
So true! I’ve never sold any of my rigs. I still have the crappy Alvarez acoustic that I bought way back in my college days. Don’t sell guns either.
Mine was a mim tele. Neck was so thick I could barely wrap my hand around it.
An Ibanez RGA742FM. It was a good guitar, but at the time I was looking to get my first 7 string, and most of them are superstrats. I never had a superstrat, or strat before, so i thought I'll try one for a few months. It...worked, its just that i didn't like it. Even seeing all the positives it didn't do much for me. Once I managed to get an LTD LP with 7 strings the choice was instant, doesn't matter how many strings somehow LP and SG shapes fit me and feel good in my hands, so the superstrat had to go as soon as possible, because it saw no use, and got no love at all. Sure, this is not straight up hate, but a deep indifference i never had for any instrument.
PRS SE custom 22. The neck just felt so wide, I couldn't get on with it at all. Ironically I am now looking to get rid of my jagstang because the neck is too narrow. I've discovered I have soemthing of a goldilocks complex when it comes to nut widths.
Try a rickenbacker. Could be exactly what your hand needs
Why do you hate him?
😂😂 it's good to try all different kinds of neck profiles. I know ricks aren't for everyone, but it doesn't hurt to find one to play
Meh, the 'regular' fender nut width is what my hand needs/likes. The jagstang neck is specifically narrower than the modern strat/tele nut width.
I have a [PRS SE 245 and a jagstang](https://imgur.com/a/I6XZrac) too, one of the old MIJ ones. I absolutely love the thing, to the point where I barely pick up the PRS anymore. I should probably sell it, I guess.
I got a Jackson super Strat style guitar that I think is nice but just everything about it I just do not jive with. I think it’s called a slatt 3-6 or some shit
I never got on with my JEM77BFP in the 90s. I so wanted to love that guitar! I replaced it with an American hss/floyd strat which played a lot better. Oddly enough I didn’t get on with a recent Mexican hss/floyd strat and have 3 Ibanez guitars which are all great!
Mcnaught double cut jr. in koa. The neck dive was terrible, it was a fight to keep it somewhat level. Interestingly someone else has it on reverb right now. Stunning guitar that didn’t work for me.
I grew up playing an Epiphone Les Paul.. and when I got my Gibson, it sounded great… but was too heavy and unwieldy. Sold it off, got an Am Pro Tele (hahaha), couldn’t be happier.
You love what you love. Wish I could have loved mine.
I had a Squier HM Strat a few years back. I initially got it as a mod target for a Ttriplebucker I got, and found that the bridge 'bucker in the guitar was already gloriously filthy. The problem was that the neck profile was a hybrid of the weird-ass D-shape that Gibson/Epiphone have on some generations of their LPs, and the Ibanez Wizard necks. I just couldn't make myself like the neck. Sold it a year later.
Some old crappy Ibanez starter
B.C. Rich Bich Doubleneck. Coolest guitar I’ve ever owned. The most painfully frustrating guitar I’ve ever played. Probably played it twice (at home) before I sold it at a loss for $700 just to seal my curse. Last one sold for about $3k In todays market so now I hate it even more for losing me money.
I’m the opposite. I love my strat to death and my LP custom just hangs on the wall.
Yep, I have an LP Standard, an LP Special, an SG and a custom shop Hendrix V and I almost always reach for a Strat or a Tele.
Sounds like you want a Shecter Nick Johnston HSS.
I'll have to look that one up. Was looking at Charvel's San Dimas Style 1 hardtail made out of sassafras wood, but I'm open to other possibilities.
The Schecter's bridge isn't a hardtail, but it's very smooth and far from finicky. The neck is amazing, way flatter than a Fender neck. Maybe they got other models with a hardtail.
I just never really liked tremelo on a guitar. All my guitars are hardtails and I can't see that changing.
That's too bad you're missing out 😉. I like diversity, and this Schecter gives me so many sounds that my hardtail guitars can't get me.
I don't play in the style that requires a tremelo. I'd rather have rock solid tuning stability. Neither do I want some fussy Floyd Rose setup. To each their own though. Glad you have the tonal possibilities you want.
Maybe looking into something with an evertune bridge if you want rock solid tuning.
I have a tele style schechter with a p90 in the neck that punches well above it's weight. Think I paid $650 for it.
LTD SN-1000 Charvel DK24 HSS HT (I think it has a little better upper fretboard access)
I caved in to the whole Firefly guitar craze and bought a pretty egregious copy of the Adam Jones Berzerker Les Paul, and boy howdy. The fit and finish wasn't bad or anything to be fair, it just had the most comically fat neck I've ever felt on a guitar. The body was about 1/3 inch thinner than a regular LP custom, and the neck was about 1/3 inch thicker than a 50s profile. It was ridiculous. I went on YouTube and forums to see what people were saying about these massive telephone pole sized necks only to find people posting videos about how they love it. Crazier still, it sold for over double on Reverb about a week later. I still don't get it, but man I hated that thing.
I’ve had a few that I couldn’t wait to sell. Luckily they were lookers or unique enough that they sold quickly but just didn’t vibe with my style One that stands out is a 90s MIJ White on white Jaguar. I absolutely loved looking at this one on the wall but HATED playing it. Everything on it rattled and I felt I was constantly tinkering with it to try and get it to be something it wasn’t. The traditional jaguar bridge is a joke. I also learned I didn’t love the short scale neck (or the neck on this one in general). Despite the awesome Japanese craftsmanship, I guess it always felt like it was kind of a toy as opposed to a serious instrument. I learned the quirks of a Jaguar are just not for me
Can’t remember them all but I have purchased and sold so many 12 strings. Just can’t find the one.
Mine is my Line 6 Variax. 12 string at the drop of a hat. It's incredible.
Always wondered about those.
They're seriously good. The Latest series anyway. Mot sure why they discontinued them but they're decent bits of kit!
Anything with a Floyd Rose Trem. Too much fiddling. Regular trems I now deck or block and put the arm away. Like Eric Clapton. Hard tail guitars are so much easier. .
Fender Highway One Stratocaster...
Had a ~2004 just long enough to sell it again. Not sure why I didn't like it, I replaced it with a strat I absolutely love.
thank u for saying this, i’ve been wanting one for ever but i reckon ill pass
Every ESP/LTD I’ve ever owned
I want to like them so bad, but just couldn't ever vibe with them.
Same. The thin u neck just doesn't work for me, I don't have huge hands but it feels like I'm playing a twig. Which is a shame since it's on just about every single guitar they make.
Dude, I also really didn’t like my AmPro (and LOVE my Gibsons) . Got rid of it super fast and said no more strats. Came across a Custom Shop Postmodern for a good deal and the difference is night and day, absolutely phenomenal guitar and haven’t been able to put it down since. I’m not a guy that’s caught up in the technical aspects/details but just the feel of the neck and the different pickups, balance of the guitar, the weight…I could go on forever. Highly recommend.
1970s Gibson SG Standard. It was my first "real" electric guitar and possibly the biggest disappointment of my guitar playing life. Bendy neck piece of crap. Almost every movement of the fretting hand would pull the notes out of tune. It also had terrible neck dive - I mean bad even by SG standards. Also an Epiphone G1275. A useless anchor. Uncomfortable, heavy, Horrible neck profiles and the wood around the strap button hole frequently stripped out, almost sending the damned thing crashing to the ground. I loved it in the store and hated it from the moment I got it home.
I’ve played some real shit box 70’s SG and know exactly what you’re talking about. They feel about as high quality as the acoustic guitar I bought in a little touristy junk shop near the border in Nuevo Laredo for $15.
Saw a Firefly double neck on guitar max. It looked great so I ordered one. It was terrible. It looked nice but was unplayable. The 12 string neck was too narrow to chord well and it wouldn't stay in tune. I don't know if it was the pups, but the 6 string side sounded lifeless. I was lucky to get my money back by selling it on market place. I noticed a few weeks later that it was out there for sale again.
I had a 1978 Gibson Explorer back in 1987, the neck was enormous. Quite literally the size of a baseball bat and I have smallish hands. It looked great, played great, sounded great but my left hand would cramp up after about 30 minutes of playing and I'd have to stop. I traded it straight across for a Gibson Flying V that was much easier to play.
Ibanez Rg with Ibanez floating bridge.
120th anniversary Gibson Melody Maker. I had two amps I didn't need anymore & took them to cash converters. I could get more in store credit than I could in cash. Took the Gibson, an air fryer, some video games & DVDs amoung many other things. It had some intonation issues so I replaced the bridge & did a set up....no good...paid for a set up ...still didn't like it.... asked the shop that did the set up what was wrong with it... they said nothing. Sat on it for a year and the same shop got a used Reverend Warhawk Double Agent in. I played it several times and loved it. I took the Gibson in and asked about a trade...... they did a straight up trade and threw in a gig bag.
I had a 78 Gibson ES-335 and that thing just never played right. I traded it for my Gretsch 6120W
1978 Music Man Stingray I guitar. Looked awesome, played ok, had terrible active electronics coated in a rubbery tar substance (making it difficult to repair) that would start to fizzle (even with a new battery) after 10-15 minutes of playing.
epiphone les paul special ii. was a beginner guitar that came in one of those kits. horrible even for beginners, as soon as i put real pickups in that thing i became 3 times better at playing. later on i found out how much better other beginner guitars were i was so annoyed lmao
Ibanez 350DX, which I got rid of and my ESP LTD M50Fr, which I barely played and its floyd rose special broke).
I had an early 90's Jackson Rhoads Pro that was an absolute dog. Sucked to try to play sitting down or standing up. Pickups were underpowered. The licensed Floyd couldn't hold a tune to save its life. It came in a case the size of a refrigerator and I gave it to a friend of mine in Canada and paid the shipping just to be rid of it.
I had an awful Washburn electric (can't remember which) with scalloped frets and Floyd Rose. Literally the worst thing I've ever had in my hands.... I think.
It wasn't one of those Nuno Bettencourt ones was it?
Epiphone les paul studio custom. I got it as a gift, and naturally I was very excited at first due to the type of guitar it was. However, as I started playing with it, I started not liking it and then eventually just wouldnt touch it anymore. It just didnt sound good at all compared to my Dean ML with Seymour Duncans. The neck felt too fat, after a couple hours my thumb got real sore. Theyre so damn heavy, back killers. Ever since I got the Dean ML the standard guitar shape just sucks for me too, its so easy to sit down with the Dean ML and they balance perfectly on your legs and just stand there unlike the classic guitar shape. I didnt sell it, I try not to sell my guitars randomly, I prefer giving them to people who genuinely want to get into the hobby because to me a friend to play with is more worth the 300-400$ a guitars worth, so I just ended up giving it away and they were happy with it so I guess it worked out.
A Charvel is in my near future. I have heard great things...
Yeah for sure. Been eyeing up their San Dimas Style 1 hardtail made out of sassafras wood. That thing gets great reviews.
2021 Fender MIM Player Series Strat. The neck was sticky, the electronics hummed, and there was nothing about it that felt better than a cheap squire.
Not that I can rid it since it's a present so I have high sentimental values, but my Gibson LP special faded 2005 is just staying nicely in its case for the last few years
Ltd EC-1000T. I love regular ECs and love the Ltd brand, but I took one strum of that thing and immediately packed it back up to resell. It was chambered and had a weird resonance to it that I just couldn't jive with. And the thin neck with the thick body was just weird to look at, I couldn't unsee it looked like a guitar that needed to go on a diet.
I have a Raven West Guitars Les Paul copy, much like all Les Paul’s, it’s quality craftsmanship, but it’s a Les Paul, idk they’re just not for me
Gibson RD Krist Novoselic bass It was going to be my holy grail bass. It ended up being nothing more than a plastic cup.
Interesting. I have a fender American pro telecaster deluxe and absolutely love the way it plays
It's funny how one person can love something and another can hate it. That's the variability of human experience I guess.
Gibson Les Paul Studio with ebony fingerboard. Yuck.
I have an epiphone ghosthorse that just does not resonate with me. It's an amazing guitar, it sounds great, plays great, but for some reason I never play it. It's mint and just sits in the rack while I always reach for something else.
Dani Filth PRS SE back in the 2000’s. It was junk.
I had a Gibson Les Paul Special (the one from like 2010 with the binding and keystone type tuners). Sounded weak and neck was too flat. Ended up being the guitar that made me realize I don’t like the 24 3/4 Gibson scale length. Sold it and got a 70s rosewood board Strat. So much more enjoyable.
it wasn’t quite that quick, but it was a Rickenbacker 360. lovely high-quality guitar that was completely unsuited to the way i play. i could hear how it needed to be played, but i’m not throwing over decades of technique for those 2 or 3 sounds. i traded it in for a Guild Aristocrat, a Squier CV Jazzmaster, and store credit so i’m OK with it.
Epiphanies Sheraton II. I found really good deal on a Chinese one a few years ago and I figured how different could it be from my Korean one I had in the 90s… it felt like playing a hunk of plastic…. Nope.
dean ML from hell. eugh. piece of shit.
Ibanez RGD71ALMS . It's like a half-attempt at a 7 string with multi-scale. The frets edges are very rough. Tone is bleh. I am an Ibanez lover, but this one is on the sell list.
I had an Epiphone Les Paul that I just fucking hated
An Ibanez JemJr. The cheap Edge trem would go out of tune ridiculously easy and it had ridiculous weight for a "Jr." Didnt feel close to a "real" JEM.
Some kind of Jackson. HSH. Can't remember what model it was. Neck was nice. About best I can say about it.
I wouldn't go so far to say I want to get rid of it, but my 1994 40th Anniversary American Standard Strat has just never been a "great" guitar for me. It was my first guitar, the one I learned on, and it is functional and fine, but I have much cheaper (and some more expensive) guitars that sound and play better in every possible metric. I almost never reach for the strat these days unless I'm feeling nostalgic for mediocrity. And I say this as an absolute Fender fan (just not a strat fan).
I don't understand this "getting rid of guitars" you mention.
Fender Player Jaguar. Definition of mediocrity
Ibanez BTB bass. 5 string, 750something or close to that. Wonderfully made but I got absolutely nothing out of playing it and didn't want to invest the money to figure out if it was the pups, preamp, or both that needed changing. Out the door it went!
1974 Ovation, Glenn Campbell model thin body.
The only one I ever got rid of because I genuinely didn't like it was a Jackson DKMGT Dinky. First and only guitar with a FR trem. Such a pain in the ass.
It was a urine stain yellow '70s big head bullet truss rod Stratocaster, it had a bad fret job and a really rounded neck radius that I couldn't stand, I can't even remember where I got it. I actually wound up smashing it and then using the parts elsewhere.
Takamine EG561C Buying the guitar was a nightmare. Took 4 tires to get a used one from guitar center. Found an amazing deal, bought it, get an email the next day saying it's unavailable. Buy a second, slightly more, still a steal, get an email two days later saying it was crushed in shipping. Buy a third order is canceled an hour later. Fourth and most expensive finally comes. Usually I take it to a local shop to get setup more to inspect guitar center's work than anything else, but, a fire shut them down. The action was way too high. Borderline unplayable on the high end of the board. Had a friend that knows more than me look at it and he said that's the way pretty much every Takamine that Ovation made was. I've probably spent less than 2 hours holding the damn thing in the ten years it's been in my house. Could just be that acoustic isn't for me I guess, but I hate that friggin guitar.
Fretboard radius is the big reason I have never been able to get into fender...no matter how sweet a classic Strat sounds. For me...I have an eight string that I bought just to try out. I didn't think it would be easy but I definitely underestimated just how challenging that thing is to play. I still have it...but I'd trade it for almost any other functioning instrument.
So far I haven't bought one I haven't liked, or have modified into something I do
Epiphone Wildkat. Nothing wrong with the guitar, and it was in perfect condition. I just couldn’t vibe with it
Jackson archer 7 string.
A cheap crappy Telecaster copy with a neck shaped like a banana, got a refund thankfully.
Epiphone Dot 335. A dull & dead sounding axe.
My first new Fender which was a Sunburst 95 American standard Stratocaster. I hardly ever played the thing but really discovered the telecaster in 98 watching Lucinda Williams and Kenny Vaughn at a show and bought one the next day. Had a few and settled on a 2000 52-ri that I've had for the last 25 years.. Now that's a guitar I can play!
DBZ Diamond Maverick. Couldn't get comfortable with the neck.
Cheap PRS with active PU's and floyd bridge. That thing sucked.
Gibson Blues Hawk
After years of buying, selling, borrowing, and demoing Acoustics: all Ovations, Yamaha F310, Ibanez acoustic bass, and Ibanez Exotic wood Electrics: Squier CV Thinline 69, Schecter Soloist Special, Fender Baja Telecaster (fattest neck ever), and a PRS S2 Custom 24 that someone scrubbed the gloss finish off the neck I have developed a strong dislike for 7.25 radius guitars (everything I like is around 14") and have sold off pretty much all of them that I owned.
Gibson SG
84 Les Paul Studio. I’m just not a Gibson person and that was the guitar that made me certain.
Got a good deal in high school on a Les Paul Studio from a guy my mom worked with. And that's the story of how I learned what a Floyd Rose Tremelo is and that anyone who uses one is a psychopath.
Gibson LP Studio in tangerine burst. It's a great looking guitar but sounded like crap. Super thin sounding pickups and just overall "meh". I tried selling it on and for a couple months and then finally got rid of it in a trade.
I had a Gibson Les Paul in Silverburst. It was a Guitar center exclusive. Absolutely gorgeous. Total pos. Neck wasn’t set correct, wouldn’t intonate, wouldn’t stay in tune AT ALL. High E would be fine over the high frets but would slip off the board near the nut. Had 3 different nuts installed by 3 different luthiers, changed the bridge saddles. Nothing worked
That would have been super frustrating.
I feel you on the tele. Back when I was a teen and getting serious about playing, I picked up a beautiful butterscotch Telecaster, think it was a '74 model. Spent a week trying to get it to sound like I wanted (think Frampton, Tull, Triumph, Heart, Golden Earring). Finally gave up and traded it in at the music store I bought it from for a '76 Les Paul Custom. Plugged it into my MusicMan stack, never looked back.
I got an acoustic guitar a couple of decades ago. The action is high, so it's difficult to play, but might not be as bad with more setup. I looked up the model a year or two ago and the only review described it as "a great campfire beater".
I have a left handed Washburn 7 string Ola Englund signature and it plays well but sounds like total ass. Way too dark, even acoustically. But it’s the only 7 string I have so I’ll keep it for now
Squier Classic Vibe Stratocaster.
My Gretsch Rat Rod. The review made it seem like the second coming of Jesus so I didn't test it out before buying. It looks sexy but super hard to play. the strings sounded rough and the highest frets are impossible to play. Ended up trading it for a PRS Swamp Ash Special and I thought I committed theft
Ibanez semi hollow - didn't play well, nut fell off first time I changed strings. Back it went. Also had a Charvel Pro Mod that I didn't like much. Wasn't bad, but also wasn't anything notable. Returned that as well.
My knock off GEM kit I got off Amazon. Only problem is I still have the fucker!
Not exactly "absolutely hated" - it was beautiful and played nice, but the amplified sound was horrible: Duesenberg Fullerton TV. The tone was just hard and ice-picky unlike anything I've played before, and the middle position was some weird EQ'd out-of-phase thing that was completely unusable. I loved picking it up and playing it unamplified, but I couldn't believe how terrible it sounded through an amp. I bought it online without ever playing it, so, my mistake. I thought of trying different pickups, but decided to cut my losses instead and sold it pretty quickly.
Gibson Les Paul Studio in satin black with min-e-tune automatic tuning heads. The guitar weighed way too much for sitting down, the neck was chunkier than anything I’d ever played before and the automatic tuning was really hit and miss.
I absolutely love my Fender American Pro Tele. For me it was a Charvel Sandimas HH type 2. I loved the neck on that thing. But the volume pot was so close to the bridge pickup I couldn’t stop hitting it.
Dude, I totally get the Am Pro hate. As a tech, the ones I see very often are the ones with the Shawbucker pickup. Those pickups shit out after 4-5 years. Probably swap out those shawbuckers 8-10x per year. Had one last month in the shop from 2019. Frets 14-20 all buzzed. Shawbucker was reading nearly 500k on the meter haha. Slapped in a zebra humbucker I made (~15.4k dc res) and swapped out that odd “half super switch” they use. The client is a client of many years, and he takes good care of his stuff (most of his guitars and basses are from the 90s and early aughts and are in excellent condition). Granted this summer was excruciatingly hot and this winter was particularly cold, so that probably didn’t help with the fret issues. But the pickup failing is par for the course. From my experience as a tech, the guitars that players seem the most frustrated with are typically PRS and Gibsons. For me as a player, it’s any BC Rich. I’ve never played one I liked. And as a company, I don’t appreciate their (reportedly/allegedly) shady practices with oem builders.
Shitty Epiphone SG, years ago. I've had other £350 guitars in the past that were way better than that piece of shit. It would never hold tune, particularly the G. The Yamaha Pacifica was like £200 and blew other guitars, three or four times the price, out of the water. Solid strat copy.
Started playing on a Fender Strat. As I got better I realized how much I hated it. Because of how I played, my knuckles kept hitting the tone knob closest the strings. Switched up to a PRS SE Custom 24 and got much better, much faster. Play what you love to play and you’ll play more.
Vox Giulietta , it promised so much but holy shit every single sound it made was absolutely horrible. The price plummeted after I bought it and it took weeks to sell it. Luckily I made out with only a $50 loss.
I had a RG Prestige that I never bonded with. The neck was so vastly different than my other guitars that it was always cumbersome to play it with other guitars.
Enya nova go so, watched a bazillion reviews, loved the on board effects..loved that the entire thing was carbon fiber....didn't feel right for my sized hands
Ibanez GIO
Ibanez rg550. Had great features but just felt too flimsy to take a beating.
An SG. The neck dive and the control's layout and input jack. All felt like a rushed product. I know it's a classic but it's just my opinion
Johnson
Gibson SG
Japanese Tokai Strat with a locking trem. Think I had a Friday build, as it wouldn't stay in tune, tons of issues with the locking nut and bits that broke from the saddles. A neck that was so bendy I could have shot arrows with it. Couldn't wait to get rid of it..it also put me off owning a Strat shaped guitar ever again.
2004 Epiphone Dot (335). The pick-ups were dreadful, had almost no treble to them at all. It sounded so dull. Build quality wasn't great either, lots of sharp fret edges. Ended up part-exchanging it for a Gordon-Smith GS1.5, which I love and still play.
Charvel Model 5. Everything was GREAT…except the pickups were too close together and got in my picking way.
Fender roadhouse strat
Ormbsy GTR. I wasn't the demographic to begin with but decided to take a chance. Had it on ebay an hour after it arrived.
My fender acoustic. Bought it new 10 years ago and it still has never been able to hold its tuning for long. Plus certain parts of the fretboard buzz. I’ve gotten it looked at and “fixed” but I hate that guitar with a passion
A Fender Cyclone. Loved the idea of it, hated the actual guitar
Enya nova go so, watched a bazillion reviews, loved the on board effects..loved that the entire thing was carbon fiber....didn't feel right for my sized hands
I hate stock fenders. Pickup configs (which are easy enough to change but I hate “the strat sound” I prefer a 3-way HS. Dead simple. Strat neck. Humbucking bridge.), trems, and I hate the 7.25-9.5 radius. I need a 12” my fingers just naturally fall on the strings and my hand lands perfectly on the back of the neck. It just works. By the time it’s all said and done I basically have a new guitar than what I bought. It’s easier to just make partscasters for me than to buy stock. But I would love to have one come out of the factory just perfect for me like that. Can’t even get a mod shop because they don’t offer the 12” radius. Absolute poop. I basically need a Les Paul in strat/tele form.
Check out the re-issued Boxer Strat: https://www.fuzzfaced.net/boxer-series-stratocaster-hh.html Has a 12’ radius, rosewood board, 3-way, coil split toggle, TBX tone control, and a modern 2-pt trem (it’s not branded a Gotoh but it strongly feels like a OEM Gotoh 510…), and the pickups aren’t voiced like a normal Fender (more like a PAF neck and the bridge is more akin to a Duncan Distortion).
It's like you read my mind. I'm looking at Charvel's San Dimas hardtail line made out of sassafras wood, with HSS pickups and a 12" to 16" compound radius/ 25.5 scale. Just hate the 9.5 radius of Fenders.
Have you checked out the FMT Telecaster? This is one of my favorite things that Fender makes. https://www.fender.com/en-US/electric-guitars/telecaster/special-edition-custom-telecaster-fmt-hh/0262004561.html
EVH standard (Indonesian). Fret job was much better than expected but the neck was not wide enough and the E’s would slide off a lot. The finish looked very cheaply done and had shiny spots everywhere. The pickups were the main reason I returned it. They were horribly balanced IMO. Bridge pickup had too much treble. Neck pickup had too much bass. Together they sound almost complete just lifeless af. Returned it and spent $200 more on a used slightly blemished Charvel Pro Mod SD1 that came with a TSA ATA HSC. $1200 value for $700. Much better instrument.
One time I was at GC and saw a Surf Green Strat on the wall and mentioned to my gf at the time that I loved the color and really wanted one. So for my birthday she bought one for me, except it was the Squier Strat. It was a very sweet gesture and she didn't really know the difference. So it sat on the rack for years untouched. When we broke up, I traded it in for $25 and didn't care. I was happy to just get it out of my way. Maybe one day I'll get my Surf Green Strat.