guitars

Hard to say for me, but I always feel safe with a Jazz III lol.

I created a new kind of guitar that y'all may be interested in. The photonic guitar uses the resonance of electricity and light to create music in the same way an acoustic guitar uses the resonance of vibration and acoustic waves. I started research on this instrument as a physics undergrad and focused on the topic for my Ph.D. After graduating, I spent time doing space science research for government agencies like NASA and the DoD. I quit being a professor a few years ago so I could resume research on my photonic guitar. We can't hear this instrument directly, for a variety of reasons, so I've created a plugin that utilizes measurements of these instruments to recreate their musical output as an effect for electric guitars. While the photonic guitar shares the same kind of physical foundation as an acoustic guitar, the photonic guitar is capable of a broader array of musical effects. I've linked to a demo of an electric guitar, played through the photonic guitar plugin, and connected to the drive channel on a fender amp. The photonic guitar pushes the existing distortion into a new regime. https://cosmicstudio.io/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Demo-2-Master_1.mp3

It'd be nice to not be pushed into subscriptions or downloading an app to make a mobile website readable.

And these usually take up the first page of results, so I can't help but feel that the plain, actually usable websites are buried. What else do you guys use?

I have had a 1960-era Marlin (not Martin!) guitar since I was a teen in the '80s. I abused it, trashed the finish, changed the electronics, and then took it apart for a project that never happened.

I'd like to restore it roughly to its original state. Right now, it's all about the electronics.

First off, is there any advantage to lining the body (pickup) cavity with copper foil? Will it reduce the noise and hum?

Secondly, since I have to desolder the switches, will twisting the pickup leads help?

Thirdly, does anyone have a wiring diagram for this thing? Two single coil pickups each run to an on/off toggle, but then I've got a handful of broken and loose parts.

The URL is for an auction of a guitar (almost) identical to mine, just to trigger anyone's memories.

Thanks all!

This is a Squier paranormal series offset telecaster that I've done some modding to. Swapped out the pickups, pickguard, control plate, knobs, and rewired it internally. Pulling the volume knob reverses the phase of the neck pickup, and pulling the tone knob coil splits the bridge pickup.

I love this instrument dearly, and now it feels truly my own 😁

I've been playing for about 3 years and hit a wall recently. Felt like I was just cycling through the same songs and chord shapes.

What finally helped was deliberately picking songs slightly above my comfort zone — stuff with unexpected chord changes or rhythms I hadn't tried before. For me it was "Blackbird" (the fingerpicking pattern forced me to think differently) and "Jolene" (that tempo is deceptively tricky).

I've been using chordroom.com lately to browse through songs by difficulty and it's been solid for finding charts that are actually readable. Their library is massive (260k+ songs) and it's free without the paywall nonsense.

What songs pushed you to the next level? Always looking for new challenges.

Finally managed to get my hands on my dream guitar. Upgrading from a 7 to an 8 string is a bit weird but easier than a 6 to a 7. Some specs for those interested:

• Skeversen Shoggie 8
• 26-28" 5-piece pau ferro & wenge neck, flame maple fretboard
• European ash body, flame maple top wood
• Bare Knuckle Juggernaut in the Bridge, BKP Cold Sweat in the Neck
• Skervesen's "World Domination Mod" AKA coil split and "acoustic" switch

what are some great tuners for classical guitar?

I bought this guitar like 3 years ago, HImor brand, made in China, for like $225. I like it quite a bit. One downside though is that the tuners suck, too much play in them. What can you recommend as a replacement?

Fender / FMIC have just announced their lawsuit win in a court in Germany that will change everything about the guitar industry. Effectively as of the 9th of March 2026 Fender has EU copyright protection on the Fender Stratocaster body shape. That means that guitars using that shape from brands like Schecter, ESP, Suhr, James Tyler, Jet and many, many more are now in breach of Fenders copyright and are effectively Illegal.

The discontinued Talman line came up in this comm recently. I happened to have one (and someone requested a share), so I thought I'd show it off.

Went to the music store with my friend who really plays guitar about a decade ago. I was angling for something on a super low budget, but he convinced me to spring the couple extra hundred for this beaut. (Still a lower-end model, I know.)

I don't understand all the intricacies of what makes it stand out, but I know it's super comfortable to hold, looks great on the wall, and sounds great (aside from my playing ability 😅). Really glad I went with it.

I been playing Les Paul for many years, but then I found this beauty.

I bought it 2'nd hand for about 240Euro (1800Dkr), and despite being one of the cheapest guitars in my collection, it's my absolute favourite.

It's such a relief for my back (my Les Paul weighs around 4.8Kg while this is only around 2.8Kg), it plays like a dream and the fretboard feels just like a Les Paul, just a little bit thinner.

I been using my LP when playing songs in drop-D tuning, just so I can make a fast switch and don't have to tune the guitar, and the difference in weight is very noticeable, it's like wearing a thin summer dress instead of a heavy winter coat.

I have only tried it a couple of times with the band, and I already noticed that I move around a lot more on stage when using the Ibanez.

Does anyone know a quick-fix to level the strings on the nut?

It's a 2'nd hand parts-caster made from old Fuji-gen parts, and I'd really like to avoid removing the old nut (it's not coming out easy), was thinking to try giving it some epoxy or super-glue in the slit for the D and B-string, but I'd love to hear any ideas before I start destroying one of my guitars :-)

So, I'm a sucker for cheap and quirky Ibanez models, my favourite guitar I own is my Roadcore series RC302, that I got for a steal and modded the hell out of it.

But now, a new challenger approaches.
A couple weeks ago I finally found the guitar that held the 1st spot in my bucket list for some years: the Ibanez TM303M, also known as the Nashville Talman.
For those who don't know, this guitar was issued with the respin of the Talman series, a design inspired by old-school Fender models, with the classic alder body and bolt on maple neck, that had very limited runs. This particular one was produced for just a couple years from 2016 to 2018 and it took me a lot of patience to find one.

The thing that fascinated me about this model, besides its captivating looks, is its circuit: while in stock Nashville Telecasters the middle pickup is usually activated via push-pull knob or with a 5-way switch in a Strat-like combination, here it is controlled by its own volume pot, allowing it to be blended in with any other classic Tele position and giving the guitar more tonal flexibility.
If you're interested in the schematics I found this on Seymour Duncan's site.

TL;DR: how the heck do I start getting one guitar's tone to sound more like another's?
Or, if it's easier to share, how did you go about finding your favorite tone?

I've been learning on an LTD viper-400 for the past few months, and then bought an epiphone SG g-400 recently because 1) I really, really, really wanted this look since forever; and 2) one finally popped up locally at a price point I've been waiting for.

Just talking about the difference when unplugged:

The epiphone sounds exactly how I've heard it in videos, but I didn't realize guitars could sound this different. I just like my viper's sound so much better, and... I'm ignorant enough to not know how to describe why. The SG just sounds... Airier? Lighter? The strings are definitely different. The sg has some smooth feeling to it, maybe because they're new strings, according to the seller. Do I just start with trying to figure my viper's string gauges or something and buy those for the SG? Though they both have almost the same low action, the strings on my viper feel more taught; might be just because of the jumbo frets, but is tighter-feeling strings a thing?

And when plugged in, I like each of their clean sounds, but favor the viper's a little more. I'm even less sure how to describe why or what the difference really is. Is there a process to fiddle with knobs? At what point do I start considering switching pickups? I can't tell what pickups the SG has, other than they're probably the originals. The viper's should be original too, seymour Duncan custom-5 (bridge) and jazz (neck) pickups.

Even though, generally, I've fallen in love with the viper, there isn't enough room in my home for two guitars at this time. That's a c/relationshipadvice issue, lmao. I'm keeping the ~~Homewrecker~~ iconic SG and selling ~~Sexy~~ my viper once I figure this out, and that's that. But yeah, tone. How does it work

I know this is probably beyond a dumb question I'm overthinking, but any special considerations to take when cleaning a guitar?

Finally had a string pop on my main electric after like 10 years, figured I should just replace that whole set. And while they're off, might as well give a nice touch up all around.

The basic obvious approach I have in mind is to use combos of paper towels, q-tips, warm soapy water, and isopropyl to remove any gunk I can see in any crevices, wipe down the surfaces, maybe polish any metal.

Any spots I might overlook? Do I need to be worried about water or alcohol coming in contact with the fretboard or any part of it?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/42884813

If the onboard memory of a looper has gone bad, is the looper still fixable?
I don't care about any phrases saved, just hoping to still make use of the looper.

I got a boss RC-3 pedal secondhand, and because it flashed (still does) Er, I followed steps per the Boss rc-3 manual (page 19) to reformat it. No dice. Instead of flashing Fn for a reformat, it flashes dn, which is apparently the code for "contact ur dealer." Can I still replace the memory and use the pedal?

Things I've already tried:

• the above method for formatting, according to the boss rc-3 manual
• connecting to PC following the manual's instructions:
  • on Linux, shows up in lsusb with the device name, "Roland rc-3" or something like that, but not in lsblk. Not sure why that was, and I wasn't sure of what effective search terms to follow up with to troubleshoot further
  • on windows 11, doesn't show in disk manager nor file explorer, but does show as "mass storage device" among my usbs. Updated my USB drivers, tried the "uninstall device, and restart" thing from Device Manager.
    Nothing's changed. Properties of device from Device Manager also show a "device cannot start (code 10)" error
• I also tried to connect to pc in update-firmware mode, according to the manual. I still get the same results connecting to pc as above. I believe the looper data storage is shot.

All that said, is it worth prying open to fix it or nah?
If nah, what's the most "budget" looper you would recommend that includes:

• fake drums
• a count-in feature
• a tap-tempo button
• and undo-redo?

I have a cheap looper for practice, but it's a basic one-loop + overdubbing looper. It overwrites the one loop to an SD card, too, but I wouldn't mind trading in that feature for the above list. Once I tried an RC-2 with the count-in, I couldn't go back to using my cheap one. The rc-2 functions though felt way too crowded to use just to pick out a rhythm or write to memory, so I sold it and got this rc-3.

UPDATE:

No local help found: No boss-authorized service centers in Hawaii, except on the Big Island. I'm not flying out there for a pedal. I didn't reach out very far in Oahu, but, like, the few guitar-sources I could message asking for pedal-repair references - they didn't have anyone they could recommend.
The pedal's serial number is... Gone, so I couldn't submit an online ticket through Roland/boss. Their service request page requires a registered product, which requires a serial number.

So, I figured, I didn't want to disappoint the guy I bought this from and return a junk pedal.

I opened it. Found a 4GB micro SD card inside. Covered in a pea-size's worth of fucking GLUE. It looked and felt like wood glue because it was a BITCH to peel off.
Besides the glue, there's a bracket around the SD card also permeated with glue on three sides. The bracket had to to be slid upward & tilted up to release the SD card. See picture of opened bracket

I'm gonna see if replacing the SD card with the default folders & update-files in place works. The smallest replacement I have is only 16GB. Wish me luck.

Update: I'm still getting the "dn" code, but all I really did was slap a folder named ROLAND & the v1.6 firmware files on a blank 8GB micro SD I found.

I can't get to whatever was on the old 4GB SD card to copy files because my pc won't detect it. The flat pins are tinged in green stuff

In case it's relevant - anyone with a Boss loop-station here able to share what filesystem format it is when plugged in as a USB? Or share the file structure and whatever files should be in /ROLAND/DATA?

Even though he left after their second album, "Motorcade of Generosity" and "Fashion Nugget" will always be hugely influential to me personally, and Greg's contributions will not be forgotten for many years to come.

Soooo last week I bought this new fender mustang 90... I'm very impressed, it's the best guitar I've ever played comfort wise. I just wish I bought it 20 years ago :)

Hey folks!

Can you please give me some songs that would take an intermediate player to learn in one or two days? And I mean the whole guitar part.

A good example would be Ramones' Blitzkrieg Bop, a counter example would be Metallica's Fade to Black, where the whole song is quite easy, but the solo can take some time.

I've never owned a Tele, and have always wanted to build my own guitar, so decided to tackle both of those last fall. While this is more alike to a Tele Deluxe, it had very quickly become my go to guitar for recording. Neck radius is very flat, unlike the Gibsons I usually play. Pickups are Seymour Duncan Slash V1matched set. Pots are Bournes. Work well direct into a tube amp or pedal, volume roll off very responsive. Finish was dye over spalted maple cap and the sealed with Zinsser Shellac.

I got a Harley Benton kit for Christmas, which was a perfect excuse to up my skills and build a guitar I'd buy myself.

I wanted to go for a seafoam green stained guitar, but the coat that was on the body already penetrated so deep that I couldn't sand it off without messing up the body. I probably should have started with a layer of white stain as well, since the wood turned out pretty dark. I decided to go with a more worn look (not relic though), and I like how it turned out. I finished it with penetrating finishing oil and Renaissance wax.

With regards to hardware, I put in a brass trem block, vintage saddles, Wilkinson vintage split shaft tuners, roller string trees and The Heritage RPS6 Jimi Hendrix style pickups. I also redid most of the wiring.

When I put the guitar together, the pickup selector had died, so I replaced that with a proper one as well.

The setup took me a while, but is as good as it's gonna get with an action of 1.25 - 1.5 mm and an almost straight neck.

I probably put in two to three times the money that the kit costs, and a lot of hours, but it was was worth it.

Does anyone else own a Hagström guitar?

I had played Stratocaster clones and a Custom '72 Telecaster for years. I always wanted to find a nice Gibson style guitar, but never had enough money when a decent one came my way. Then I stumbled upon this beauty, some guy had bought it new as his first guitar and then realized that an acoustic might be a better option for a beginner. He wanted less than half of the market price for it so I bought it.

I had heard and read good things about the Hagström build quailty but when I hooked it to my Vox I was instantly blown away by how versatile this guitar really was. The coil split - switch gives you best of the both worlds, you can get the deep and wide Humbucker growl and the sharp and clear single coil twang with a flick of a switch and a roll of a knob. The Ultra Swede is also really enjoyable to play. It's quite lightweight and the thin neck with fast action is perfect for my small hands.

The only complaint I've had with the Ultra Swede is that I had to go through the entire wiring when I got it. There were some weird crackles in the sound when I adjusted the volume and tone knobs and the cable input jack was loose. I opened it up, cleaned the pots, checked that every connection was solid and couldn't find anything wrong. Then I put it back together and all the crackles were gone.

It would be fun to hear what people think about Hagströms.