) hours playing it.What did I play?
MTM
TTT
8 Mi. High
Feel A Whole Lot Better When You're Gone
James Alley Blues (Trad.)
You Got Me Runnin' (Jimmy Reed)
Hello Marylou (Gene Pitney)
8 Days A Week
I'll Cry Instead
Ramblin' Man (Allman Bros.)
Lyin' Eyes (Henley/Frey)
Silver Moon (an original)
I Never Go Back To the Old Places (another original), and
The Chord (I prefer the barred spelling at the 3rd fret, I discovered)
Quick Observations: Everyone is right; pictures don't do the new Fireglo justice. It's gorgeous beginning with a dark red, almost brown, fading to a rich red, then a sort of dark salmon, then just before it fades to amber/yellow in the center there's a color reminiscent of peach on the back side of my guitar. And the full width inlays are beautiful, simply beautiful!
Playability; I never knew playing guitar could be so dead easy! The guitar was ready to play right out of the box. About playing the blues on a Rick 12 string; yes, it can be done, at least to my satisfaction, including bending strings. And the funky thing about it is that the B pair would go slightly dissonant as I was bending them. The guitar is equipped with a six saddle bridge. I checked for intonation. And it was perfect everywhere. I didn't even have to cheat the B course to play in tune with the D course while playing a D Major chord. And the strings were still in tune playing a C Major chord. I don't know if I got lucky and got one of the really good ones or not. I'm just reporting my experiences here. Because I know this has been discussed at very great length.
I played it through my Kustom with the Jangle Box. Got some acceptable sounds. As my amp has two channels, I tried the Rick-O-Sound option with the JB first though the neck pickup, then through the bridge pickup. I think I like running the compressor through the neck pickup, and leaving the bridge pickup alone, just fiddling the the volume and tone controls. Even though I got no real stereo separation that you could tell, still I like the sounds I was getting better that way, than just playing it mono through the JB and one channel of the amp. The only thing I haven't tried on it is genuine finger picking. All my playing was done hybrid style. Palm muting was fairly easy to do.
Plugged in my little Vox headphone amp and that's where I dialed up some distortion and played Jimmy Reed's "You Got Me Runnin'" I rather liked that. There was a nice, expanded sonic palette that I haven't heard from distorted six string guitars. All in all, I think this is going to be a real good, all purpose giggin' guitar. Best money I ever spent. Yeah, this is an electric guitar I can get excited about and musically inspired by. And that's high compliment from some one who has spent all his life playing acoustic music.
Pix at 11
JimK
