It's Been a While / Guitars part 1

I've been reading quite a few blogs recently. Notably Hyperbole and a half, My girls' blog, My best friend's blog, and quite a few others i've stumbled upon.
I'm not looking to get a million views or followers, or to have this become my job and get paid for it, but I am looking to get my thoughts out on electronic paper. And if people wish, they can read and comment.
So my last post was way back in 2008; and wow did it suck; Talk about lack of content.

So anyway, the topic about this blog is emotion, and how my new guitar is essentially a gateway into my soul. I've been playing guitar since I was 14 - about 8 years now. I've had many different types of guitars. My first, a Strat knock-off, a Kramer Focus. Came with a 15W solid-state amp and that was the guitar that I learned most of my chords on. It was the guitar I played in my first band (Death by lampshade - google it, the freewebs site might still be up) Soon after I wanted to upgrade to bigger and better. My second band then, as it is currently, is a hard rock band. So I wanted to have something aggressive looking, was easy to play, but had a mean sound as well. Naturally, the dude at Guitar Center sold me a Jackson. That thing was sweet. It was the first guitar i purchased for myself. It's red, had beautiful white abalone triangle inlays, and the headstock looked like it could puncture someone's lung if thrust upon them. Mean it was.

I brought that guitar home and immediately started playing it. My brother shot out a comment along the lines of "Just because you have a better guitar doesn't mean you can play any better". Which he's 100% correct, but I just dismissed him with a "shut up" and kept on playing. Brotherly love, it's tough love, but it's there.
My mom was mad that I spent $500 on a new instrument when I had a "perfectly good one" already. Yes, true, the Kramer is perfectly capable of producing an electric signal to be amplified and broadcast as music through speakers, but at the same time, it lacks the bite of the Jackson's pickups, the fierce red finish, the extra 2 frets allowing for an extended range; the list goes on.
It's the subtleties of one's craft that can make explaining yourself to an unenlightened individual near impossible. And if you do, you just might come across as crazy.

Shortly after the Jackson joined my family, I went out on the hunt for a new acoustic. I had one already, kindly gifted to me by my father, but again - that one didn't have the upper range, or the playability of this new one. Plus I couldn't plug it in for live acoustic shows. The new acoustic is a 3/4 body black Ibanez Electric/Acoustic guitar. It was the first one that drew my eye at G.C., it was the first one I played there, and it was the one I took home with me. PLUS I got it for 50% off! Can't beat that. And it's currently the only guitar I own that has a name. It takes a lot of time, and I need to be in the right mood to assign a name to anything I own. Only when that special connection has been established does the name come to me.

My 5th guitar was an object of infatuation that eventually became mine. The boys (the band) and I were at a guitar center in Orlando, Florida. We all walked inside admiring the rows upon rows of guitars hanging on the walls, the drums stacked in the corner, the amps all lined up in rows - grouped by price and awesomeness. But there, above all else, in the center of everything was a guitar. An ocean blue beauty with a glistening vine crawling all the way up the fretboard. It was a Schecter C1-Classic. I was petrified with lust. When I finally mustered up the courage to grab it and start playing, I immediately fell in love. There were 3 strips of solid maple that ran all the way down the guitar through the neck and into the body. Everything on it was just plain beautiful. The transition between body and neck was flawless, the way your hand fit right into the notch at the headstock of the guitar was unlike anything I've experienced. The intricacy of the "vine of life" inlays was mystifying. The tone was beautiful too.
Unfortunately, at the time I could not afford to purchase it, and had to put it back.
Thus began the 8 month long infatuation including everything from desktop wallpapers to hours of reading about the artists who played Schecters. I even sent an email to the custom shop asking how much an emerald green version with "Chaos" spelled outon the fretboard in "old English" font would cost. Turns out it's about $3,000 more than I expected, and even at the expected price, it was at least twice as much as I can afford.

But the day finally came when I had my credit card and I just happened to be at guitar center, and there in almost the same spot (granted this was a different store) was that very same guitar. I played it for almost an hour before deciding to buy it. I talked the salesman down a few hundred dollars, got him to throw in a case for free after I agreed to purchase a warranty for it.

I come home that night to the same welcome I experienced when I purchased my Jackson; My mother wondering what's so much better about this one than the 4 guitars I already have. My brother, again, insisting that I'm not a better guitarist because i have a better guitar. Deep in my heart I knew they were both wrong though. The second day I had it however, the low D string kept falling off the bridge saddle when I was playing it. (It's the low E string tuned to d) I went downstairs with the guitar around my neck and found the first metal file I could find. I filed the saddle down a bit to provide a deeper notch for the string to sit in, and when I went to put the guitar back on around my neck, the strap knocked the file right out of my hand and into the edge of the body, putting a 2mm deep scar into my new baby.
I was so heartbroken by my own carelessness that I sat down and cried.
I still have not forgiven myself for that. The nick aside, I would often just stare at it hanging on my wall admiring its beauty.
The Schecter Served me well for many years.

Early this year I bought myself a new Amp. It's my first all Tube amp, a behemoth 70 pounder, two 12" speakers being driven with 120watts of pure analog power. For being an amp geared towards the metal genre, it has an incredibly bright clean tone. Because I had this sparkling clean tone instead of an always over-driven sorry excuse for a clean tone, I actually started toning down the distortion. After finding out there's more to guitar than great distortion and solos, I started diving into the softer, mellower music. I set out on the quest for tone.

Due to this new quest, I started encountering the limitations of the Schecter. It doesn't have the full-bodied resonance of a Les-Paul. Nor does it sparkle and twang like a Strat. (Granted I'm not a huge fan of Fenders in general, but some artists get Phenomenal tone from Fenders that I can't help but fall in love with. And the Kramer Focus doesn't come close either.) I can get a beautiful, crisp tone in the fourth switch position on the Schecter if I roll the volume down a bit. The top position doesn't quite sing like I think it should, and the middle and second positions don't seem to fit in anywhere in my grand scheme of things. The first position is great for distortion - it has the bite and treble necessary. But through a clean channel, it's way too thin of an output. The Schecter tone knob is more of an on-off switch than a pot. The upper range of the knob has little to no affect on the tone, and at around 80% the falloff is so steep that it's near impossible to find a happy medium that's not Full bass, or full treble.

As much as I love that guitar. It was time for an upgrade, and it was a sad day when i figured it out, as I have spent many many hours with that guitar, and haven't given it a name. I wanted to, but nothing seemed to fit. To me, it was, and shall remain "The Schec". (Pronounced 'shek')

It was after this moment that I started researching PRS guitars. I knew Ben Burnley from Breaking Benjamin played one, Carlos Santana, Davy Knowles, the dude From Little Feat also played them. So many respected artists owned one that the guitars seemed out of my league. The PRS 513 came up in my research and as soon as I saw it I knew I needed to have it. 5 pickups, TWO toggle switches, 15 possible pickup positions and a slew of different sounds could be at my fingertips. I needed it. Now.

I set my sights on the 513 Swamp ash. A beautiful all natural finish, showing off every ounce of perfect detail within the wood. Days became weeks became months, and The fire was re-ignited when I was at guitar center with a friend and I asked the guy behind the desk if I could play a 513. Well, he sold it the day before, and they only keep one in stock, but I can play any other PRS I wanted. So I opted for the the Custom 24, the bread and butter, if you will of PRS.
"Too light" I thought to myself when I first grabbed it from the employee's hands. It's a beautiful emerald green color, in fact, my favorite shade of green, but I still wasn't impressed. I played that guitar for a good 45 minutes. The tone was great, it was everything I came to expect from a PRS, but something about it just felt wrong. I was not getting good vibes from the guitar at all. The best way I can describe it, is that it felt as though I should not have been holding it, let along playing it.

I traded that C-24 for a Santana model. And nearly the same feeling came to me. I only played it for a few more minutes when I told the guy that it doesn't feel right, and I really wish I could play a 513. The guy told me to hold on a second while he consulted his manager. I was confused, nervous and excited all at the same time.
Shortly after, the guy came out wielding none other than a 25th anniversary edition, PRS 513 ina beautiful color I later found out to be "Smoked Black Slate": A magnificent blend of black, gray, and a hint of aqua blue.

I'm pretty sure I squealed with glee. Maybe.

The guy instructed me to take off my watch and ring, basically anything that could possibly scratch it because the guitar officially isn't "theirs" because it has been sold and it's currently on lay-away. But he could tell I was serious about PRS guitars, and the guys at guitar center are AWESOME, so he let me play it. And he watched me like a hawk while doing so.

The moment I touched the guitar it felt right. I managed to mutter "Oh my god, thanks man." to the guy right before I melted. The 513 felt so familiar and perfect, it was almost as if I had already owned it for many years. It was heavier than the Custom 24, but still lighter than almost ever other guitar out there. I knew I had to have one. And I didn't even play it yet. Every second I was messing with the knobs and switches just solidified the fact that someday in the future, I will own this guitar.

I went home that day and played my Schecter like I would never see it ever again. I played almost every song I knew, and then after that, just kept playing and playing until I lost the will to do anything. I hung it up, sat in my computer chair and stared at it for another 5 minutes.

I can say that the 513 Guitar Center experience had motivated me to fine tune my Schecter to get every possible bit of pure-sounding tone I could possibly extract out of that guitar. I applied what I had learned to the new album the band was recording - all the while thinking how much better it could sound with the 513 (which is SO wrong, and I felt incredibly guilty for not appreciating the instrument that I had).

Months after that, I got a full-time job at an Engineering Place, and finally had a decent, steady incoming cash flow. I set my sights on saving for the 513, and the MINUTE I could afford it, I jumped online and ordered it.

6 Days later i'm pacing back and forth at my house after coming home from a long work day and after what seemed like eternity the UPS guy shows up with a giant box. WAY bigger than i expected it to be, but I knew what was in there. I could barely contain my excitement, but I still stood and chatted with the delivery guy. He coached my little-league baseball team when I played as a kid, and he's a close family friend. We know each other well. After telling him what was in the box and how excited I was for it, and listening to his own guitar buying experience, we parted. Him back to the truck, and on to the rest of his workday, me on to unwrapping the last guitar I'll ever need to buy.

Part 2 to come.