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My Guitars

This page is an attempt to collect reviews, thoughts and ramblings about my guitars. It might very well duplicate information that I have on my guitar blog.

General Comments

Strings

Unless otherwise stated, the strings on my guitars are Elixir Nanoweb .010-.046 electric guitar strings. I have tried lots of snake oil throughout the years, reinforced, cobalt, you name it, but I didn't know where that extra money went until I tried Elixir strings. This may sound like a commercial, but I have no association with W.L. Gore, and I have never received so much as a sticker from them. Since I started using Elixir strings, I have been forced to create a database for my guitars, where I keep track of when I last changed the strings on each and every one of them. Time flies, and before I know it, it's been a year since I've changed, and the strings still sound fresh. But they get worn out from the playing and intonation suffers as a result. And I also like getting access to the fretboards every now and then, to clean them and infuse them with a few drops of lemon oil.

10-46 is in many ways a compromise gauge for me. If I can keep my chops up, they're perfect for Fenders and just a tiny bit too loose on the shorter scale of a Gibson. If I don't, they're perfect on a Gibson and a handful on the Fenders. I don't like stepping down on the Fenders simply because I have become accustomed to the inertia of the 10 strings against my pick. 9s would probably require changing my preferred pick gauge as well. Sometimes I'll put 11-48 on the Gibsons when I want to track rhythm guitar for a recording project, since that extra 10 per cent seems to enable me to put a bit more oomph into my playing. But I soon realize why I've played regular 10s for so long.

Picks

I can play with any pick, but I need Dunlop Jazztone 204s to extract the last bit of performance out of my playing. It was a revelation when I first tried one. It was like I set the laws of physics aside: I could get a sound out of a guitar without any friction involved. Some people prefer the positive contact of a pointed tip. I have found that it works the other way around for me: a blunt tip allows for less friction and a more predictable release.

For a couple of years, I have purchased several different varieties of pick just to see if there's a way I can re-program my muscle memory to work with something a bit more traditional. It works for a while, but I find myself losing patience and going back to what I'm accustomed to. About the only time I deliberately switch picks is when I play acoustic. The Dunlop Ultex picks have a very nice and organic tone when strumming and flatpicking, not as sharp and cold as the Jazztones.

Straps

For the past 30 years, I have been seen on stages with a variety of different guitars, but almost never without a black DiMarzio Cliplock strap. It has its issues. I don't like the floppy ends with the dangling bits of plastic. They can be a cast-iron bitch to mount, since the screws are inevitably too long for the mounting holes in the guitar, and they're also unhardened, which means that I have to hope that the Philips slot isn't worn out completely by the time I have the thing fastened properly. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the Cliplock just works. It allows me to focus on other things and not have to worry about the guitar falling down when I least expect it. I have had straps break and come off, but never a Cliplock. I swear by them and recommend them to anyone who asks. DiMarzio haven't always offered the spare ends separately, but they do now, and it's actually quite practical. I don't see myself ever touring with my entire guitar collection, at the most I'd bring two axes to a gig. So I don't need to have seven complete strap and end setups, but two straps that I can move around depending on which guitars I decide to bring to a gig.

It's funny in a way. At times I've found myself gravitating back to the Ernie Ball Polypro straps, but it's always been during periods in my life where I haven't done much gigging and rehearsing. I've even done so recently—I haven't bought Cliplocks for the last three guitars I've added to my collection. And sure enough, not long ago, a Polypro came loose and my blue Stratocaster landed on my pedalboard. I'm not making that mistake again. At the time of this writing, six of my electrics are set up for Cliplocks.

The Guitars

Model: Fender Stratocaster American Standard
Year: 1996
Bought: Nov, 1996 (new)
Color: Vintage White, rosewood fretboard
Pickups: DiMarzio Area 58 (all positions)
Comments: Yngwie Malmsteen casts a long shadow over my playing style. However, I didn't pick up the Stratocaster because of his influence—I discovered Yngwie because I was into Stratocasters. With all that said, I would probably not have been so overjoyed with finding such a nice yellow Stratocaster were it not for its connection to my fellow Swede. Vintage White was a custom color in 1996, but the guy who had placed the special order backed out when the guitar came with a rosewood fingerboard. I too prefer maple, but it was love at first sight nonetheless. I have always enjoyed the more modern appointments of the American Standard, such as the stainless steel bridge saddles, the flatter neck and the extra fret. But I have never liked the 80s Fender logo. What truly sold me on this guitar was that Fender in 1996 had gone back to the original spaghetti logo. It's always the little things, right?

I might be softening on that issue, but for as long as I can remember, I have desperately avoided single-coil hum at all costs. This guitar did not keep its stock pickups for very long. I put in a DiMarzio HS-3 in the bridge position almost immediately, and complemented it with a YJM neck pickup a while later. It featured a set of Fender Hot Noiseless pickups for a few years. Then I did a short-lived experiment with single-size humbuckers in the neck and bridge positions. I didn't enjoy it. I absolutely see the point with putting humbuckers in a Stratocaster, because that makes the guitar a tiny bit more flexible. The HSS configuration is probably the most optimal one in my opinion. It's just that it unbalances the guitar too much. I find myself missing the classic Stratocaster sounds whenever I load one with humbuckers. But the experiment did give me a pleasant surprise: the glassiness and clarity of the DiMarzio Area 58.

This guitar was my most cherished possession for a little over four years. I can still remember how I felt when I discovered it and bought it, it was pure magic. But it is also the only guitar in my collection that I've seriously considered selling. I fell out of love with it after buying the black Les Paul, and again after getting my Telecaster, and now, after I came home with the light blue Stratocaster, I find myself wondering what I should do with it. But every time, I find that I rediscover it and remind myself why I bought it in the first place. I've played a boatload of Standards, Vintage and Custom Shop guitars, and there is always that extra little something missing that my yellow Fender has. Now, I'm seriously considering setting it up for vibrato use, just to have something that sets it apart from the blue one (see below).

Model: Gibson Les Paul Studio
Year: 1990
Bought: May, 2001 (used)
Color: Ebony
Pickups: DiMarzio PAF 36th Anniversary neck + bridge
Comments: This is as close as I get to a main guitar. It might not be the one I would grab if the house caught on fire, but I know that I can just pick it up and nail the take. The neck is just fantastic. If it isn't an ebony fretboard, then it's the highest-grade rosewood I've ever seen, deep black and just as smooth as glass. No Standard I've tried has been able to approach it although a Custom came close once. I have always gravitated towards Studios because they are closer to my price bracket. But I actually find myself enjoying the lack of bling as a special type of strength. A black guitar is way cooler without the white binding. I've even considered getting a black bridge and tuners for it!

There is not much left on my Les Paul that is still original. I removed the pickguard the same day that I bought the guitar and the screws for it have been lost. The knob for the pickup selector switch was replaced, same with the jack plug plate. The tuners came off in my hands a few weeks after I bought the guitar, so those aren't original either. Obviously I've replaced the pickups, and the pickup rings have cracked and are also overdue for replacement. So it's the body, neck and electronics that are still factory standard. I wouldn't trade those knobs for anything. The volume and tone controls are buttery smooth, like the focus ring on an old manual camera lens. They stay in place but it only takes the slightest touch of my pinky to change settings. No other Les Paul I have tried has been able to come close in that respect.

The pickups were the end result of a jumbled train of thought, but it came out all right in the end. They have black covers, which fits the general theme of the guitar. And they do sound magnificent! After getting used to PAF-style pickups, I don't see the need for hotter pickups. They do the job fine.

Model: Fender Telecaster American Standard
Year: 2008
Bought: May, 2008 (new)
Color: 2-tone sunburst, ash body, maple neck
Pickups: DiMarzio Area T neck + bridge
Comments: This was my constant companion on stage with the cover band, I can only recall two occasions where I didn't bring it along. It is just so perfect for rock and blues. The simplicity is a strength in its own weird way. A Tele is not subtle like a Stratocaster. It hits hard. I used to have a DiMarzio Super Distortion T in the bridge position, and that enabled it to work as my main guitar for just about everything. I don't miss it, since I don't play like that anymore, but when I had it, the guitar was flexible like nothing else. This might no longer be my most beautiful guitar (the blue Stratocaster takes that prize), but it is right up there. I do think that it's the best sounding one when played unplugged. The middle pickup position has one of the nicest clean sounds I've heard.

The Telecaster does have its issues. When you sit down with one and make an effort to think critically, it starts to become apparent just why they went ahead and developed the Stratocaster. For one thing, it is not especially comfortable to play. For a single-cutaway guitar, there is surprisingly little room for my left hand to reach those upper frets. I don't like how the pickup selector is difficult to reach when it's jammed back into the bridge position. But who cares? It's a Tele, and that's why we love it!

Model: Gibson SG Standard
Year: 2005
Bought: June, 2012 (used)
Color: Ebony
Pickups: Stock humbuckers
Comments: My SG has gone through two transformations since I bought it. It was in bad shape when I brought it home: dusty, old rusted strings with intonation set at random, et cetera. I did a fair job of bringing it online. But it didn't really start shining until I brought it to a proper tech for a real setup job. Man, that thing plays! The SG fixes some of the ergonomic missteps on the Les Paul. The pickup selector is where I need it: within reach of my right hand, next to the volume controls. I like that the jack socket is mounted on the top of the guitar and not the edge. But above all I just love the amazing access. You could easily put two more frets on there and be able to reach those as well. (Come to think of it, I sometimes regret not buying the 50th anniversary SG, which had 24 frets.) In one sense, it has completely fooled my muscle memory, since in order to reach the 22nd fret, I am so used to jamming my left hand into the cutaway and then reaching. But when I do that on the SG, I find that my fingers touch the neck pickup! And it is thinner, bigger and above all lighter. It is no accident that my SG has been my main rehearsal guitar since it came back from the workshop in 2016.

It is surprising that the SG is Gibson's all-time best-selling guitar. Why don't I see more of them on the big stages? And since it was specifically designed to take on the Stratocaster, how come we only get them in black and translucent red? Why not more interesting colors? The new SG Special has two nice colors, but hey Gibson, would it have hurt you to at least offer the Standard in white as well?

This guitar seems to reward a daintier approach than I'm used to. It doesn't react to well to forceful playing, at least not with .010 strings. I'm a bit torn on which string gauge to put on this guitar. It feels like it requires no less than .011 strings, but as soon as I don't play it for a week, I struggle with the heavier strings when I pick it back up.

Model: Taylor 214
Year: 2013
Bought: Jan, 2014 (new)
Color: Natural!
Pickups: none
Strings: Elixir Phosphor Bronze Nanoweb .012-.053
Comments: Back when I got it, this was the second best acoustic guitar I had ever played. Apologies to Taylor, but the Martin GPCPA-3 Sapele just edged it, there was something in the upper register that just spoke to me. Sang to me? But at the end of the day, I decided that that extra special something didn't justify more than twice the price. The only spec I had in mind when shopping for a steel-string was that I didn't need a pickup system and I definitely didn't need a cutaway. The former is an unnecessary expense for something I simply don't use, while the sound difference between cutaway and no cutaway was amazing.

When I took this guitar home, I obviously played it incessantly, to the point where the side of my right thumb hurt. That is a bit of a giveaway, since it turns out that I bought it on the strength of its sound when I fingerpick it. There is a combination of my fingers and the shape and tonewoods of the 214 that is sweet and crisp when I fingerpick, but turns spiky and a bit harsh when I strum. In one sense, I'm glad that I didn't spend more money on an acoustic. I was very unsure about how to proceed when I went shopping for a new steel-string. It was impossible to tell if I didn't play my old Yamaha since I didn't enjoy it, or if there was another reason. Unfortunately, it has turned out that I simply don't play acoustic very much anymore. One reason could be that I have several very enjoyable electric guitars. Another reason might be that I never played acoustic because of the innate qualities of an acoustic, but because I could simply hear it better than an unplugged electric. With three good practice amps around at home, I can plug into anything and hear myself fine. It is a shame, but at least I didn't spend too much money on it. So whenever I get the urge to buy a Taylor 410 or 317, I can dismiss it out of hand by telling myself that it would unfortunately not get much use.

Model: Taylor 150e
Year: 2014
Bought: Nov, 2014 (new)
Color: Natural!
Pickups: Taylor Expression System 2
Strings: Elixir Phosphor Bronze Nanoweb .010-.047 12-string Light
Comments: I used to have an old Yamaha 12-string, but for years I kept it set up as a more versatile six-string. After getting a dedicated six-string I was able to revert the Yamaha back to its intended purpose, and it was wonderful. It was a damn shame when it turned out to be beyond repair. For a while there, I tried to make do with just my Taylor 214. But it was soon evident that I had spent too much time having access to a 12-string. I simply missed having one. This one was an absolute steal, it was actually cheaper than the 214. I was immediately struck by how easy it was to play: even high up on the neck, it was quite possible to fret barre chords and have them sound in tune.

Model: Alhambra 2C
Year: 2014
Bought: Jan, 2015 (new)
Color: Natural!
Pickups: none
Strings: D'Addario Pro Arte EJ45
Comments: I don't consider myself a classical guitarist by any meaning of the term, but I do like to sit down with a nylon-string once in a while and play some Bach and Beethoven. It is also nice to have a nylon-string as an option when recording, for softer tones. I am not knowledgeable enough about classical guitars that I know what to look or listen for. I just new that this guitar represented a nice compromise between tone, playability and cost. There was one that played and sounded a whisker better, but I didn't feel it was worth twice the price.

Model: Gibson Les Paul 60s Tribute
Year: 2016
Bought: March, 2016 (new)
Color: Honeyburst
Pickups: Stock P-90s
Comments: I've always gravitated towards humbuckers and therefore I've tended to pass over big honking single-coil pickups like the P-90. My loss, it turns out. One of the much-maligned 2015 models was a red double-cut Les Paul Junior, and I just fell in love with the sound of a clean tone with two P-90s. It is a big, full sound without the toppiness. When you pile on enough drive, I can't tell the difference between P-90s and humbuckers—I have used this on metal recordings just for the hell of it. But in the borderland territory, with a lot less distortion, near that point where I can clean the tone up by picking softer, the differences become a lot clearer. It is a different beast than my black Les Paul, and one that is a whole lot easier to come to terms with when I have spent a lot of time playing my Fenders. On the whole, it is easy to see why the humble P-90 has survived 60+ years of humbuckers, even in the Gibson line.

This is actually the single most expensive guitar I have ever bought. That statement is however qualified by the fact that in some cases, I don't really know how much I spent for a guitar since there was a trade-in involved. I also haven't adjusted anything for inflation, and then there's the issue that three of my electrics have been bought used.

Model: Paul Reed Smith 277 baritone
Year: 2017
Bought: May, 2017 (new)
Color: Natural (ebony top)
Pickups: Stock P-90s
Strings: D'Addario XL .014-.068
Comments: Originally I wanted a seven-string just to experiment with lower sonorities, but I always feel completely lost when playing one. It might very well be that I haven't had enough stick time with one, but I also don't want to buy one on the off chance that I might grow comfortable with it. A baritone felt like a pointless exercise, but this PRS won me over within just a few minutes. It has a tone somewhere in-between a bass and a guitar, and the slightly larger scale suits my hands perfectly. Not only that, it can withstand my violent rhythm guitar playing without ever farting out. I am perfectly fine with the soapbar pickups since I didn't actually envision using it for heavy riffing, but more for cleaner stuff.

Model: Fender Stratocaster American Series
Year: 2002
Bought: Aug, 2019 (used)
Color: Sonic Blue, maple neck
Pickups: Stock single-coils
Comments: I used to own an Yngwie Malmsteen Stratocaster in Sonic Blue with a maple neck, just like the guitar portrayed in A.R. Duchossoir's book The Fender Stratocaster, and in Fender's own sales literature. It was a dream come true. A year later, I had entered my death metal phase and traded it in for a BC Rich. It was a stupid-ass decision and I wound up regretting it off and on for over 20 years. At any time, I could just have bought a new Yngwie and be done, but over time, I realized that I wasn't after the Yngwie features as much as I simply wanted a guitar in that color. But every time Fender has issued that finish, there's always been something that's made me lose interest. Either it's a rosewood board, the big 70s headstock, or both. It turns out they have done very limited runs of blue Standards. The hard part was having the money ready when one hit the market. This finally happened at the end of July, 2019, in the Swedish town of Norrköping, about a four-hour drive from where I live. It was so worth it!

I always imagined that getting The Blue One would be anticlimactic, that it would involve some kind of compromise. I can now safely say that this has turned out not to be the case. This is one of the few Stratocasters that I've played that's better than my old yellow one. There is something about the neck that just makes me want to play it and play it. Four out of five times, this is the guitar that I grab. And the fifth time I find myself eventually going back to it anyway. It is not just good. It is on a level where I would be hard pressed to find anything that the Custom Shop could do better, even if Todd Krause himself were to call me up and offer me a masterbuilt guitar for free. Some of it is a confluence of features. This guitar was made in 2002, when Fender still offered the stainless-steel bridge saddles that I prefer, but after they introduced the staggered tuning posts.

I haven't got around to it yet, but somewhere down the line I am probably going to invest in noiseless pickups for this guitar as well. I am seriously considering getting something slightly hotter for the bridge position, not a proper humbucker, but some kind of hotter noiseless single-coil. When I have played my other Fenders through my big rig, I notice that the Tele drives the amp just a tiny bit more, and I want the Fenders to match each other.