Giving up electric...

[telepbrman]

Yep, I am thinking of going total acoustic. Selling off my electric guitar rig, amp, pedals, and junk for the tones of Weber and Martin...anyone else gone thru this thought process, and have good results, regrets, second thoughts? The idea has came up before, but now I am serious about letting go....later, dy.

[Rick Schmidlin]

I am thinking of giving guitar up completly.Mandolins are too much fun. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mandosmiley.gif

[Daniel Nestlerode]

I decided a long time ago to sto being a gear head so I could concentrate on tone. this led to dumping off numerous effects boxes and preamps. I plugged my tele straight into an Ampeg 1x12. This was nice, but it still didin't get me where I wanted to go. So I concentrated on acoustic guitar, and I was much happier. After a while I wanted to expand not only the tonal possibilities available to me, but my skill set, so I took up mandolin.

I have never looked back. I play guitar, mandolin and mandola. Each of these instruments informs my playing on the others, nd my electric sits in the closet with its amp. At the moment my tele (Squier) is wearing five strings tuned in 5ths starting with a low C; sort of a mandocello.

I suppose that if the itch (or a need) ever arises for returning to an electric frame of mind, it will be fun to shake all of those cobwebs loose. Heck, I may just do it fr fun someday. But for mow I've got all I can handle with a dread, a 'dola, and a mandolin.

Best,
Daniel

[mikeomando]

Sounds like a touch of spring fever to me. Are you talking about dumping the electric guitar, or the emando, or both? What kind of music are you going to be playing? Are you unhappy with your tonal palette? Are you moving to the backwoods?

[telepbrman]

I tell ya, I just don't have as much fun with the electric guitar, Telecaster, as I used to...especially when compaired to my Martin/Weber set ups. To set out on an electric mood, I grab amp, cable, tuner, pedal, axe, power strip, levels, adjust tone, adjust some more, and then rock out only to find myself out in the garage....or, pull out my Hyalite, tuner, and jam. The electric is an expressive instrument, but I feel the acoustic when I play, and I play them 99% of the time. The last time I pulled out the Tele was a year ago. My pal and I used to do heavy blues based jams in his basement, and ear plugs were the order of the day, but now I have a new home, less free time, a daughter, and less free time...oh, I already mentioned that, but the electric jams just ain't what they used to be. That last one, was flat, too loud, and after all the adjustments, only lasted about an hour...I have been able to slip in some 45 minute acoustic jams with my bud, before I do the daycare thing, and these are much more enjoyable than any of our electric jams. Why? I guess it is just natural feeling, expressive, easier to set up, less noisy, more soul. So, the Tele sits in it's bag in the closet. I will say that I will never have another opprunity to purchase a professional electric guitar, it was made pre-family, and now the green is down to the last drop, where after this custom Big Horn arrives, strings and picks will be the only musical purchases able to fit into my budget. I will say that I have a well rounded collection, and if I toss out the electric, the collection will be void. Anyhow, the deal is this, keep sending feedback, I am interested in your all's stories about giving up electric....dy.

[JimRichter]

Although I started out playing bluegrass in my teens, I made my bread and butter as a musican playing electric guitar. #Throughout those dozen or so years I went through a variety of phases--playing a Strat through a half-stack w/ a rack to finally plugging an ES330 or ES125 through an old blackface Super Reverb or Ampeg Portaflex. #Basically as time went on, I got tired of being chained to effects or monster amps. #I was concerned purely about tone--the tone of a good guitar into a good tube amp. #My amps wouldn't even be channel switching.

However, after my wife and me began having kids, I went back to playing bluegrass. #I always associated bluegrass w/ family from the years as a teen going to different festivals and jams. #Kids can't come to smoky bars but can come to almost every bluegrass event. #

I continued picking up occasional guitar gigs, but as the mandolin became more and more my focus (as well as returning to the 5 string banjo) the urge to play guitar--especially electric guitar--became less and less.

In short, I don't even own a guitar now. #I sold off my last electric--a great rare arcthop Gibson--a couple of months ago to fund--what else--a mandolin purchase. #I don't even own a flattop, except for a 1930 Martin 0-18 tenor that I should be receiving in a couple days (one, I'm told, used to belong to Grisman). #

I will probably buy a cheap flattop (like maybe a Blueridge or maybe an old beat-up Mossman) and another cheap electric (maybe a Danelectro or a Tokai), but the point is that I don't even care to play them. #I have dumbfounded my music buddies cause they know I have guitar chops, but refuse to use them, especially since it has meant turning down gigs. #To me, the mandolin is what fits--the tone, the scale length, the logic of the tuning. #The scale length especially--I now get lost on a guitar length cause it seems so huge. #And again I bring up tone. #An electric guitar's tone sounds artificial and a flattop's too thin when compared to a mandolin. #Can there be a more perfect insrument?

I've been through enough musical trends/fads/phases in the past to know there is always the possibility that this is another one. #But I want to be a bona fide mandolinist and for me to do that, I have to give everything to it. #

Jim

[bjc]

Just one quick warning: If you sell enough of your stuff that you don't have any type of electric guitar/amp, you may regret it...you may not...but it'd be a shame to find a need for it and then not have anything to play. But I could see selling down everything besides your favorite amp and axe...just my 2 cents

[Michael Wolf]

I thought about giving up electric guitar several times, but never managed to sell it. So I played it from time to time when the opportunity arose and I realized that after a longer time of abstemiousness it was great fun. In this moments I wondered if my view of the electric was a bit to ideologically. Maybe I wanted to support the mando by giving up the guitar, but now I'd say that it's better to play the mando and to play the guitar also, when it fits your needs. I have one band where the electric guitar is a very nice addition to the music (beside my mandola). I also found my guitar playing improved without playing the guitar. I'm only exercising on the mando.
I play my electric over my AER acoustic amp. So I have minimal extra effort. I sold my Vox AC30 years ago. I like the clear jazz/funk-tone I get from my AER.
I also find acoustic jams more satisfying most of the time. I use the electric only in it`s specific band-context.

Cheers
Michael

[FlawLaw]

I don't know. #Maybe selling off the pedals and stuff would be a start, but I wouldn't recommend selling off the guitar yet. #

I play electric bass as well as mandolin and just keep the set up simple. #I did get a fun little device that helps me combine my playing bass and mandolin. #I got a Boomerang phrase sampler and then I will play a bass part into it and it will loop back over and over and then I play along to it, so it can be a lot of fun.

Just another thought. For me anyway, I find that I make a lot more progress if I work on more than one instrument. The bass and the mandolin for instance have been great because I will transcribe parts back and forth and then play them. It has forced me to learn to read music - both treble and bass clefs. When I get frustrated with something with the mandolin, I can just start working on the bass a bit. I also find that I can play the bass after my kids go to bed in front of the tv while watching the Red Sox beat the Yankees. I just play it unplugged and it is not nearly as loud as a fully acoustic instrument. Just my two cents.

[JimRichter]

In my particular case, I had kept a couple of guitars in my closet for close to 4 years. The electric maybe came out 4 times in one year--those weren't even for fun, they were for gigs I picked up that I later regretted doing. In my case, I really don't care to play guitar any longer. I don't have anything against electric or flattop guitar--I am just not interested. I can say that I have not sold my amp. The Ampeg Portaflex amp (a B12XT) I play through is a rare 2-12" guitar model w/ vibrato and reverb and could never replace it if I sold it. They are rare as rare can be. I may not play guitar but I'm not dumping the amp.

And frankly, the only guitar you should really ever care about getting rid of is a good dreadnaught/acoustic. I'm a vintage nut and have owned some really good electric guitars, but electric guitars really are a dime a dozen. For a $150 I can buy a used Danelectro reissue and that would be more than enough guitar to carry me through a blues or rock gig. For $400 I can buy a used Jimmie Vaughn Strat and though it's made in Mexico is a farily tight guitar--and the very same one Vaughn has been gigging w/. Not on the same level as a '62 slabboard Strat, but is a good utility instrument.

Dreadnaughts though are a different animal. You really can't have a decent pro dread for under $1800. You sell that off and it may be hard to scrape together money to get another.

I don't advocate anyone to sell off anything. Even if the interest is not there to play the guitar, that's not a reason to sell. In my case I sold what I had to get the mandolin I wanted, since I now exclusively play and gig on mandolin.

Jim

[FlawLaw]

I would agree that if you have a $2,000 + electric guitar sitting around collecting dust, then why keep it when it can be sold and the loot used to help pay for a nice mandolin.

[John Rosett]

i play mandolin, electric guitar, and electric steel guitar in my band, and love all three. i also play acoustic mandolin in a jazz trio, and mando and dobro with an acoustic bluegrass group. it's all fun! i have equal amounts of fun playing a django or monk tune on mt '13 gibson A as a do playing tele on a hard core honky tonk number, or the steel on a bob wills tune.
i've also left off the effects over the years also. i have a volume pedal for the steel, and tuner pedals for the guitar and mando, but that's it. i have an old echoplex, but it's too fragile to bring to bar gigs. i had a delay pedal, but when it died, i never replaced it.
so i say keep the tele. you never know when it might be just the thing you want to hear. besides, if you sell it, what will we call you, mandopbrman?
john

[reindoggy]

Sell a guitar???!!!! People do that?http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif?

My electrics have been sitting for years, but I can't seem to part with them. Maybe when my kids put me in the "home".

[Unseen122]

I have a Guitar (Hamer Korean from 1999 I think in Cherry Sunburst) that I never play anymore I was going to go to the music store later see if I could get a Tacoma Mando for my Kentucky and this Guitar.

[mandocrucian]

So, have you analysed what's underneath this electric burn out?

Are you just sick of electric in totality, or is a combination of stuff like the following:

1) Sick of the type of venues and audiences you have to play for?
2) Sick of the same old repertoire, can't get anyone to play the stuff you like a lot more, or is it "Gimme Three Steps" for an eternity in purgatory?
3) Tired of the various stereotypes of electric musicians?
4) Gigging has just become a hassle and you don't really need the money that bad. Don't need/crave audience response anymore (if was an incentive at one time in the past)?
5) Are you just sick of being involved in a "band"?

So is the instrument, or is it all the social garbage and baggage that you have to deal with in order to play it? (esp with a rhythm section)

If it musician garbage (intractibilty, ego/power games, unreliabilty and plain old ignorance), will it really be any different in acoustic music? #The various scenes tend to be a microcosm of the big picture. The particulars may change acording the social politics of the new situation, but you'll find many of the same old doppelgangers. As Jethro (and DL Menard) said/says: "Wherever you go, there you are!"

Or have you just come to the conclusion, that (whatever style) acoustic music is what you should have really been doing all along anyway?

Negative associations with a type of music, is a different thing than the instrument itself.

Well, time is up. The nurse will schedule your next appointment.

That will be $800 for today, or you can pay by sending me your Strat or SG.

Dr Freudenstein

[Greg H.]

I've got an old '67 Tele that I catagorically won't part with. I know if I sold it I could never afford another (at least not for the $400 I paid for it 20 years ago). I have cut myself down to just a little practice amp and no effects, but the guitar gets enough tone by itself to give me the variety I need (when taking a break from the mando). My thinking is always keep one electric and one acoustic guitar around (if only to loan friends to pick at a spur-of-the-moment jam). Also playing guitar, and different styles of guitar, adds variety to your mandolin playing.

[Lee]

Keep a great amp and a good guitar.

[mrbook]

I sold six electric guitars, an electric mandolin,three lap steels, and a good tube amp, never planning to play electric again. I miss the mandolin and one telecaster, but still wouldn't be playing them much. I started acoustic and never crossed over too much. I would like another, but don't need it, so I have something I can think about buying when the catalogs come in the mail.

[TommyK]

telepbrman
Your last post was telling. #You suffer from a very common affliction we all go through. #You have what us wizzened ones call a "Bad..." rather a "GOOD case of the marrieds."

Smile. #Your life has passed another milestone. #You have come to the realization that louder is not better. #I mean, really, if you have to use ear plugs because of the sound YOU are producing, TURN THAT !(@#*& THING DOWN! #Are you sounding like your father yet? #I am.

I have never felt the urge to plug in. #Well, yeah, once I played one song, (there were many others) for a fundraiser and had to compete with the cappacino machine and people 3 rows back couldn't hear. #I thought about a sound-hole pick-up for future similar occasions, but have since dismissed the idea.

In my not so humble opinion (IMNSHO) Electrics like Les Pauls and Strat copies are just machinery and have no inherent guitar tone. #Electrified acoustics are as close to an electric as I'd care to venture toward plugging in. I still might get that sound-hole pick-up, but only if the mood strikes me.

Electric solid bodies just seem to lack that certain somthin' that acoustic has. #I like to say, "If it ain't got a hole, it's got no soul."

[luckylarue]

I'll never give up my '93 Tele and the '66 Fender Champ. I don't play it that much anymore, but every once and awhile I get the urge to rock out! Unlike Niles, I can't quite get the Angus Young sound on the mando. Doesn't everybody want to crank up the amp to the Clash's "White Man in the Hammersmith Palais"?!?!

[Mike Handley]

I've been playing electric and acoustic guitar for 32 years, banjo for 25, and just added mandolin, dobro, uke and lap steel in the past three years. #I taught guitar in my teen and college years. #I went through a phase when my kids were young, where I almost stopped playing completely. #I started playing guitar on occasion in church about five years ago. #Then one night, I went out with a few friends from church and saw a local Irish band play. #The guitar player picked some slow melodic banjo on a few tunes, and the lead singer was playing mandolin. #That sparked my interest in the banjo again, which led me to blow the dust off the old junker I had at the time. #That brought me back to listening to bluegrass again, which made me appreciate the sweet sounds of a mandolin and a dobro. #Of course all this added up to a serious affliction of every stringed and fretted musical instrument acquisition syndrome known to man. #I think I've got about 17 stringed things in the house.

Now, I play electric guitar weekly in our church praise band (... and we ROCK!), I still play acoustic guitar, mandolin, dobro and even banjo on occasion in our traditional service. #I pull out the mandolin banjo at Christmas time, and sit around the pool with the uke in the summertime. #I started giving lessons again, too.

I still have the Les Paul Custom that my parents bought me when I was 16 years old. #($400 used). #I also still have the Fender Vibrolux amp they bought me at the same time. #I had the Les Paul refretted and the amp overhauled last year.

I don't know how many times over the years, I thought about selling off some of this stuff. #Through financial ups and downs, waning interest and losses of free time, I've kept them all. #My father passed away a few years ago, and it really means a lot to me to still play that guitar through that amp. #I've also realized that music has always 'owned' me. #I can't escape. #I love it. #I live for it. #I love to share it, listen to it, study it, analyze it, curse it, dream about it, fall asleep to it, wake up to it, drive with it, work with it, worship with it, walk with it, and talk about it.

Keep your guitar. #Some day you'll hear a song, or a new player, or see a show ... you'll go home, pull out that guitar and start to remember why you were drawn to it to begin with. #You'll have no regrets.

Once you go acoustic you will never turn back. At least thats happened to me when i first had an interest in bluegrass music.

Electric can be a bad word some places. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mandosmiley.gif

[Pedal Steel Mike]

I say, why limit yourself? OK, maybe you've outgrown rock and roll, but amplification is only a tool. Jazz and country both use electric guitars, and the electric bass is even finding it's way into the world of orchestral music. (To the horror I'm sure of some people.)

As we get older, out tastes change, and in a few years you might want to play in a jazz band where you would need some sort of electric instrument. I think it's better to have the tools at your disposal whenever you want them, than to suddenly find yourself in need.

Tommy K, with all due respect, I must disagree with your assessment of electic guitars. They sound DIFFERENT than acoustic guitars, and I'll grant you that there are a lot of people who choose to go for a very harsh and in both your any my opinion unpleasant tone, but there are also players like B.B. King and jazz guitarists Johnny Snith and Jim Hall who coax very beautiful and musical tones from their instruments.

[reverb41]

interesting that i found this thread just now. i am selling most of my collection tomorrow and im torn but i really feel its a good decision as i am really not playing them at all anymore. surprisingly a local vintage shop is giving me a really fair deal so instead of dealing with individual ebay sales and the hassles of shipping etc....i have decided to keep my gear local.

anyhoo...here goes. 1992 fender SRV strat. 1992 les paul classic premium plus. 1968 supro jazzmaster. 1967 fender super reverb. 1974 fender pro reverb. 1992 SWR basic black. takamine acoustic electric...and a few speakers etc....phew!

heres what im keeping. 72 telecaster custom and a sweet 60's princeton reverb. hard to beat that set up for rare and spontanious electric moments!

well i have tonight to change my mind....but i feel good about it.....good to share this and get it off my chest as well. cheers......

[Keith Miller]

I sold all my electric guitars because I wanted the acoustic tone and my kids told me I was "too old" for heavy rock http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
now I find that the house is filling up with...e mandos still prefer acoustic but there are times that only a bit of wall shaking will do. My big regret was letting my old Burns guitar go

[dave42]

In 1976 my parents gave me a Strat for graduation from high school. 2 years later I traded it for a '75 LesPaul. I sold the LP and an old amp in January 2004. November '04 that money turned into my Weber mandolin.

In the last 10-15 years of owning the LesPaul, I'll bet I didn't play it one time a year on average. I don't miss the LP one bit. I have just turned the LP into something that gets used, the Weber. Martin and Weber... that's what I'm made of, now.

Good thread.
Dave

[mrbook]

My first electric was 1959 Gibson Melody Maker, purchased at a Las Vegas pawnshop ($45) while I was on a family vacation when I was 16. I sold it a few years later, thinking I would never play electric guitar again. I regretted it, and thought about that guitar for years, even while I owned other electric guitars I didn't play. I finally bought another one a few years ago ($675 this time) and found it was every bit as good as the first - but I still didn't want to play electric guitar. Sold it a couple years later (for $700) and got it out of my system. SOld all the others, too; I still want one, but am in no rush to buy or play it.

[neal]

I'm selling my "37 Martin 'cause I want to fund more mandolins.......ouch, what's that saying?!

[mandocrucian]

There was a post (now deleted?) in which the person said that if he had to do some electric gigs, mentioned a few relative cheap electrics he would find acceptable to get the job done. #One was a Jimmy Vaughan Mexican strat, another a danelectro?

I was in a music store last week taking some measurements of an SG body (I'm designing a modified SG style doubleneck 8/low tuned 5 solid body mandocaster, which will be something that John Cipollina would be pleased to strap on). I was messing around on it, and I'm thinking, "This is easier than it's ever been" in spite of the fact that I really don't play much guitar and really don't know the neck. The mind/hands were intuitively finding the notes much faster than before. And the bending (including the doublestring bending which I've always found tricky on the mandos), took half the effort. #So I'm thinking maybe I ought to put in some time on guitar again, cos after all, it's really just a long neck mandola in an altered tuning.

The last time I had the e-gtr out, with the idea of getting some chops on it was 7 years or so ago. After a couple months, I had to put it away cause I was developing a painful RSI on the left side. #But, I think that now that I've learned so much more relating to reduction of body tension and ergonimics, that if I pay attention to those details, I could (hopefully) avoid those problems.

My 80's Japanese Squire Bullet is in a 5-string tuning, D-G-D-A-E, and I think I'll keep it there. #So having a "decent" cheapo on hand might be nice, especially for the possibility of stripping off the hardware/neck and putting it on another doubleneck body, perhaps with a short neck OM-8 neck. (20"-22" travel guitar conversion.) Maybe I'd cut the bodies in half (65% really) lengthwise and join them together for the ultra-lowtech Frankenstein doubleneck. #(& then, in a nod to mando "tradition", get out the green spray paint!)

OK, so what are the best value/price electric guitars for under $300-400? #What about the $200 & less? #Total junk?

Frankly, it's too bad that some of you guys with electric experience are not located in my area. #I'd probably try to recruit a couple of you into a band. First, you already understand and feel the various grooves of electric music (which a lot of strictly acosutic players don't), but having one foot into the more acoustic & mando world, aren't locked into the all-too-common rock biases. (i.e. "Get a real guitar, dude"). Then it's "Cooder time"!

Niles H.

So... advice in terms of electric guitar bargains?

[Pedal Steel Mike]

OK, so what are the best value/price electric guitars for under $300-400?
I really like Raven guitars. I have 4 of them. The company went out of business 3 or 4 years ago when the owner died (he was only in his 40s), but it's been resurrected by his stepson and former business partner under the name Ravenwest. Here is a link.

http://www.ravenwestguitar.com/ravguitar/elguit.html

I've become friends with the new owner, and we have talked about his making electric mandolins, but there are no definitive plans at this time.