Ice9

Don't you love it when new gear arrives?

I use drones quite a lot ...including that one

I do all my own fret work these days including levelling and dressing and to take the frets down to nothing says to me that the guy you took the lp to didn't really understand what he was trying to achieve. In your case a simple truss rod tweak would have been all that was needed. I'm sorry that happened to you. As others have said, Mr voros's maintenance DVD would be a wise investment and afterwards you will be able to make these small tweaks yourself with confidence and understand why you are doing them.

I've found it depends on the neck of your guitar and how big the change in guage is. If you're just going up or down one guage you should be fine but if you do need to have anything adjusted, it should be quite obvious straight away with buzzing strings etc.

Very nice guitar

Very nice

interesting stuff

That's a great looking guitar. I might even spring for one of those if I see one pop up on ebay. I think they're great guitars. The only disappointment for me was the tuners but that was easily sorted with an inexpensive set of Wilkinsons. Such good fun to play I have a bit of a thing for lower end guitars. I love to tweak them until they're awesome. Something I'd be very reluctant to do on a $2000 Gibson. I can see myself acquiring one of those SL's actually. I reckon it would be great with some P90s in it.

This summer I'm getting involved in some open mic jams and I wanted an inexpensive lightweight guitar to take to them, so I recently bought an Epiphone Special ii LP. It did need a little work so I swapped out the tuners (which admittedly are useless) and the nut. I also levelled and recrowned the frets but that's something I do on nearly every guitar I buy. I had a set of pickups ready to install in it but decided not to in the end as the stock ones were actually pretty good. These low end Epiphones are great for the money they cost.

I believe the spacing on the JTV 59 is a little wider but I could be wrong. I actually sold mine a short while ago as the neck was too chunky for me. I'm going to be replacing it with the standard model within the next month or two

Yes the acoustic settings are very authentic when played through an acoustic amp. I use mine through a line6 pod with an acoustic amp model. They don't sound so good through an amp that's meant for electric guitars however. I think Line6 make amps designed with the variax in mind and allow you to change from electric/acoustic sounds on the fly but you might need to look into that. You definitely would need an amp designed for acoustics to get the best from the Variax acoustic models but I'm pretty certain that would be the same for the taylor too. There are also other interesting models such as a banjo, sitar and resonator guitars which are great fun. Also its very useful to be able to change tunings with the twist of a knob. Open G with a dobro setting for example is a lot of fun I have some demos of some stuff I've done with my Variax's ...not great quality but it might help This is the Variax on a Strat setting This is Pink Floyds "Mother played to a backing track. The acoustic part was done on my Variax and the solo on a PRS SE This is my JTV 59 Variax on a 12 string setting. Not great quality I'm afraid

I have no experience with the Taylor, but plenty with the Variax which has some great acoustic models on it including 12 strings, not to mention the alternate tunings. Well worth checking out. The Variax Standard is now built around a Yamaha Pacifica and its a decent guitar in its own right.

That's one very cool guitar. Congratulations

Awesome

Nice Pic I don't have anything recent but here's a couple of pics of when I used to play live in a band in the 90s. These were taken in the rehearsal studio and I'm the gawky lookin' kid with the red shirt and explorer shaped guitar

Then let me be the first to congratulate you both. That's fantastic

That's a stunning guitar for sure. Definitely a keeper (your wife I mean )

Yes, I love that one

A few more of my favorites.

Here's a couple I've been using a for a while. Both Gilmour style tracks

I still suspect that the nut is to blame. It might be worth putting the original guage strings on just for an experiment to see if it cures it. If it does then its just a 10 minute job for a luthier to adjust it for heavier guage strings. My favourite guitar is an 89 squier with a floating trem and it stays in tune very well. One thing i find helps quite a lot when im tuning it is to pull/push the trem a few times ... and also a few bends on the G string before I start to tune. Once its dialled in it tends to stay pretty stable.

I didn't sign up for Udemy, just clicked on the "redeem code" button and it took me straight there. Watched the first couple of videos and seems interesting so far.

Great thanks, just signed up. Even if all it does is stops me sounding like a busted vacuum cleaner then its going to be worth it

As blue dog says ...it more than likely the nut. Similar things happen on my strat if i dont lubricate the nut enough. It may be sticking slightly due to you going up a guage. You might need to make the slot just a tiny bit wider on the G string.