Tonefiend Forum

It's hard not to come across as a shill for Eastwood; I love the idea and the aesthetic of the company, and their finished products seem to exceed one's expectations. I really want to try out one the DeArmond-repro p/u equipped axes; it it's possible to get those raw 60's Harmony tones in a solid modern axe I'll be a happy boy.

I have the Eastwood Warren Ellison sig Tenor guitar and another with mini humbuckers. Both sound excellent and play great. The tenor is very cool but different than a regular since string spacing is much wider, it has what looks like a short scale bass bridge. The tenor has a 22" scale, i got it on sale w/ free s&h, gig bag and strap etc. Mine is the single pickup version which is fine since I normally use the neck pickup 99% of the time. Both guitars were very playable straight from the box the setup and intonation were nicely set up from the seller.

Quote from Oinkus on July 16, 2013, 04:34
Comes across like you like the guitars mostly because of how much info you give and the obvious honesty of it. If that makes you a shill just go ahead and shill away! Rest of the world can get in line to take tickets to kiss your ass or somesuch random act! Great stuff ! And whatever happened to that 60's Harmony that was in the closet ????

Thanks for the kind words! And strangely, my music is getting out to the world at large more through these posts than through all the indie albums I work on...how the world has changed, but there's still no one lining up to smooch butt!
As for the 60's Harmony in the closet, it's actually a Kay Speed Demon with a 'speed bump' pickup which I bought as a consolation prize in world where Harmony Rockets cost more by the day. Unfortunately the Speed Demon lacks the midrange savagery and hot output of the gold-foil equipped Harmonys; it's super-low output pickup emphasizes the low end (!?) and a glassy top. It's set up 13-56 with high action and is usually in open D or G. It really sounds particularly good in G.
The real surprise was stringing the Kay/Univox Effector guitar with the same gauge and tuning it to open C. What a sound! I'll have to demo that particular brand of evil!

I just found my Squier Bass VI ( says Squier VI on the headstock as well as Fender) on my porch yesterday noon. I got the white one with faux tortoise shell pickguard. It is "crafted in Indonesia" and it is crafted indeed, perfect paint job, neck is really nice frets are finished well, it was almost in tune and the setup made it very playable. I had to reset the intonation which was useable for most but not good enough for my ears which are very sensitive to intonation. I put on a set of Dunlop strap locks (I put them on all my guitars right away ) and it balances nicely (no diving if you let it hang) and it feels right at home to me. The three pickups all have great distinct and very useable tones, the middle pickup cancels hum when used with either the neck or bridge. The only niggle I have is the bass cut switch seems a bit drastic into a clean amp there is a big volume drop but it sounds great if you use a compressor pedal. The cap used is a .0033 uf 50 volt which I may try a different value for later. The control cavities have conductive paint, the wiring looks very clean and soldering is good.

The Bass VI plays like a dream, the neck is more like a guitar neck than bass neck as is all the hardware. For $350 delivered to my porch it's a very sweet deal. The tone is just what I was looking for, I like short scale basses and the Bass VI has 30" scale. It is a reasonable weight even for my bad back so a session or even a set would doable for me (as long as I have my morphine for pain control , I love me some Sister Morphine she gave me back my ability to play some music again).

One final note is that it has a bridge like a Jaguar. When I was setting the intonation of the G string the barrel was set very high so that when I turned the screw to move the barrel back the end of the screw extended far enough so that it touched the string making the intonation really wack out. The solution was to lower all the saddle barrels and raise the body of the bridge to achieve the correct height over the frets. This is a problem that can also be solved by the use of Mustang barrels as replacement for the originals (I always thought that was the only reason to use Mustang saddle barrels as replacements but I like the individual height adjustments on the Jaguar saddle barrels).

I've played the Bass VI for about 12 of the las 24 hours so I guess I'm in love for $350 ( which is a cheap love affair IMHO).