When I purchased my first electric guitar I was really not sure what I was doing. I’d played only acoustic guitars for years and decided to dip my toes in the electric waters, so I googled around looking for the best acoustic to electric transition guitar, and as a result decided to acquire a Gibson ES 335.
I remember marching into my local shop and asking to see their ES 335’s and was informed immediately that the store did not carry new Gibson’s in their inventory. There were some used Les Pauls hanging on the hooks but no ES 335’s. Ever mindful of making a sale, the store guy stuck a Gretsch Silver Falcon in my hands, which was a semi-hollow bodied guitar sort of like the ES 335. I fumbled around comparing it to a Fender Strat and a Les Paul and eventually purchased the Silver Falcon, which was a big heavy guitar. Because it was so big and heavy, I suffered some buyer’s remorse when I got it home. I also felt like a poseur playing such an iconic guitar with so little experience.
To cope with massiveness of the guitar, I went shopping for a strap that would mitigate the weight of the instrument and I ended up purchasing a rather lavish and pricey hand tooled leather strap with a sheep skin cushioned shoulder pad. It was pretty cool and included a cowboy-belt buckle up front! If you click on the image to the right you will connect with El Dorado, the strap’s manufacturer. I subsequently bought a very cool snakeskin strap from El Dorado that I use with my resonator guitars.
I never did bond with that Gretsch guitar and eventually traded it in for for a guitar reminiscent of a Gibson 335, that being a Taylor T3B, which suited my sensibilities much more and I remain very fond of that guitar. I added two other electric guitars to my stable since then and will typically pick an electric up to play more often than an acoustic guitar nowadays. It is important to note that the sound I prefer from an electric guitar is more acoustic sounding the then often over-driven, distorted sounds frequently used in rock and roll.
The El Dorado strap I bought does not work with my electric guitars so after it hung in my closet for months I had a brilliant idea. I would barter the strap for some in-house guitar set-up consultations with Jacob Lampman who works at my local shop. Jacob, who works the floor, teaches lessons, and plays all over town is a local treasure and he agreed with the deal!
So last Thursday evening Jacob arrived at my home for my first consultation. We’ve planned on three visits in total… In preparation I set up my music space and pulled out all three of my electric guitars. In the end we only worked on the Taylor T3B as it takes quite a bit of time to set up a proper tone palette for a particular guitar! Perhaps it will be easier when we do the other two… I don’t know for sure…
After Nettie, Jacob and I consumed a pot of Chili that I had previously prepared, along with cheese curds and Egg Nog that Jacob brought along, we went down to the music space and began the program.
Jacob began the process by running the T3 through its paces. It is important to note that I play finger-style country blues so the tonal set-up we created was done within that musical context. Jacob, having heard me play in the guitar store and at open mic night from time to time was aware of my musical predilections.
Jacob plays a Gibson ES 335 so I was curious how he thought the Taylor T3 compared. He was very complimentary of the tone palette and playability. You will note that I replaced the original high definition pick-ups with vintage Alnico ones for the rounder/warmer sound that appeals to me for the country blues. He pointed out that the T3’s neck was considerably wider than the ES 335, which is actually a good thing for finger-style players like me. He did say, however, that the individual pick-up volume controls on the ES 335 was a feature that was not available on the Taylor, and it was a trait he frequently used when he played.
Jacob set out immediately after playing for a bit to adjust the dual layered tone controls that are on the Taylor. In sum, he suggested that I had the high tones boosted too much, which caused the guitar to “scream out that it was electric!” Instead, it was his philosophy to boost the low mid-tones to pull out the real beauty of the guitar’s combined of wood and pick-up construction. Given the challenges I have with hearing (yes… I use hearing aids) I suspect that I boosted the high tones to compensate for my incapacities; however, after playing the guitar the way Jacob recommended I have come to appreciate the mid-tone sensibility he suggested. In fact, the tone set-up of the guitar may have been the most important thing I learned that night!
Further, where I’ve been predisposed to use the warmer sounding neck pick up, Jacob recommended using both pick ups simultaneously to broaden the sound palette of the the instrument.
After guitar tone and pick-up set up we moved onto the amp and pedals. Jacob recommended setting the amp tone controls to a mid setting of 5. At my request we lowered the controls to barely audible for the amp reverb controls because I create tone modulations through my pedal board instead. I like this arrangement because my pedal board is portable and I frequently take it to performance settings, whereas the amp is more cumbersome to move around.
Here are the recommendations that Jacob made regarding how to deploy me pedals with the T3, within the context of the type of music I play
- Do not use the Octave Pedal with this guitar. Jacob did not like the octave effect on the T3. I intend to reserve judgement on this recommendation because I don’t think Jacob used it properly.
- Set the JangleBox compressor for constant use. Jacob recommended leaving the toggle at “dark” setting to avoid enhancing the high tones too much.
- Deploy the Mesa Boogie Tone Burst to fatten the sound a bit, but avoid the more aggressive overdrive offered by the Mesa Boogie Flux Drive.
- Under another MOST IMPORTANT recommendations, Jacob believes the plate reverb is a much more suitable setting for the Boss Reverb than the more overpowering hall setting I was using. Jacob, pretty much, recommended leaving the reverb on all the time, as he set it up.
- Jacob convinced me to use the tape degradation feature on the MXR Echoplex Delay. I had avoided that feature because I thought it muddied the sound of the delay but Jacob was adamant that it was the coolest effect and we set it to “slurp-up” the sound a bit, as he described it.
- Finally, we fine tuned the Vibrato, Tremolo and Chorus pedals for the T3. Of course, they are to be used independently of each other, not in combination i.e. one or the other but not together. The depth and time controls were set at Jacob’s recommendation though I pushed to limit the intensity of vibrato effects below Jacob’s preference level because too much vibrato makes me a bit seasick!
Below I am attaching the raw notes written in my hurried chicken-scratch for the pedal settings recommended by Jacob, if you’re interested in the finer details:
All in all, it was a great fun for me to have Jacob over for his consultation. Next time, after a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs we might tackle the Taylor Solid Body!