JoeB63
01-24-2004, 03:41 PM
Last night was my first gig using my new (used - thanks Pluto!) Hollow Drop Top Classic. I brought along my Anderson Classic just in case I the HDTC wasn't working, but I never took the Classic out of the case.
I played through my Two Rock Custom Reverb and a Mesa 1x12" open back cab.
I was very happy with the guitar. Despite lots of Hendrix-style whammy abuse, I never went out of tune. Not at all. (I had just changed the strings right before the gig and "lubed" the nut with a pencil point - that helps a lot).
The tones were great - I really go for Robben Ford-Style sounds, and I'd say that this guitar gives me a more "Rock" version of those tones through the Two Rock. My Cobra gets more closer to accurate RF tones.
If I can make one complaint about the guitar it's that despite the many pickup settings, with some gain on the amp they're all in the same ballpark (even the single coil selections). What I mean by that, is that I don't hear as much of a difference between the various settings as I do on my Classic or my Cobra. Another way of looking at it is that the audience wouldn't have noticed a big difference if I had played the entire 3 sets on position 2, 3 or 4. (There is clear quite a difference in tone between position 1 and 5 of course, but the others tend to blend together a bit).
But the good news is that all of the settings sound really good.
Another interesting observation is that the pickups on this guitar are HOT. The Two Rock has a gain knob for the clean channel -- when I use my Classic, I can keep that knob 3/4 of the way up and still get a clean tone from the amp. With the Cobra, I have to keep that gain knob no higher than 1/2 way up to get a clean tone, with the HDTC I have to keep it only 1/4 of the way up to get a clean tone out of the amp.
The +.030 neck is comfortable, but I still have to get used to the maple fretboard. This is the only guitar I have that has one. Last time I had a maple fretboard guitar was around 1995.
We played everything from Route 66 to Voodoo Child. Bottom line is that this is a great almost-all-purpose guitar. I had hoped that my Cobra would fill that bill, but it doesn't have a trem, and I really like using one, so this will probably be my new main gig axe.
I played through my Two Rock Custom Reverb and a Mesa 1x12" open back cab.
I was very happy with the guitar. Despite lots of Hendrix-style whammy abuse, I never went out of tune. Not at all. (I had just changed the strings right before the gig and "lubed" the nut with a pencil point - that helps a lot).
The tones were great - I really go for Robben Ford-Style sounds, and I'd say that this guitar gives me a more "Rock" version of those tones through the Two Rock. My Cobra gets more closer to accurate RF tones.
If I can make one complaint about the guitar it's that despite the many pickup settings, with some gain on the amp they're all in the same ballpark (even the single coil selections). What I mean by that, is that I don't hear as much of a difference between the various settings as I do on my Classic or my Cobra. Another way of looking at it is that the audience wouldn't have noticed a big difference if I had played the entire 3 sets on position 2, 3 or 4. (There is clear quite a difference in tone between position 1 and 5 of course, but the others tend to blend together a bit).
But the good news is that all of the settings sound really good.
Another interesting observation is that the pickups on this guitar are HOT. The Two Rock has a gain knob for the clean channel -- when I use my Classic, I can keep that knob 3/4 of the way up and still get a clean tone from the amp. With the Cobra, I have to keep that gain knob no higher than 1/2 way up to get a clean tone, with the HDTC I have to keep it only 1/4 of the way up to get a clean tone out of the amp.
The +.030 neck is comfortable, but I still have to get used to the maple fretboard. This is the only guitar I have that has one. Last time I had a maple fretboard guitar was around 1995.
We played everything from Route 66 to Voodoo Child. Bottom line is that this is a great almost-all-purpose guitar. I had hoped that my Cobra would fill that bill, but it doesn't have a trem, and I really like using one, so this will probably be my new main gig axe.