Aw Cripes!
Mar. 25th, 2007 11:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pasitheaSo... After practicing with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
prickvixen's guitar for the past week, I've become more and more sure I really wanted my own electric. Softer strings and being able to practice with headphones on until all hours of the night is fantastic and is leading to improvement speeds similar to keyboard.
So... Started looking around to see what was available in my price range and had the type of sound and sound quality I want. Even a week of playing gave me some ideas about that and things to test.
So I went and looked in a few places. First time, just looked. Too intimidated that other people might hear me make noise to actually try out something and play it. Oooh. So many pretty shapes and colors. Easy to get distracted by that, but I know looks don't make a musical instrument...
Oh how this would later come back to haunt me...
Still. Even looking was somewhat useful. I did a lot of reading online, trying to learn more about components, styles, sounds, etc.
Because I'd been fighting with my mom and been gridmonkey, I cut out of work early Thursday, picked up Stacey, and took her with me to look in a few stores. This time I thought to bring my headphones so that I could play in the stores without embarrassment. Of course, I forgot to bring the mini to phono adaptor so this was pointless, but I ended up trying stuff in the stores anyhow.
I tried the cheapest guitar in the store. A beat up forest green Ibanez (at $79) It sounded worse than it looked. About 50% buzz and really muddy sound quality. Stacey then started bringing me other guitars to try so I couldn't get up and chicken out and go 'Well. I played one. Let's go!' So... Tried lots in my price range but none of them had the sort of sound I wanted. Then, Stacey, being Stacey, pulled a disgusting pink Hello Kitty guitar off the rack and wanted me to play it.
Ugh. I didn't need to play that. I knew it'd sound like crap! But I did it just to humor her... And Damnit. It DIDN'T sound like crap. AUGH. Still... No way I was going to pay nearly $300 for a Hello Kitty guitar. It was time to go.
Stacey, of course, liked it because it was loathsomely pink and said I should get it because it was the best sounding-guitar I'd played. I said I could get a different guitar and probably slap a $20 Hello Kitty pick guard on it if it really made her happy, and we'd look it up on the computer.
So... Quickly found the website. http://www.fenderhellokitty.com/ Okay. So they don't sell pick guards. Just a whole bottom-of-the-line Squier. ... But wait... I was sure the one in the store said 'Fender Telecaster' on the neck, not Squier... And it looked different... And the store was selling it used for more than this cost new (and without all the goofy pink accessories like the carry bag) Oookay...
So... There's nothing that gets to me like a mystery, so I had to go back on Saturday. Went to two other stores first. Looked at different things, played different things. I took my headphones this time and tried both open amp and headphones because I'd learned I could hear different sound quality things by doing each.
Got back to the Starving Musician and, the other guitar I'd been interested in was sold (which was okay really. It was more expensive than I wanted to go, and the guy that was buying it was pretty cool, and to be totally honest, black with red accents wasn't any more my thing than cupcake pink)
I tried the kitty again. It was indeed not stock. In fact it was totally modified. With headphones it sounded just as good. I cranked the gain, treble, tone all the way up. No buzz, no hum. I tweaked the knobs wildly. No static or scratch. I whammied the tremolo wildly. Stayed in tune. I tried another ten guitars, up to the $500 range and only ONE of them sounded anywhere near as good as the friggin cupcake pink Hello Kitty and it was almost twice as much. Damnit damnit damnit.
In the end, Stacey took it up to the counter and bought it for me while I was combing the store, trying to come to terms with knowing I loved a hideous pink guitar.
Hung out with Ashy much of the evening. We fooled around with the guitars a little bit but I was too nervous (You know, you have to impress your friends!) to play well at all and I stumbled every note.
After I took her home, I decided to look up the parts on the Kitty.
2006 Squier Hello Kitty body.
2003 US-made Telecaster neck.
Seymour Duncan SH-13 Dimebucker (made popular by Pantera *snicker*)
Kahler 7200C Tremolo
I didn't open it but I can guess from the sound, the parts inside are similar quality and whatever is under the chrome pickup is also of similar quality. I'm guessing it's probably got around $500 worth of parts in it. More important though, it just sounds great.
After looking stuff up, I played until about 3AM, and the more I play it, the less I'm ashamed it's so pink because it just sounds fantastic in any mode I put it in.
Besides. There's something totally amusing about being able to get screaming death metal sound out of a pretty pink guitar. I think maybe this is actually a Hell Kitty guitar. ;)
prickvixen's guitar for the past week, I've become more and more sure I really wanted my own electric. Softer strings and being able to practice with headphones on until all hours of the night is fantastic and is leading to improvement speeds similar to keyboard.So... Started looking around to see what was available in my price range and had the type of sound and sound quality I want. Even a week of playing gave me some ideas about that and things to test.
So I went and looked in a few places. First time, just looked. Too intimidated that other people might hear me make noise to actually try out something and play it. Oooh. So many pretty shapes and colors. Easy to get distracted by that, but I know looks don't make a musical instrument...
Oh how this would later come back to haunt me...
Still. Even looking was somewhat useful. I did a lot of reading online, trying to learn more about components, styles, sounds, etc.
Because I'd been fighting with my mom and been gridmonkey, I cut out of work early Thursday, picked up Stacey, and took her with me to look in a few stores. This time I thought to bring my headphones so that I could play in the stores without embarrassment. Of course, I forgot to bring the mini to phono adaptor so this was pointless, but I ended up trying stuff in the stores anyhow.
I tried the cheapest guitar in the store. A beat up forest green Ibanez (at $79) It sounded worse than it looked. About 50% buzz and really muddy sound quality. Stacey then started bringing me other guitars to try so I couldn't get up and chicken out and go 'Well. I played one. Let's go!' So... Tried lots in my price range but none of them had the sort of sound I wanted. Then, Stacey, being Stacey, pulled a disgusting pink Hello Kitty guitar off the rack and wanted me to play it.
Ugh. I didn't need to play that. I knew it'd sound like crap! But I did it just to humor her... And Damnit. It DIDN'T sound like crap. AUGH. Still... No way I was going to pay nearly $300 for a Hello Kitty guitar. It was time to go.
Stacey, of course, liked it because it was loathsomely pink and said I should get it because it was the best sounding-guitar I'd played. I said I could get a different guitar and probably slap a $20 Hello Kitty pick guard on it if it really made her happy, and we'd look it up on the computer.
So... Quickly found the website. http://www.fenderhellokitty.com/ Okay. So they don't sell pick guards. Just a whole bottom-of-the-line Squier. ... But wait... I was sure the one in the store said 'Fender Telecaster' on the neck, not Squier... And it looked different... And the store was selling it used for more than this cost new (and without all the goofy pink accessories like the carry bag) Oookay...
So... There's nothing that gets to me like a mystery, so I had to go back on Saturday. Went to two other stores first. Looked at different things, played different things. I took my headphones this time and tried both open amp and headphones because I'd learned I could hear different sound quality things by doing each.
Got back to the Starving Musician and, the other guitar I'd been interested in was sold (which was okay really. It was more expensive than I wanted to go, and the guy that was buying it was pretty cool, and to be totally honest, black with red accents wasn't any more my thing than cupcake pink)
I tried the kitty again. It was indeed not stock. In fact it was totally modified. With headphones it sounded just as good. I cranked the gain, treble, tone all the way up. No buzz, no hum. I tweaked the knobs wildly. No static or scratch. I whammied the tremolo wildly. Stayed in tune. I tried another ten guitars, up to the $500 range and only ONE of them sounded anywhere near as good as the friggin cupcake pink Hello Kitty and it was almost twice as much. Damnit damnit damnit.
In the end, Stacey took it up to the counter and bought it for me while I was combing the store, trying to come to terms with knowing I loved a hideous pink guitar.
| There was just one thing left to do. Embrace the dorkiness of the Kitty and go all the way. So after abducting Ashy, I went and got a case to put the Kitty in. |  |
Hung out with Ashy much of the evening. We fooled around with the guitars a little bit but I was too nervous (You know, you have to impress your friends!) to play well at all and I stumbled every note.
After I took her home, I decided to look up the parts on the Kitty.
2006 Squier Hello Kitty body.
2003 US-made Telecaster neck.
Seymour Duncan SH-13 Dimebucker (made popular by Pantera *snicker*)
Kahler 7200C Tremolo
I didn't open it but I can guess from the sound, the parts inside are similar quality and whatever is under the chrome pickup is also of similar quality. I'm guessing it's probably got around $500 worth of parts in it. More important though, it just sounds great.
After looking stuff up, I played until about 3AM, and the more I play it, the less I'm ashamed it's so pink because it just sounds fantastic in any mode I put it in.
Besides. There's something totally amusing about being able to get screaming death metal sound out of a pretty pink guitar. I think maybe this is actually a Hell Kitty guitar. ;)
