Oh, well, while disappointing this isn’t the end of the world. The pickups sound good in a low-output vintage PAF kind of way. I can either leave them as-is or replace them with DiMarzio DP163 “Bluesbucker” pickups which I’m kind of interested in trying out anyway.
UPDATE: According to DiMarzio, the YHNP2BKL may be the stock bridge pickup. Interesting....
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After receiving my new used Yamaha Weddington Classic yesterday, I was eager to see just what the differences are between the Classic and Custom. They’re both red and have a tuning fork logo on the headstock, right? So what differentiates the more expensive Custom from the Classic in the Weddington lineup? Let’s take a closer look (the Classic is on the left in the pictures below).
Starting with the headstock, there are couple of differences. While both have the Yamaha tuning fork logo and rosewood veneer on the front of the headstock, they sport different flourish inlays. (Note that neither says “Yamaha” aside from the truss rod cover. Personally, I like the fact that they don’t have the brand name on the headstock.) Also, notice that the Weddington Classic headstock (left) in unbound, while the Custom headstock has white-black-white triple binding; this is a difference we’ll see throughout. You may not be able to tell from the photos, but the hardware is also slightly different. The Classic uses chrome hardware, while the Custom sports nickle plated. The tuners are different, too.
Moving down the fretboard, there are more differences. The Weddington Custom has a position marker in the first position, while the Classic does not. The Classic uses smaller mother-of-pearl inlays that are bisected with something that looks like black plastic, while the Custom has more ornate mother-of-pearl inlays that are bisected with abalone or pau. More significantly for tone, the Classic has a rosewood fretboard, while the Custom is ebony. And, damn does the ebony fretboard look good with the contrasting position markers. It also feels great. Like polished glass. As with the headstock, the neck on the Custom has white-black-white triple binding; the Classic’s neck is bound with single-ply cream.
The fretboard was very dry in these pictures which is why it looks so light. I applied several coats of Fret Doctor oil when I changed the strings. The oil soaked into the wood very quickly and now the fretboard is considerably darker, and feels better to the touch. Good stuff!
I will also pause and mention that I never paid much attention to the frets on the Custom before. They seemed kind of wide and flat, but not abnormally so. Once I started comparing the two, I realized that the frets on the Classic were the original shape, but the Custom had a fret leveling at some point in its previous life. Hence they felt wider, flatter and lower. No big deal, they both feel fine.
The bodies are identical on the two guitars, at least as far as I can tell. All Customs had transparent or semi-transparent finishes like red, amber, or burst. The Classics had either semi-transparent burst finishes or opaque red or black. Here you can see the maple cap on both guitars if you look below the binding near the neck joint. Speaking of the binding, the Classic has single-ply cream binding while the Custom has the same white-black-white three-ply binding as seen on the neck and headstock. The carve on both tops appears to be identical and was probably done with CNC machinery.
Flip the guitar over and look at the back of the headstock and there are a few more differences to be found. You can see more clearly that the tuning machines are different. Aside from the difference in finish—chrome on the Classic and nickle on the Custom—the tuning machines themselves are different. They feel different in operation, too, and I’ll have to investigate this further. The neck construction is also different. The Classic has a three-piece mahogany laminated neck while the Custom has is five-piece construction. Although you can’t tell through the red finish, I think the two strips flanking the center are maple. At least they looked like maple on my amber Weddington. The other strips are mahogany.
Back to the back. Here again you can see the difference in neck construction—3-ply laminate on the Classic and 5-ply laminate on the Custom. The neck joint and back carve is the same on both. Both guitars have two piece backs, though you have to look carefully at the end grain on the lower bout to see this. Interestingly, my first Weddington Custom had a one-piece back. I didn’t notice that it improved the guitar in a meaningful way.
That should help anyone who wants to know more about the differences between the Weddington Custom and Classic. There may be other differences that I didn’t pick up on, but I think that covers almost everything. Everything except how they feel and sound, that is. First and foremost, the Classic has a larger neck which I much prefer. It still isn’t up in the baseball-bat girth like some Gibson reissues, but it is noticeably meatier. Rich Lasner has said that all the necks were specified the same, but Yamaha may have done some “shop floor engineering” on some of them. I suspect that’s what happened here since the other Weddington Custom I owned was also very thin. Another difference I noticed immediately is that the Classic feels lighter by a fair bit. I don’t have a scale, but I would guess that it might be four ounces lighter.
And finally, how does it sound? That’s a good question and one that was ultimately decided by the pickups more that any minor differences between the two guitars. Whereas the Custom has the original DiMarzio pickups in place, I think the pickups in the Classic have been replaced at some point. I haven’t pulled them out yet, but I did open up the electronics cavity cover in the back and noticed what looked like a little reworking and new solder joints. More importantly, the DiMarzios in the Custom are much hotter and more aggressive. Whatever pickups are in the Classic are much more “vintage” sounding. They sound good, just not as aggressive. I’m guessing they’re DiMarzio PAF-style but will need to pull them out to verify. Stay tuned for more!
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Not bad for $50 and a half-hour’s work. Now the Weddington is much easier to setup and plays better. I don’t know that I hear a big difference in how it sounds, but the setup is a big improvement.
]]>Despite this, I have always had a weakness for Les Pauls. They are, after all, a rock icon. I may not be able to play like Jimmy Page, but at least I can have the same guitar (if you believe the marketeers). So I look at places like Mark’s Guitar Loft, Guitar Sale, Route 66, and other vendors who specialize in historic Les Pauls. And I watch eBay. Despite the sluggish economy, the Les Pauls I’m interested in, the historic reissues, have maintained a solid resale value. It’s not unusual to see a nice used ‘59 reissue sell for nearly $4k. Ouch. But I’ve been mentally preparing myself for this stringed sticker-shock. In fact, the reason I sold my amber Yamaha Weddignton was to purchase a very cool “old wood” flametop 1958 Les Paul reissue I found at a local retailer.
But things are never that easy.
I also found NOS Gibson Johnny A. signature model for sale at another local dealer. I’ve seen this guitar before, too, and just can’t get it out of my mind. It’s a handsome guitar, to be sure, in “sunset glow” burst with gold hardware. But it’s not completely over-the-top flame maple. Like the ‘58 LP, you could say it’s “old wood” cool. But it has a neck that feels nearly as big as the ‘58 LP—bigger and rounder than the typical Johnny A. Yeah, this thing exudes cool, and it doesn’t exhibit any of the typical quality control problems I’ve seen in other instruments. Sure, it could use a good setup but that’s easy. But the most important thing is the sound, and the Johnny A excel. It’s 25.5” scale gives it that extra bit of clarity, definition and “percussiveness” reminiscent of P90s. Very, very cool. Search the Les Paul Forum, or The Gear Page, and there’s tons of info, and it’s all good news.
Now I’m wrestling with which one of these great instruments is more deserving of my hard-earned cash and if I’m willing to part with something else from my small collection to make room and free up some cash. Life’s full of tough choices, innit?
]]>I didn’t buy an iPhone at the time primarily because I didn’t want to change carriers from Verizon to AT&T. Not that Verizon is great, but I haven’t had any problems and their cellular coverage is good. But I watched the market evolve, waiting for a device that would compete with the iPhone, but on Verizon’s network. Naturally, I was very eager to see if the Blackberry Storm was that kind of device. On paper, it looked like a contender—big, bright touchscreen, phone, cool apps and Blackberry’s email pedigree and development experience. I was eager to get my hands on one and see if it made a great first impression, and if it could truly compete with the iPhone.
Over the past week, I read what I could about the new device, and noted that the review were mixed at best. After getting my hands on a Storm today, I walked away thoroughly inimpressed. Professional pundits must be circumspect in what they write in order to avoid the wrath of editors, publishers, advertisers and readers. I don’t have any of those constituents, so I can be blunt: the iPhone kicks the Storms ass in no uncertain terms. After playing with a Storm for a solid half-hour at a local Verizon store (oh, were you waiting to try this out too?), I handed it to the next guy in line and wished him good luck. Then I went to an Apple store and played with the iPhone for over an hour, enjoying every minute.
The most immediate difference in the devices is the user interface. Where the iPhone shines is with it’s polished, intuitive presentation. Like the iPod, the iPhone has a minimal learning curve; all the features and functions, including setup, are easy to access and use. The Storm, on the other hand seemed clunky and often counter-intuitive. Much has been made of the Storm’s “revolutionary” SureTouch screen that requires a firm physical press on the screen to type or click icons. Compared to the iPhones screen, SureTouch was slower and less accurate. Then there’s they keyboard layout - in landscape mode, the storm has a full QWERTY keyboard (but loses much of the display real estate), but in portrait mode it has an odd layout with two letters on each key. WTF? This is just hard to use. Huge differences separate the two devices in terms of legibility: all the iPhones icons are easily legible, and text is crisp and clear. Not so on the Storm where text looked worse than old ASCII monitors. I’ll also mention that the Storm’s navigation was often confusing and lead to dead ends, with the Blackberry key being the only way out. Commands were also slow to execute, and on one occasion the device “hung” while I was trying to use the browser. No good. By comparison, the iPhone’s navigation was very easy to understand and use, even on more complex setup tasks. I’ll confess to being a Mac OS fan, and this struck me as much the same as the difference between OS X and, say, Windows 98.
Other reasons I preferred the iPhone? Built-in Wi-Fi!!! Why would I want to burn cellular minutes syncing my calendar or reading email, when I can do these functions on Wi-Fi at home and work? Then there’s iTunes. No other similar software has met with such widespread adoption, and for good reason—it works. Oh, and I did I mention that the iPhone works with both my Vista Ultimate laptop and OS X iMac?
The choice is clear. Now I just need Apple to discount the iPhone next Friday as part of their traditional “black friday” sales and I’ll be buying one for my wife and one for myself, even if it means changing carriers, there are enough benefits to justify switching.
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I knew ahead of time that he had a Jaguar as I had seen pictures of him and his band. It turned out to be 1964 (pre-CBS), and in really good condition but refinished to a clear natural color sometime in the ‘60. Still, it was in great condition and even close to being in tune after about 40 years!
I also knew he had encouraged her to play and given her an acoustic back in the day. It was a 1968 Martin D-18. She never learned to play, so it sat in the case for nearly 40 years. Wow. Just… wow. It needs a minor setup, but this is one good-sounding acoustic! Now I “get” what the Martin thing is all about, even if I don’t find it in their new instruments.
The other guitar was a Gibson, but she didn’t remember what kind. A Les Paul, perhaps??? No, something stranger by far—a 1965 12-string Gibson ES-345. Yes, you read that right—a 12-string ES-345 TD. Not a 6 string. Not a ES-335. A 12-string ES-345. Gibson also played around with stereo output on some of the ES-345, called the “TD,” and I think this is one of them. The sticker inside the case was difficult to read and I didn’t try to plug it in, so I can’t be sure. I’ve been looking all over Google for such a guitar and can’t find a thing about them. My friend said her husband had the guitar custom made for him which helps explain why I can’t find any info about these guitars.
In addition to the guitars, he had a blackface Fender Twin Reverb in damn-near mint condition, and a matching Fender 6G15 stand-alone reverb unit (also in damn-near mint condition). Then there was a Gibson Maestro Fuzz Tone FZ-1A and Uniwah UW-2, both still in their original boxes. The Uniwah still had the original batteries!!!
I’m working on tracking down information her. Prices, too, as she’s expressed an interest in selling everything but she’s in no particular hurry. Most of it is easy, but the 12-string ES-345 is turning out to be somewhat unique. I’ll take some pictures next time I see her, and post them here.
]]>Still, I do watch the auctions and thought I would mention some that changed hands recently.
My initial impressions are favorable. The amp sounds like it did before, though a bit more steely which is fine by me. I wouldn’t say the difference is huge, at least not to me, but I’m really enjoying the amp a little more now. I can use my PRS Cu22 Soapbar in the EF86 channel, set the channel volume at about 11:00 and then use the guitar’s volume to control the amount of gain and distortion—leave the volume at about 6-7 and it’s a good, overdriven sound; roll back a bit and it cleans up; roll the volume up to 8 and it starts to crunch up and distort nicely; dimed, it screams. Cool. This is why I haven’t bought a new amp.
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It’s in great shape overall—no major dings, dents or scratches even after seven years of use. The only thing that keeps it from being nearly mint are the holes drilled in the headstock when a previous owner replaced the original Phase I tuners with locking Sperzel tuners. A subsequent owner then installed the original Phase I tuners, so there are some additional mounting holes. This isn’t a big concern for me, but it may be an issue to a diehard collector.
I tried to get some playing time in this week despit all the things going on around me. I think I need to spend more time dialing in my Ceriatone Matchless DC30 clone in to suit the new guitar. I’m already pretty close on the 12AX7 channel, but not on the EF86 channel. It sounds like someone throws a heavy, wet blanket over the amp whenever I start to roll off the volume and the “in-between” positions (2&4 on the switch) sound too muddy. I’ll try to tweak the amp to see if I can work around these issues without changing the guitar. If not, I may look into aftermarket pickups and better volume and tone pots.
Many people have commented that red guitars are particularly difficult to photograph. It was difficult to get these to come out the way I wanted; the flame maple, in particular, is much better looking in person than it is in the photos. Also, I’m not sure the color will be spot-on but it’s close enough to give you an idea how beautiful this guitar is—in person, it’s a stunner.
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I was pretty bummed out at the time and looked around for another Soapie that I liked as much. Keep in mind that there weren’t that many Custom 22 Soapbars made by PRS from ‘98 through 2004, and they don’t seem to show up on the used market all that often. I looked in all the usual places, but none of the ones that were offered for sale really thrilled me. There was always some problem with the guitar—usually due to cost, color or the top.
This year PRS produced a limited run of new Custom 22 Soapbars featuring mahogany necks and new birds, but otherwise similar to the original run. I looked at these as well, at least the few I could find. I missed the memo when they first came out earlier this year, and when I started looking in earnest over the summer I wasn’t able to find one that made me want to part with nearly $3000 of my hard-earned cash. (There was one for sale in Japan that was perfect—Blue Matteo, stunning one-piece 10 top, the whole works—but the price was nearly $1500 over what a similar instrument would cost in the US and I just couldn’t bring myself to pay that kind of a premium.) But I kept looking and was just about ready to pull the trigger on a nice looking amber Soapie when I read that one of the original ones was up for sale on The Gear Page. I usually don’t track the for sale ads on TGP because there’s just too much, but when I read the description and looked at the picture I realized that it was the same one I missed out on nearly a year and a half ago! A few emails back and forth with the seller confirmed the fact. We agreed on a price and I payed for it with the proceeds from the sale of my amber Weddington Custom last week. Funny how that worked out… if I hadn’t sold the Weddington I probably wouldn’t have been able to pull the trigger on the Soapie and would have missed it again.
Anyway, here’s one of the seller’s pictures:
I will post more pictures when it arrives, hopefully next week!
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After a great run of two years, I decided to sell my amber Yamaha Weddington Custom this week. I wouldn’t have sold it except that another Weddington Custom came my way early in July and I found myself gravitating toward the red one more and more. The amber custom just wasn’t getting the playing time it deserved anymore. The man who bought it had searched for the right Weddington for nearly 10 years, and even made some very nice Weddington-inspired guitars himself, so I know this one is going to a good home!
I initially thought I would put the sale money towards either an ubercool Collins 290 or ‘58 flametop reissue I ran across at a local guitar shop. Then I started waffling, thinking it might be better to pick up on of the limited PRS Custom 22 Soapbars I was looking at. After all, Collins is still making 290s and there are nice R8s and R9 aplenty, right? But the new Custom 22 Soapbar was a very limited offering and there aren’t many around; the problem is finding one with a great top in a color I like. No easy task.
To be continued.
]]>When the new Weddington arrived last month, I figured I would keep the stock pickups in for a little while, but swap them out if I kept the guitar. After playing the guitar for a couple of weeks, I have to say I’m impressed. Here’s why:
To me, the DiMarzios have a sweeter top end than the Darkbursts. Compared to the DiMarzio bridge pickup, the Darkburst seem to have more top-end bite and almost a sizzle on the G string. I’d say the DiMarzio top-end is closer to the Crossroads overall—sweet and smooth. Compared to either the Darkburst or Crossroads, the DiMarzios are tighter and more articulate in the bottom end—more percussive if that makes any sense. I guess this might make them more “modern” sounding so some, but I think they’re still more vintage than modern.
The DiMarzios are, however, more powerful (~12.6kohm). This was apparent at lower gain amp settings; the DiMarzios would drive the amp to overdrive a bit sooner and I would have to roll of the guitar volumes to get the sound cleaned up. A more noticeable difference was in the coil split position—the DiMarzios were more aggressive than either WCR. Combined with the tighter low end, came across as a bit more steely. Tone is very subjective, but I think this yielded better single-coil tones than the WCRs. (Okay, maybe this isn’t a “true” single coil sound, but I thought it was a better tone.)
I was impressed with how these sounded. They really seem to work well in this guitar, so much so that I’m not rushing out to track down replacements from a boutique vendor, and I may even try DiMarzios in some other guitars.
For anyone who may be interested, I contacted DiMarzio asking about the stock pickups. They were custom-wound for Yamaha were never available separately. According to DiMarzio, the closest pup they currently make is the F-spaced Norton (DP160F).
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