Hard decision - sell new guitar? (long!)

[60Strat]

I`ve got three electric guitars:
My Nr. 1, a `60 Relic Strat in Olympic White that I love more than anything else I own,
Nr. 2 is a `59 Historic Collection Les Paul and
Nr. 3, the newest of my guitars, a Nik Huber custom made Strat -style guitar, headstock inlay, figured maple neck, exceptional quilted maple top, mahogany body, braz. rosewood fretboard.

I`ve chosen every single piece of wood for this guitar, we double stained it twice and when I saw the guitar the first time, I thought it`s the most beatiful guitar that I`ve ever seen on this planet.
What I wanted to have was a Strat on Steroids, with hot bridge pickups - noisless if possible.

We installed Evans Hot pickups and I have to say the sound is very nice, but the output seems to be lower than on my Strat.
Perfect clean sound for Robben Ford stuff.

Now that I had that guitar for three month I`ve noticed that I don`t play that much on this instrument because of the following reasons:

1. It`s to nice !!! Not that I`m afraid to make a dent or a scratch on a guitar for 3000 $, but somehow I like to play on aged, battered guitars.

2. The distorted sound isn`t that good. As I`ve said before the clean sounds are nice, but the distorted sounds just have no character. The sustain of this guitar is amazing, just like a good PRS Santana!

3. I love that hollow sound of a real Strat. When I imagine guitar tones I`m thinking about SRV, Bramhall, Clapton .....

Now there is a hard decision to make. Two possibilitys:

- Change the pickups. If I would do that, I would get me some Harry Haessel custom pickups (from Germany), that would be 250$ for me and I don`t know if I would like the guitar after changing.

- Give the guitar to my dealer and get another `60 Relic in Sunburst. If I think with human sense, that`s stupid, I don`t need a backup guitar, because I`m just a hobby player and wouldn`t it be better to be versatile?
Also I would loose about 700 $ with this.

Well my heart says Strat but in the last 3 years I did things like that very often and always lost money.

Didn`t someone say "learn to love what you have" ????

What would you do? :rolleyes: :nelson

[Marcondo]

You can get the best looking woods and design your own guitar but there is a chance its not gonna sound good.

Then you could build another one and it will come out great.

If you can sell your Custom made guitar or trade it in on another Relic thats what I'd do. A Relic Strat will always have a certain value a Custom made guitar is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. And your idea of a Custom guitar might not be someone elses cup of tea so it might be harder to sell.

Who knows if you get another Relic it might better than your Oly white one.

I've had 5 Relic Strats only 1 of them was good the other 4 didnt even sound as good as the $500 60's Classic MIM Strats.

[ILLS]

Originally posted by 60Strat
Didn`t someone say "learn to love what you have" ????

Well, if they were talking about guitars, they were completely full of crap!

Seriously, if you don't like it after 3 months, there is a good chance that you never will. Maybe you should sell it, save the mioney, and keep it until a guitar you really want comes along.

[60Strat]

Today I changed the pickups and I can`t believe what difference it is! Now the guitar is a real killer!
I`ve installed Haeussel "Big Mag" (www.haeussel.com), pickups with bigger magnets for more bass and with a higher output than usual Strats. Now I`ve got my "Strat on Steroids", without loosing the real Strat character.

I always believed, that the woods and the craftsmanship is the main reason for good sound, but now I know how important a good pickup is!

What a sound!
:wail1

[sneaky]

so...does that mean you won`t be giving it to me then?

[Jimi's Bolero]

hey, post some pictures, lets see this thing!!

[60Strat]

Hope this works!

http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/...521&uid=511308


The first two pics are after double staining and respraying.

I didn`t like the sunburst of the other pics.

[Jimi's Bolero]

cool, thx!