guildguy516
Junior Member
- Joined
- May 29, 2012
- Messages
- 41
- Reaction score
- 2
Hey everyone on here! I want to start off by thanking you all for sharing your knowledge here. I'm more of a reader than a poster at LTG but what I read and when I post I always get very good information. Secondly, I want to say that ever sine I bought my first '78 D-40 I have never owned another acoustic other than a Guild. I have come to really appreciate the quality in their instruments, the character the instruments seem to have and wonder that I get from playing them. I have a few acoustics but never had a Guild electric. Last week I order Hans book Guilds part 1. It came Yesterday and I could NOT put the book down. I'm not a reader but that book was so detailed and informative I couldn't put it down. I almost consider Guild to be a somewhat mysterious company, never having a rhyme or reason for some things which really make their instruments unique. Examples: I have a 6 string jumbo with 2 trussrods and stamped "...-12" But the nut is 6 string width and everything else about shows it should be a 6 string. My '72 Bluegrass Jubilee D40 that has a 1 piece neck which in the book states it should clearly have a 3 piece neck. Because of this mystery that surrounds the Guild company, that book is almost the mystery novel accompanying it. I'm probably the last person in the midwest that would read a book for recreation and Hans, I read it almost all night! Great job!
After getting through the first part on hollowbody electrics I thought: Why don't I have a Guild electric? I love their acoustics so I should get an electric (it was only obvious). I walked over the music store that is down the street from my house this morning to drop off some food to the owner who is a close friend of mine and I KID YOU NOT WITH MY HAND ON THE BIBLE there was a beat Guild Starfire 5 sitting on the counter. I left to grab some cash from my mattress and walked home with what would soon be my FAVOURITE guitar. This Starfire was a players guitar. Guild Bigsby off, hardtail bridge put on, replaced pickups, replaced tuners (good old Schaller ones though). I'm a tinkerer and build electrics for friends/clients but I knew I had no intentions of restoring this bad boy. I knew I wanted to make this my new go-to, play every show guitar.
I threw an old Bigsby on it I had laying around and removed the hardtail bridge and when it came to the pups I figured I was gunna scratch them both and put in a set of humbucker p90s-I love p90s but wasn't going to hack up this beaut for them. I jammed on them a little and the neck was an old DiMarrzio pickup but the bridge actually sounded REALLY good. I cleaned it up and it is a HAMMER VELVET 54 pickup. I've never heard of these and I thought it was a Hamer pickup. I did a little research I'm under the impression ?this is a rare pickup? They were made by Red Rhodes and if wired correctly ?I can have a ton of different sounds with it?
Currently I coil tapped the HAMMER VELVET and it sounds great in single and then when it adds the second coil it pushes it over the top. Clean clear bite with bold mids; it is a rocking pickup. I removed the DiMarrzio and put in a GFS humbucker I had but will order a humbucker p90 to replace it.
To those of you who are purist I apologize that I might be coming at this differently but I wasn't the one who modded it in the first place and I want to make this my new go-to guitar so I'm going to mod it the way that's going to make me want to play it. I do have a few old guitars that I would never change a single thing to but this one came to me almost as an act from God and it was a player and it will continue to be a player. Besides, I only paid a few hundred for it and I don't want to be spending a ton on the original pups or tailpiece when I have ones I might prefer more.
Anyway my questions here are about the HAMMER VELVET pickup. I know it's not stock but an anyone share any information about these pickups? How can I wire this up to get the tones out of it people claim it to have? The info I stated above, was that right? I'll post some pictures of it before and after....once I learn how to post pictures.
After getting through the first part on hollowbody electrics I thought: Why don't I have a Guild electric? I love their acoustics so I should get an electric (it was only obvious). I walked over the music store that is down the street from my house this morning to drop off some food to the owner who is a close friend of mine and I KID YOU NOT WITH MY HAND ON THE BIBLE there was a beat Guild Starfire 5 sitting on the counter. I left to grab some cash from my mattress and walked home with what would soon be my FAVOURITE guitar. This Starfire was a players guitar. Guild Bigsby off, hardtail bridge put on, replaced pickups, replaced tuners (good old Schaller ones though). I'm a tinkerer and build electrics for friends/clients but I knew I had no intentions of restoring this bad boy. I knew I wanted to make this my new go-to, play every show guitar.
I threw an old Bigsby on it I had laying around and removed the hardtail bridge and when it came to the pups I figured I was gunna scratch them both and put in a set of humbucker p90s-I love p90s but wasn't going to hack up this beaut for them. I jammed on them a little and the neck was an old DiMarrzio pickup but the bridge actually sounded REALLY good. I cleaned it up and it is a HAMMER VELVET 54 pickup. I've never heard of these and I thought it was a Hamer pickup. I did a little research I'm under the impression ?this is a rare pickup? They were made by Red Rhodes and if wired correctly ?I can have a ton of different sounds with it?
Currently I coil tapped the HAMMER VELVET and it sounds great in single and then when it adds the second coil it pushes it over the top. Clean clear bite with bold mids; it is a rocking pickup. I removed the DiMarrzio and put in a GFS humbucker I had but will order a humbucker p90 to replace it.
To those of you who are purist I apologize that I might be coming at this differently but I wasn't the one who modded it in the first place and I want to make this my new go-to guitar so I'm going to mod it the way that's going to make me want to play it. I do have a few old guitars that I would never change a single thing to but this one came to me almost as an act from God and it was a player and it will continue to be a player. Besides, I only paid a few hundred for it and I don't want to be spending a ton on the original pups or tailpiece when I have ones I might prefer more.
Anyway my questions here are about the HAMMER VELVET pickup. I know it's not stock but an anyone share any information about these pickups? How can I wire this up to get the tones out of it people claim it to have? The info I stated above, was that right? I'll post some pictures of it before and after....once I learn how to post pictures.
