rhcole said:
Interesting that you guys like old Harmonys. When I was younger, they were snubbed, and I never played any that I thought were particularly good guitars. I see the reissues and think they look kinda' cool but still remember their moderate playability and so-so sound.
It's like next we'll see vintage Kents, or something.
I don't like all vintage Harmony guitars, but there are a couple of models of which I really wouldn't mind having a well-preserved unabused example.
There are a couple of things about some guitars a lot of people refer to as "junk" or "cheap crap".
-a lot of those guitars were never set up right, but càn be set up to play well. A lot of them were sold by the kind of store that had guitars "on the side", who wouldn't know how to set up a guitar, to kids who didn't have a clue how to set up a guitar.
-a lot of those guitars were treated very badly over the years
because they were cheap and dispensable, so they lost whatever charm they might have inside them.
-define "good guitar". That's an extremely personal thing, and depends on what you're going to do with it, and what kind of music you're going to play on it. Through reading too many guitar magazines, a lot of people have started thinking of a good guitar being a versatile guitar you can tackle a lot of playing situations and musical styles with, and that's not my take on what makes a good guitar.
Those Harmony guitars might not be "quality instruments built to last" like equivalent era Gibsons, Epiphones, or indeed Guilds, but quite a few of them have outlasted a lot of other guitars, and they have a sound you can't get out of anything else.
People got so used to the recorded sounds of strats, Les Pauls, telecasters, D28's, J45's, Precision basses and other "classics", that the sound of these ugly ducklings really turns heads in comparison, as in "whoa! what is thàt!?!".
I love recording with guitars other than "classics", because they sound fresh in comparison. I'd rather do a two week, three sets a night-tour with one of my Guilds, because they're dependable, stable, and practical, but I love things like Kays, Danelectros, Hofners, Harmonies, Supros, etc.... to record with - and I've actually gigged my old Danelectros and my old Supro Dual Tone a lot more than I thought I would.
All it takes with a lot of these is a good setup - and sometimes that includes a refret, which a lot of people don't think worth the investment - something I fully understand...
