What's with this 'Relic' shit?

[Seshmeister]

I was in a guitar shop today and they had one of these up at the 'special offer' price of $4000 or something.

What is this shit all about?

Why would anyone want to pay for a guitar to be beaten up? Is this like the people in cities like London who buy fake mud to spray on the wheels of their SUV's?

http://www.themusiczoo.com/images/7-12-12/3649_Fender_Ultimate_Relic_60_Stratocaster_JC1908f ull.jpg

[ashstralia]

i've 'relic'ed my '84 roadstar II. took 28 years and hundreds of gigs. :)

[Nitro Express]

I was in a guitar shop today and they had one of these up at the 'special offer' price of $4000 or something.

What is this shit all about?

Why would anyone want to pay for a guitar to be beaten up? Is this like the people in cities like London who buy fake mud to spray on the wheels of their SUV's?

http://www.themusiczoo.com/images/7-12-12/3649_Fender_Ultimate_Relic_60_Stratocaster_JC1908f ull.jpg

Because there is a demand for it. Apparently there is an art to beating the instruments up so they look like they are really aged. I'm with you though. I think it's crazy. When I buy something new I like pristine shiny paint and no corroded metal parts on it.

[DONNIEP]

Sesh - how much do you think the relic-ing adds to the price of that guitar? I'm just wondering how much somebody's willing to spend above the usual price to have a guitar that looks like they've been playing for 25 years. I could see spending the cash on a Frankie replica - if you have the cash. But just for it to be antiqued? I don't see it.

[Nitro Express]

i've 'relic'ed my '84 roadstar II. took 28 years and hundreds of gigs. :)

I used to have one of those. Mine had one pickup and a flamed maple top and a maple neck with a skunk stripe. I was tuning with a pitch pipe (remember those?) and it dropped out of my mouth and hit the top of the guitar body and cracked the finish. It looked like a pane of glass does when a BB hits it. It must have had a lot of clear coast on it. I guess that is how I relic'ed mine. Oh and the neck had a pretty big ding on the back. I traded it in with some other stuff to get a Marshall amp.

[jhale667]

i've 'relic'ed my '84 roadstar II. took 28 years and hundreds of gigs. :)

Same with my 1st Charvel mutt. :baaa: Relics are quite popular, and people actually do pay $500-1000 extra for the treatment. Agree there's an art to it (Tom Murphy does amazing stuff at Gibson, and the Fender Custom Shop pieces look way more realistic than the production ones, where the "worn" patches appear to by done by applying vinyl patches in the desired shape prior to finishing...looks really uniform and obvious IMO), but also tend to agree unless you're doing a replica (or a piece inspired by an aged guitar), I can't really justify the extra expense personally...YMMV.

The only thing I've done close to a "relic" is I had Jeff @ RCA go easy on the clear coat on the Bomber to better match my 2nd actually for really-real vintage Charvel neck that was going on it...


:guitar:

[vandeleur]

The only guitar I've made money on is my srv tokai. Everything else should be shop worn,
Or fucking humped to death. In mho.

[Seshmeister]

Sesh - how much do you think the relic-ing adds to the price of that guitar? I'm just wondering how much somebody's willing to spend above the usual price to have a guitar that looks like they've been playing for 25 years. I could see spending the cash on a Frankie replica - if you have the cash. But just for it to be antiqued? I don't see it.

I really should know more about guitars than I do to be blunt. I tend to view them a little the way I view cars as tools.

Because of that my cars and guitars usually end up getting 'reliced to fuck'. That word reliced doesn't look right but you know what I mean... :)

I'm sure that there are a lot of people here who fuss over their guitars(and or cars) like super delicate babies like Nigel Tuffnell in Spinal Tap. There are a lot of guys like that in fact it may even be the majority but I'm not like that at all, I take pride in not taking pride. :)

I was looking at that $4000 relic strat and to be fair there is a lot of attention to detail on these things but to me it is pathetic fakey shit.

Back in the day doing the semi professional thing we used to say that the cost of the equipment a band had was in inverse proportion to their talent. That was obviously an overstatement but there was a little but of truth in it. The people that had sensible jobs in banks and had money to throw at it didn't have the time to practice.

Most of us here now will have experienced the service you get in a guitar shop if you walk in at our age, fuck if you have a suit on they virtually suck you off because the the guy who used to play the guitar a lot but is now old and busy and wants to somehow replace time with an expensive guitar is what keeps those places in business. So now people are paying money to make their guitars look as though they have played them to fuck and gigged them for years? Get a life people.

I have always been of the view that it was cool to use fairly cheap beaten up guitars onstage because

a) At least a third of your audience are usually guitarists or at least have dabbled - don't make them jealous. Their natural inclination is to stand there with their arms folded pretending or being correct in thinking they are better than you.

b) It's kind of punky and street cool.

But mine were cheap and naturally beaten up. I picture these bankers for want of a better word paying $4k for their pretend damaged guitar having a fucking heart attack when someone accidentally brushes against it.

Part of the reason I'm ranting on about this is that now that I am back in the saddle so to speak I've found I've been let down a couple of times with my 'bargains' and am finally seriously considering buying a properly expensive guitar.

Even half decent guitars over here(and I think in Japan) seem to be at least about 30% more expensive than in the US for reasons I don't understand and I usually buy second hand. The most I have ever spent is about $700(although I then usually spend a bit more tarting them up with better pickups and so on).

I'm probably going to buy a rare second hand Ibanez I've found in the same shop as the relic strat for $1600 tomorrow and it's worrying me deeply and seeing that people spend crazy money on just making guitars look shit has just confused me even more.

Sorry thinking out loud here...

[DONNIEP]

Well, 500 bucks or a grand doesn't seem too outrageous for a custom finish to me. I can definitely see the "art" that would go into doing one up right. But if I was in the market I'd probably have to draw the line there. Cool info. Thanks guys!

[Seshmeister]

Send it to me. I'll stick it in a room with my kids for 20 minutes and only charge you $50...

[ashstralia]

what's the ibanez??

[Seshmeister]

http://ibanez.wikia.com/wiki/RGT3170

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v646/WangDano/3170A.jpg

Should I? It's lovely.

It's either that or a S970CW-NT which I think is very pretty but I would end up getting new pickups and I can't find one local so would have to buy online without trying which worries me but it is 30% cheaper.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v285/promt/Ibanez/S-Premium/S970CW-NT-03022/Ibanez-S970CW-NT-FPK-03022-rw-1918.jpg



I have been trying to make up my mind on this for 12 hours now...


Apologies for being an Ibanez RG person but it's just happened over the last couple of years - you are what you are... :)



I am having a hell of a trouble making up my mind here...

[ashstralia]

no worries mate, i've owned jems before... i like 'em too. the flame one is a beauty.

[Seshmeister]

I'm starting to think the RGT3170.

I've haggled them down to $1500 AUD.

I'm thinking that worst case scenario it's going to keep it's value.

What do you think?

[Seshmeister]

Where's that fucking guitar nerd jhale when you need him... ?:)

[ashstralia]

you can't go wrong there, sesh.

[Seshmeister]

That was my thoughts but I really needed someone to confirm.

Much appreciated!

I'll print out your post when I can't afford food for the kids at the end of January... ;)

[Hardrock69]

What if the guitar sounds like shit? What if due to that particular slab of wood used for the body, or the blank used to carve out the neck, the sound sucks ass? No pickups, no relicing, no nothing is going to make it sound good.

So you pay $4,000 for a guitar that sounds like crap and looks like crap.

[Seshmeister]

I imagine that most if not all of these guitars are not played to an audience?

[ashstralia]

I imagine that most if not all of these guitars are not played to an audience?

i reckon you'd be right. vis a vis feeding the kids; playing some gigs is always good justification for buying a new guitar...

the old 'yes dear, but it's MAKING us money'...:biggrin:

[Seshmeister]

LOL!

How many buskers have you seen where you think their break even point will be in about 10 years time.

Or keyboard players of a certain age in local prog rock bands, 2112 more like 2212... :)

I posted a great DLR interview with the BBC back 8 years ago where he said how the big problem is how to feed and clothe yourself with music.

We're doing really really well at the moment which means I think this time next year we may break even... :)

[ashstralia]

i was born with nothin, and i still got most of it...:)

[Seshmeister]

Yeah it it's annoying getting hassle from beggars.

Imagine how cool it would be to be back at zero again...

[ELVIS]

If you want a relic, buy a nice new shiny guitar, get a gig, get drunk, poor beer on the guitar, hit open E, throw the guitar on the floor, dive the whammy with your foot, slide the guitar across the floor and reel it back in using the strap, pick it back up and bang it repeatedly on the bar and on any other nearby objects or people and begin the set...

Rinse and repeat...


:elvis:

[jhale667]

Don't forget to tie it to your car's bumper and drag it through town a few miles....try to work at least one, but not many, dirt roads in with the gravel and asphalt...



:guitar:

[ELVIS]

Maybe we should go into business together...

G 'n' J's Road Worn Relics™


:biggrin:

[Matt White]

I HATE the entire "relic" craze.................

almost as much as I hate the stupid fuckers that pay huge amounts of cash for guitars that LOOK like the ones used by legends.........

HEY ASSHOLES...IT AIN'T THE FRANKY OR BLACKIE OR #1 OR anything owned by JIMMY PAGE!!!!

Just the most asinine thing I've ever heard of.............

[ELVIS]

And BTW, I reliced almost all of my guitars back in my drinking days by falling into them and knocking them into a pile...

On more than one occasion...


:gulp:

[Nitro Express]

I'm pretty much a one guitar guy. I get attracted to one particular one and play it to death and rarely use the others. Once you play one for a year it's all broke in and nice. It's kind of like a pair of jeans or a good pair of boots. I always loved maple neck fenders that start to get the worn finish on the necks and the dark spots. It looks cool. Gibsons look nice all pristine but Fenders look better trashed and beat up for some reason.

[jhale667]

Maybe we should go into business together...

G 'n' J's Road Worn Relics™


:biggrin:


:biggrin:

[jhale667]

Where's that fucking guitar nerd jhale when you need him... ?:)

Sorry, was off doing guitar nerdy things... ;) I'm not a huge fan of Ibanez guitars, but the flame one looks cool...

[crowhue]

Cant see the point either. Id rather relic the guitar through playing it. The trend seemed to start with the Clapton Blackie Strat replica about 8 or 9 years ago. Now everyone is hitting guitars with bicycle chains and charging for the results.

[lesfunk]

9293I have a relic Jazz bass made by Nash Guitars. I think it's GRATE. It feels, plays, and sounds just like a 1963 jazz bass but I paid 1100 bucks for it used, not $25,000.
The relics are great tools for working pros who don't want to risk theft or damage to their vintage treasures on the road or at gigs.
The relic instruments give them a comparable feel and sound without the risk.

[Matt White]

9293The relic instruments give them a comparable feel and sound without the risk.


HOW Les.....???

How does "relic"ing a guitar positively alter its tone for the better?!?

[Coyote]

Similar to those handwired Plexi replicas, IMO....

[Matt White]

I mean...I can see the case being made that they play better.....that "broken in" feeling.....

But tone?

I don't see it....not like an instrument that has actually aged....dried with age.........

no way these "relic" guitars can copy that process..........

[lesfunk]

HOW Les.....???

How does "relic"ing a guitar positively alter its tone for the better?!?

Jason Lollar pickups.

[lesfunk]

... and thin, almost non existent nitro finish; not that modern Poly than can choke the sound of an instrument if put on too thick

[Matt White]

Jason Lollar pickups.

I get that part.....better parts = better tone.....

but beating up a guitar to make it look old doesn't do anything to help the guitar......

I think the entire craze is silly...and a waste of money

[lesfunk]

then don't buy one

[Matt White]

then don't buy one

Fair Enough

[Seshmeister]

Sorry, was off doing guitar nerdy things... ;) I'm not a huge fan of Ibanez guitars, but the flame one looks cool...

I ended up buying it yesterday, it's lovely.

[ThrillsNSpills]

Congrats!

[ELVIS]

HOW Les.....???

How does "relic"ing a guitar positively alter its tone for the better?!?

Magic...

No, really you give it a special Tone Rub™ in a certain sweet spot only known by select masterelicbators...

You can even have your custom relic job and rub tailored to make you play more like your favorite artist...


:elvis:

[78/84 guy]

:thumb:

[lesfunk]

Magic...

No, really you give it a special Tone Rub™ in a certain sweet spot only known by select masterelicbators...

You can even have your custom relic job and rub tailored to make you play more like your favorite artist...


:elvis:
Or you can just put in pickups wound to vintage specs Like Duncan Antiquity, Lollar, or Fralin. But If Elvis is offering rubs... Count me in!

[ELVIS]

I have Lollar and Fralin and all sorts of pickups both in and out of guitars...

They all make a difference, swapping a neck makes a difference, the bridge, the nut, the block on the whammy...all change the tone...

Also a painted body sounds maybe a tiny bit warmer than the same body unpainted, but it still sounds like the same body, I've tried this and I'm sure jhale has as well...

Removing some of the paint or having Nitrocellulose lacquer as opposed to some other type of finish is nonsense...

There are many variables that affect tone, the type of finish is not one of them...

Too much paint could be a problem and hinder tone somewhat, but I highly doubt too much Poly or too much Epoxy sounds worse than too much Nitrocellulose...

The same people that trick themselves into believing this kind of stuff believe that vintage cloth wire sounds better than cheap wire...

You hear that same kind of make-it-up-as-you-go-along logic with car stereo nuts...


:elvis:

[jhale667]

I have Lollar and Fralin and all sorts of pickups both in and out of guitars...

They all make a difference, swapping a neck makes a difference, the bridge, the nut, the block on the whammy...all change the tone...

Also a painted body sounds maybe a tiny bit warmer than the same body unpainted, but it still sounds like the same body, I've tried this and I'm sure jhale has as well...

Removing some of the paint or having Nitrocellulose lacquer as opposed to some other type of finish is nonsense...

There are many variables that affect tone, the type of finish is not one of them...

Too much paint could be a problem and hinder tone somewhat, but I highly doubt too much Poly or too much Epoxy sounds worse than too much Nitrocellulose...

The same people that trick themselves into believing this kind of stuff believe that vintage cloth wire sounds better than cheap wire...

You hear that same kind of make-it-up-as-you-go-along logic with car stereo nuts...


:elvis:



I tend to agree with this... vintage spec, even "aged" pickups will get you in the ballpark...less finish of any sort is going to "breathe" better and be more resonant than one with a pound glopped on. But NOTHING sounds like old wood, period.

Don't believe me? Go find a vintage Strat and A/B it with a "relic" spec'd to the same era. No contest.

:guitar:

[lesfunk]

You are absolutely correct. You are never going to be able to duplicate "played in" old wood. It think it is impressive how close you can get in every other aspect though.

[jhale667]

Sure, the well-done ones look COOL, no denying that... I've seen a few that look like they were done by toddlers, but the really good ones are nearly indistinguishable from an actual beat-up vintage piece visually.

[lesfunk]

I'll add one thing..... I'll bet a weeks pay that although my Nash bass may not be as nice as a real Pre CBS Fender bass, It comes pretty damn close and it's better than 75% of the real ones because as we all know, for every sweet old instrument, there are 6 of them that are junk.

[jhale667]

I'll add one thing..... I'll bet a weeks pay that although my Nash bass may not be as nice as a real Pre CBS Fender bass, It comes pretty damn close and it's better than 75% of the real ones because as we all know, for every sweet old instrument, there are 6 of them that are junk.

Oh sure, and unless your bass is fully "vintage-correct", it's probably got a better truss-rod and whatnot than its true vintage counterpart...

[lesfunk]

In my opinion, what's sillier than the relic trend is people paying 20K or more for an old Fender which was designed and manufactured to be a "disposable" guitar. Leo's genius was creating the sound of an entire [i]industry[/] with a cheap, little, well designed plank. Amazing when you think about it really.

[lesfunk]

Oh sure, and unless your bass is fully "vintage-correct", it's probably got a better truss-rod and whatnot than its true vintage counterpart...

Absolutely. I don't do fully vintage correct. Fuck that noise. Mine has a Badass II bridge (as do all my Fender style basses) and Schaller tuners. Those are big improvements on each end of the string and you CAN hear the difference.

[jhale667]

Absolutely. I don't do fully vintage correct. Fuck that noise. Mine has a Badass II bridge (as do all my Fender style basses) and Schaller tuners. Those are big improvements on each end of the string and you CAN hear the difference.

Yep, all day long...especially with the added mass of the Badass II.


Personally, you couldn't get the super-wide necks I use on a vintage instrument, so they hold little interest to me overall... and it'd be kinda dumb to plop down a few grand on a guitar you were gonna swap the neck out on...

Closest I've gotten to that was my purple Strat whose body I found in a pawnshop. I tracked down the original builder and he indicated he'd made the body in the mid 80s. So a couple of my guitar bodies and necks technically are or are nearly "vintage".


:guitar:

[Kristy]

What is this shit all about?

I wasn't going to weigh in on this thread but what this shit is all about is being a failed musician with $4,000 to spend. Sometimes the questions answer themselves, Sesh.

[Matt White]

I wasn't going to weigh in on this thread but....[/I]

yeah...right....its called SPAM, Troll

as if you could have kept away....................

[Matt White]

I still laugh when people get so excited aboot 1970's Fenders.....

they were considered JUNK when I started playing in the mid-80's

hysterical...................

[ELVIS]

They're not that bad at all...

[lesfunk]

No, Matt is correct. Although many nice instruments came from the Fender factory during the '70s, The era is widely known for generally lower quality control throughout the entire line of products.
I happen to be fond of the 70's era basses as my first Fender bass was a 78 Jazz with a bound and blocked maple neck. (it also weighed about 13lbs....ugh)
The 70's Fenders were known for heavy woods, loose neck pockets and overly thick Poly finishes

[ELVIS]

I'm familiar with the story...

I'm just saying the 70's guitars are not as bad as the negative hype...

I have seen some bad ones though where the neck didn't fit the pocket at all...

[lesfunk]

Yngwie's strat 4 example?

[lesfunk]

...and Blackmore's and Marcus Millers bass... all 70's fenders

[Seshmeister]

My admittedly not huge experience of 80s strats back in the day was that there definitely seemed to be a time when most Japanese Squier strats I tried were great and the much more expensive US ones were totally mediocre.

[Seshmeister]

I wasn't going to weigh in on this thread but what this shit is all about is being a failed musician with $4,000 to spend. Sometimes the questions answer themselves, Sesh.

I know you have another thread going on this 'failed musician' thing as well.

To me it's kind of an immature simplistic concept. I don't think I ever wanted to be exclusively a musician just like I don't want to exclusively be a company director or a father.

Some people do and they may totally succeed at one thing. I don't want to just do one thing in my life I want to do all sorts of shit and that doesn't mean I've failed at it all. That's like saying if you don't get a gold medal in the Olympics you should never swim or if you can't fill an arena as a comedian you should never make a joke.

I think you have a certain kind of person in mind with this failed musician but not only should you define it better you should also consider for a minute that many of those guys just enjoy the taking part.

[ELVIS]

My admittedly not huge experience of 80s strats back in the day was that there definitely seemed to be a time when most Japanese Squier strats I tried were great and the much more expensive US ones were totally mediocre.

Jeff Healey and Adrian Smith played Jap Squiers...

[Seshmeister]

Don't get me wrong my pal bought a US strat a couple of years ago which is the best one I've ever played.

But there was a problem for a long time. I heard that they ended up getting Japanese quality control people into the US factories and that fixed it??

[Seshmeister]

Jeff Healey and Adrian Smith played Jap Squiers...

Stewart Copeland too I think.

It's all very subjective. I have a friend who has a $5000 Gretch semi and I find it a bit nasty to play but everyone else seems to love it.

[ELVIS]

They've always had a quality control problem, so does Gibson and others...

You can take ten Strats from any era and some will sound better than others...

The finish and set up seem to be very nice on the current Fenders...

[ELVIS]

I have three Japanese Fender Strats, but I'm lefty and the quality always seems to be better on a Left hand instrument...

I've seen tons of junky Jap Strats...

[Hardrock69]

The shitty 70s Strat thang was why I bought a Lead I when they first came out.....a 4-bolt neck as opposed to the Crapro-Tilt 3-bolt necks.
Out of all the 70s Strats I played in guitar shops, pawn shops, or at friends' houses and jam rooms, I would say 70% of them were deficient in one way or another. The neck was not fitted properly. Or the fucking thing moved because the holes had elongated, and there were only 3 to begin with.
The tone sucked fucking ass. The action was bad.

So it is easy for me to understand how 70s Strats got the reputation.

The Lead series guitars were rock-solid by comparison. I still have the one my best friend bought in 1980 brand new....the same day and at the same shop I bought mine.....it has a seriously solid feel to it, sounds great, plays great.....

But it could just be an anomaly.....one of the percentage of guitars off the production line that were good....

[ELVIS]

Fender cut costs with cheap metal on the bridge and almost non existent body contours which were still being done by hand...

The three bolt neck works great as long as the neck pock fits perfect, which most didn't...

[jhale667]

There used to be a pretty cool "relic" tutorial up on a builder's site that has since been taken down (some sort of business shiftiness), wished I'd saved it as HTML to repost here... but the guy took a finished body and froze, baked, and generally abused the hell out of it before he ever took a rasp or file to it - to correctly "age" the finish pre-'wear'... he was letting his kids ride their bikes over it, tied it to the bumper and drove around the block a couple of times on gravel, rubbed ash from his BBQ grill into the exposed grain...crazy stuff, but it looked pretty authentic when he was done.



:guitar:

[Cato]

can I show off my relic strat? :cato2:

http://www.rotharmy.com/gallery/files/2/0/tbc_60_strat_3.jpg

[Matt White]

KEWL looking strat Cato-san!

I'm all for the authentic way of picking up dings & dents, scratches and the such....the more ya play that thing "out and aboot" the more you seem to pick up............


that being said....I have some guitars that I've had for ages.....15+ yrs...that look like new.....becuz I TAKE CARE of my shit!!!! :D

[ODShowtime]

I just got a new 2011 American Standard last month and it looks like a gem to me, but I don't have much depth in this area. The little girl sings and the beauty of it is how it was mass produced and the price was great. I love the way the frets and fingerboard sparkle. I guess that is boring for some folks but I'm so inspired now with this baby. I guess you get jaded after enough axes and want something fancy, but I wouldn't pay someone to trash a guitar before I bought it. I can do that myself.

I got to compare it to a 2012 model which had yellowed plastic and I didn't dig it. It looked like someone left it in the sun for a few years. And it had fat 50s pickups which sounded too vintage and weak to me compared to the awesome alcino Vs. But everyone is different and I didn't want a really vintage sound.