Which guitar for my brand new Bill Lawrence pickups please !

[chesterfieldblues]

Hello there, Johnny Rico from France !

I've bought three months ago L-500 XL and R pickups from Bill Lawrence (the one and only) but I can't decide which guitar would be the perfect choice to host these babies.

Naturally, I've bought these because of their great reputation, and, as a great fan of Nuno and Dimebag, I always wanted to try these pickups...

I'd like a guitar with punchy low end, no vibrato at all and a strat look-like but I'm not really experienced about different woods for guitar.

In some other worlds, I'd like a big killer tone , but I'm not really into Mesa Boogie modern sound, my main gears are:

-Tech 21 SansAmp PSA-1
-ADA MP-1 Classic
-BBE 362 NR Sonic Maximizer
-Peavey Classic 50/50 & Bandit 112 Mark II
-Rocktron Intellifex
-Custombuilt 2*12 Cabinet w/ Electrovoice EVM12L speakers

My budget is around 1500/1900 US $ (about 1000/1200 € in France).

One thing too, I'm a rythm and lead guitar player, so 24 frets would great !

Please help me !

PS: sorry for my english

 

[Metaltastic]

Hey Johnny Rico, I need a corporal - you're it until you're killed or I find someone better!

Seriously though, welcome! Your english is great dude, so no sweat! I don't know how much it'd be to get one in France, but I'd recommend a Carvin DC127 to you in a hot second - if you've got that kinda budget, you gotta go custom, and nobody does it better than Carvin for the price! Also, I'd recommend NOT getting the body sides rounded (here's rounded, here's unrounded, I definitely prefer the 2nd), but that's just a looks preference. Sweet gear you've got too! How do you like the PSA-1?


And that first quote was from Starship Troopers in case you didn't know.

 

[JBroll]

Hello there, Johnny Rico from France !

I've bought three months ago L-500 XL and R pickups from Bill Lawrence (the one and only) but I can't decide which guitar would be the perfect choice to host these babies.

Naturally, I've bought these because of their great reputation, and, as a great fan of Nuno and Dimebag, I always wanted to try these pickups...

I'd like a guitar with punchy low end, no vibrato at all and a strat look-like but I'm not really experienced about different woods for guitar.

In some other worlds, I'd like a big killer tone , but I'm not really into Mesa Boogie modern sound, my main gears are:

-Tech 21 SansAmp PSA-1
-ADA MP-1 Classic
-BBE 362 NR Sonic Maximizer
-Peavey Classic 50/50 & Bandit 112 Mark II
-Rocktron Intellifex
-Custombuilt 2*12 Cabinet w/ Electrovoice EVM12L speakers

My budget is around 1500/1900 US $ (about 1000/1200 € in France).

One thing too, I'm a rythm and lead guitar player, so 24 frets would great !

Please help me !

PS: sorry for my english

English is good. You'd be surprised how many non-native-English-speakers around her speak better English than the yank bastards around here.

Dime's guitars were alder or basswood bodies, I'd go for a lower-level Dean myself because they're made incredibly well for the money, or an Agile from RondoMusic.com for the same reason. However, 'no vibrato at all' doesn't make sense out of a guitar... it's a technique thing. Explain what you mean there.

Also... drop the BBE. As has been said here before, the BBE is basically beer goggles... you may think something is hot as hell with it on, but you'll soon regret it.

Jeff

 

[Metaltastic]

I'm pretty sure he means no trem at all Jeff - you know, from that old antiquated way of calling it a vibrato bar.

 

[JBroll]

But 'no vibrato at all' indicates that there are differing levels of vibrato... either a guitar has a whammy bar, or it doesn't, there's really no middle ground on that. That's what made me think he might be referring to something else - speaking of it as something that you can have a little or a lot of. Then again, miscommunication is 170% of communication...

Jeff

 

[Metaltastic]

Well no middle ground on whammy bars, but certainly on trem systems, where there's floating double-locking Floyds, Wilkinsons, totally standard strat-style, etc. I know a lot of people who don't wanna deal with a Floyd get a Wilkinson with locking tuners; I've heard it's a great bridge, and I wanted one until I realized that the only way I'd sacrifice the tone for a trem is if I could go all out, Floyd style.

 

[slashvanyoung]

Dime's guitars were alder or basswood bodies...

Umm... no?!

I own a Dean From Hell aka Dean ML '81 (which is said to be a detailed copy of Dime's most famous guitar) and it has a mahagony body.

But also his - arguably - most used guitar (he recorded basically everything on FBD with it), this one:

.. was a Dean ML '78 with mahagony body and maple top.

Edit: Or to be more precise (since the above is probably a newer one), it was this one (the one Hetfield handles in the pic):

 

[JBroll]

Oh, right, sorry... going with his production signature models. Forgot about that thing.

Jeff

 

[aramism]

i don't think nunos guitars are mahogany either. i'm willing to bet like ash or maple or some sort of tonewood. i think washburn still makes them and if they do i'm willing to bet they have the bill lawrence pickup on it if they are his signature series guitars. worth checking out since you are a fan, and basically have most of his setup anyway with the ada mp1 and the pickups and such.

 

[Notuern]

The Dean ML 79(The original "Dimebag"guitar) is Mahogny body and neck with a Rosewood fingerboard, and so are all his signatures(Even the Washburns).

 

[Baron of Norsworthy]

Hello there, Johnny Rico from France !

I've bought three months ago L-500 XL and R pickups from Bill Lawrence (the one and only) but I can't decide which guitar would be the perfect choice to host these babies.

Naturally, I've bought these because of their great reputation, and, as a great fan of Nuno and Dimebag, I always wanted to try these pickups...

I'd like a guitar with punchy low end, no vibrato at all and a strat look-like but I'm not really experienced about different woods for guitar.

In some other worlds, I'd like a big killer tone , but I'm not really into Mesa Boogie modern sound, my main gears are:

-Tech 21 SansAmp PSA-1
-ADA MP-1 Classic
-BBE 362 NR Sonic Maximizer
-Peavey Classic 50/50 & Bandit 112 Mark II
-Rocktron Intellifex
-Custombuilt 2*12 Cabinet w/ Electrovoice EVM12L speakers

My budget is around 1500/1900 US $ (about 1000/1200 € in France).

One thing too, I'm a rythm and lead guitar player, so 24 frets would great !

Please help me !

PS: sorry for my english

Your English is great Johnny.

I have played a Nuno signature and it did not produce alot of lower mid and bass frequencies but this is due to the guitar being very thin and having an ultra thin neck.

Also the Nuno signature was made from Alder which does not emphasis lower frequencies.

If you want a heavey sounding guitar I would suggest a guitar made from Mahogany( as other forum members have suggested) my own preferences for the pickup would be an Explorer style or DIME signature model.

If the guitars I mentioned don't appeal to you, consider a custom made guitar by a luthier, I don't know of any luthiers in France but there a plenty in England and some also have CNC machines so you could send them a CAD file to your own specification.

I have seriousely considered having a guitar cut on a CNC machine myself becuse you can choose the piece of wood used and your own neck profile.

If you give us forum member more details such as the neck shape we might be able to help you more??

 

[Metaltastic]

If the guitars I mentioned don't appeal to you, consider a custom made guitar by a luthier

Or by Carvin

 

[The Rhone]

How do the ML's compare to the recent Razorbacks?

 

[chesterfieldblues]

Thanks for your replies, I will make some more investigations then !

Vibrato= tremolo bar for me indeed.

>Metaltastic: Yes, of course, I know the quote from this movie, as Johnny Rico is referred to (but it was just like "ok, I must choose a nickname for message boards, fuck off, let's take this one !" and it remained since, as it is my music nickname too)

The PSA-1 is great, but is better with real gear in a live situation (I like it coupled with some tube power amps, like my Peavey for example, in additon with great speakers >my Electro Voice are killers !) than a direct recording usage (I used to record with it through a Behringer GI100 in the past, but it bored me at last), as I prefer virtual amps simulations nowadays (Revalver, Guitar Rig...you named it).

If you want an idea of rock/metal/shred/funk tones with my gears, you can listen to my tunes in my website:

http://ricodomain.free.fr/

It's in french, you can choose which kind of music you want from the left border (Guitare> instrumental shred/funk/metal guitar songs;
Bande Son> soundtracks for some amateur games; Metal> Metal Songs !)

Waiting for your comments !

See ya !