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In my 35 years of playing and owning close to maybe 200 instruments I've never owned an Explorer. Weird shaped, weird feeling guitars generally aren't my thing. Hell... I marry have only played an Explorer once or twice in all these years. But I dig the way they look on Lizzy Hale, Matthias Jabs, the guy from The Killers, and others. They flat-out scream rock & roll the way they look. You can associate Strats, LPs, 335s, and others with country, jazz, and blues. But Explorers, Flying Vs, SGs, and Firebirds mostly suggest rock/metal. Kind of ironic that those are the four models that I haven't owned and rarely played.
I've gigged country, rock, and metal since the 80s. I guess that I've never cared for the way they sit and balance on me. The Explorer balances the best of those four. I can't stand the headstock-heavy balance of the Firebirds, Vs and SGs. The Explorer still feels strange to me, but I think I can get used to it. If not, I can sell it for what I paid for it. It's a recent model that came into my buddy's store used... but still has the plastic on the guard. He had a luthier replace the robo-tuners with locking Grovers and replaced the lead-weighted control cavity cover... as well as giving it a great setup job. I think it might hang around a bit. Just makes me wanna rock. Played through a bunch of Accept, Candlebox, and Gin Blossoms today and felt like it fit well. Wanted to do a bunch of Scorpions, but didn't get to it. I may end up throwing a set of Fralin Pure PAFs or a JB/59 in there... or maybe some DiMarzio 36th Anniversary PAFs. Gonna give the stock pups a few more days first though.
I've gigged country, rock, and metal since the 80s. I guess that I've never cared for the way they sit and balance on me. The Explorer balances the best of those four. I can't stand the headstock-heavy balance of the Firebirds, Vs and SGs. The Explorer still feels strange to me, but I think I can get used to it. If not, I can sell it for what I paid for it. It's a recent model that came into my buddy's store used... but still has the plastic on the guard. He had a luthier replace the robo-tuners with locking Grovers and replaced the lead-weighted control cavity cover... as well as giving it a great setup job. I think it might hang around a bit. Just makes me wanna rock. Played through a bunch of Accept, Candlebox, and Gin Blossoms today and felt like it fit well. Wanted to do a bunch of Scorpions, but didn't get to it. I may end up throwing a set of Fralin Pure PAFs or a JB/59 in there... or maybe some DiMarzio 36th Anniversary PAFs. Gonna give the stock pups a few more days first though.
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