Re: B.W.E.D. (Best Wife EVER Day!)
Okay, it's been a few days and here are my first impressions:
Once I got that pesky high-G string to stay at pitch I went ahead and intonated it and WOW does it sound great! Since I already have a 12-string acoustic, I've mostly played around with things with which I'm already familiar using the clean channel with some reverb and a little delay and it sounds nice and rich. It has Duncan Designed HB-102 pickups which, according to the S-D site, are essentially a JB/Jazz combo made overseas somewhere. I think my favorite clean setting is in the center position with the neck split giving it just a smidge more of an "acoustic" sound.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the neck is nice and fast, so you can play decent leads with it, but it sometimes gets a little funky when bending. I'll probably try to keep bends to a minimum with this guitar and play any leads straight. As an example, I can see myself playing "Two Tickets to Paradise" with this guitar (I play the lead part on that one, which almost doubles as a rhythm part). I can also see myself using it for "Let it Ride," which has a nice strong clean rhythm part for the intro/chorus that switches to a dirty, chunky drive during the verses. Haven't messed that much with dirty-channel rhythms yet. So far it sounds nice and full for power chords, but a little "squeaky" for full chords, particularly as you travel up the neck. I'll definitely keep messing around with it dirty, though. This guitar
looks too badass to keep it clean all the time!
One of the reasons I wanted to have one of these guitars was to have something a little different. I already have 3 nice dual-humbucker guitars (one is a semi-hollow and one is actually HSH) that are great players, and a fun LP with P-90s... I'd like to get a Tele at some point, but I honestly don't use my splits that much unless I'm trying to get a lighter, more acoustic sound, and it's easier to just take a splittable humbucker guitar to a gig and flip a switch than it is to change guitars if I want that type of sound (I know, not the same, but the crowd can't tell).
The Perfect 10 Bich was definitely something different! I have no interest in learning how to incorporate 7 or 8 strings into my playing... those seem more like metal guitars to me anyway, and I'm more of a classic rock guy. The 10 string with 6 courses gives me a 12-string style sound with a string layout that I'm already familiar with.
I will say this as a little bit of a downside to the 10-string vs 6 or 12. Sometimes when I'm fretting the "A" string, which is the only single string that sits next to a doubled one (the "D"... see the pic below), my finger will catch that octave "D" and the chord will sound wonky because the "D" was supposed to be fretted behind the "A" (think of an open "C" chord). Power chords or standard bar chords... no problem, but there are some that I have to think about my EXACT finger positioning ahead of time. Only a small thing... will just take some getting used to!
Gotta go to Lowe's now and get stuff for installing the wife's new washer and dryer... hoping I have time later to install P-Rails in my semi-hollow!
