Heritage Guitar love

Scott_F

Scott_F

Flushologist
Staff member
No sure how many of you have taken the plunge at some point on Heritage but if you've not, perhaps consider.

I was playing their clone of a Gibson 330 they call a H530. It simply blows me away every time I play it. I've got several what I would consider to be great guitars. Perhaps it's the neck shape on this one of the near perfect set up (PLEK) or whatever I can't put into words but it damn near plays itself. For a hack like me, that's a beautiful thing!

Years back I had a Heritage H535 gold top and it was a stunner but I could never get right with the Bigsby and sold it.

If you don't know the Heritage story, it's the old Gibson plant in Kalamazoo essentially started 28 years ago by many of the old Gibson employees. Their quality has always been first rate on anything I've picked up.

I see a new H535 in my future.
 
Re: Heritage Guitar love

Scott_F said:
No sure how many of you have taken the plunge at some point on Heritage but if you've not, perhaps consider.

I was playing their clone of a Gibson 330 they call a H530. It simply blows me away every time I play it. I've got several what I would consider to be great guitars. Perhaps it's the neck shape on this one of the near perfect set up (PLEK) or whatever I can't put into words but it damn near plays itself. For a hack like me, that's a beautiful thing!

Years back I had a Heritage H535 gold top and it was a stunner but I could never get right with the Bigsby and sold it.

If you don't know the Heritage story, it's the old Gibson plant in Kalamazoo essentially started 28 years ago by many of the old Gibson employees. Their quality has always been first rate on anything I've picked up.

I see a new H535 in my future.
Click to expand...

I always admired their guitars and can't find any logical reason why they wouldn't be amazing, especially considering their resale value...buying used and all. My only problem is: they're quite hard to find north of the border so I've never even played one...
 
Re: Heritage Guitar love

Everything I hear is that they are top shelf. Ive never been able to lay hands on one and Im always short on cash when Brentrocks rolls one of his gems.
 
Re: Heritage Guitar love

Chicago Music has them and there's a big dealer in Florida. Basically they play like the best custom shop Gibsons you have ever played. You just have to get used to their head stock shape! :)
 
Re: Heritage Guitar love

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Re: Heritage Guitar love

And the new ones ship with great pickups (often Seth Lovers or 59's). My 530 had Lollars P90's in it. I'm hesitant to change them out as thats surgery I don't really want to dig that deep into. F hold access and my larger fingers do not agree. The Lollars sound nice as it is. Also shipping with TonePros bridges. These guys get it. CTS pots, etc.

I was talking to one Heritage dealer and the 535 had a 59 in the neck and a Seth Lover in the bridge. I asked him about changing them. He didn't want to do it either but instead of just telling me that, he tried to reason with me that the SL neck gets lost in the mix on stage and all that. While I've never played a Seth versus a 59 on stage with a band, not my thing, I proceeded to school him on how much I love the Seth Lovers.
 
Re: Heritage Guitar love

Heritage makes great stuff and I have to think that their instruments are going to become collectible when the original founders, one of whom passed recently, get out of the guitar-making business.
 
Re: Heritage Guitar love

I had a H150 CM (Classic/maple) for about 10 years. I bought in 93 or 1994 after selling off my Gibsons and doing the strat thing for a couple years. It had a better top than Gibson was using at the time (Those early 90s standards were plaintops, nowadays my attitude has changed- plain over flame), and it was cheaper to boot.

My bggest issue with it was that godawful schaller roller bridge and tailpiece. The headstock was hard to take (as was the pickguard and no poker chip-easy fixes) Also the nut was cut poorly for the G-string. At times I have been overly critical (in hindsight) of it. But all in all it was a very high quality instrument. It played very well despite the horribly small neck, and it sounded great blasting through my 1987 and big cabs.

These days I would love to have another, especially a H157 (Custom) in the old style sunburst or the 535 Plain maple top in the same color. They have greatly improved the hardware and necks, and the headstock/cutaway no longer bothers me like it used to.
 
Re: Heritage Guitar love

I've never been able to get along with them. They don't play anything like Gibsons to me.
 
Re: Heritage Guitar love

Difficult to come by on my side of the Atlantic.

Also, for me, there are strong negative associations with the brand due to the incessant gear touting of a certain member of this forum.
 
Re: Heritage Guitar love

i think they are very well built great sounding guitars but ive never bonded with the necks
 
Re: Heritage Guitar love

I've played a couple of 535s and a 555 that were nice, but most of the Heritage guitars I've played have had finish and binding issues that really had me scratching my head. They were bad enough to make most Gibsons look perfect. The inconsistency bothered me. I really wanted to like these guitars.

Another issue is that the guitars are hard to come by; there are no dealers that I know of in this neck of the woods.

And so, I choose to buy and play Gibson.

Bill
 
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