Mr. Luddite
- show quoted text -
I enjoyed having the guitar shop and learning about them ... how they
are built, their histories, which ones are valuable, which are not, etc.

It was the customers that drove me nuts.

.....

Yep. But it was fun while it lasted... 😊�

On Fri, 19 Jan 2018 10:54:32 -0500, "Mr. Luddite" wrote:

On 1/19/2018 10:44 AM, wrote:
On Fri, 19 Jan 2018 08:54:46 -0500, John H
wrote:

On Thu, 18 Jan 2018 19:31:12 -0500, wrote:

On Thu, 18 Jan 2018 13:43:41 -0500, John H
wrote:

...first movement must have been way too much for you, eh Harry. Old Ludwig got quite 'bombastic'
there. Oh, maybe you found a nice, peaceful version played on a piano, eh?

My favorite version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7NL6CmUC94

Sounds a bit better, but not much, on the original Telarc CD.


===

Nice, hadn't listened to the 5th in a while, but always a musical
treat. It's also a reminder of how YouTube has become a massive
personal jukebox of sorts, and almost totally eliminated the need for
maintaing a big private music collection. I must have close to a
thousand CDs that haven't been listened to in years. Should I try to
sell them, along with my many hundreds of vinyl LPs that haven't been
out of the packing boxes for over 25 years? Is there a market for
that sort of thing? Right now they are going to waste, and I doubt if
my kids would want them. The grand children wouldn't even know what
they were.

---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com

Great questlion! Just this morning I was wondering what to do with my CDs. I've got all the early
Telarc CDs, before they got carried away with junk. Not as many as you've got, though. I gave a
hundred or so to my daughters a couple years back.

That's a funny coincidence.

I'll probably donate mine to Purple Heart. On Ebay, the Telarc classicals are going for $3-9. Not
worth the hassle. If I had a large vinyl collection I might try putting them on Ebay, by genre, as a
collection. But a couple hundred bucks may not be worth the hassle either!

Ebay is really not that much of a hassle but I know what you mean. I
ended up giving away hundreds of albums a few years ago and I am sure
they ended up on Ebay or at a flea market. For some people, two bucks
is two bucks. I just did not know which ones might end up being $20 or
more. I put them on craigs list for free and a young couple scooped
them up, oooing and aahing over a few. They seemed most excited over
albums from people I never heard of.


When we moved two years ago I had four boxes full of vinyls, many of
them that Mrs.E. and I had collected over the years (before CD's came
out) and many from my dad's collection from the 40's, 50's and early
60's. We put them out in a couple of yard sales we had trying to
lighten the amount of "stuff" we had. No takers on any of them. Killed
me but I ended up tossing them all in the dumpster. Selling on eBay
wasn't even a consideration. It's a pain to sell. Easy to buy.

I'll donate them to Purple Heart, claim the Ebay prices as 'fair market value' and take my miserable
deduction...if charitable deductions are still permitted.

On Fri, 19 Jan 2018 12:36:54 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

I enjoyed having the guitar shop and learning about them ... how they
are built, their histories, which ones are valuable, which are not, etc.

It was the customers that drove me nuts.


Yeah, if it wasn't for all of those pesky customers this would be a
great job ;-)

On 1/19/2018 2:02 PM, Tim wrote:
Mr. Luddite
- show quoted text -
I enjoyed having the guitar shop and learning about them ... how they
are built, their histories, which ones are valuable, which are not, etc.

It was the customers that drove me nuts.

....

Yep. But it was fun while it lasted... 😊�



By far, most of the people that used to hang out at the shop were great
and we enjoyed them coming in, often engaging in impromptu jam sessions
or just talking about guitars, etc. But, a few really got under my
skin due to enormous egos. I gained a reputation that Rick and others
used to kid me about for kicking people out of the shop, permanently.

An example:

One Saturday the shop was full of people. We had a stage with a bunch
of tables and chairs in front for people to sit when we had events.
People were having a good time talking, having coffee, etc. when a guy I
had never seen before walked in with his wife or girlfriend. He
demonstrated an arrogant attitude right away and told me he wanted to
see a vintage amp that we had advertised on the shop's web site.

Showed him where the amp was and he wanted to try it out. No problem.
My son was there and he got the guy a guitar and a cord. Guy plugs in,
turns the amp on, turned the volume up full blast and started wailing
away. It was so loud (and distorted) that nobody in the fairly large
shop could hear each other talk anymore. Whatever he was trying to play
was horrible. This went on for a few minutes until I had enough and I
walked over to him, reached down and turned the volume down a bit,
politely telling the guy that it was a bit too loud.

He became indignant. Said, "I am a professional musician and I want to
check out this amp." That's all it took. I said, "I don't care if
you're Eric Clapton, there's the door ... get out!" His wife or
girlfriend couldn't believe it and asked me if I was serious. "Yup,
there's the door, get out".

That was one of several.

On Friday, 19 January 2018 19:15:47 UTC-4, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 1/19/2018 2:02 PM, Tim wrote:
Mr. Luddite
- show quoted text -
I enjoyed having the guitar shop and learning about them ... how they
are built, their histories, which ones are valuable, which are not, etc..

It was the customers that drove me nuts.

....

Yep. But it was fun while it lasted... 😊�



By far, most of the people that used to hang out at the shop were great
and we enjoyed them coming in, often engaging in impromptu jam sessions
or just talking about guitars, etc. But, a few really got under my
skin due to enormous egos. I gained a reputation that Rick and others
used to kid me about for kicking people out of the shop, permanently.

An example:

One Saturday the shop was full of people. We had a stage with a bunch
of tables and chairs in front for people to sit when we had events.
People were having a good time talking, having coffee, etc. when a guy I
had never seen before walked in with his wife or girlfriend. He
demonstrated an arrogant attitude right away and told me he wanted to
see a vintage amp that we had advertised on the shop's web site.

Showed him where the amp was and he wanted to try it out. No problem.
My son was there and he got the guy a guitar and a cord. Guy plugs in,
turns the amp on, turned the volume up full blast and started wailing
away. It was so loud (and distorted) that nobody in the fairly large
shop could hear each other talk anymore. Whatever he was trying to play
was horrible. This went on for a few minutes until I had enough and I
walked over to him, reached down and turned the volume down a bit,
politely telling the guy that it was a bit too loud.

He became indignant. Said, "I am a professional musician and I want to
check out this amp." That's all it took. I said, "I don't care if
you're Eric Clapton, there's the door ... get out!" His wife or
girlfriend couldn't believe it and asked me if I was serious. "Yup,
there's the door, get out".

That was one of several.

He probably wasn't going to buy anything anyway...or maybe he was on dope. Good move.

On 1/19/2018 6:33 PM, True North wrote:
On Friday, 19 January 2018 19:15:47 UTC-4, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 1/19/2018 2:02 PM, Tim wrote:
Mr. Luddite
- show quoted text -
I enjoyed having the guitar shop and learning about them ... how they
are built, their histories, which ones are valuable, which are not, etc.

It was the customers that drove me nuts.

....

Yep. But it was fun while it lasted... 😊�



By far, most of the people that used to hang out at the shop were great
and we enjoyed them coming in, often engaging in impromptu jam sessions
or just talking about guitars, etc. But, a few really got under my
skin due to enormous egos. I gained a reputation that Rick and others
used to kid me about for kicking people out of the shop, permanently.

An example:

One Saturday the shop was full of people. We had a stage with a bunch
of tables and chairs in front for people to sit when we had events.
People were having a good time talking, having coffee, etc. when a guy I
had never seen before walked in with his wife or girlfriend. He
demonstrated an arrogant attitude right away and told me he wanted to
see a vintage amp that we had advertised on the shop's web site.

Showed him where the amp was and he wanted to try it out. No problem.
My son was there and he got the guy a guitar and a cord. Guy plugs in,
turns the amp on, turned the volume up full blast and started wailing
away. It was so loud (and distorted) that nobody in the fairly large
shop could hear each other talk anymore. Whatever he was trying to play
was horrible. This went on for a few minutes until I had enough and I
walked over to him, reached down and turned the volume down a bit,
politely telling the guy that it was a bit too loud.

He became indignant. Said, "I am a professional musician and I want to
check out this amp." That's all it took. I said, "I don't care if
you're Eric Clapton, there's the door ... get out!" His wife or
girlfriend couldn't believe it and asked me if I was serious. "Yup,
there's the door, get out".

That was one of several.

He probably wasn't going to buy anything anyway...or maybe he was on dope. Good move.



I wasn't always an ass though. The guitar shop for me was more of a
retirement hobby than a real business venture. I had some extra money
and needed something to do so, with the strong persuasion of Mrs.E. I
opened the shop.

There was a young couple that used to come in every weekend for a while.
The guy was a guitar player of sorts and I had a guitar that he wanted
badly. It wasn't a super expensive one ... in fact I think it was one
of those "shredder" type guitars popular with young people. Anyway,
they would come in, he'd quietly play it for a while but didn't have the
money saved up yet to buy it.

Then one day they came in and he said he had the money for it. After he
played it again, his young girlfriend and he went outside and talked a
bit. When they came back in he announced that he decided not to buy it
after all because his girlfriend was pregnant and they were getting
married soon. He said they realized that the money for the guitar would
be better spent on preparing for their new kid.

I was impressed with this young couple for thinking so maturely and told
them so. Then I went over, grabbed the guitar and it's case and handed
it to them. Told them it was a wedding present.

A few months later they came by with their new baby and gave me a
picture of her. Still have it.

Some memories of the shop are pretty good.

On Fri, 19 Jan 2018 18:17:29 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

I enjoyed trying but soon realized I was never meant to be in retail sales.


That is why IBM paid more for "customer contact" people than they did
for engineers who lived in a lab or a plant. Dealing with customers
takes a certain finesse.
It is also why my wife was so successful in the building biz. She
could sell the upgrades, build the house and close it walking the
customer along the whole way.
She is actually jumping back in as we speak, working for a builder she
knows.

Mr. Luddite
- show quoted text -
Not sure storing with string tension off for a long time is a good idea
but probably won't hurt it. It might need to have the truss rod in the
neck adjusted because after a while, being wood, the neck moves and
takes a set. With the string tension relieved, the truss rod has more
effect on the neck. The result can be either "high action" meaning the
strings end up being higher off the fret board than ideal, making the
guitar much more difficult to play or too low of an action causing the
some strings to "buzz" on the frets.

More important is to make sure it is humidified during the heating
season. You can buy guitar humidifiers but it's just as effective to
get a plastic soap box, drill a bunch of holes in it's top, put in a
couple of wet, (not dripping) sponges and put the soap box anywhere in
the case with the guitar. I put it under the headstock. Keep the case
closed and re-wet the sponge every 2 or 3 months. Wood dries out and
shrinks during the dry winter months and if affects the neck more than
anything else.

.....

A bass may be different. Long term storage I’ll drop the strings a note or two. But don’t take them all the way down. Don’t know if that’s good or not but that’s how I’ve done it...

On Saturday, 20 January 2018 10:52:19 UTC-4, Tim wrote:
Mr. Luddite
- show quoted text -
Not sure storing with string tension off for a long time is a good idea
but probably won't hurt it. It might need to have the truss rod in the
neck adjusted because after a while, being wood, the neck moves and
takes a set. With the string tension relieved, the truss rod has more
effect on the neck. The result can be either "high action" meaning the
strings end up being higher off the fret board than ideal, making the
guitar much more difficult to play or too low of an action causing the
some strings to "buzz" on the frets.

More important is to make sure it is humidified during the heating
season. You can buy guitar humidifiers but it's just as effective to
get a plastic soap box, drill a bunch of holes in it's top, put in a
couple of wet, (not dripping) sponges and put the soap box anywhere in
the case with the guitar. I put it under the headstock. Keep the case
closed and re-wet the sponge every 2 or 3 months. Wood dries out and
shrinks during the dry winter months and if affects the neck more than
anything else.

....

A bass may be different. Long term storage I’ll drop the strings a note or two. But don’t take them all the way down. Don’t know if that’s good or not but that’s how I’ve done it...

After the last thread on this subject a few years ago I've been storing my Tacamine with no tension and a guitar humidifier.

On 1/20/2018 9:52 AM, Tim wrote:
Mr. Luddite
- show quoted text -
Not sure storing with string tension off for a long time is a good idea
but probably won't hurt it. It might need to have the truss rod in the
neck adjusted because after a while, being wood, the neck moves and
takes a set. With the string tension relieved, the truss rod has more
effect on the neck. The result can be either "high action" meaning the
strings end up being higher off the fret board than ideal, making the
guitar much more difficult to play or too low of an action causing the
some strings to "buzz" on the frets.

More important is to make sure it is humidified during the heating
season. You can buy guitar humidifiers but it's just as effective to
get a plastic soap box, drill a bunch of holes in it's top, put in a
couple of wet, (not dripping) sponges and put the soap box anywhere in
the case with the guitar. I put it under the headstock. Keep the case
closed and re-wet the sponge every 2 or 3 months. Wood dries out and
shrinks during the dry winter months and if affects the neck more than
anything else.

....

A bass may be different. Long term storage I’ll drop the strings a note or two. But don’t take them all the way down. Don’t know if that’s good or not but that’s how I’ve done it...



I recommend the same for 6 strings. Don't completely relieve the
tension. Just reduce it while in long term storage.