pickngrin1 said:
I ordered an AL about a month ago from a local music store.Probably another 2-3 month wait.Is there any reason to believe my axe won't be anything less than spectacular?
No.
Will the swamp ash be light, resonant and well figured?
I've never seen a transparent finished AL with bad grain. The straight transparent finishes seem to darken and enhance the grain more than the burst finishes from what I've seen.
It doesn't really "figure" though, it's not maple.
The 3 that I've owned have varied in weight but all have had a nice resonance.
Will the neck have outrageous birdseye?
That varies too. The one I have now has the craziest birdseye I've ever seen on the neck, the other 2 were average.
Will the P/Ups be wound and balanced just right?
They'll be what they're supposed to be. MM90's are magic and shouldn't be messed with, strat-style pickups are made for experimentation.
I've gone through about 4 sets of pickups on mine. Next stop? Stelly.
This is kinda like waiting for a newborn to arrive and hoping it has 10 toes and fingers.How have the rest of you coped with the waiting game?
Beer.
What exactly did you get? I'll probably be ordering a MM90 version pretty soon if I can stop buying amps.
The AL is a great guitar, and by that I mean it's unique and well made. It affords you the opportunity to become very attached to it, which very few guitars do, in my experience.
Quick story.
My band is trying to record a CD, and I've been recording guitar parts. I have about 5 or 6 guitars of various types...335, Tele, Casino, 12 string, Jazzmaster, etc. When I started, I had the intention of using every one of them so I could get diifferent sounds for different parts.
That was about a month ago. It's ended up that I've used the AL for about 90% of it...I feel connected to that guitar, and I can play the parts I need to play. If they all sound like an AL, hey I'm ok with that. I can get enough variety of tone by using different amps.
Early on I spent about 3 hours trying to get a part right on this '62 custom tele. Just couldn't hit it. Gave up, plugged in the AL, hit it, went home, had a beer.
End of story, end of monthly "AL's rule" rant.
tv