penningtron wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 2:13 pm I have 3 or 4 mostly not valuable (and modified) electric guitars that I basically don't play anymore. I have no problem 'letting go' of stuff but dread the mountain of work and even money to get them into a state where others would want them. Maybe I'll just drop 'em off in a Goodwill bin and speed off..

This is the problem I’ve had when considering whether to get rid of gear (of which I definitely have too much). So many of my guitars have been modified or tinkered-with, and most aren’t valuable to begin with. All that time and money I poured into converting my sunburst, Vista-era Squier Jagmaster into a faux-Jaguar has actually denuded its value in a way that would be hard to reverse. (And when I die, somebody’s going to be faced with unloading this stupid guitar he or she can’t even identify. Or somebody’s going to get my outwardly-normal Dunlop Rotovibe, and be like, “What the hell? This thing doesn’t even work like it’s supposed to!”)

The older I get, the more it’s starting to nag at me that a lifetime spent obsessively personalizing my gear has probably made it into a huge pile of junk as far as anyone else would be concerned.

The Yeoman Ghost wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 7:15 pm my outwardly-normal Dunlop Rotovibe

what “happened” to the rotovibe, ghost?

The Yeoman Ghost wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 7:15 pm
This is the problem I’ve had when considering whether to get rid of gear (of which I definitely have too much). So many of my guitars have been modified or tinkered-with, and most aren’t valuable to begin with. All that time and money I poured into converting my sunburst, Vista-era Squier Jagmaster into a faux-Jaguar has actually denuded its value in a way that would be hard to reverse. (And when I die, somebody’s going to be faced with unloading this stupid guitar he or she can’t even identify. Or somebody’s going to get my outwardly-normal Dunlop Rotovibe, and be like, “What the hell? This thing doesn’t even work like it’s supposed to!”)

The older I get, the more it’s starting to nag at me that a lifetime spent obsessively personalizing my gear has probably made it into a huge pile of junk as far as anyone else would be concerned.

In terms of resale value, this may be true, but reading your post, I just thought, "that sounds great". If it was me, and as long as my modding hadn't made them annoying, broken or less useful to me, I'd be proud. There's a bajillion Squier Whatevers, and yours is unique. And even in value terms, a) it's not like you've hacked up a Bean to make a ukulele or put a Floyd Rose on something worth several grand and b) now that certain older Squiers seem to be reselling for stupid money, it just demonstrates how arbitrary and unreliable markets are and c) if someone is prepared to pay significant bucks for a Jagmaster, there's also a good chance that some mods won't trouble them in the slightest. People after something specific often relish the idea of either restoring it or modding it further. Others would love finding something truly unique.

EDIT: 15-20 years ago, this conversation would have people saying, I wish I had been more careful with my Jazzmaster rather than kicking it around the stage at the end of every show, and now people are paying hundreds and thousands to have precisely this sort of wear and damage put onto their eye-wateringly expensive brand-new guitars.

Value is a fragile and subjective thing.

penningtron wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 2:13 pmWishing I could go back 20 years and just buy one really nice Tele or Strat and that could've been my guitar for life...

This is more or less the thought process with my first/current bass, even though, starting out at least, it wasn't that exotic or high-end. But the basic idea is to do what needs to be done to optimize it to my tastes, and then stick with it as the only thud staff, to get used to its ins and outs over time...as opposed to acquiring more of them down the road and having an excess of variables/what ifs to contend with, the possibility of endless tweaking/"tone chasing"/etc. that (for me at least) could easily get in the way of playing.

penningtron wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 2:13 pm I have 3 or 4 mostly not valuable (and modified) electric guitars that I basically don't play anymore. I have no problem 'letting go' of stuff but dread the mountain of work and even money to get them into a state where others would want them. Maybe I'll just drop 'em off in a Goodwill bin and speed off..

I'm kinda looking for a cheap playable Fendery guitar to string Nashville tuning. Maybe I have a pedal I could trade you or something. I'm not against a road trip.

penningtron wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 2:13 pm Wishing I could go back 20 years and just buy one really nice Tele or Strat and that could've been my guitar for life, instead of weird hodgepodge crap I thought made me 'stand out' or whatever at the time. I'd rather prevent the cumbersome and embarrassing estate sale while I'm here..

Yeah, this is a big one. I've had a LOT of guitars. But I had a couple of eras where I had one mainstay that got the lions share of the playing. Luckily I've held onto one of them I picked up in 2001. But yeah, if I could do it all over I'd buy an American '52 reissue Telecaster and a reissue Vox AC30/6 TB back in 1998 and call it a day. Better yet, make that in 2001 when I could have gotten both new at cost and didn't. I'd probably be happier for it and not have wasted a lot of time/money/energy. Granted, both of these are totally still semi-affordable (relatively) now, so it isn't about the investment.

tommy wrote: Fri Jan 21, 2022 8:46 am

penningtron wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 2:13 pm I have 3 or 4 mostly not valuable (and modified) electric guitars that I basically don't play anymore. I have no problem 'letting go' of stuff but dread the mountain of work and even money to get them into a state where others would want them. Maybe I'll just drop 'em off in a Goodwill bin and speed off..

I'm kinda looking for a cheap playable Fendery guitar to string Nashville tuning. Maybe I have a pedal I could trade you or something. I'm not against a road trip.

Thanks, but I'll probably do the opposite and put the energy into selling the few worth a bit of money, and hold on to the oddballs for my own weird tunings (should I ever get the spark back).

jirbling rake wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 11:56 pm

The Yeoman Ghost wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 7:15 pm my outwardly-normal Dunlop Rotovibe

what “happened” to the rotovibe, ghost?

I always thought it was batty that toe-down is maximum rate, and heel-down is minimum, so that when you click the pedal on, you have to ramp it down from its most extreme setting, rather than starting from maximum subtlety and ramping up. I know you could theoretically solve this by setting the pedal where you want it and activating it via a loop — but besides the backwards operation, I always wanted a slower sweep speed than the minimum rate produced.

So I mailed the Rotovibe off to FX Doctor and had them reverse the rate pot, and also mod the rate sweep. The sweep is actually kind of wonky now: through the first two-thirds or so of the travel, the rate is so slow that’s it’s functionally non-existant. But near full heel-down, I get into the range I want, and at full heel-down I get a pleasant, musical warble that’s slower than the stock pedal’s somewhat-chaotic maximum warble. It’s not perfect, but it works for me.

And it will confuse the bejeezus out of whoever buys it at my estate sale, thinking they’re getting an ordinary Rotovibe. (Maybe I should specify in my will that my executor post my Rotovibe to the Gear Liquidation thread on the PRF, free to the first taker. At least then there’d be a chance the recipient would know what they’re getting.)

(Maybe I should specify in my will that my executor post my Rotovibe to the Gear Liquidation thread on the PRF, free to the first taker. At least then there’d be a chance the recipient would know what they’re getting.)

I just realized that I may have proposed a solution to my own conundrum. (When the time comes, PM me if you’re interested in my mongrel Jaguar-master….)

The Yeoman Ghost wrote: Fri Jan 21, 2022 7:15 pmSo I mailed the Rotovibe off to FX Doctor and had them reverse the rate pot, and also mod the rate sweep.

Sounds like an awesome mod. That makes a lot of sense to me. I always felt the same way about a standard wahs turning on at full blast