stupid question by Vegas Weirdo


Vegas Wierdo
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Joined: 01/28/06
Posts: 239
Vegas Wierdo
Registered User
Joined: 01/28/06
Posts: 239
03/05/2006 12:24 am
When I was growin' up, I always liked to go to cheap punk rock shows. As in, where they were either free or, like, three or five bucks... and at some VFW Hall or (better yet) an abandoned warehouse or something. The best ones were when one of the bands would know some crazy redneck who lived wayyyyyy the hell up in the northern mountains of Los Angeles county on forty acres of heavily-treed cliff-ringed no-man's land.... :D

But anyways, everyone would always dress up their guitars with stickers. As in, cheap band stickers you would get at punk shows, at Hot Topic or at a real punk boutique, etc. etc.

Hey, what else were they gonna do? Not like they could take it into a fancy custom shop and get it painted up the way they wanted. Nor was it worth the do-it-yourself effort for your bottom-level cheap-o knockoff guitar, although every once in a while some weirdo would try and do something along those lines.

...and since I just put yet another sticker on top of my kitchen table (I got it from Walmart and it's made of plastic so it's not like I'm [bleep]ing up heirloom walnut or anything), I was flooded with memories, and then had this thought....

Does having your guitar plastered with stickers foul up the tone?

Well, with cheap guitars like that - and of course, with the brand of puke they were playing on them - it probably didn't matter much. Not to mention the bombed-out pawnshop amps. And obviously they didn't care about the finish... I mean, scratches, gouges, dents, burrs, etc. were "battle scars" unless you put them in yourself on purpose. :D

But what happens if you put a bunch of stickers on your $3,000 Les Paul Custom? Or on your $5,000 Paul Reed Smith?

Not that anyone in their right mind would do that to such a guitar. I mean, hypothetically... what would happen. I mean, could vandals break into your house, bust open your guitar case and plaster your $1,500 Paul Johnson sig. edition Fender Strat with stickers and foul up its tone for ever and ever more?

Well, what happens? Would just one sticker foul it up? Or would you have to plaster on like a four millimeter thick layer of them? Or what?

Stupid question, I know. :D
# 1
6strngs_2hmbkrs
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6strngs_2hmbkrs
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03/05/2006 7:20 am
cheap guitars have those like solid color finishes, those are begging to get stickered. but the high end guitars have things like quilt maple tops that are just so beautiful to look at that you don't want to cover it up with stickers.. I don't think they'll affect your tone at all though.
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# 2
acapella
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acapella
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03/05/2006 9:47 am
On an electric I don't think it would matter. An acoustic guitar, where the weight would affect it's ability to resonate, that would be bad. But on an electric the weight of the guitar doesn't affect the tone. Man...I can feel the flame war beginning already...
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# 3
Lordathestrings
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Lordathestrings
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03/05/2006 3:44 pm
Too much of anything is bad for you. I've seen arguments among major serious tone-freaks about nitrocelulose sounding better than polyurethane, but I don't think it makes any difference on a solid-body axe. I suspect that by the time you put enough stickers on the front to deaden the tone, you'd have problems getting at the strings. I avoid 'em myself, 'cause they look just as "me too" as the bitch-brand tatts so many women are wearing now.
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# 4
jeffhx
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Joined: 12/20/05
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jeffhx
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03/05/2006 4:21 pm
i reckon itll be kinda cool to have brand stickers or plates stuck whenever you modify your axe....just like cars ya know...maybe if u went to a shop to get a seymour duncan pickup, they'd place this sign somewhere on your guitar...LOL.... then again it could spoil it and look ugly....
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# 5

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