Stuart Herbert

I’m slowly but surely moving everything from my old svn.gnqs.org domain to stuartherbert.com. My diary has already moved, and now my homepage has too.

Update: My photo gallery is now back online.

I’ve been looking for a replacement for my aging Charvel for a few years now. I bought that guitar second hand back in 1991, because it had this lovely jazzy clean sound, and it’s been my main guitar ever since. (I hate playing guitars that don’t have warmth and character when played unplugged). I think that, like all Charvels of its time, it was made & sold as a rock/metal guitar, but Alas, the neck hasn’t aged well, and it no longer holds a tune across the full length of the neck (Or maybe that’s just my guitar playing? Heh

Yesterday, I found an almost perfect replacement, the Ibanez SZ320MH. Loved it so much I just had to bring it home with me Took me all of 2 minutes playing it unplugged to decide that this guitar had the right sort of natural sound

Initial impressions are that the reviews on Harmony Central are pretty spot-on. The bridge pickup is a little hot (but not as hot as the Seymour Duncan on my Jackson) but sounds really smooth and sweet if you roll the volume back a little. With the pickup selector in the middle position, the clean sound is very close to my old Charvel’s, but with noticably more resonance, thanks to the through-body stringing and the set neck. That’s right - this puppy’s neck isn’t a bolt-on

I have to admit, I found it very difficult putting it down to come into work this morning. Mmm … I wonder if that’s why they made sure I took the office keys home with me last night?