Tyler Studio Elite 'Burning Water'

I usually don't like stratoscasters and even less fancy custom paint but I have to admit that I find this Tyler Studio Elite with its 'Burning Water' finish pretty cool. So everything is possible, eh?

Nylon string acoustic double-neck

Another noticeable double-neck guitar is this nylon string acoustic one by luthier Fred Carlson. Here the body is hardly bigger than a single neck one - and this is good. Though it has six nylon strings, the longer neck could be considered as a bass one since its scale is 34' - but the baritone label doesn't require a strict scale and baritone guitars can have various scales, starting from 27'... The strings make the difference, for example the famous Fender Bass VI (30' scale) can be a quite different instrument with bass strings or baritone strings.

The other instrument on the picture from the same luthier is a sympathetic guitar - called Sympitar - with 12 sympathetic resonating strings inside the neck.

18 strings, not bad, eh? (this is my 'the more strings the better' of the week).

BC Rich Bich double-neck

Another double-neck guitar I do like, with its also divergent necks is the BC Rich Bich. You might be repulsed by its too pointy look but I find it quite elegant, and quite fonctional - that is often related. I was first interested in the Rich Bich 10 - also a good concept with 4 double strings and 2 single low ones - but the double neck works quite well too. If I was to buy a 12/6 one day, it would be probably this one..

60s Mosrite Joe Maphis

Many reactions on the previous post about the Gretsch Baritone double-neck, including a comparison with the great Mosrite Joe Maphis that has indeed a much cooler look and more important has non-parallel necks, that is more organic and allows a smaller body... I just regret that it only exists as a 12/6 and not baritone/6. Also it's long time discontinued and therefore unaffordable.

About why do people use double-neck guitars, if it's just to have a rhythmic neck / solo neck for a song, I'm far from convinced - would be more interesting to develop solos with 12-string, and unless you're Jimi Hendrix ou David Gilmour, solos are so often just fillings that they don't require something so sophisticated as a double-neck guitar... Jazz à la McLaughlin feels more relevant. And I know what to do with one too (but I'm not McLaughlin, for sure).

More double-necks later!

Gretsch G5566 Jet Double Neck Baritone

this Gretsch Jet double neck Baritone is on my list of must have - at least of must play (not a fan of the sparkle finish)! A Baritone double-neck is something - more interesting to me than a 6/12. I would open-tune the regular neck for slide so I could play it from upward and shift super quick from one neck to the other.

Two Bigsbys are a lot but I'd probably enjoy them if I was better at using them!

It's hard to comment more on a Gretsch guitar since I assume that they are perfect and that you just have to write Gretsch.

Danelectro also produced a baritone double-neck - I don't know other brands that did it.

While researching this guitar, I discovered that Gretsch also releases its own line of ugly ridiculous painted guitars - we are fronting terrible times for guitar lovers...

Gibson Firebird VII Vibrola reissue

You have the classic, the bizarre, and the classic bizarre (or bizarre classic) such as the great Firebird - here a white Gibson Firebird VII with its three pickups and Vibrola trem. This white one seems to be a very rare model...

And you know what? Heaven on earth is seeing PJ Harvey playing a Firebird... And I hate that I missed her concert with John Parish last May in Berlin, it was sold out within hours when they put the tickets on sale in January and it really SUCKS! Sorry, I had to tell it to someone...

60s Framus Billy Lorento BL10

This is a late 60s Framus BL10 Billy Lorento (aka Willi Lorenz aka Bela Lorentowsky aka Bill Lawrence).

Herr Lorenz is without any doubt an authority in guitar pickups, but this model looks like a shaped planck - that is always a failure for a guitar. On the other hand the shape itself is quite good, and in my opinion an unexplored yet direction for future guitar design.

Casio MG-510 / MG-500 MIDI guitars

Why is it almost impossible to have a good picture of a guitar from the 80s?

Anyway, here are the Casio MIDI guitars MG-510 (the strat clone) and MG-500 (the cool bizarre shaped one).

So no, Casio didn't just issue cheap watches, pocket calculators and toy keyboards for minimalist German electro-punk bands, they also produced some very interesting MIDI guitars - at least they provided the concept and the electronics and had famous guitar manufacturer FujiGen Gakki make the guitar parts.

It seems that these Casios where some of the best MIDI guitars of their time, a. o. since they completely integrated the MIDI system and the controls - no other did... You can get more info here.

And I think that the design of the MG-500 is one of the best of its MIDI 80s kind.

70s Hayman 30 30

I say, a guitar with a transparent pickguard and a fridge knobplate (not to mention the bridge) is a good guitar... So Hurray! for this Hayman 30 30!

I feel a little bit lazy today so if you want to know more about Haymans, please check here.

60s Framus 5/119-54 Television

It's been a little while since we've showed some nice German vintage guitar here (OK, just one week...) so here's a Framus 5/119-54 Television (not 100% sure because the gear is chrome, not gold). We've actually had the bass version shown here a few months ago but I like this guitar better for its fanned pickups, that with the asymetric F-holes make it quite unique.

There are many good pics of it on the eBay page where I found it - it worth having a look. You can also go directly to the excellent framus-vintage.de website, on which - what an excellent idea! - you can learn anything about the whole Framus production since almost ever. Other companies should really do that (Rickenbaker has something similar but not so complete), and I realised how interesting Framus guitars are - or at least have been - and I will be more aware of them now.

Eastwood Guyatone LG-200T

I've already written here how much I appreciate the work of Eatswood, reissuing guitars from more creative times and places - so plenty of 60s Japanese ones, like this Guyatone. I don't think that there are many other guitars built recently that have this kind of combination of 4 pickups, not to mention its interesting shape.

(Hey Mr Robinson, I say a lot of good about your company, can you please send me an Eastwood Wandre Doris? A Deluxe one, black with a vibrato - thanks).