'Not gelling'

drpbier

Probably a trite observation but I bought a guitar last December which didn't get much play time until this Summer when I took it to a course and spent the whole week on it. Now I love the way it feels and sounds. Made me wonder if 'not gelling' might often mean 'haven't given it a fair shot'. If nothing else hopefully it means I'm recovering from GAS...

bobacco

‘Seller’s Remorse’ is more an issue for me than ‘Buyer’s Remorse’.

longshins

I get this sometimes, I’ll rotate my main guitar every month or so and the ‘new’ guitar is all of a sudden the best one.

OilCityPickups

I think it very often means that.... 
My 5420 Gretsch was hard work at first, it's taken several months of regular playing, rehearsals etc to make it 'my' guitar. It 'likes' heavy-ish strings (for me at least)  to go with the Bigsby, But my hand strength has gone up, and I now I only ever play that or my Dynasonic equipped Tele for anything other than workshop testing. 

Offset

longshins said:

I get this sometimes, I’ll rotate my main guitar every month or so and the ‘new’ guitar is all of a sudden the best one.

Yep, me too!

guitarjack66

I think a guitar needs regular playing to gel or open up in the case of us acoustic players. I think there is a case of hearing memory in the same way we have muscle memory.

LionAquaLooper

I rotate my main guitar as well, but sometimes I make a mistake and go from one extreme to another.  For example, i'm not liking my Squier HH thinline tele at the moment because I went from that to a more modern, smaller scale, brighter sounding HSS Ibanez S-type guitar.  Thinline just sounds too dark and feels too chunky now.

Should've gone Thinline HH tele -> Les Paul    

Keefy

I rarely buy unseen and over the years I’ve got better at working out whether I should buy a particular guitar when trying it out - it has to speak to me, specifically with the phrase: ‘Take me, I’m yours’. It’s been the best part of twenty years since I’ve had the experience of realising, a few weeks after purchase, that I actually didn’t like the instrument.

It can be quite nice getting out a guitar you haven’t played in a long time when you realise you’ve forgotten how good it is. But it can take a while to adjust to a guitar’s sound and feel compared to the one you played immediately before.

drpbier

Lots of wisdom in this thread. Rotation of the main guitar is something I do as well

BillDL

I have quite a few guitars that I rotate regularly.  Sometimes when I put one away and bring out another for a couple of weeks it is, to use the expression used by OilCityPickups, "hard work" and I just can't seem to make it sound great even though I know it can.  It can take me quite a few days of several hours each day to get used to the guitar again and then begin to tease out the best sounds from it.  Although the amplifier certainly has a strong bearing on this lacklustre experience, and it's a case of finding the much clichéd "sweet spot" settings where the guitar sounds at its best, this usually happens when I first pick up a guitar that's quite different from one I've been playing for a while.

An example would be if I've been playing a Strat and a Tele for several weeks and I then switch to a single P90 "Junior" type guitar or an "SG" or something that's quite different in terms of scale length, fretboard radius, neck width and thickness, and general feel.  It takes a few hours or even a couple of days to change my picking style and intensity, where I'm picking along the length of the string, and other playing nuances before the guitar suddenly begins to do what I want it to.  When that happens I can't put it down again for hours and it's like a breath of fresh air.  I don't find the transition as noticeable going the opposite way from a Gibsonish style to a Fenderish style, and I usually get right into the swing of them immediately.  This isn't the same with all my guitars though.  If I reach over now and pick up one of my 335-ish guitars I will usually feel immediately comfortable and can play it just the way I want it to sound.

Funkfingers

IMO, "not gelling" means that my usual moves ain't workin' on whichever instrument is currently in my hands. The instrument is not to blame. It is entirely a failure on my part to adapt.

e.g. Spend long enough on a Fender 7¼" radius, then, change to a shred stick ITRO 14". The latter can momentarily feel concave.

It's all in the mind, you know.

guitarjack66

Keefy said:

I rarely buy unseen and over the years I’ve got better at working out whether I should buy a particular guitar when trying it out - it has to speak to me, specifically with the phrase: ‘Take me, I’m yours’. It’s been the best part of twenty years since I’ve had the experience of realising, a few weeks after purchase, that I actually didn’t like the instrument.

It can be quite nice getting out a guitar you haven’t played in a long time when you realise you’ve forgotten how good it is. But it can take a while to adjust to a guitar’s sound and feel compared to the one you played immediately before.

I'm more of an 'Up the Junction' kind of buyer!

DrJazzTap

I think its incredibly important to learn how to set a guitar up properly.
I've sold guitars on because I didn't have the knowledge on how to tweak them to my liking. 

I had a prs dgt for nearly ten years, it was a fabulous guitar. I couldn't get on with the string spacing. For my playing the top E kept slipping off. I held onto it as it was a grail guitar. And it was a pretty thing to look at. 

These days I don't hold onto them for nowhere nearly that length of time. I don't like the term "keeper" as circumstances can change etc. I have a few guitars I'm fond of, and i would begrudge selling any of them. 

Rotation is the key for me,  sometimes time away from a guitar makes me appreciate it even more. 

Yorkie

In my case, I’ve sold guitars 
- because I’ve got something comparable but better sounding and/or playing in a trade. 
- out of frustration, having spent months on them. 

Normally I can’t afford ‘not gelling’. It’s not just the money, but also the huge stress associated to the sale. I try to avoid it as much as I can. 

Svartmetall

It took me 18 months to get into the Mexican Tele I picked up for chump change off Ebay back in...er...2008? Hated ti for ages, then was meh about it, then one day LIGHT BULB and it just worked perfectly for what I'd wanted from a Tele in my head.

Yorkie

DrJazzTap said:

I think its incredibly important to learn how to set a guitar up properly.

Very true. 

OilCityPickups

Best way I've found to gel with a guitar, is put your others away and discipline yourself to play that instrument alone. Okay make sure the setup is good first, but push through the frustration. 
Aside from work related playing I haven't touched a guitar since my double bass came into the house. And to say I didn't gel instantly with a great big, intimidating, musical wardrobe would be a huge understatement. But for all my sore fingers, frustrations with strings (ever contemplated paying  £200-£500 for a set?) I am really getting to love the 'Blonde Bombshell' 

Deadman

The exact thing has just happened to me and my ‘57 US Vintage II Strat. I even put it up for sale as I thought it was a bit too flash, unnecessary, overkill, etc for someone who only plays at home. But, the more I’ve been playing it, the more it’s made sense. Now I love it. Is it a keeper? Well, it’s not for sale anymore, put it that way. I feel lucky that it didn’t sell in the 2 weeks I had it up, to be honest.

Al_Nico

Maybe some subconscious stuff going on. Perhaps when we buy a guitar we buy with emotion. Buying a guitar is also connected with art, expression, and recognition that can perhaps be better achieved with an instrument of a certain reputation or calibre?

Then what happens, the instrument turns up only to discover that most instruments don't include any additional talent, or offer any further insight into song writing.

Once all the emotional chemicals in the brain are converted back into common sense particles, the instrument begins to feel friendly and can be enjoyed from there on.

ScreamingDave

Al_Nico said:

Maybe some subconscious stuff going on. Perhaps when we buy a guitar we buy with emotion. Buying a guitar is also connected with art, expression, and recognition that can perhaps be better achieved with an instrument of a certain reputation or calibre?

This is very true. Many years ago I decided to get a MIJ ‘62 reissue Strat, almost purely on the basis of seeing Robbie Coltrane playing something similar in The Pope Must Die!   It just looked so rock ‘n’ roll and I was influenced by the image.  Having said that, it was a really nice guitar, and only got displaced by a US Standard Strat, so in that case the emotion didn’t let me down

*Aaron*

longshins said:

I get this sometimes, I’ll rotate my main guitar every month or so and the ‘new’ guitar is all of a sudden the best one.

Same here