As I start getting older I start wondering if I should start second-guessing things. I've always had a great memory (at least for unimportant stuff) but every once in awhile something happens that makes me stop and question my own mental robustitude.
Yesterday, I was struck with the memory of a guitar I had bought, but ended up returning. I hadn't even thought about this thing in YEARS... I know I bought it online, I know I bought it brand new, and I'm pretty sure I bought it from Sweetwater. Given other events near this one, and the 'quest' that I was on, I figure the guitar would have been purchased late 2013 to early 2015. I had to think about the guitar in question, because at first I could only see the finish and the pickups in the mind's eye. Eventually I pieced it together, and it was an LTD Hybrid II in Cherry, like this:
The 'quest' I was on was something Gibsonesque with P90 pickups, and this guitar smacks hard as an affordable Gibson DoubleCut knockoff. Mahogany body, 24.75" scale length, set neck, dual p90s, wraptail bridge. Right down the recipe. It looked phenomenal and played very nice. It was actually a really nice guitar, but the pickups didn't sound like P90s at all. In fact, when I originally read up on the guitar it only called them "noiseless P90s" and referred to "P90 tone". However, they sounded very much like vintage humbuckers to me. Not a bad sound either, just not what I was after. A while after the fact I saw some reviews where other people had said the same thing, and I also recall the blurb on Sweetwater's site changed from "noiseless P90s" to "stacked humbuckers". Which is what they actually were.
It also had this weird built-in compression effect. Not an electronic effect, but just physically it sort of squashed dynamics. Playing hard, playing soft were all kind of evened out. This guitar is long gone from LTD's website (and they've called a number of wildly different guitars "Hybrid II" over the years), but I recall the website noting this as a 'feature'. I didn't like it.
In any event, it was a pretty nice guitar but just not what I wanted. I'd probably dig the heck out of it now, but I returned it within a couple of weeks... I'm pretty sure....
Well, here's where it gets creepy... I CANNOT find any proof that I ever bought this guitar. Anywhere. I don't have any emails with any Sweetwater order confirmation, and this is the company that turns into a clingy girlfriend every time you buy from them. I don't even have a Sweetwater account I can log into. I have GC and Musician's Friend accounts, but no record there. In fact, I don't even have any bank or CC records of buying anything around the $400-$600 mark from anywhere in 2013-2015. No charges to any major shipping company (UPS, Fedex, etc) either. I apparently took no photos, and there are no forum posts in any of the forums I was in at the time, and one in particular was a small, tight-knit group of musicians where we constantly talked about gear and music (among other absurd things).
There were only two potential witnesses: I remember having the guitar delivered to the office, because it was in the winter time. A young dude who just started working there (James) was the one that brought it from the dock to my office area. It happened to show up on the day where I had to travel out of town for a couple of days for work. Since it was winter, I left it in the office for that time in the box, so it could acclimate. When I got back, I opened it up in the office to check it quick for damage. A guy I work with (Craig) came to check it out because he was a guitar noodler too. James left the company soon after, and Craig has since died. Furthermore, the reviews that I mentioned previously about the pickups being falsely advertised, and/or the weird compression effect are nowhere to be found. I know the Internet moves at the pace of the Internet, but it's only been 10-12 years. There's still a LOT of stuff I can dig up from way earlier than that.
Was it real? Was it all a dream? Granted, circumstances and poor decisions at the time were instrumental in me drinking somewhat heavily during those years, but usually that makes you forget things, not confabulate them...
I'm pretty darn sure I had this guitar in my posession for 2 weeks in 2013-2015. I just can't prove it to myself or anyone. What do now?
Yesterday, I was struck with the memory of a guitar I had bought, but ended up returning. I hadn't even thought about this thing in YEARS... I know I bought it online, I know I bought it brand new, and I'm pretty sure I bought it from Sweetwater. Given other events near this one, and the 'quest' that I was on, I figure the guitar would have been purchased late 2013 to early 2015. I had to think about the guitar in question, because at first I could only see the finish and the pickups in the mind's eye. Eventually I pieced it together, and it was an LTD Hybrid II in Cherry, like this:
The 'quest' I was on was something Gibsonesque with P90 pickups, and this guitar smacks hard as an affordable Gibson DoubleCut knockoff. Mahogany body, 24.75" scale length, set neck, dual p90s, wraptail bridge. Right down the recipe. It looked phenomenal and played very nice. It was actually a really nice guitar, but the pickups didn't sound like P90s at all. In fact, when I originally read up on the guitar it only called them "noiseless P90s" and referred to "P90 tone". However, they sounded very much like vintage humbuckers to me. Not a bad sound either, just not what I was after. A while after the fact I saw some reviews where other people had said the same thing, and I also recall the blurb on Sweetwater's site changed from "noiseless P90s" to "stacked humbuckers". Which is what they actually were.
It also had this weird built-in compression effect. Not an electronic effect, but just physically it sort of squashed dynamics. Playing hard, playing soft were all kind of evened out. This guitar is long gone from LTD's website (and they've called a number of wildly different guitars "Hybrid II" over the years), but I recall the website noting this as a 'feature'. I didn't like it.
In any event, it was a pretty nice guitar but just not what I wanted. I'd probably dig the heck out of it now, but I returned it within a couple of weeks... I'm pretty sure....
Well, here's where it gets creepy... I CANNOT find any proof that I ever bought this guitar. Anywhere. I don't have any emails with any Sweetwater order confirmation, and this is the company that turns into a clingy girlfriend every time you buy from them. I don't even have a Sweetwater account I can log into. I have GC and Musician's Friend accounts, but no record there. In fact, I don't even have any bank or CC records of buying anything around the $400-$600 mark from anywhere in 2013-2015. No charges to any major shipping company (UPS, Fedex, etc) either. I apparently took no photos, and there are no forum posts in any of the forums I was in at the time, and one in particular was a small, tight-knit group of musicians where we constantly talked about gear and music (among other absurd things).
There were only two potential witnesses: I remember having the guitar delivered to the office, because it was in the winter time. A young dude who just started working there (James) was the one that brought it from the dock to my office area. It happened to show up on the day where I had to travel out of town for a couple of days for work. Since it was winter, I left it in the office for that time in the box, so it could acclimate. When I got back, I opened it up in the office to check it quick for damage. A guy I work with (Craig) came to check it out because he was a guitar noodler too. James left the company soon after, and Craig has since died. Furthermore, the reviews that I mentioned previously about the pickups being falsely advertised, and/or the weird compression effect are nowhere to be found. I know the Internet moves at the pace of the Internet, but it's only been 10-12 years. There's still a LOT of stuff I can dig up from way earlier than that.
Was it real? Was it all a dream? Granted, circumstances and poor decisions at the time were instrumental in me drinking somewhat heavily during those years, but usually that makes you forget things, not confabulate them...
I'm pretty darn sure I had this guitar in my posession for 2 weeks in 2013-2015. I just can't prove it to myself or anyone. What do now?
