Bacchus CLASSIC series?

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Mitch Malloy said:
Well having grown up playing and studying guitars after awhile you can tell in a picture if a guitar is good or not. you guys know what I'm talking about. Every picture I've seen of a Bacchus leaves me drooling and thinking why aren't they ALL like that? So i am VERY confident I'm going to love my first one and then second and so on. I'm not a strat guy at all but I find for some reason I seem to track very well with them and those tracks get chosen over the LP tracks. So I'm also going ot get one of their strats for the studio. I'm still playing the one Fernandes gave me many years ago but I hate it. It sounds amazing though but it plays terrible I hate the neck. but that guitar is all over all my records. Michael Thompson played it a LOT on my first cd. The sound... It's great. I'm afraid to replace the neck.

I'd never played a Bacchus strat until my first one (BST-64V). Now I have two of them. By far, they are some of the best playing and sounding strats I've ever had my hands on.... the pickups alone are worth the price of admission.
 
you all should have been paying closer attention 10-15 years ago when nobody wanted Bacchus guitars, I got most of mine for more than 50% off list, and got others for bigger discounts, before they stopped making Fender and Gibson clones to concentrate on their own designs...which lasted a couple of years, then they got back into cloning the US big two models again, maybe because their original designs did not do as well as they had hoped but they were not the same the second time around...I prefer the first run clones. I still have a bunch of em now but held so many more in my hands, and passed on lots of others. They made some very high end models that came stock with Fralins at the time... strats,teles and Les Paul types, this is before the Momose models came into being and became the high end line, apart from the Master Built line...think thats what it was called, I`d have to check my catalogs, but they did have a line of custom shop priced guitars too. They have had quite a few brands over the years and the Riverheads I saw in shops looked every bit as nice as the Bacchus models and shared many specifications though they sold for less. `course now they have lots of out sourced models and nobody carries the line in this city any more so I have to go to Tokyo to see them but honestly I am not hurting for great MIJ guitars...and there are MANY top notch builders in Japan these days.
Mitch, I found a used Hamiltone clone made by Monose in the city a few years ago, the story I was told was a guy had it custom made and spared no expense and if the one they are building you is even remotely as well made as this one, you`re in for a real treat...it is one beautiful guitar, as a couch player I probably have no business owning a guitar of this quality but them`s the breaks...right place right time kind of deal and I`m glad I bought it, it makes me feel like a good player even if I ain`t.
 
When I tried the 59 Les Paul I had already been playing clubs and outdoor concerts for a few years and I tried it through my 100 watt Plexi and it did sound good but not so good that I couldn't do without it.
It wasn't for sale and was a friends.
I really wasn't into the money value of anything back then too much, I was just playing a lot.

I do like some Gibsons and have 2 at the moment and I don't think Japanese guitars are everything and I have had some very good ones and some average ones.

I have never played a Bacchus but I would like to try one and from what I've read they are very well made.

I've got a Greco Super Real one of the lower models and it does sound very good but the neck takes a bit of getting used to after playing Strats which I do as well.

I'm not really that fussy about gear to be honest, as long as it sounds in the ballpark of what I want then I'll have a go but I do prefer certain combinations of gear.

I recently bought an old Echoplex EP-3 and I wish I had one years ago because it is a great tone addition.

I know more about gear and electronics now then I knew back in the 70s and I know now why a Ash guitar tends to sound a certain way and why pickups and amps tend to sound a certain way but back in the 70s
I wouldn't have had a clue.

I remember buying my Marshall 100 watt Plexi with a 4 speaker cab and I was still in school and the thing took up half of my room.
I didn't have a clue how to play through it as I'd learnt guitar on an Acoustic.

I was trying to get somewhere near Blackmore's distortion level and I just did it myself but it wasn't that easy going from Acoustic to 100 watt Marshall, it took some adapting.
Not long after this I was playing in clubs, actually pubs, the same sort of pubs Bon and Angus and Mal were playing.
Gear was hard to get back then when I was in school and Gibson and Fender ruled and if you could get a Gibson or a Fender you were sort of lucky but there was also Ibanez and that's when like many others I discovered Japanese guitars and how well made they are.
 
Yeah that's my Greco. And you can buy music from my company direct. I'm independent now. Enough of the major labels. My company sells my music through paypal the email address is [email protected] and for over seas they charge $20 for a cd and for the USA $15 a cd. I have a best of cd available that has the music you see in the DVD on you tube on it. It rocks.. Anyway.. I got the Greco for $350. It's a great guitar. But I ever heard of Bucchus till 3 years ago and it's taken me this long to even find them. I mean find the company directly. I finally got directly to them and found out they are fans. So that worked out. I have a Classic sunburst on the way now. There is a Jeff beck older Live Road in a store in Tokyo that I found but they ONLY do walk in business. They wouldn't even send it to me after Bucchus asked them to. Not easy getting these guitars. A little easier now though. I think I tried to get to Tokai years ago but couldn't find an email address that went directly to the company. But to me the Bucchus looks better anyway. I'll give you my report when it arrives.
 
Mitch Malloy said:
Yes and those are the years that shaped us. I just always found it offensive that you had to PAY for the Gibson name and the guitars sucked. So you had to try to find an old one that was actually "good" and those were even MORE money. It was like,,,, What the hell? What are the DOING? And why are they charging so much for this crap? And they never recovered from that in my eyes. And Fender was the same story. So when I discovered Tokai for the first time I was blown away and then I became a Fernandes endorser and later discovered Greco. I had heard about burny years before that but never bought one. Greco was my return to a Les paul which I hadn't been playing in a long long time. So yes I have played new Gibsons that I liked but they are too much money for what they are I refuse to pay for the name...

Yeah I pretty much agree with most of your reasons, and that is why Gibson and Fender like to keep the comparison with MIJ guitars under the carpet - because Japan has similar high living standards to the US, yet they can build a nice LP or Strat for less money.

The truth of the matter may be that guitar companies are not really that amenable to being turned into large corporations, and that the product is better, and also better value when the company sticks to the basics and the original core goals.
 
No question about it. A guitar company needs to stay small to retain pride and quality. And Luis, thank you very much. I don't take anything for granted. :>)
 
Just letting you guys know I'll be in England playing Firefest in Nottingham on Oct 23. I may do a European tour after that in Nov. Possibly Spain, Norway and Italy. And chances are I'll be playing my custom black Duke. Or a Classic not sure.
 
sneakyjapan said:
you all should have been paying closer attention 10-15 years ago when nobody wanted Bacchus guitars...

Couldn't, the internet was not ready at that point to help us buy Bacchus until, really, the early 2000's IMO. There was no Rinkya until 2003 AFAIK and I bet it didn't work real well until 2004 probably. :)
 
Mitch Malloy said:
Just letting you guys know I'll be in England playing Firefest in Nottingham on Oct 23. I may do a European tour after that in Nov. Possibly Spain, Norway and Italy. And chances are I'll be playing my custom black Duke. Or a Classic not sure.

no Japan tour?
 
I have never even been to Japan much less played it. That clearly needs to change.
 
I'm the same way with the reasons for not playing fender and gibson. They've just turned into "branding" companies. More concerned with name recognition...ie selling tshirts and key chains...than building the best possible guitars for a decent price. MIJ companies for the most part all seem to realize that a great consistent product is what will bring you profit. Maybe not every nickle you could possibly get in the short term...but in the end that strategy will back fire anyway.

And even the giant MIJ companies like ESP manufacture their MIJ products to amazing levels of quality.
 
Mitch Malloy said:
I have never even been to Japan much less played it. That clearly needs to change.


yeah you should come, everybody should see Japan at least once in a life time, as an amateur photographer this place is a never ending source for me... bands like Mr. Big, Hall and Oats, The Ventures...among many others...used to come every year, and they`d sell out. I`ve seen posters for Jeff Muldaur the past two or three years, guess he likes coming here and he plays this city when he comes.
But even as a tourist it`s a trip you`d never forget...I`ll buy you a beer at a little pub where us gaijins like to congregate.
 
sneakyjapan said:
you all should have been paying closer attention 10-15 years ago when nobody wanted Bacchus guitars,

In my defence I only started playing guitar around 10 years ago... would have required quite some foresight to look into a little-known brand (outside japan) before I actually started playing... :lol:

sneakyjapan said:
Japan was in the same location then as it is today.

plate tectonics?
 
well yeah Dave, thats valid... and I`ve only been playing for about 15 years so even though my fingers didn`t work as well as I would have liked them to at the time there was nothing wrong with my ears and eyes and in fact they were recommended to me by another gaijin who used to do the sumo television here on NHK, named Tom Quinn... we were on line at another site and I mentioned I had seen some in the local Yamaha shop and he told me to play one...I did and that was that. I spent my youth learning how to draw and paint but guitar was always on my to do list and one day I bought a guitar and was smitten...then I couldn`t stop buying them however, that seems to have petered out probably because I already have more great MIJ guitars than any one guy could use in a single life time, I have been very lucky.
 
I had fans from Japan show up to see me last time I was in England. And they were REAL fans. But I've just never made it over. I will eventually. Now it makes even more sense working with Bacchus. My Honey burst Classic left Japan today. It's not showing up on EMS yet. I'm wondering how long it will take. Anyone know? To Nashville.
 
sneakyjapan wrote:
Japan was in the same location then as it is today.


plate tectonics?


Some parts of Japan have moved recently maybe as much as 13 feet.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/03/quake-shifted-japan-coast-about-13-feet-knocked-earth-65-inches-off-axis/1
 
What amps and speakers and effects are you going to test the Bacchus with?

Do you use an attenuator or like it loud?
 
Well I'm in writing mode right now so most likely I'll just plug it into my little Johnson J station through stereo speakers rig I use for massive wall of amps sound at whisper levels. But fist things first I'll play it without plugging it in for awhile. I have a recording studio in my house so I have my amps rigged up all the time. I have 4 amps I can choose from. Aiken Intruder 18 watts of gloriousness. Marshal Meets Vox. Or the Matchless head that was my idea called the Night hawk. 15 watts of glory. Voxy. Or the Matchless Spitfire. Which is more along the lines of a Fender. Amazing cleanish barking vintage sound also 15 watts. Or my modded Fender pro jr. 15 watts of Fender crunch. Not as refined as the other 3 but actually wins out over them on a lot of tracks. Those are the amps I track with. They are all fantastic. i went away from the 50 watt Marshalls when I got the Aiken and then the Matchless. I don't miss the Marshalls. I sold them. I had a bunch of the good old ones. I'm not the kind of guy that keeps stuff I don't use. I like to recycle. But I have a feeling I'll be throwing the Dry Z's in the Classic and sending it to Texas for a Ever tune bridge to be put in. They want me to endorse them and I think I will since everything I've heard and seen blows me away. But there is no turning back from that install. I can't decide if I should do the Evertune to the cheapo Greco that I LOVE or the Bacchus. I need to make the decision fast though as I am tracking guitars VERY soon for the new cd and I want the Evertune for tracking. I think? LOL Like I said you cannot turn back. once they mod your guitar for the ever tune the wood is gone. but I think it will be SO worth it.
 
Those amps sound good, mostly smaller wattage amps.

Being a bit of an amp tech, I have modded my 5 watt Epiphone Juniors to be more like Marshall circuits and they end up sounding like a Vox/Marshall cross and are great to play through.

I really like Vox's and I really like Marshalls.

What about micing the amps?

Do you use 2 mics in different positions on the speaker cones for 2 tracks and then mix the tracks together or some other micing setup?
 

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