Which Guitar Did You / Do You Own that Qualifies as a Certified POS?

[ch willie]

I've had a few stinker guitars over the years that I should have used for kindling.

The winner (or loser, however you want to look at it) was an Applause acoustic, Ovation's economy brand. It was the worst sounding acoustic I've ever had.

Sometimes, you have a nostalgic attachment to guitars you learned on. Not so with me and the Applause. Once, out of frustration, I threw it against the wall and broke a big hole in the back of it, in whatever plastic they use for those rounded backs. It never sat on the lap comfortably, slid off unless you wore a strap, and you'd find yourself fighting the guitar rather than playing it.

With all of the plastic on the guitar, you couldn't even find a toothpick's worth of kindling out of it.

One night, I went to a wedding and drank 3 bottles of Freixenet. After somehow driving home, I staggered into my apartment, and sat down to play. I tried Blackbird and couldn't get past a few chords. Totally angry, I stormed downstairs with the guitar, threw it in the dumpster. I woke the next morning, hungover bad but sober. i ran to the dumpster, but the geet was gone.

Best thing that ever happened to me. I didn't play a six string again for 3 years. When I bought my next guitar, I had been imbibing jazz and classical, and something clicked, and I was a much better guitarist than before, from the first notes I now played.

I'd like to think that the Applause provided a home for rats in the garbage dump.

[OldStrummer]

Like so many other budding guitarists, I'd have to say the worst was my first. As a kid approaching driving age, I was enamored of the Beatles and the growing British invasion, so I paid $10 to my best friend for his old Kay acoustic. He didn't play (I guess like a lot of kids, tried it, didn't like it, gave it up). I didn't know if I was going be able to learn it. My parents had required me to take piano lessons for eight years, but I hated going to the basement to practice, and the guitar seemed like an instrument I could take with me. So, the best of both worlds, eh?

Man, that guitar stunk. The neck was either horribly warped, or the setup so bad, that the gap at the 12th fret was literally 1/4." But I was self-teaching, so I pretty much stuck to learning chords at the first three frets, and for that, it was enough. I pressed the barbed wire (or so the strings felt), strummed a chord, and repeated the process until I felt I had played an entire song. My fingers got so callused that I could literally snuff out a cigarette by pinching the lit end with my fingertips (which I believe I could do again today, given how much playing I'm doing these days).

Two or three years later, when I was in Germany, I bought my first new guitar, a Framus 12-string, which I still own.

[ch willie]

Thanks, OS. I like hearing everybody's stores likes that one. I bet most of us have owned a pile o' poo or two...

[DanTheBluesMan]

my first crappy guitar and thankfully the only one so far that was that bad, was my new 1974 Stratocaster. There may be a picture of it in the multiple bags of family pics in storage but guitar pics in those days were near and dear. At 30 plus cents each in 1970s dollars you weren't about to shoot a whole roll of the same pics hoping to get a good one.

the guitar that was probably the biggest disappointment was a 1999 R9 40th anniversary. I've had 4 of them, this was probably the prettiest of the bunch and not matter what you did to it, pickups, pots, caps, tail piece studs, bridge studs, you just couldn't get it to sound good, let alone great. It had an innate harshness and lack of mids. I really really wanted to love that guitar but it just wasn't meant to be.

[dirtdog]

I was just getting back into playing with bands - after a years-long layoff and only playing campfire acoustic guitar - as an incentive to get back into it and join a new band on bass, I was offered something called a "Spacer" 4-string bass. It was a super cheap knock-off of a Spector. I paid $100 for it. That was the worst bass I owned, but not the worst I ever played. That one only stuck around a few months before I bought a Godin and then an EBMM Stingray. Thus started my career in GAS.

[jrgtr42]

LOL, I have one of those Applauses. They're actually not bad now, but I got mine in the mid-90s, it was and is junk. I don't know when the last time I played it was - I mostly keep it around as a party guitar now - one that I bring along when I know there will be alcohol and jamming. It's been a long time since I;ve been to one of those. Maybe I'll hang onto it long enough that my kiddo will start learning on it.

Other than that is a late 90's Danelectro reissue - I got it for a hundred bucks. It is the "so ugly it's cool" department. I had to do some mods to it, like swapping the electronics, and installing springs under the pickups so it's remotely in the same output as most of my other guitars.
It does have it's own vibe to it; that Dano jangle, y'know?

[dirtdog]

LOL, I have one of those Applauses. They're actually not bad now, but I got mine in the mid-90s, it was and is junk. I don't know when the last time I played it was - I mostly keep it around as a party guitar now - one that I bring along when I know there will be alcohol and jamming. It's been a long time since I;ve been to one of those. Maybe I'll hang onto it long enough that my kiddo will start learning on it.

Other than that is a late 90's Danelectro reissue - I got it for a hundred bucks. It is the "so ugly it's cool" department. I had to do some mods to it, like swapping the electronics, and installing springs under the pickups so it's remotely in the same output as most of my other guitars.
It does have it's own vibe to it; that Dano jangle, y'know?

Oh, I forgot about the Danos I've owned. Floppy, couldn't stay in tune. Definitely bought 'em for the looks vs playability. I had a DC59 and a 56 Baritone (in sparkle finish)! Still not the worst, though.

[Laker]

The worst bass I’ve ever owned was a ‘63 Gibson Thunderbird that I purchased in a pawn shop for $75 back around 1981 or so. I found the damned thing very headstock heavy causing me to hold the neck up while playing it. I managed to trade it for a new Laney 2/12 amp for my son.

[ch willie]

Laker, sounds like you made a good trade in that case.

[Laker]

Laker, sounds like you made a good trade in that case.

I took the Laney from one store to another that was a Marshall dealer where I traded it for a nice tube combo. My son still uses that amp in the groups he plays in.

[gibsonjunkie]

I had two that fit that category. My first guitar was a Harmony 3/4 sized guitar. It was a POS and the best day of my life was when the neck fell off and I got to throw it out. Sadly, while shopping for a new guitar I had stopped into a guitar store run by a couple of real hippies. They tried so hard to sell me a used Gibson - they practically gave it to me - but for the same money I could get "Brand New". Boy was I stupid.

My current POS is - you guessed it - An Ovation Applause guitar. When my Gibson was in Nashville getting the bridge repaired, I needed something to play for the church folk group. We picked it up for an emergency guitar. It worked OK, but now I only keep it around in case I need a canoe paddle ( and I gave away my canoe).

[Cogs]

A Conn acoustic that had action so high that you could have used it as an egg slicer, & a '76 Les Paul that represented the pinnacle of everything that was wrong with Gibson at the time. Both terrible. The only thing that could have fixed the Gibson would have been replacing the neck, the body, & all the electronics

[DanTheBluesMan]

... a '76 Les Paul ... The only thing that could have fixed the Gibson would have been replacing the neck, the body, & all the electronics

[VibroCount]

So far (knock wood) the worst guitars I've owned were playable and sounded fine. The ones I played less I sold or traded for ones I like more.

Ukuleles, on the other hand, are easy to find POSes all over the place... I've owned three and managed to sell one of them.

I owned a top of the line soprano sized ukulele (13" string length), a superb concert sized uke (15" string length), and a baritone uke (19" string length, tuned like the highest pitch four strings of a guitar). I wanted a tenor sized uke (17" string length) with a built in pickup. I was willing to pay $600-$900 (or a little more) to get a reasonable quality one. Unless I bought on line or travelled more than 100 miles, I could not find one.

A friend told me about a music shop in Folsom with an excellent selection of ukuleles. I went and there was one for $1500 from a luthier who was unknown to me. But they had a new line of Lanikai ukes, tenor size, with active pickups and cutaway bodies in unusual solid woods... MonkeyPod, Zebrawood, and others. Some had standard re-entrant tuning, others had dropped Gs. I tried all of them and chose a Zebrawood with a re-entrant G. Bought extra strings, a better case (beyond the gigbag) and took it home. Jere's a huge, almost in focus photo:



It sounded brighter at home than on their amp. And the longer I played it the brightness turned to a brittle sound, bright to the point of harshness. And the more I played it, the louder the C string became... far louder than the other three strings. I took it back and had their repairman adjust the pickup element under the saddle, and it seemed better, if not perfect. Within days, it got louder again... not as bad, but not good.

The only thing which worked (sort of) was putting an old dull flat string in for the C.

Which made playing high on that string be out of pitch.

So I set it aside.

A year later, when I was teaching ukulele to kids and teens in group lessons, one mom asked about a better uke for her son. He was tired of his cheapo semi-plastic soprano and wanted a tenor he could plug in and rock! I made suggestions, but none seemed to satisfy her or him. I reluctantly offered the Lanikai. I took it in, let them take it home to try in his dad's amp, and the next week they brought me cash... as much as I payed for the uke, the case, and the strings. They were happy! I was even.

----

I bought two clear plastic Waterman ukes on line. No one had them but me. Both are unplayable with a non adjustable action so high that the uke goes out of tune when any string is fretted. Unlike the Lanikai, they are unfixable and fairly ugly. I'd rather give away a Dolphin or a Shark than let anyone have either of them. Ugly wall art at best. Most likely I will trash them before I die so no one inherits them.

[DanTheBluesMan]

sometimes the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the uke

[Cogs]