My first thought about this blog was to just list my guitars but I have had a change of mind and will now list all my musical equipment.
To start off, the guitars in order of acquisition are,
Melody, Maton, Yamaha, Fender, Hofner, Hofner, Hofner, Johnson, Fender, Fender, Greg Bennett, Line 6 Variax (Six String) and lastly Line 6 Variax Bass.
This is the first guitar I ever bought, I think about 1966. It came as a mail order with correspondence lessons. I remember unpacking the guitar and as I didn't have any knowledge about guitars I thought it was pretty good. It is a Melody guitar made in China. If you look closely you will notice that when the plastic on the tuning key for the A string broke off I replaced with a metal wing nut. I glued the nut on and then painted it white. I don't why I put the stickers on it. I didn't have a car and and didn't know what the Wynns sticker was about. The strings would have to be forty years old.
After the melody Guitar I bought this Maton Leaderman 725. I had tried out some guitars and amplifiers from the music shop but they cost more than the car that I had just bought. I was friendly with the owner of a record shop and he said that he could get me this Maton. I liked the shape of it (the same as a Stratocaster) and the feel of it. I grew to hate the sound and eventually replaced the pick ups with some Schaller pickups. I still didn't like the sound and shortly after that I changed to playing bass. Over the years it suffered numerous injuries and has multiple scratches. Lately I have acquired better amplifiers and effects units and discovered that the neck is very good. It has always stayed in tune and is very straight and thin. It is very easy to play and I have thoughts of taking the neck off and putting it on some other sort of body with some really good pickups.
I found this article at the following web site. It was describing a Leaderman that had been sold. It states that only 231 were manufactured and that's what is on the official Maton website. But, my guitar has the serial number 321. I contacted Maton and they say the numbers went up to 329 in 1966 and that their site isn't completely accurate. They also had this pamphlet from 1966
http://www.grouseguitars.com.au/sold/leaderman.htm
Grouse!
Only 231 Leadermans (Leadermen?) were produced, starting in 1964 and ending in 1966.
Effectively a stripped-down version of the Maton Fyrbyrd, with 2 pickups instead of the Fyrbyrd's 3, and simplified (more practical!) switching, the Leaderman was available in Sunburst, Autumn Red and Jungle Green. Custom colours, such as this original black example, were available at a 5% cost premium. Click here to see a PDF by Maton Guitars which replicates the original sales flyer.
This guitar, serial number 316, is incredibly original and complete. It even has its original Maton leather strap! (see more pictures link below). The case is also original, and comes with the guitar.
Some play wear is evident to the body, especially at the rear, which we have photographed in detail. The original black finish has crazed over the last 40 years, giving this vintage guitar a wonderful and genuine patina.
Sound from the twin 'Magnametle' pickups is great - plenty of output and bite. Very usable, very collectable, very original and very rare.
Grouse!
This is a jpg of the pamphlet on the Maton web site. If you want to see the original go to
and navigate to the “Maton Museum” section and enter Leaderman in the Model Name field and click search.
This guitar was an after thought. The reasoning was to have something that I could take anywhere just to strum or to sit down and work out songs without having to set up an amplifier. I probably bought this about 1967. It has also suffered some damage. The head stock has cracked and the tuning keys were bent and had to be replaced. The bridge started to lift off the body and the groove that holds the little bone thingy under the strings split and the little bone thingy laid down on the job. So the whole bridge assembly had to be replaced. It's a Yamaha and has served its purpose well for the last forty one years.
The music I most like is Beatle music. About 1982 I walked into a Hobart music shop and there was this Hofner Bass. It was only $113.00 but I knew I couldn't pay for it as what money I had was intended to pay the bills. But I bought it anyway. I had a Beatle bass. The neck was badly bent and the only way to adjust it was to melt the glue holding the fret board to the neck and bend it back to the desired action and let the glue set. At the time I was playing in a sixties rock and roll band and played a lot of Beatle covers. The Fender Telecaster Bass was a good guitar but got heavier the longer the night went on. The Hofner was only half the weight and wasn't as taxing on my my left shoulder. (that I had dislocated twice. Once snow skiing and second when I pranged the hang glider I was trying to learn to fly). Also it was easier to play. It didn't sound as good as the Telecaster but was a lot more fun to play in a live situation. I used to think of it as a sports car. Later when I stopped playing live and built a home recording studio the faults in the guitar really stood out. In February 2005 I traded it and my other Hofners in on a Fender Stratocaster and a pair of Studio near field monitors.
The next Hofner I acquired was a Club 60. A friend brought it to my home in the early 1980's knowing that I had the Beatle bass and that I might be interested in another Hofner. It only had three strings on it and a disturbing crack on the back of the neck where it joined the body. I later found out that apparently this was a common fault with this model guitar. He only wanted $80.00 for it so I bought it thinking that I could get it fixed one day. I eventually did but couldn't play it very well and could get a good sound out of it. It didn't record very well for me but strangely enough a friend of mine who was a very good player could make it sound alright. I took it to Melbourne in 2005 to trade. I didn't have a case for it but one day I was driving down the street near where I was staying and saw a guitar case on the footpath with a lot of other stuff that had been put out for the council to take to the rubbish tip. So I jumped out of the car and grabbed it. It was a very old case in good order and fitted the Hofner perfectly.
My next Guitar was a birthday present. A friend of ours had a Hofner 177 and unknown to me my wife bought it off him for $100.00 as a surprise birthday present for me. The day she brought it home I decided to walk to the bus stop to meet her and walk home with her and she got off the bus with the guitar intending to secretly bring it home with the intention of surprising me later.
I spoilt the surprise. At first I liked it but I was playing bass in bands then. Later when I got my four track cassette recorder I tried recording and again I didn't like the sound. I realise now that I should have had some sort of out board gear as recording direct into the cassette deck was not very good.
But now I had a mini collection of Hofner guitars
I was in Cash Converters one day a saw this Johnson acoustic. I didn't have a steel string acoustic and it wasn't very dear so I bought it as a stop gap until I could afford a really expensive acoustic. I have searched for any information about the manufacture but can not find any thing.
The next investment was a Fender Squire Bass. I don't have a photograph of it as I traded it without ever taking a picture. It was ok but I never really took to it. By now I had upgraded the recording equipment with lots of outboard gear but I still didn't feel connected to this guitar. The bass sound was greatly improved but eventually I traded it on a Greg Bennett Bass. The photograph to the left is not of my guitar.
As I mentioned earlier I traded my three Hofners and a Roland TR 606 drum machine on a Stratocaster and a pair of Alsis M1 near field studio monitors.
I had always wanted a Stratocaster and I took the three Hofners to Melbourne as the music shops in Hobart were not prepared to take on three old Hofners. luckily I walked into a music shop that was looking to add a vintage guitar section to their repertoire. All of the Hofners needed a lot of work and the shop having a guitar technician on staff would be able to restore them much cheaper and quicker than I could. Well, I had a strat and I should have been happy. It is a Mexican one called a Fat Strat. The bridge pickup is a humbucker that I constantly used.
Next was this Greg Bennett Farlaine Bass. I grew to not like the Fender Squire Bass and eventually did a straight swap for this one. I really liked it and I thought it recorded better than the Fender Squire Bass. It was defiantly easier to play. At last I was getting a better bottom end sound with more separation between the Bass Drum and the Bass Guitar.
Now we come to THE guitar. I had been investigating a Taylor T5 Guitar and was impressed by the versatility of it. When writing different kinds of songs the thought of having one guitar that could handle acoustic sounds as well as heavy overdriven noises was very appealing. Whilst waiting for a Taylor to come to Hobart we came across the Line 6 Variax guitar. The music shop was kind enough to let me try the guitar and a Pod XT live floor effects unit for a weekend. I was hooked. The equipment never went back to the music shop. The hardware and the available software really suited the way I work. I've read of a new catagrory of guitars, called super guitars. Line 6, Taylor, Fender and Gibson are all making guitars that are more than wood with strings attached.
The Variax is 25 guitars in 1. The software emulates the qualities of a host of different guitars. The Pod XT live emulates many different Amplifiers and Effect pedals. I really like the ability of it to change tunings without altering the strings.
This is the Line 6 Variax Bass. Having liked the six string version so much I thought that a bass would be the same. I bought this over the telephone from a music shop in Melbourne. When it arrived it was everything I was hoping for. It was easy to play, it recorded well and I am the kind of person who likes to have every thing on the screen so that I can see what all the bits and pieces are doing. I purchased the bass expansion pack for the Line 6 Pod XT live so now I can call up heaps of different Bass Amplifiers and effects.
With the acquisition of the line 6 guitars I now feel that I have the tools to get all my ideas for songs down on tape (opps I mean disk). The world will only be a better place from here on.
PS. I still want to get a Taylor T5.
That's all the guitars. Next I will start on the rest of all the stuff I have acquired over the years.
