Hallmark Owner's Corner!

[LOSTVENTURE]

I just sent an e-mail to the editor of Guitar Player that I assure you will not make it to the magazine. The May issue was the one that covered the recent NAMM show. Surprisingly, Hallmark was not mentioned in the twenty-some pages of the coverage. I brought that to the editors attention. They covered all of the Fender and Gibson same-old stuff and all kinds of pedals but not one Hallmark. Of course GP has never covered any of the Japanese Mosrites either. I'm sure that advertise enhanced reviews covered a lot of the article, but it was mostly the same old stuff. Still very dissapointing.
Don

[chunners]

Has anybody taken delivery on a Custom 59 yet?
I would love to hear a review and see some pictures of it in action.
I'm still trying to justify the extra 500 bucks compared to the Custom 60.

Any thoughts?

Christian

[Strat-o-rama]

Waaay too niche-market for GP to cover. There's hundreds of booths at NAMM, and they are covering based on the average subscriber demographic. Also, ad dollars=coverage. Readership is down for publications like GP (and many others) because of forums like this. I still subscribe to GP, and the subscription rate has skyrocketed, but I still like reading the reviews and interviews, even though I'm not really into Orianthi or Mastodon, it's interesting to see what other players are doing and thinking.
I would say Hallmark has found it's niche, and Bob Shade is doing a great job of marketing considering the limited budget he must be working with. He is creating an image for his company, and because his product is associated with a lifestyle, he's appealing to the right groups of players. Bravo, Mr. Shade! Keep it up!

[jfine]

Update on the 60 Custom--I took it to a rehearsal Monday night; first chance I've had to run it through something bigger than a 15-watt practice amp in the teaching studio. It was just me and the lead singer/rhythm guitarist, so I went through a Peavey Classic 50 212 at the practice space (a very underrated amp in my opinion) at fairly low volume. The Hallmark sounded really good, but I was having some tuning issues that I didn't expect, as it seems to stay in tune pretty well on my teaching gig. Tuesday, I lubricated the bridge saddles and the string guide with a bit of Graphitall (a liquid/white graphite product put out by GHS--similar to that Big Bends Nut Sauce). It seemed to settle in pretty well after the lube job. I've got another rehearsal with the full band on Friday, and a gig on Saturday, so I'll see what happens in the heat of battle. If I keep having tuning problems, I'll put a set of locking tuners on it--I've got Sperzels on my Strat (the only other vibrato-equipped guitar I've got) and they work fine.

[Bob Shade]

Just a quick tip note.......it is a good idea to make sure your strings are stretched as far as they will stretch prior to changing gears and such. Just keep pull on each string until it stays perfectly in tune with your tuner. The system on the 60 Custom should stay in perfect tune if the strings are stretched out. However if they are not, and you play the guitar an use the trem, the string will stretch and go out like any guitar would. A good guitar tech for pro's etc. will do this before each performance.

Bob

[jfine]

I agree with you 100% about stretching the strings, Bob--I do it every time I change strings, and every time I have to tune down to the right pitch, I always tune the string below pitch and bring it up. If it was going flat, I'd figure the strings were stretching; however, in rehearsal the other night the B string kept going sharp. I've got several tricks to get strings back in tune if they go sharp from vibrato (ab)use--often, a little left-hand finger vibrato or a quick bend will get it back to pitch--if that doesn't do it, sometimes a quick tug with the right hand or a vibrato-bar bounce will help. Keeping the string guide, zero fret and saddles lubed up helps a lot, but I don't do that except when I change strings--I don't want to over-lube! Today at my teaching gig, it did fine--I tuned it once and it stayed there, and I made a point of hitting the bar periodically to see if it would go out. On the plus side, it is definitely the most comfortable vibrato setup I've ever used. I'm not very tough on the bar anyway--I use it quite a bit, but I never drop the pitch more than a half-step. The only thing that'll keep a guitar in tune under radical whammy-bar mayhem (which I don't do) is a Floyd Rose, anyway, and I hate those things...

[twango the clown]

Last Friday, the 19th of March, I took my Hallmark C60 out for the first time under the lights, and the results were spectacular.
I ran it through my 1994 tweed Blues Deluxe, and finally got a chance to hear what Bob Shade's pickups are capable of. The output was huge; way louder than the P-90 on my 1956 LP Junior, which admittedly has had five decades to degauss. Also it was punchier than my Esquire with an overall tone that I have not encountered before. My amp was far from 'cranked,' as we say, but came close to breaking up a couple of times with all that signal, and I am thinking that an amp with a little more headroom might be in order. I have a Fender Deluxe 112, a solid state amp, that I keep as an emergency spare, but it might come into its own with a guitar like this.
The two-ply neck was solid as a rock, as I expected. I tend to 'twiddle' with the tremolo on this guitar, (the bar is just too handy!) but I hardly had to touch the tuning keys all night. Of course I did resort to that old trick of smearing all six strings back and forth at the nut to break up a little 'slack storage' once or twice, but that's to be expected, even with a perfect tremolo.
I had a few moments of confusion as I'm not yet accustomed to twenty-two clear frets yet, and it still looks like a long road! Long ago I had a similar period of adjustment when I owned a reverse Firebird, and lost my place a few times. But, of course, that problem was with me, not the guitar.
Many, many compliments about the looks of that guitar, which is very much not the usual Gibson or Fender. Jay Allen, who brought an old blue Mosrite Mark V to play that night, scrutinized it thoroughly and grudgingly grunted his approval, even though the neck looked a little 'fat' to him.
Also, in a little flirtacious banter, one woman remarked that the beauty of the guitar served to highlight my own less-glamorous appearance.
Judge for yourself.
BTW, Jeff Crane, our other guitarist, who is really into MC5, Kramer, Sonic Smith et al, is playing an Epiphone Wilshire through a Fender Prosonic, but I can see in this picture the incipient onset of the dreaded G.A.S...

[Dennisthe Menace]

Nice PIC Frank!

[Veenture]

Yeah, good picture! I like your style of writing too twango

[eltuce]

Yes, and I was there to hear it in all it's glory! Jay greeted me with, "Hey, check out that guitar that Frank's got!", to which I had to reply, "Well guess what I just got the other day!" Sounded great and I did notice you couldn't stop reaching for that tremolo.