Monday, June 2, 2008

Dustin's Guitars- Updated 6/10!

Check out the area in bold at the bottom for my new update about his new main axe, the black Nash Tele.
Hey everyone (well, there are at least 2 of you!). It's been a while since my last post, partly because I've been kind of scared to delve into this particular post. This article will get touched up in the future I'm sure. Aaaaanyway... Dustin's guitars...
Dustin's main guitar is a black/blonde Nash Telecaster Deluxe (resembling the Fender '72 model). It's got a maple neck, and 2 humbuckers like all Deluxe Tele's. Of course off the bat, this is a contrast from Teppei's Tele, which has single coils. What makes this guitar confusing is that apparently it's not a Nash guitar at all on the inside. It's got the guts of a Line 6 Variax guitar. Variax guitars are modeling guitars, specializing in... everything, really. The idea behind them is that they allow you to have any sound you want in a single guitar, to avoid switching on stage between songs (Teppei style!). I suppose this is why on the Say Anything tour (and maybe the tour before), Dustin played just this guitar, ditching his old axes for the show entirely (even playing Come All You Weary, and the solo Stare At The Sun on the Tele instead of an acoustic guitar). With his Variax/Tele hybrid, Dustin can play everything from acoustic songs to Deadbolt without changing axes.

Since I mentioned Dustin's old guitars I suppose I should explain them a bit, also. He (along with Teppei) seemed to be a Gibson man early on- though he differed from Teppei by preferring SG's over Les Paul's. He played a red '66 Gibson SG Jr. with a humbucker in the bridge and the tone knob removed, as well as a Sunburst SG. Dustin sold the SG Jr. on Ebay in the Summer of 2007, along with a JCM800 head, Mesa Dual Rectifier and cabs, a Gretsch clipper and a Taylor acoustic (I'll delve further into acoustics later on).
The guitar below is listed on The Alchemy Index blog as a "new guitar" that Dustin tried out during the jam sessions for the Fire EP. It's a Line 6 Variax 300- also pointing to Dustin's shift toward modeling guitars (though on the Circa Survive tour, acoustics made their comeback).

Here's a post-Circa Survive tour update, as Dustin changed his main guitar for this tour:
On the Circa Survive tour, Dustin began using a different Nash Telecaster (a T-Series Timewarp guitar). Not much is known about this guitar, but here are the basics: it's got a P-90 pickup in the neck position(bigger sized single coil, also seen in Teppei's Epiphone Casino) and a single-coil in the bridge. This guitar is closer to Teppei's Tele than his old main guitar, the blonde Tele. Maybe Teppei's single-coil love is contagious.

These tonal differences aren't that big of a deal however, as this guitar is almost surely modded with Variax guts like his old guitar. This isn't for sure, but as Dustin is using a Line 6 pedalboard (see the update in his pedalboard article for more info) and Line 6 amps (which all help the Variax modeling technology sound better), it is pretty positive. This guitar has completely replaced the blonde Tele, and was his electric of choice for the whole tour.

Take a look at the picture of Dustin that I've got in the article about his pedals for a shot of this new Tele.

9 comments:

Sean said...

I know next to nothing about guitars (humbucker?), but I'm a Thrice fan that happened upon your blog by chance. Interesting post, I didn't know there were guitars that would allow you to do all the parts Dustin would play in a set. Nice job.

I'm guessing the switch from Gibson to Nash had as much to do with business arrangements as preference, though I don't know (might be a chicken and egg situation). Based on their recent liner notes, it looks like they're getting hooked up with equipment by Nash.

Mike said...

Oh really? I didn't realize they pointed Nash out in the liner notes, but that may explain it somewhat. Thanks for pointing that out, and thanks for checking my blog out!


Basically humbuckers are a type of pickup- the things below the strings where you'd pick. They "pick up" the picking and send the signal to the amp. Single coils can be seen on things like Fender Stratocasters, and humbuckers can be seen on things like Dustin's Telecaster. Humbuckers are pretty much 2 single coils.

Anonymous said...

Another guitar to look into is Dustin's new Nash that he played as his primary guitar on the tour with Pelican and Circa Survive. This is a black on black t-series timewarp with maple neck and a p-90 in the neck. It may have modeling capabilites as well but that is unconfirmed (I think I saw an electronics cover on the back and he used that as his only electric guitar). You can note that he didn't bring the Telecaster Deluxe on this last tour and instead used this new black tele. Thanks for doing this as I've been looking for a good archive of Thrice gear. (Oh and I'm fairly certain that both Dustin and Teppei used Seymour Duncan JB pickups as their bridge pickups in the Gibsons). Keep doin what ya do, and thanks again.

Mike said...

Hey again Russell. Yeah, you're definitely right about that one too. I fell a bit out of the loop for the last tour, as I didn't see a show (they removed Ohio from their agenda this time) and only since I joined Thrice Scene have I really seen any pictures.

There's an edit for Dustin's guitars and his pedalboard coming up soon. I'm pretty positive he's Variax'd up this Tele too, since he's now using pretty much all Line 6 gear. He's got a Pod X3 Live as his pedalboard and is using those Vetta amps.

I wasn't sure about the pickups, but I'll check it out. Thanks a lot for the help!

Anonymous said...

If I'm not mistaken Kensrue built the deluxe w/ Variax himself, it wasn't made by Bill Nash for him. Only the black Tele was.

Mike said...

Hmm, I haven't heard about that but I'll definitely look into it. Where did you hear that?

D said...

Hey Mike!, fantastic blog, very informative!. Sorry for the delayed response, Thrice had some gear to sell awhile back, I was checking out some of it and came across some parts Dustin had bought through eBay, mainly Warmoth parts; also would make sense since Warmoth is if I'm not mistaken the only company that does the Variax-Tele transplant so either he had them done or DIY'd and we know Thrice is really into getting their hands dirty so it's a possibility. Peace out.

Russell said...

Hey Mike, I'm not sure if you're still checking on this blog but I realized that somehow I overlooked mentioning one of my favorite of Dustin's old guitars; that being his vintage Gibson Rd Artist. These guitars were made from 1977-1982 and had active electronics designed by Bob Moog. I can't comment on whether or not the electronics were still in the guitar or if he chose to use them ever but the design is definitely an interesting one. To see it in use, look at the Stare at the Sun and The Earth Will Shake (live in london) videos. It definitely is a pretty cool guitar.

Zach said...

i have seen pictures of of Dustin's new black nash with the knobs up close, and the first one is the variax selector knob, the second is the volume knob, and he has even recently put a third knob on the control plate for the tone. you can see him using it on the aol shock sessions which you can find on youtube, or if u look for pictures on google u can see the variax knob clearly. he has also obviously switched the 3-way switch for a 5-way switch in order to compensate for variax controls. but one question, do you know if dustin's guitars are hybrids, meaning he can switch back and forth between the pickups and variax models, or does he just use straight variax models?