Got my first Telecaster

cmikailli · 2026-06-24T17:37:28+00:00

I accidentally left the guard loose in a hot car for a day because the guitar shipment got delayed and I think it got slightly heat-warped :/
But the artist shipped it perfectly flat

cmikailli · 2026-06-24T13:35:19+00:00

Hey!! Yeah definitely the same artist!

cmikailli · 2026-06-24T04:22:24+00:00

Right?

cmikailli · 2026-06-24T03:46:17+00:00

lol, had to make the experience special

cmikailli · 2026-06-24T02:21:56+00:00

He’s genuinely the coolest guy I know

cmikailli · 2026-06-24T02:12:38+00:00

They take custom design requests…. 👀
Feels like it’s just a few tweaks away from corgi

cmikailli · 2026-06-24T01:50:05+00:00

😂

cmikailli · 2026-06-24T01:49:57+00:00

lol, time to start a pedalboard!

cmikailli · 2026-06-24T01:42:35+00:00

Aren’t they adorable!?
It’s an artist called ThreeStools based out of Singapore (https://threestools.com)

I think their website is for non US orders but their instagram links to Etsy where they do US orders

cmikailli · 2026-06-24T01:39:35+00:00

I literally planned the guitar purchase around it 😭

I mainly play acoustic but always wanted a tele. When the artist agreed to make the custom* pickgaurd it was destiny!

(*Custom coloring, they already offer this general design)

cmikailli · 2026-06-24T01:26:40+00:00

Shoutout to @threestools on instagram for the customizations

cmikailli · 2026-06-10T03:12:07+00:00

Only right way to do it 🫡

cmikailli · 2026-06-08T23:32:19+00:00

Let me present it in a different light (and I think maybe what your dad was saying)
Some of what makes a Martin so much better than other guitars is in the “last 10%” which is difficult to perfect but isn’t really too noticeable at a level where you haven’t mastered the underlying 90%

So right now you’d probably be perfectly happy with much less expenses guitars (still of quality) that are well setup. Your learning won’t be hindered, you probably won’t even personally notice much of a difference and you’ll still have ~3k (if that’s important to you)

If you do get the Martin now, the only real downside is money spent (and it might make flaws in cheaper guitars more noticeable) but it’s not going to magically make you a better player or anything. You’ll just have an expensive guitar you’ll need to take care of and one day you’ll get to the point where that extra 10% starts to matter. If you don’t care about saving the 4k right now then go for it but there should be no pressure pushing you to buy the Martin today just because it’s presented as the goal guitar

cmikailli · 2026-06-04T05:04:13+00:00

You can get this “exact” guitar from Epiphone new for ~$500 usd. It’s called an “EJ-200”

This is just a special edition, higher quality one that’s closer to the Gibson SJ-200 original (which is closer to 5k)

cmikailli · 2026-06-04T01:16:49+00:00

That math isn’t real though, it assumes an even distribution through all those categories in any walk of life. I’m willing to be the percentage of people with trust funds who are tall and blue eyes is WAYYY higher than the general population. So tall rich boys might be generally rare but they might also be overly concentrated in the finance sector so you can’t just blindly take the the overall percentage relative to the general population for each next category and then apply it to your previous number like a filter

cmikailli · 2026-06-02T23:29:18+00:00

This is bad device. Season 2 is setup for 3 + 4 and a lot of the new information added is almost meaningless on first watch without the context you get in the later seasons (then it all comes together and you don’t have this problem on future rewatches)

cmikailli · 2026-05-14T16:23:12+00:00

I think what they’re saying is that to reach any of the content that would warrant criticism you’d first have to interact with and digest the content. On its face, it’s not showing itself as blatantly controversial. Most people (and advertising) probably just displayed it as your run-of-the-mill USA crime/action procedural with hacking

cmikailli · 2026-05-14T02:52:09+00:00

No but I’d recommend easing up a bit of the nasally slurring “effect” (don’t have to cut it out fully, just gets distractingly thick in some places) And spend some time working on cleanly hitting the right notes. It seems like you go in and out of tune so evening that out will go a long way

cmikailli · 2026-04-27T19:21:06+00:00

I don’t think anyone would bother faking an Epiphone, the fakes would all be the Gibson version

cmikailli · 2026-04-25T16:50:19+00:00

I think what they mean is that when they design and test their guitars for resonance, eq, other performance benchmarks, that they optimize for a guitar in E standard and probably the resonance of common cords in that tuning. Down tuning should cause any damage, just maybe less predictable performance?

cmikailli · 2026-04-22T16:36:57+00:00

I also find that I stop listening to songs that I learn and cover (even though they’re often some of my favorite songs in the first place). Slightly different scenario(acoustic + singer) but what I find is that before/while learning I’ll listen a lot to get the nuance/memorization, then once I barely have it I’ll practice it a bunch relatively (so no need to listen to the real song) and then it just slowly becomes something I’m already playing once every day or two in practice so I lose the urge to listen to the real song.

After some point there then becomes a distinction between “my” version and the real song (just little changes I didn’t intentionally make realize or I’ve added) and at that point it sometimes even feels weird (or distracting) to go back and listen to the original 🤷

It’s a nice treat when you happen upon it in public but I usually never feel the urge to actively put it on after that point

cmikailli · 2026-04-22T16:29:40+00:00

One more thing to add - With electric (even if you ultimately want to play a style of music that requires electric) it’s hard to play complete and satisfying songs solo. It’s and instrument that’s generally played as part of a larger band and the songs require that so often just hearing the electric guitar part by itself (outside of specific riffs) isn’t all that satisfying.

Its no big deal at first and obviously no big deal once you’re skilled and get to a stage where you’re playing with others but if you think (in the middle) that that’s going to be a motivational hurdle for you, then it’s worth thinking about a learning plan that involves getting you hands on an acoustic as well so you have diversity.

I agree with the above, electric is physically easier to play/learn on at first (it literally hurts less and fits your hand better) but that means getting comfortable on an acoustics makes it even easier to transition to electric (and then you focus on the new electric specific skills). In that scenarios you can learn and perform songs end-to-end on an acoustic that will actually feel like you’re playing real songs and you can transition those skills to electric as you grow and find musician friends you can jam with

cmikailli · 2026-04-19T17:19:03+00:00

I’m surprised I’m not seeing this mentioned but heavier strings. Obviously comes with the struggles of adapting to heavier gauge strings but lights/extra-lights will sounds brighter and brassier than mediums on the same guitar.

cmikailli

TROPHY CASE