New to GJ and looking for a bit of guitar advice

slimbo77

Hi folks,

I'm pretty new to Gypsy Jazz style. I suppose you would have called me a folk/blues player, until I saw a little band playing Gypsy Jazz in a cellar bar in Gent, Belgium on holiday last year. It was a truly amazing experience, and I was completely smitten with the whole vibe.

I'm now looking at taking the plunge and buying a GJ style guitar... As much as I love my Guild, I really want a selmer style guitar, and as luck would have it, I have the opportunity to buy a S/H Gitane DG320 (Modele Jorgenson) - which, through a bit of research online, I trust is a pretty decent guitar. The problem is it's missing a machine head... I just wanted to know how difficult this is would be to replace. Is replacing this a fairly unskilled task... or is this the kind of thing I'd need to factor in to the cost - i.e. the price of having a guitar tech fix this?

Any advice would be much appreciated...

Oh, and I forget the name of the band I saw in Gent. GJ seems to be pretty popular in Gent, so there might be dozens of bands playing there, but they had the word 'silver' in the name, I think. Anyone who knows who they are, I'd be over the moon if I could find out. Wish I had found out more when I was there... they were sooooo good!

Michael Bauer

I think Michael sells replacement tuning keys. Last time I looked (quite awhile ago), the tuning keys for your guitar were about $50 US. Michael could ship them, or you could find some locally. Not a hard nor an expensive fix. I wouldn't let it be a factor as long as you like the guitar.

Tele295

The Jorgenson is more than "pretty decent". It should serve you quite well until you decide to leap into a guitar that costs as much as a car. Don't sell the Guild, as they are fantastic guitars, but they really don't do GJ that well.

MichaelHorowitz

Replacement tuners are here:

http://shoppingcart.djangobooks.com/eco ... uners.html

slimbo77

Many thanks for the responses.

Well, I went ahead and bought the guitar and have no regrets - sounds amazing!!! Cant believe how different it sounds to my dreadnought - and how loud?!

Do you know if the machine heads in the link posted is for 3, or 6? the guitar is missing just one button, the tuning mechanism itself works fine - so just wondered if I'd need to buy the whole set, or whether its possible to but just one side (i.e. 1 x 3 machine head unit). If not, no sweat - I feel like I've got an amazing deal as it is.

Now - I best get on with some practise. Its just sinking in how much there is to learn.

Thanks again.

Cheers
Slimbo