Alright, so the full story's here, but basically, I just took home my dream guitar on Tuesday. Didn't even know it was my dream guitar til I saw and played it, though.

It's a Peavey Reactor Telecaster knockoff. It's amazing, though. I never liked 'classic' guitars (I really don't care for strats, etc), so I thought I'd dislike teles too, until I tried my friend's new Mexican-made Telecaster... Somehow I loved it. So when he mentioned there was a white tele knockoff hanging in a local Parksville pawnshop, I was pretty stoked. Finally ended up playing it after a good while of holding off, and I knew that was it... A week or two later, I ended up taking it home for $270. A little much, but it was priced at $300 originally (seriously, what? that's the price one of these Reactors goes for NEW, and this one's hardly pristine)... that pawn shop just has ridiculous prices. Oh well, I'd have paid the 300 if it came to that.

Anyhow, camera's batteries died before I could get a good picture of it, so all I have is this snapshot:



White body w/white pickguard, obviously (though I think the PG is home-made, or cut sloppily in odd places), stock neck pup and a SD Little '59 mini humbucker in the bridge-- this thing sounds huge. Oh, and it has real locking strap buttons as well, which is certainly a first for me after using cheap plastic straplocks for so long.

So yeah-- This guitar'll be with me for a long time, I think. Between this and my good old LTD MH-50nt workhorse, I've got all I need guitar-wise. No jokes about that being temporary please, I never was one for owning a billion different guitars. (this is only my second electric since I started playing)

~Josiah

EDIT: Almost forgot, some clips of the different sounds I've gotten out of it:
clicky
Just some quick recordings with a 58 thrown on the floor pointed at the amp.

Nice and clean sound there! I wish my cheap-o Tele sounded like that. It feels awesome, but it picks up just about all static there is.
Bring on some fully layered five track SYL rhythms now, eh?

Well, there was some hum/static in the recording, but nothing a quick noise reduce couldn't take care of. And yep, some crazy sounds can be drawn from this thing... Multi-layered metal madness to come

~Josiah

the metal clip doesnt sound too bad, dunno if its "meaty" enough for heavy shit like that though :\

As I said,

Just some quick recordings with a 58 thrown on the floor pointed at the amp.

I've already started recording with it proper. It's got just the tone I'm looking for, thank you.

~Josiah

The cleans sound great on it. The distorted part doesnt sound too bad, but its very thin sounding at times, would sound really good with a thick bass tone and maybe some more low thrown into the EQ

Alright, maybe I should clear this up properly...
Here's how it sounds properly recorded:
http://www.distractionware.com/josiahtobin/reactor_test_n.mp3
Those first clips I posted were done by just hitting record without heed to mic placement, etc. At the time the mic was actually lying on the floor fairly off-center to the amp, so it got a very middy/thin tone. They were all just to get a quick idea of the different sounds I could get out of the guitar. These new clips should give a much more accurate (and meaty ) idea of its distorted sound.

~Josiah

Ah much better! Sounds good now, drums sound a little weird though, what is that?

[Blazingmonga]

Awesome!

I've always wanted some kind of Tele', with a humbucker...can I have this one?

Also, you could so totally put a nice doodlage on that white finish. Go on!

Ah much better! Sounds good now, drums sound a little weird though, what is that?

Junk, really. Samples which I can't for the life of me remember the source of, spliced up and fucked with and then passed off as percussion. I like doing that.

Monga: That's the plan! The pickguard, at least... I think I want to leave the body white. I'm also thinking of maybe putting another single-coil in a middle position, so I can get a bit of that fun, jangly kind of distortion when I want it. Having a humbucker in the bridge is great for the current style of Swimfail stuff, but I really want to make this guitar as versatile as I can (though it's already halfway there). I don't know how much the middle position dulls down the 'bridge single coil' sound, though... Sometimes I wish it were possible to have two pickups in the bridge.

~Josiah

Much better sound. The bass is really cool too, the first clip sounds like a huge ogre marching through the woods...or something like that.

Much better sound. The bass is really cool too, the first clip sounds like a huge ogre marching through the woods...or something like that.

Hah, good description. That's actually part of a song off the new album, should be quite massive.

~Josiah

dats mighty purdy