Welcome   Welcome to the G&L® Discussion Page (or G&LDP for short), an exclusive feature of the web's first and only official G&L fan tribute page, www.guitarsbyleo.com!!   This site is dedicated to the innovative guitars and basses that Leo Fender and his long-time associate, George Fullerton, created during the last decade of Leo's career and lifetime, and to the G&L tradition of innovation and hand craftsmanship that continues in the G&L lineup today.   The G&LDP is your meeting place to discuss all things related to G&L stringed instruments.   G&L guitars, basses, and the amps and gear we run them through are all fair game! If you want to talk about non-musical topics, go somewhere else.

Background   This site was created by Brad W. Traweek.  It is a continuation of his original G&L tribute page developed in mid-1997 while he was a student at the University of Arizona, and its structure, features and content have continually improved under his creativity and technical expertise since its inception. On October 16, 2000, this site went under the stewardship of G&L's own Dave McLaren. The discussion forum on the site originally debuted on March 4th, 1998.

Rules   The G&L® Discussion Page is not a BBS or an internet newsgroup. Therefore, we have rules which are simple and will be enforced to maintain a positive atmosphere. Participants are expected to treat others with respect, kindness and consideration, including G&L and other manufacturers. No outright bashing or excessively harsh criticism of any manufacturer's products will be tolerated. No shouting matches, melodramatic posturing, excessive whining, or ranting is permissible. Offending posts may be deleted, and the participant may be notified privately by email. Subsequent posting to the G&LDP regarding a private warning from the webmaster will likely result in suspension or revocation of posting privileges.

Security   Due to a few abuses of the open, unguarded nature of the various interactive pages at www.guitarsbyleo.com I have been forced to add a security feature so that I can deny access to those who are abusing the system. In order to participate here, you must create a User Profile; please click on the link below to do so.  Once you've created a User Profile, it will be your ticket to all of the interactive areas at the site.

Posting Photos   In order to share a GIF or JPEG image in a post on the G&LDP, the tricky part is that you have to actually have that photo located on a web server somewhere. That's actually not as complicated as it sounds, though - there are numerous services out there that will do this very thing for you and closely guide you through the process... take a look at Photobucket.com, Yahoo! Briefcase and PhotoPoint, for example (note: if you have other suggestions for free photo hosting services please let me know so I can list them here).

(Important Note: some services like PhotoPoint let you create "photo albums"; in this case, when submitting a post, you'll want to use the Optional Link URL and Optional Link Title fields so that you can include a link to your photo album. The instructions below only apply when you have the URL to a single GIF or JPEG image and would actually like to embed that image within your post.)

Anyway, once you've submitted the photo to one of these hosting services you'll be able to access it with your web browser by means of its URL (for example, http://www.myhostingservice.com/myusername/myphoto.jpg); the hosting service will provide this URL to you. Now you're good to go; when submitting a post to the G&LDP, notice that below the main text entry area there's an input field that says Optional Image URL. Simply enter the full URL to your image here. That's it! When you hit the Preview Message button your image should appear as part of your post. If it doesn't, make sure that you've typed the full URL (including the "http://" part), and also verify that there are no typos in the URL.

Retail Prices   In keeping with G&L's own policy regarding publication of retail prices, please do NOT post actual sale prices of new G&L instruments on this page. Example 1: "I found a new ASAT for $699 - is this a good price?" Example 2: "How much did the '99 GbL_LE actually sell for?" Such posts may be forcefully deleted or modified by myself. Posting prices on used instruments, however, is fine.

To "Lite" Or Not To "Lite"   We offer two versions of the page; if you wish to download and view the entire index of message threads (i.e., an approximately 200KB file) every single time you visit this site, then just stick with the standard page. Otherwise, please help me save on bandwidth usage by using G&LDP Lite exclusively - the latter is ideally suited for those who prefer to keep up with the page by using the View Recent Messages button rather than sifting through the message index.

For Sale / Wanted Items   We hope that this site will be the first place anyone who is interested in buying, selling or trading a G&L will turn to.  As such, we've set up a totally free Marketplace.  "For Sale" and "Wanted" ads are not allowed on the G&LDP.  The reason we've adopted this policy is that we'd like to prevent ads from weighting down the discussion forum. The added side benefit, of course, is that we hope that this policy will keep the Marketplace page thriving. It is okay to post a message announcing the inclusion of the ad in the Marketplace. If you want to post a Public Service Announcement (PSA) regarding a G&L instrument seen on one of the many auction and selling sites, AND you are not the seller, please do ID the post with "PSA:" in the Subject line.

Search Facility   This facility performs a simple AND'ed keyword search on recent posts to the G&LDP. For example, to search for posts containing the words "bridge" and "pickup", you'll want to type "bridge pickup" as your search keywords. Note that this is a case-insensitive search, hence the query "BRIDGE PICKUP" will match the same posts.

Official Lunch Reporter   In addition to the guitar-related information you'll find on this site, you'll also get a fascinating glimpse into the everyday diet of the G&L enthusiast. The first lunch report occurred many years ago during beta testing of the G&L Discussion Page - we laughed and we cried as we learned the details of my tasty chicken sandwich, in all of its Monterey-Jack-cheese-and-sesame-seed-bun glory. I had also brought some fig newtons that day, and reported that they were quite satisfying as well. Have you noticed that fig newtons taste kind of crunchy?

Anyway, despite this modest beginning, in-depth lunch reports soon became a prominent feature of the G&LDP, so we felt it prudent to create the office of Official G&LDP Lunch Reporter in order to streamline the hundreds and hundreds of lunch reports that were pouring in each day. The enthusiast lucky enough to be nominated to the position serves a term of precisely one business week in length - note that this amounts to five full days packed with the lunch information you need to know, brought to you at no charge by said enthusiast. The nomination procedure is as follows (quoted from Section VI.3.2 of the latest bold version of the www.guitarsbyleo.com owner's manual):

The out-going G&LDP Lunch Reporter shall nominate a replacement. Service in this position is compulsory, and it is considered to be the second highest honor that fellow www.guitarsbyleo.com enthusiasts can bestow upon one of their own.

Should the nominee be unwilling or unable to fulfill the obligations and responsibilities required of the Official G&LDP Lunch Reporter, the nominee must identify an alternative solution acceptable to the outgoing G&LDP Lunch Reporter and the G&LDP Executive Committee. Such solution may include but is not limited to procuring the services of a mutally acceptable and willing replacement enthusiast. This substitute enthusiast's enthusiasm must have been clearly demonstrated either via posts to the page, or an airbrushed image of him/her appearing on his/her partner's guitar (the latter is known as the Joe Perrone Airbrush Clause).

And from Section VIII.22.357 of the manual... and I quote:

At the completion of a term of service [in the office of Lunch Reporter], the enthusiast in question is not eligible to again be nominated to the position for a period of four (4) weeks.

Beginning in 2008, each Lunch Reporter will be given a BBE Stomp Box after completion of their term. Lunch Reporters will only be eligible to receive one Stomp Box per year. One of the webmasters will contact the outgoing Lunch Reporter and make arrangements for shipping the LR's choice of a BBE Stomp Box from a list of choices to be provided.

If you feel that further clarification regarding the office of Official G&LDP Lunch Reporter is needed, please do not hesitate to post to that effect on the G&LDP.