Your next guitar?

[Dean Aka Nekro]

FWIW if I decide I want to do a pick-up change in a guitar with a floyd rose I do not remove the strings, I remove the springs, then the entire whammy, lay it out past the headstock, change the pick-ups, put the whammy back in and typically I never even loosen the locking nut and can fine tune it.

Very cool! I'll try this when I HAIR my Tone Zone.

So the Hair Tone Zone thing will give you inbetween a PAF and say a Duncan or Dimarzio Distortion type thing? Hotish but not as hot as some would expect Eric? As yeah i am a high output alnico V guy or even better a battery powered one but still like to keep up with passives for 'ballpark' sort of reference. Bare Knuckle have a newish one which is a decent balance of muscle and clarity, Still it is on the hot side:

http://www.bareknucklepickups.co.uk/mai ... =aftermath

I liked it anyway when i tried a set, Good bridge/neck balance also

Nice one and pardon the Hair Zone wisecrack - the era kind of dictates it man

[Hink]

probably somewhere in the nieghborhood of 100-200 times in my life someone would come into my store because they were having the old 'everytime I get one string in tune the rest are out' problem and in 5 minutes it was fixed by adjusting the the claw

What's the secret?

by using the claw screws/spring configuration to compensate for the tension of the strings, just like any fulcrum in order for there has to be balance on both sides. This method has worked for me from day I got my first floyd rose.

FWIW if I decide I want to do a pick-up change in a guitar with a floyd rose I do not remove the strings, I remove the springs, then the entire whammy, lay it out past the headstock, change the pick-ups, put the whammy back in and typically I never even loosen the locking nut and can fine tune it.

Until the internet came along I thought this was common knowledge and everybody did this with the claw, if the claw was not to be adjusted they would just put hooks to hold the springs to the body instead screws with a free moving claw

That was what I thought you did...but I was not going to gainsay it.

....mmmmmm...have you ever come across any stripped threads on those screws..and if so...what did you do to release them?

They are just wood screws so all you would have to worry about is the wood holes stripping (but they are fairly deep). This is why I said if I could builsd a claw with machined threads for the claw I would. I have never stripped one but I would treat it like any stippred wooden hole if I had to. I dont do this like a zillion times and typically I keep each guitar in one tuning most of the time. So if I build or buy another guitar with a rose I would use it in a different tuning. 3 guitars with a floyd rose right now, two are Gm (DGDGBbD) and one is open Eb (EbBbEbGBbEb)

[Dean Aka Nekro]

probably somewhere in the nieghborhood of 100-200 times in my life someone would come into my store because they were having the old 'everytime I get one string in tune the rest are out' problem and in 5 minutes it was fixed by adjusting the the claw

What's the secret?

by using the claw screws/spring configuration to compensate for the tension of the strings, just like any fulcrum in order for there has to be balance on both sides. This method has worked for me from day I got my first floyd rose.

FWIW if I decide I want to do a pick-up change in a guitar with a floyd rose I do not remove the strings, I remove the springs, then the entire whammy, lay it out past the headstock, change the pick-ups, put the whammy back in and typically I never even loosen the locking nut and can fine tune it.

Until the internet came along I thought this was common knowledge and everybody did this with the claw, if the claw was not to be adjusted they would just put hooks to hold the springs to the body instead screws with a free moving claw

That was what I thought you did...but I was not going to gainsay it.

....mmmmmm...have you ever come across any stripped threads on those screws..and if so...what did you do to release them?

Pliers and elbow grease but i have not come across thread one's 'yet'
It will probably happen now you mentioned that and my 'luck'

[susiwong]

See, that's not what I took away from that video. The way I heard it is there's more tension coming from the low strings and so putting more tension on their corresponding springs allows the trem to hinge uniformly on the screws, thus returning the strings to pitch better.

Hey, Eric,
you might be correct after all !
Watched the video 4 times now, still not clear what Verheyen means as he's constantly going back and forth between his angled claw, the three intervals and string tension - no coherent logical chain.
Maybe it's just me being dumb ...
Your theory however makes perfect sense to me , I will have to try that.
Thanks a million !
My PRS came perfectly set up with a straight claw btw.

Re stretching, you certainly already do what's necessary.
Strings tend to "stick" or "bind" where friction is. After a bending or whammy use they might only return to pitch 99% sometimes. An experienced player will try to minimize this effect by "stretching" the strings until they are wrapped around the tuner shaft perfectly tight, the slight bow a new string makes where it "leaves" the tuner shaft is straightened out, stuff like that.
While playing you never tune down to pitch, you pull at the string to make it "unbind" instead, to fix that 1% it ended up too high.
Only if that doesn't help, you tune down the string a lot lower than needed, working your way up to pitch, constantly stretching.
You don't just let go of your trem bar, you give it a tiny little pull up when you release it, common knowledge stuff like that.
I didn't adress you, Hink or other experienced players, it was meant as a "watch out, there are useful tricks to learn, no black magic involved" for the newbies.
And with string trees, / relationship.
You often need the downward pressure for E and B, on the other hand they inevitably cause unwanted friction.
So shape, material and height of the string tree do make a big difference, I'm a huge fan of the old staggered Kluson style tuners Schecter invented in the 80s, these often eliminate the need for a string tree completely, or at least allow to get by with very slight guidance for E and B.

Ymmv,
susiwong

[susiwong]

Now admittedly i never get handed a strat as i do not know anyone in person whom uses one (A single coil at the bridge? You gotta be shittin' me!*)

Noooooooooooooo !
What has become of this world ?
Les Paul haters, Strat ignorants, turns out Ronnie Dunn was right when he said "Playing anything else than a Tele is communist".
Oh well,
susiwong

[hibidy]

turns out Ronnie Dunn was right when he said "Playing anything else than an Ibanez is communist".
Oh well,
susiwong

fixed!

[trimph1]

[Hink]

Now admittedly i never get handed a strat as i do not know anyone in person whom uses one (A single coil at the bridge? You gotta be shittin' me!*)

Noooooooooooooo !
What has become of this world ?
Les Paul haters, Strat ignorants, turns out Ronnie Dunn was right when he said "Playing anything else than a Tele is communist".
Oh well,
susiwong

you can look at 2 ways....either everyone else is or some of us are

I'm not a trend guy, I'm often opposite everyone (not just in music either), I'm not a a brand name guy, I am far from cliche and I do everything my way (which very often in the world that is the same as everyone else for typical day to day things). It honestly started as a defense mechanism because my family didn't really support my being a rock and roll guitar player. After all my frustration playing the trumpet in my early school days they saw guitar as a passing thing. My friends had fender, peavey and ampeg amps...I had an amp from an old ham radio my father modified for me. I had a cheesy Alamo guitar and then a Hagstrom II...I was young and dumb so of course I ober boasted about them. My friends had Fenders and Gibsons.

When I joined the service I bought a 72 tele custom in texas...every where I went I made sure the logo was facing out on the case. But then I started realizing my words dissing Gibson and Fenders were not really wrong. There was one though that was pretty lame, strats were bad because the middle pick-up gets hit by the pick too often or of course when you break a string the whole guitar goes out of tune

As time went on I learned that saying it's the person behind the guitar and not the guitar that makes the player had more than one meaning. As I learned I had the skills and understanding to modify my guitars I began to see how much more I was paying for the name on the guitar and that just blossomed from there. I dont completely not go by brand names but if I do it's because I have had luck with that brand (Like say EMG or the much lessor known Artec) and if it happens to be exactly opposite everyone else that's a plus because I'm a

I am not lying one bit when I say that 05 I bought my first guitar that I paid more than 500 dollars for, my Kramer Ritchie Sambora was the closest to that and used it was either 400 or 450.

However until it got stolen with my tele and old boogie (in the 80s) I did have a brand new charvel model 4, however I chose it (I actually had a choice of quite a few guitars, the store let me bring them one at a time to practice so I could check them out). The guitar was bought as a gift for me by a bandmate.

Now there are much more things I want and I do not need to spend thousands on guitars (amps yes, guitars no) when I know I can get what I want my way (like the way I did the baritone) and then of course I have a family. No guitar is going to make me any better and what I like in guitars is

So there you have it, not haters...just utterly insane and not only am I proud of it but I'm pretty damn good at it too

[Uncle E]

So the Hair Tone Zone thing will give you inbetween a PAF and say a Duncan or Dimarzio Distortion type thing?

It's halfway between an Air Zone and a Tone Zone. They're both thick, heavy duty pickups but this mod is supposedly for people who want something slightly ruder than an Air Zone but not a total in-your-face wall of sound like the Tone Zone. People on other forums say this is what became the highly sought after EVH pickup.

Personally, I feel the Air Zone is the best pickup I've used for smooth singing leads but isn't great for crunchy rhythm work. I'm hoping this mod will cover that gap.

[Uncle E]

This is why I said if I could builsd a claw with machined threads for the claw I would.

How about bypassing the claw altogether and putting the screws directly through the springs? It seems like that would work great.

[Hink]

This is why I said if I could builsd a claw with machined threads for the claw I would.

How about bypassing the claw altogether and putting the screws directly through the springs? It seems like that would work great.

honestly I have thought of that but the truth is that means I could remove the springs or move them as easy. It's easy to pull the springs off the claw with just your thumb and index finger. Besides a custom machined block/retrofit would look awesome, it would say "I'm precision hi-tech so back off"

[Dean Aka Nekro]

So the Hair Tone Zone thing will give you inbetween a PAF and say a Duncan or Dimarzio Distortion type thing?

It's halfway between an Air Zone and a Tone Zone. They're both thick, heavy duty pickups but this mod is supposedly for people who want something slightly ruder than an Air Zone but not a total in-your-face wall of sound like the Tone Zone. People on other forums say this is what became the highly sought after EVH pickup.

Personally, I feel the Air Zone is the best pickup I've used for smooth singing leads but isn't great for crunchy rhythm work. I'm hoping this mod will cover that gap.

Right i am with you/get it now Eric and of course i am pretty sure you will be a dude and let us know how it turns out. Goes without saying hope the mod will do what you want it to also

Cheers

[susiwong]

"Playing anything else than an Ibanez is communist".

Call me Vladimir !
susiwongskaya

[Hink]

"Playing anything else than an Ibanez is communist".

Call me Vladimir !
susiwongskaya

you got what in your ear?

[susiwong]

you got what in your ear?

vlad ??

The sound of an LP in my left ear and the sound of a Strat in my other left ear.
I'm not a trend guy !
Rotfl,
susiwong