Your next guitar?

[Ian B]

Will not be a string thro' body..........

I set about restringing my otherwise excellent Acepro AE625 PRS-alike last night and wished I'd never started as it took about 45 minutes to do. To be fair, as annoying as that was, not all of the time was spent trying to get the strings thro' the body (tho' each took at least half a dozen attempts ) but also because I'd previously restrung it in the same way my guitar tech prefers and getting the strings free from the pegs was a pita, with not a few puncture wounds to my finger tips in the process.

if you couldn't get the strings through the body something is very wrong and it's probably the bridge being out of place. I can see having trouble with perhaps the two smallest strings but after that the rest should slide in with ease...I have never had an issue.

Get yourself some magnifying googles, I have these (they come with three different lenses)



and also make sure you have a small pair of good diagonal cutters because getting the strings of the machine heads should have been a snap. That visor is one of the best things I bought in the last few years, seriously makes a huge difference working on guitars but I also use them for a lot of other things.

The bridge is fine Hink and holding the guitar up to a light shows there's nothing blocking the strings passage, but I uspect the problem lies in there only being metal rings on the outside of the guitar, the actual passageway being wood resulting in the strings sometimes catching on the body itself, or under the topside ring. I could have made things easier after having problems with the bottom E, by snipping off the unwound part of the A, D and G, but I didn't think of that till just now

Is it a spring loaded saddle? Push the saddle back and up(preferably) before threading the string thru the hole.

No springs involved on this bridge.

To be fair this is the first struggle I've ever had with restring this guitar and maybe my going down to 10's from 11's and my being out of practice as this was the first new set it's seen for quite some time, didn't help.

dont laugh

next time you change the strings get yourself a bottle of clear glossy nail polish, remove the ferrels and inside of the smaller parts of the holes (try not to get any where the ferrels go)...I have never tried that but that is the first thing that came to mind

Good call Hink, I'll bear it mind for future restringing, tho' I'll try snipping off the unwound bits on the wound strings and possibly folding back the ends of the plain strings to stiffen them up for next time.

[Hink]

@push pull: Nope just a tone and volume. Very expressive tone and volume though!

Good sign, the more I play it, the more I like it.

so (now give this some thought), passive tone controls do not boost frequencies..they only cut them. For 20 bux (plus shipping) and no mod to the body you could remove the tone control and put this in



put it between the volume (which I assume is a 5-way) and the jack that is supplied with the pre-amp switch. There's a global trimpot so you can adjust how strong the boost is. Here's all it takes, there are 4 terminals on the board.

1. remove the hot wire from the jack of you guitar and solder it to the input on the switch.
2. run a wire from the output terminal of the pre-amp to the jack supplied with the pre to the tip terminal
3. run a wire from the ground terminal on the pre-amp to the sleeve terminal on the jack
4. attach the black wire on the battery clip that comes with the pre-amp to the ring terminal on the jack.
5. attach the red wire on the battery clip to the terminal on the pre-amp that says 'B+'

put the switch in the tone pot hole, put the jack where it belongs and attach a battery...done

Now this is assuming there is room for a battery in the electronic compartment, I put a piece of foam over the electronics to cushion the battery which is placed above the foam (the electronics cover will hold it in place) and I wrap the battery in either electrical tape or duct tape just in case to stop the metal of the battery from shorting something out.

You get a 5 way pre with a true bypass so it's just as it is now, a boost, lite overdrive, distortion (they say kinda rat sounding, I say similr to a distortion +) and a metal drive with a scoop, you can use either hi or lo-z inputs and there is no cutting into the guitar at all and you'll be the only one who will know it's there.

link for pre

http://www.guitarheads.net/products/ele ... s/qdd.html

I now have three of these, I think I'm going to get one more to do the exact same thing as I just described to my new guitar

[Uncle E]

-It's heavy! No problem, just didn't expect it.

Yeah, Ash can vary. Swamp ash is usually the one that's lighter.

-When you switch to single coil (either both or one or the other) it's really a lot lower output. I'm bummed a little because I don't like to fiddle with the soundcard input, but it's probably just something to get used to.

You might want to try a Megaswitch P-Model, which will give it the same switching as a PRS rotary:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics ... Model.html

As an added bonus, all the positions are humbucking with this switch. Also, you can use this mod together with the mod Hink is suggesting.

[hibidy]

I found a flaw on the neck. I'll send pics later but chances are for what I paid to get the "prestige" I'm not going to keep it.

[Dean Aka Nekro]

A simple neutral volume boost (like the one on for example the Fulltone Fulldrive II OD pedal i have) would do the trick. Seymour Duncan do one called something like 'pickup booster' but if you set it as just a volume hike of say 3db then it should match, I can even get a good boost from the Rothwell Love Squeeze Compressor pedal with volume up but the comp dial on nothing/zero. You could knock your own up in half an hour if you have a soldering iron and find a decent schemo or like Hink has done go for an on-board circuit to boost

Nice guitar, i have not really looked at many new guitars and i did not know that Ibanez had a T-type slab body job, good move as the only other T-type with more metal friendly leanings is Charvel's San Dimas Type-2 but that has a Floyd whether you like it or not and the Fender one is the Jim Root Tele but has the big pick guard whereas like the Charvel, that one is all wood (probably why it is heavier than you expected from a 'super-Tele'). Are the pickups DiMarzios or Ibanez/DiMarzio? Or have they gone for something else out of curiosity?

Looks good and you take better photos than i do hibz my friend

Dean

[hibidy]

I posted these at the ibby site too but just as a reality check what do you think? Too much defect or "JFC hibidy go play your guitar and stop bitching about every single imperfection!"

It's the 13th fret that is the one that bothers me the most

[Uncle E]

I'm totally confused. Where's the flaw?

Anyway, even though I don't see it, you may still be perfectly right for taking issue with it. Perhaps if you describe what we're looking for, I might see it right away.

[Hink]

I'm totally confused. Where's the flaw?

Anyway, even though I don't see it, you may still be perfectly right for taking issue with it. Perhaps if you describe what we're looking for, I might see it right away.

the anchor of the 13th fret appears to cut short and the one on the 12th seems to also have some wood covering what should be the end of the fret anchor suggesting it's not set in perfect place. If you ask me he would have been far better off not looking for such small things because no matter what he will now always know it's there.

[trimph1]

I saw something there but I can't tell what it would do to the tone either...

[hibidy]

To the tone? I'm guessing nothing.

I've never seen a guitar with this. Anyways, it's a reality check.

Uncle e, it's at the 13th fret (worst part). The "macro" makes it look worse than it does to the eye so if you are not seeing it then maybe it is just me being really picky.

[Uncle E]

Uncle e, it's at the 13th fret (worst part). The "macro" makes it look worse than it does to the eye so if you are not seeing it then maybe it is just me being really picky.

No, no, I totally see it after Hink pointed it out; I had failed to scroll the picture over before. I checked all my Ibanez's and none of them have this issue.

[hibidy]

Well, that's just lovely.

So I've got it set up the way I like it (it was a breeze) and it sounds great but it has an obvious cosmetic flaw and at full "street" price I don't think I can live with that.

I'll contact ibby first and get what I'm assuming will be the "return it to MF" response. Then the fun part, trying to figure out how to get it all taken care of without having to pay shipping .... which I'm guessing will be a hassle.

[Dean Aka Nekro]

hope it gets sorted mate as quick and PITA free as possible, It should be "flawless" really if it has the prestige stamp on it and therefore i think you are in the right (any mag review for example would be on that in seconds and rip it apart). Lets see how customer service treats you man

All the best

[hibidy]

Ibby's response was kinda lame. They already set up an RMA with me paying the shipping and I guess they missed the part where it's less than a week old Obviously it will be returned before I do that.

[Dean Aka Nekro]

I would return it to where you bought it from, let them deal with the issues and shiting costs. Then wait until they put it up for sale as factory defected or whatever term they use and then re-buy it for $600 - $700 or there abouts As you are a pretty loyal Ibanez customer, I am pretty sure a letter/e-mail of complaint, kept short, sharp but bang on the point and the threat of future plans to take your business elsewhere may do it (all just MHO and FWIW to you)

If that is possible then you get it at the right price