String Gauge difference

[claxor]

Seems like there is an art to it, really. Maybe I should take a lesson from a L.A. tech here.

 

[zackh]

3. Guitar is about balance, learn to balance your guitar and your guitar will balance you

wat

 

[Rex]

When it comes to trust rod, go slow and small! Quarter turn at a time and let it settle. I personally like to do quarter of a turn a day, recheck everything next day and reassess if it needs more with the smallest and least corrective input going into truss rod adjustments. Don't know if that is sound philosophy or not but makes me feel better about it.

Letting things settle in is very sound. All that wood and metal under tension and compression will shift a bit after you adjust it.

You can probably save yourself some of that back-and-forth by setting up everything the best you can, then leaving it sit for a few hours and rechecking it, instead of a fixed quarter-turn a day. You'll reach your final setup faster.

 

[claxor]

Of course, all this summer heat is throwing things off for my guitar...

 

[MaxStatic]

wat

Nothing is more frustrating then playing an instrument that "isn't right" whether its tuning, intonation, action, etc. If its off, its off.

If you keep your guitars setup and balanced the way you like them, playing them will be a pleasurable and relaxing experience instead of a test of your patience and self control. That's what I mean.

 

[MaxStatic]

You can probably save yourself some of that back-and-forth by setting up everything the best you can, then leaving it sit for a few hours and rechecking it, instead of a fixed quarter-turn a day. You'll reach your final setup faster.

Yea I'm not advocating going back and forth on the rod. I restring, stretch and check action height. Then I check the bow in the neck. If it needs it, I do a little at a time is what I'm getting at. For instance, I'm starting to get an eye for how much a given will need before turning the wrench. Say it needs 3/4 or a full turn total. I'll still do it in 1/4 turn increments.

That's what I was getting at, that way you don't over do it and have to turn it back. I have enough guitars that its not a problem to have one "down" for a day or two. Typically a 1/4 is all I need on most of my guitars when I set them up the first time as I use heavier strings the further I tune down. The lower tuning balances everything out so the tension is relatively the same, just the string is thicker. I go a little tighter than most so the factory setup is about 1/4 to a 1/2 turn off.

Rambling again...I stop now.

 

[claxor]

You know, before I had the AxeFx, I just used my real Engl Powerball, and as much as I liked it for modern rhythm playing I wasn't happy using it with 80's shred soloing. It was so dark that I kept bending harder and doing more forceful artificial harmonics to make it pop out of the playing. It always felt wrong to me.

Once I've started messing with the Brown amp (The Brown Sound preset), I'm slowly discovering that I can get much closer to 80's shred with this Marshall/Plexi-ish amp. I may not have to use 7 gauge strings after all. It lacks a lot of depth and balls compared to the modern sounding amp, but at least I can better hear my notes in soloing.

Anybody notice this as well?

 

[MaxStatic]

If the brown is your sound, rock that beast out! There is enough boost options that you could push it into the gain realm of the Engl easy.

 

[claxor]

If the brown is your sound, rock that beast out! There is enough boost options that you could push it into the gain realm of the Engl easy.

Well, it seems to me it's either one of two approaches to take here: Take my Engl patch and bring down the depth and punch and increase the highs. Or, take a Marshall amp type and add as much depth as possible while still keeping the highs articulate and clear. So far, the Marshall/Plexi approach is better for this.

 

[Sixstring]

Hey Six,

I'm planning on getting a Tremol-No for dropped D tuning. Good call.

With the Tremol-No "hard-tail mode" engaged, could you remove all strings completely for cleaning the guitar body and intonation? The one-string-at-a-time method of changing strings is getting really tiresome.

I'm pretty sure you can do this with that device... sorry for the late reply, I have been the thing I hate most... moving.

 

[Rex]

I'm planning on getting a Tremol-No for dropped D tuning. Good call.

With the Tremol-No "hard-tail mode" engaged, could you remove all strings completely for cleaning the guitar body and intonation? The one-string-at-a-time method of changing strings is getting really tiresome.

I wouldn't count on it. The Tremel-No is handy, and it works well, but it's not built to take the tension of all the strings at once. If you lock it down tight, you can still get it to slip if you crank on the whammy bar. If you want to remove all the strings at once, your best bet is to block the bridge with a chunk of wood, a battery, or whatever fits.

 

[Sixstring]

I wouldn't count on it. The Tremel-No is handy, and it works well, but it's not built to take the tension of all the strings at once. If you lock it down tight, you can still get it to slip if you crank on the whammy bar. If you want to remove all the strings at once, your best bet is to block the bridge with a chunk of wood, a battery, or whatever fits.

Though I agree with your statement as to be completely sure the bridge won't move when restringing, just to be sure I emailed Kevan and the quick answer was that the Tremol-No will hold your trem in place while you change strings.

The big answer: (and I copied this from the email I received from him...)

Yes, but you should leave at least one string on there (I use the Low E or Low B) to prevent the neck from bowing or back-bowing. Most necks like tension on them, so if you release ALL of the tension, they can do things you don't want them to do. It also depends a little on your setup: how 'hard' is your trem setup? how big of a gauge of strings are you using? Those are factors that need to be considered too. The thumbscrews will hold in most cases, but if you REALLY want to lock it down, swap out the thumbscrews for the set screws (included) and the trem will NOT slip. At all.

So it sounds like you can use the Tremol-No to hold the trem in place but you need to use a set screw sung it down with an allen wrench and change out your strings.

 

[Rex]

Good information, Sixstring. There's stuff I didn't know in there. Thanks for digging it up and posting it. Though I don't entirely agree with Kevan's opinion on leaving one string in place to prevent neck problems. If your neck won't recover its geometry when when you restring it, then your guitar has serious problems.

 

[Sixstring]

Though I don't entirely agree with Kevan's opinion on leaving one string in place to prevent neck problems. If your neck won't recover its geometry when when you restring it, then your guitar has serious problems.

Yup, my guess it's a blanket statement based on findings with different quality guitars, I have done all of my restrings with strings off on my CU24 trem and haven't had any neck issues at all sense I bought it new in 07.

Really there's not much difference with a trem guitar when you dive all the way down essentially relieving all the tension off the neck. If there was a problem I would imagine you would find it as soon as you let the trem return to find a lot of fret buzz in places where it wasn't before.