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elburromjf

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Everything posted by elburromjf

  1. I tune to standard A440 with an electronic tuner. Gibson USA says that the string pressure on the bridge changes when you change the string angle and that effects how "slinky" things get. Check out this guide: http://www.gibson.com/pure/exchange/gibsonretailguide.pdf The guitar is totally different and way slinky with the strings wrapped over the top of the tailpiece. Personally, I think its too slinky so I'm gonna try something different tonight. I am going to re string the guitar normally and raise the tail piece a few threads like it is on my LP Custom (its less than a 1/4 inch and the bolts are about an inch long). In short, I dont think I needed THAT much bending ease. I probably could have done a slighter adjustment and strung the thing normally. MJF
  2. Hi All, I apologize in advance for the long read. I have two Les Pauls. One of them is a custom and the other is a standard. The Custom had great action and string bending is right about average for a les paul. The standard has a different personality. It fooled me in the store because it frets nicely and was easy to play in general, just like a les paul should be. It wasn't until a few days later, after really playing the thing for several hours that I realized that it was noticably more difficult to bend notes on this guitar than it was on my other les paul. Note: Both guitars are strung with the exact same string set. (Elixer NanoWeb .009) I remembered reading somewhere that Les Pauls are ordinarily under a little more tension than some other guitar models and that is due in part to the angle of the strings btween the stop tailpiece and the tune-o-matic bridge. After examining the two guitars side by side, I was able to clearly see that the LP standard in question had a steeper angle than the other les paul, which bends nicely. I also noticed that the tailpiece on the lp which bends nicely was showing about three exposed threads at the mounting posts (as if it had been adjusted to reduce the string angle). I opted to try the Billy Gibbons/Zakk Wylde/Jimmy page (there are so many stories) trick of wrapping the strings backward and over the top of the tailpiece. This reduced the angle significantly and made bending a whole lot easier and provides a generally "slinkier" feel. The neck went almost dead straight so I had to give it a little anti-clockwise tweak to give it some relief. I let it sit overnight and it was still in the same relief condition when I got up this morning which I take to mean success. Heres my question ... 1. Could I have accomplished the same thing by unscrewing the mounting posts a couple of threads thus raising the tailpiece? MJF
  3. No one is crap. You ever consider uniqueness? EB
  4. Greetings Earthlings, I gotta tell you a little story. Yesterday was one of those days the started off crappy and just got worse as the day progressed. By the time I got home from work, I was beside myself, I had a headache, and my blood glucose was approaching 200 (I am diabetic and stress effects that). I ate dinner, and retired to my bedroom where I watched a little TV and then decided that I was going to practice. This is where things really started falling apart. I couldn't concentrate, I couldn't get my tone dialed in the way I like it, and it just sucked. I tried three different guitars to no avail. I finally gave up because if I adjusted the pickup height on my epi les paul custom one more time I woulda went crazy. When I started thinking the strings were dead and that I should replace them, I just went to bed. How does frustration beyond measure effect your playing? EB
  5. There are lots of pickups that would work out well with a Floyd Rose. EB
  6. elburromjf

    Tubes

    You gotta go for what suits your purpose. I plug any one of my guitars into a Zoom GFX-5, pick a preset, tweak if necessary and go right into a mixer. Because almost all of my recorded work is meant to be ambient (documentary soundtracks for starving media arts students), I can live with amp simulators in an entiely solid-state world. If I was going to gig regularly, maybe I'd see it differently. For those rare occasions where we do live ambient music, I use an old Gorilla solid state that I've had for years and I run the GFX-5 into that. Its about personal taste, convenience and budget if you ask me. EB
  7. Mean Streak - Deep Purple - Perfect Strangers EB
  8. MAIDEN69, I am only going to respond to the Grover tuner issue because you are misinformed. The heads are not look-alikes. They actually say GROVER on them. I can read quite well thank you. Different outlets can get these shipped any way they want. The rest of your message isn't worth the ass you pulled it out of (probably your own). I can't believe you have the balls to tell anyone to drop dead. Dork. EB
  9. Hi, By sheer coincidence, I am in the market for a guitar with a hard tail and a set neck, and I just happened to spend an entire Sunday afternoon working out in a guitar shop on both the Gibson and Epiphone Les Pauls. I played following guitars that day: * Both Gibson and Epiphone Les Paul Custom. The Gibson: This was a Les Paul Custom. Black, with gold hardware, rosewood board, and un-marked mystery tuners. Price: $1499.00 The Epiphone: This was a Les Paul Custom. Black, with gold hardware, rosewood board and gold Grover tuners. Price: $499.00 NOTE: This is only my impression. I buy guiatrs to play them, not to collect them. Remember, one man's junk could be another man's treasure. Both of these guitars weighed (and looked) about the same (Epiphone had a better finish) and played roughly the same. Niether one of them played badly at all. Both had quality tone that carried that special fatness only Les Pauls have, especially under distortion. Both guitars also cleaned up nicely tone-wise. The controls on the Epiphone didn't have the precision feel that the ones on the Gibson had. The pickups on the Epiphone were not the same as the Gibson but they are still nice pickups (Duncan Design). Bottom line: The Epiphone, priced at $499.00 US is a hands-down, superior value for the money, plus it has Grover tuners. I do not think there is anything you can tell me about wood that is going to make me want to blow an additional $1000.00 on a Gibson. If I completely replaced the electronics on the Epiphone to surpass that of the Gibson, I'd still be under $800.00, and the thing would scream with undulating sustain, fatness, and tone. For my money, the Epiphone wins. If I was a guitar collector or if I was obsessed with owning a particular wood, then I'd buy the Gibson. EB
  10. D'Addario on all of them. .008 on the electrics and .012 on the Acoustics. Been using them since the 80's. EB EDIT: Since I originally wrote this, I have been trying out a set of D'Addario .009 on my Strat and might stick with them. Dunno yet. EB
  11. UPDATE: Stay with me boys and girls. I need your support. I decided to closely examine the axe in question, particularly around the area of the bridge, which as of late has been a problem. The bridge is what appears to be eithe a TZ30 or an earlier model that the TZ30 may have been based on. The intonation screws are threaded right down the center of the saddles. Lately, the B-string has a habit of slipping out of the notch and up the saddle towards the bass strings, coming to rest on the saddle height adjustment hex screw. E and B are now far apart and B and G are closer together. This really bugs me. Whats worse is that my pal, the B-string gets itself stuck between the intonation screw and the inner wall of the saddle. I usually can't get it unstuck and the string ends up breaking. How annoying is this? This bridge has to go and with a little luck, it goes today. I have the little sucker with me right now and am going to take it to 30th Street Guitars to see if they have one that looks okay for me to drop in. Actually, if there was a kit I could get to convert this axe into a hardtail, I'd do it. I don't have the time, tools, or patience to do it the way Brian Calvert would (I envy that calm demeanor he has). While I was removing the offending fulcrum with a gym sock and a needle nose plier (you heard me right, a gym sock. It was a clean one!), I took notice that the bridge pickup on this poor old axe is not F-Spaced and by the time you get to the low-E, the string is not even on the pole. The neck picup lines up okay though. Gonna need to throw an F-Spaced pickup in there in a couple of weeks (I gotta free up the cash). It'll be a Dimarzio FRED and I'll have a tech do a Satriani job on it. The bridge pickup not being F-Spaced could mean that this axe is older than I thought. I dunno where it came from or exactly how old it was when I got it (you already know the story). It might have been made before F-Spaced humbuckers where common or even available yet. Of course, it could have been Ibanez's way of offereing a half-decent axe for cheap by cutting corners on the stuff you don't see (like everything INSIDE the guitar) or might not really notice. Looks like its gonna be the bridge first, then the pickups, then the tuners. EB UPDATED UPDATE: Looks like the honorable axe is going to be in a disassembled state for a few weeks. My Strat is gonna get some play time now. Seems that its gonna take a few weeks to get all the parts I need to do my upgrades. Maybe, just maybe, when I go back to 30th Street Guitars a second time (when the tech is in), I'll get a better answer than "I dunno if you can replace that bridge ...". I Just can't buy that from a guy who owns such an awesome shop (he has guitars you'd donate body parts to own). EB YET ANOTHER UPDATE: I decided to stop kidding myself and I called Brian Calvert who will help me figure out what I need. EB
  12. I dunno how the mods here feel about double posting so I'll incorporate a few replies in this one message. Note: Sometimes I can be an idiot. The guitar in question is a H-S-H pickup configuration not H-S-S. I can pretty much do the whole Satrianni thing with the FRED and a PAF Joe. Matt: That also happens to be my name. I will provide some pictures sometime next week or maybe over this weekend. Of course they will be the "before" pictures. All I have done so far is make a new trem cavity lid and that came out, well ... crappy. But I'll go slower and be more patient next time. Using plastice that is less brittle would work better too. Scott: I'll take a look at that schematic you mentioned. I would like to keep the electrics as simple as possible and move to a three-position switch setup eliminating the middle pickup. I even thought about eliminating the neck pickup as well but decided in the end it was a bad idea. Crafty: I'll have to decide as I go with e machine heads if I'm gonna do it myself or have a tech install them. Thanks for your insights, EB
  13. Hi All, My ancient Ibanez Ex Series Guitar needs some loving. I got this guitar for 50 bucks U.S. about 10 years ago from a total stranger who was standing on a bus stop, and desperately in need of 50 bucks. I had never had an Ibanez before and as it turns out, me and this old axe have been best pals ever since that day. The neck is fast and easy. The sound is pretty good if you consider I have no clue what pickups it has in it. I wanna upgrade the whole axe. Maybe even refinish it. The pickups are an H-S-S configuration similar to a "Fat Strat" with the 5-position swtich (B-BM-M-NM-N). It is a 22 fret neck and thats about all I know about this guitar except that it says Ibanex Ex Series on the head stock and has a neck plate that says Ibanez with a serial number. Heres what kind of love I wanna give this axe and the questions I have about doing so: 1: New pickups and wiring: I have no use for the middle pickup, so I want to eliminate it. I want to have a Dimarzio FRED in the bridge position, wired so I can turn off the furthest coil from the bridge at will. I would like a Fender Lace Sensor in the neck position. I would like these two pickups to be wired to a three position switch like this -> B-BN-N with either a push-pull pot or a mini toggle for spliting the F R E D. Can someone please point me towards a schematic so I know how to wire this? I've used a soldering iron before and can do good connections so long as I Know what goes where. 2. New bridge/Tremolo: It currently has what appears to be a stock non-locking tremolo bridge. I do not know what the strng spacing is or how to measure it to find out. Please someone advise me on what might be as close to a "Drop In" solution as possible. Do these things come with the springs and everything? Help! Once I have the right parts, it doesn't seem all that complicated to install and intonate the thing. 3. Tuning machines: Who makes good ones nowadays? When I was more active Grover was king. Whats hot now? Are these more or less "Drop In" installations or should I paya pro to install them? 4. Possible Refinish: I actually can do minor airbrush work, and when I was into RC cars, I did many a decent lightning job for cash. I figure this guy would get shot black with an X-Files green lightning job. I stink at clear coats though and would have to find someone willing to do the clear for me before I would even consider stripping the guitar down to the sealer. Anyone with thoughts on any of this is welcome to respond. EB
  14. Guitar #1: A no-name, kid-size acoustic with nylon strings. Some guy named Fred made me do speed drills for like two years. Guitar #2: Univox Les Paul knockoff. It was a gold top no less. It had better action then Guitar #3 and sounded better too. Guitar #3: Gibson S-1. A bizarre thing with a flying-v style arrow head neck and something like a Les Paul Junior body. To this day I think this was limited production run that Gibson set up to get rid of parts overstock. This axe was probably the worst axe I ever owned. I had buyer's remorse for years. I hated this axe so much, I let my ex-wife keep it when I moved out. Guitar #4: A 1990 Fat Strat fron Fender Japan. Fully equipped with a Floyd Rose locking tremolo and a Dimarzio FRED (F-Spaced) abd wired so it could be split. I loved this axe. It got stolen from my house on Thanks Giving night 1991. Guitar #5: Another Fat Strat from Fender Japan, only this one is from 1991. Has the same features except it has the older-style, Philips Head truss adjustment instead of a hex nut and it has the stock Humbucker in it. I still have this one and it gets its share of play time. I use it mostly for recording as it stays in tune really well. Guitar #6: A beat-up Ibanez Ex Series from the 80's. I got it from some guy on the street for 50 bucks about 10 years ago. Said he was trying to buy an Amtrak ticket to someplace. The back tremolo cover is missing and the controls are all crackly, and the paint is chipped. The tuning machines are shot, and the tremolo is a real cheap knock off. Guass what? This is my favorite axe. It sounds great, and the neck (this is from a time before the Wizard necks) is super comfortable, thin, and FAST. This one is probably my next candidate for upgrades. EB
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