daveq

Did he say anything about what happened? I read what Scott wrote above but is that it?

I don't spend nearly as much time here as I used to and will often take long breaks (a few months). It does help keep your head if you have a tendency to overdo things or get too involved in disputes, ... I don't know if that was the deal with Wes but I know those are my usual tendencies.

Although I rarely do this, I do believe that the old saying "Everything in moderation" (or is it All things in moderation?) is very wise. Maybe he will return someday in a limited role?

You actually NEED a little relief. If not, the strings will rattle against the frets like mad.

This could set off quite a fight but please understand that I just want to know the reasoning behind this. I'm not saying you are wrong.

If you set up your guitar so that you have a nice, straight neck and flat fretboard with levelled frets (levelled with the neck straight), and then adjust the bridge height so that you have a slight increase in action from the nut to the last fret, why would you need to have a bow (relief) in the neck?

Is it that you don't get enough clearance with the bridge height adjusted the way I mentioned above? I have one guitar that seems to be working well this way but maybe it's just dumb luck - I don't know. Any ideas?

* Crap - I forgot to mention the addition of a little bit of fall away in the upper frets as well.

I have an LP for classic rock stuff but for shred (as if I could) I have this LADO strat.

OK, for "shred" (if I understand what this term means nowadays) - I still think a hard maple body would be great. I play a lot of high-gain stuff and love the clarity that the hard maple seems to provide. To me, there's nothing worse than chugging away on that low E and hearing a muddy, muffled, obscure blug, blug, blug,... when you should be hearing chug, chug, chug!!

It's very difficult to explain these sounds in words but I do believe strongly that high gain playing needs something with clarity and brightness. That doesn't mean you can't get that scooped sound though - just use the EQ after the preamp stage and you've got a very articulate, yet brutal sound. In fact, even when using hard maple, I still like to boost 2KHz just a bit before the premap to give a little more clarity and give a helping hand to the preamp. Of course, this is all just one person's opinion.

Also, there is a difference between a neck's radius and the fretboard's radius. When I read the thread's title, I couldn't imagine how a neck could be flat but now I understand.

I don't know if adding a maple top (1/4" or thinner) will brighten the tone all that much. It's hard to say without hearing your guitar now and knowing exactly what you are after.

For lead guitar, I really love all maple guitars (hard maple body, hard maple neck and fretboard). I have used EMG 81's and SD Dimebuckers with these and they really sound great to me. I don't think they make great "all around" guitars though - if that's what you are after - they make excellent lead guitars for heavier rock/80's metal in my opinion.

What type of music do you play?

I think stewmac sells bushing pullers. Check their site - I'm about 95% sure of it. What I am not sure of is if they are for use with Floyd bushings.

I've always liked this page. It's LED basics.

This is a collection of great articles/pages on the subject. There's a link to a calculator, battery information, wiring descriptions (series/parallel,...). I think it's written very well although I do have a background in this area.

Just a few more places to check out if you are interested.

One piece of advice -

When you get to the soldering, be careful with those LEDs! They do not like heat at all. Try to keep as much of the leads as you can and use a clip for a heat sink. As you build experience, you'll know what you can and can't get away with. For a beginner, I'd really pay attention to the heat and the amount of time that iron is on the LED lead.

Nice choice going with both holes instead of one. That's not my type of guitar (I'm stuck in the 80's mostly ) but I think you are doing an excellent job on it.

As for something going wrong every step of the way - I can relate. I've been working on a project for months now that seems to have that same issue.

Keep those pics coming!

This is a little bit of a hijack but do you know what the actual crown height is on that #155 wire? I bought a bunch of it thinking it would be ideal for me but when I finally got it in my hands (it took about a week to get to me), the crown looked very short to me. The site says it's .050 but it just didn't look right. Of course, my eye sight isn't the best measuring tool but I was holding a piece of 150 next to it and it just seemed much taller.

I keep forgetting to measure it (with something better than my eyeball ) but if you happen to know if their site is accurate on that wire, please let me know.

Thanks!

Mounting LEDs in the cavity and powering them with a battery is no problem but I'm not sure I understand how you would be using the LEDs. Can you explain further?

Looks interesting. Will the lack of wood surrounding the neck pocket affect anything? I'm guessing it won't since V's are usually built this way - aren't they? Or are V's typically set-necks? I'm not sure but I wanted to see if anyone else here might know.

One question: how are you going to do faux binding with a veneer? I thought that was typically done with a drop top (1/4" or more). If you use a veneer, do you use the body wood as the faux binding? I'm not saying it can't be done, I've just never seen faux binding on a veneered body. I've seen loads of bodies with veneer but they usually don't have binding.

One more thing - will the Strat headstock look right with that body? Can you add it to your pic so we can check it out?

Good luck with it. I hope you have fun with it!

Any time you have a 2 inch or less radius difference, you should be fine. It's when you go beyond that range that you start to affect the action.

Most Floyds are 10" radius but the Schallers are 14". I think the speed loaders are 12". I don't know about all of the other licensed manufacturers.

Anyway, if your bridge is a 14" and your fretboard is 12", you shouldn't notice it during playing or setup unless you are extremely picky about it. I forget what the difference is in terms of action but I think it's just under 1/64". I think I can find that info for you if you need it.

Floyds can also be shimmed to alter the radius. I've done this many times (along with thousands of other guitarists/builders) with the 10" OFR's. I typically use a compound 10-16 fretboard so I do a lot of shimming when using the OFR's.

I like your design. Should be sweet. The one thing I was concerned with (someone else already mentioned) - the contamination of the poplar with ebony dust. That stuff really creates problems on lighter colored wood. I don't know if poplar has a more open grain than maple but maple can get pretty dirty with ebony dust. I guess as long as you are aware of it, you have a shot at dealing with it somehow. Good luck - post pics when you are done please!

Hey Matt -

If you have a few stewmac templates around (pickup routing, ...) you can use them to make a new template pretty easily. That's how I created my floyd templates. I know stewmac sells a Floyd template but it's a little too big for my taste.

What I do is double stick them to a piece of plywood or MDF and use them as straight edges. I used to use scrap wood for this but I found using the templates is a lot quicker.

You will need the Floyd in hand to do this though.

From the pics, that looks like a great deal. At first, I was expecting a plywood body or something for that price. What's the catch? Is there something wrong with it or what? If not, you scored!!!

Since the subject has been brought up, just how does someone figure out how much to sell their creation for? In this case, there's no patented inventions or unique materials, right? That should make it easier to figure out - I think. Do you use an hourly rate for the build time + materials? Do you add/subtract using a market average (if there is such a thing)? Or do you just make up a number and see if it floats?

Those guitars look real nice. Clean work and slick design. I'm just too broke to even consider paying that much for a guitar.

Thank you very much for sharing that info.

This isn't a guitar related question but - since I have not sold anything on ebay yet (just buy things all the time ), will buyers try to hit me with all kinds of crazy requests? Will they ignore the auction for the higher end equipment thinking I might be a scammer?

If you don't mind, one more thing: I saw a person ask the seller what the reserve was for an item. I was really surprised. I thought the whole point was to keep that private? Do sellers often give that info out?

I don't mean to turn this into a general Ebay discussion but those two things have been on my mind about this.

Thanks again!

Maybe this isn't the best place for this? I don't know.

I tried searching on this topic and was surprised that they all came up empty. If there is a thread out there somewhere, please let me know.

What I'm interested in learning is how to sell guitar gear on ebay. I'm talking about effects processors, maybe a Fender Strat, ... No amps or anything really heavy or difficult to ship.

I've noticed a lot of auctions state that the seller cannot (or will not) ship outside the US. Why is this? Is there more paper work involved?

How about returns? Is it normal for people selling guitar gear to accept a return if the buyer isn't happy with it?

Any tips would be appreciated. I have a bunch of stuff I just don't use anymore. Some of it is fairly cheap (low price - not quality) and some of it is very high end.

Thanks,

DaveQ

Maiden -

You went to that show? (the Lynch / Malmsteen show)

I saw them here in NY state and loved it. I left during Yngwie. I couldn't take the obscene volume he was playing at. After a few hundred arpeggios at 2000dB, I decided I had enough. I would like to see him again though - he is awesome.

The Lynch portion was killer. They didn't let him do a sound check so there were some problems but overall, it blew me away. They (Lynch) are going back on tour again this month - not near me though .

Sorry for the off topic rant.

I like the LMI dual action rod but since it's so expensive, I tend to go with stewmac's hot rod more often. I don't think the installation gets any easier than these - just route the channel and you're pretty much done.

BTW - the reason I like the LMI rod is because of it's height. The stewmac rod isn't bad either though - it's about 1/16 bigger if I remember correctly.

I love it!

I'm surprised nobody has chimed in with "Isn't maple too bright?" (I love maple for my guitars - fretboards, bodies, necks, ... great stuff!) - in reference to the sweet fretboard you have there.

Very clean looking work and I love the overall concept and wood selection.

This is from EMG:

"Can I use multiple batteries?

Yes. If you've got room for multiple batteries in your guitar, you can use two batteries wired in series to power your onboard circuitry at 18 volts. The output level will not appreciably increase, but you'll have increased headroom and crisper transients. This is especially useful for percussive/slap bass styles where you can generate enormous instantaneous power levels across the entire frequency spectrum. You can also wire two batteries in parallel to provide a regular 9 volt supply but with much longer lifespan between battery changes.

Although most of our products are rated for 27 volts, we recommend a maximum of 18 volts. The additional benefits of 27 vs. 18 volts are negligible."

I would just go with full time 18V if I were you. The switching would not be worth the effort.

I'm not saying anything here was wrong - just an observation:

I noticed that many people who learned to play on a fixed bridge guitar tend to rest their picking hand on the bridge. These people (the ones I have talked to), have had big problems going to a trem equipped guitar. They almost always end up detuning the guitar and blame the trem for their problems. None of the people I know are willing to use a trem because of this. (they also slam trems for other reasons but that's another story/trend )

I grew up using the method someone mentioned above - using a pickup or pickup ring to rest my pinky on - just for location reference. It's not something I have to think about - my finger just finds it automatically. I'm guessing this is true for most trem born players. Maybe one benefit to this is that I have no problems using a fixed or trem style bridge. Maybe it's not important at all.

Again, I'm not saying any one technique is right or wrong. Just an observation.

As for the bending, once in a great while I will bend using my pinky but it's very rare for me. I like to switch to my ring finger when possible.

I tried to get tickets to that show. Damn - looks like I missed a once in a lifetime event there. Oh well.

Thanks guys - here's some answers:

It's really hard to tell Dave but from the sounds of it what you've described is almost as if a noise gate is hard switching in and out, there isn't by chance something in your chain inducing that?

I have the noise gate enabled on the G-Major and on the POD Pro. The G-Major settings are:

Mode: soft

Thres: -60dB

Damp: 4 dB

Release: 42 dB/s

I don't know the params on the POD Pro's gate but it does seem to do a big job. When I disable it, I can hear the difference.

Are you using outboard effects into your sound card, or software plug-ins?

No software plug-ins. Outboard only.

Are you getting digital clipping of your tracks? Does the software have its own meter?

I don't think so. The meter in HomeStudio seems to hang around -18 dB.

I'm working on capturing some sound now. I don't even know if I'll be able to post anything yet but I'm going to give it a shot.

Here's how things are connected:

1. Berhinger Param EQ PEQ2200

2. POD Pro

Effects Send to:

3. Eventide DSP7500 balanced ins

4. Balanced outs to T.C. G-Major Balanced Ins

5. Balanced Outs to Berhinger Graphic EQ (ULTRAGRAPH) balanced ins

6. Balanced outs to IN A and IN B on BBE 362

7. OUT A and OUT B to effects return on POD Pro

I'll see if I can post some samples but I think I'm having some problems with my input/output levels. I have a pretty nice rack system which I am plugging into my PC (E-MU card) and using Home Studio 2.

For the most part, the levels appear OK in the effects processors that have a level meter available. The only exception is my Eventide 7500 - the input levels are showing a bit low. I contacted them about this and for my setup, they think this is still going to be OK.

So, is there any good way to know if I need to back things off a bit or boost the levels when doing PC recording? Is there a general rule that says you need to be within a certain range?

I know having the sound samples would help a lot and I'll do my best to remember to post some tonight. If it helps, the problem I'm hearing is that the notes aren't quite clear enough. It's very hard to explain - it's almost like there's noise introduced only when I pick. When I'm sustaining a note or mute the strings, the noise doesn't seem to be there.

I can supply the order of effects also if it would help.