GuitarMaestro

No wonder. I know the assistant engineer involved in recording not that album but one of the albums before. Guess what? According to him the drum tracks they laid down were so bad and untight that a team of two engineers had to edit the timing of most notes and took nearly two weeks to bring the drum tracks to acceptable form. If this is correct it is unacceptable to me and especially as dead simple as green day drums are this is simply ridiculous. I admit I would not like Green Day even if they cold play their stuff. BUT they definately are good songwriters and wrote some great songs. Not my taste though. But I simply do not respect musicians that decieve their fans that way and are no able to play even the most simple stuff.

The usually come with nothing. Just the pickup in a nice see-through acrylic box with a manual.

Don't think so. Opeth are very talented as well and I like their music alot. However what is going on rythmically and especially harmonically in a Dream Theater song is a step more complex and on the guitar Petrucci is just insane. He is not only fast but what he plays is often so uncommon it's way harder to play than it sounds. Especially in terms of phrasing and soloing over odd meters. Do you know their crazier instrumentals? I am no big fan of the singer as well. He is very good there is no doubt, but I just don't really like his style on the older albums. However with Train Of Though the vocals are quite different and I like them alot. Check out that album if the vocals where what stopped you from listening Dream Theater so far....

Dream Theater is one of my favorite band. I am convinced that there is no better band in terms of sheer playing ability. Everyone of the members is a unmatched master on his instrument. I know no band that pulls of more demanding songs than DT with that kind of ease and tightness. What they deliver especially on the live at budokan cd/dvd is simply unhuman. That said the music is progressive. If you don't like progressive music with many key/rythm changes you won't like Dream Theater. However comapared to other prog bands Dream Theater writes great songs that non-musicians can enjoy as well. That said listening the live cd without knowing the songs could be the reason you find them to be unstructured or complex. The change the songs alot live and add extended solos and new parts, etc. not present on the studio recordings. But if you say the songs don't rock and are to jazzy than what do you think of "As I Am" or "In the name of God" from the CD you have? These songs rock without end in my opinion....They are from the latest album which is called "Train of Thought" and might fit your taste better....

Yes, but I still wonder how the angled floyd routing is supposed to work. The way it looks the angle cannot be an optical illusion.

If you don't want to build an exact copy then go by feel and these pictures. That is what I did and it worked out great.

No....passive DiMarzio!

Sorry for my first post. It was very late and now after rereading it I realize that it comes across quite different than what I really think about Agathis. I just was surprised how good my cheap Agathis guitar sounds after installing good pu's. For a guitar that was so cheap and for the bad reputation of Agathis it sounds "very good". However it cannot touch my "real" guitars. I just feel that Agathis is thought to be worse than it really is. Most cheap Agathis guitars are built so bad and have so bad pu's that they would sound like edit with every tonewood. Still people blame the wood. Thats the reason I asked you abou your Agathis guitars Wes, and I bet with really good pu's(which duncan designed are not in my opinion) you would find them to sound ok. I still recommend to avoid Agathis - no question. Why buy a piece of junk and then make it sound ok with expensive upgrades? In context of this thread I would definately advise against it too....

Interesting. I always thought about checking out one of the cheaper floyds from ebay just out of curiosity. Is it one of them? What brand is it?

I have to strongly disagree here. I have a B.C. Rich guitar with Agathis body. After replacing the stock pu's it sounds very good. It's all a matter of taste, but I am convinced that Agathis is not nearly as bad as it is made to be. Most Agathis guitars are cheap guitars to begin with and sound bad for many reasons, especially the pickups. It's not the wood that's at fault. Did you ever play an Agathis guitar that was otherwise decent Wes?

The bodies from the big companies are usually at least 2 piece because smaller pieces are easier to get as you already wrote. Additionally a lamination of two pieces *can* be less vulnerable to warping if done right. For the top it depends on what top it is. There are two versions: 1. Very thin tops and veneers which are only there for enhanicing the look and because figured wood in full size would be way more expensive. 2. Thicker tops used for changing the tone of the instrument and enhancing the look. A top of a harder/denser wood then the rest of the body is supposed to add highs.

Well done!!!! What's wrong with the bridge? Why do you want to replace it?

Crafty is dead on here. There are no laws like that. Or would you consider it legal if somebody steals a car then testdrives it for 24 hours and then returns it????

300 is a good price. I bet you will get that easily. Especially because the double edge is very rare as you already said. However for me it just makes more sense to buy another piezo trem new for half the price. As I said I think you price for body AND trem is quite fair if someone needs a double edge, but for me it makes more sense to look elswhere....sry and good luck selling it.

You say you would like to keep the neck of the RG? I am interested in getting a double edge trem for some time, but I guess you want to sell the complete body at once? In both cases how much money would you like for the complete body or the trem alone?

Interesting thread. I always wondered about this as well. If the same string is tuned to the same note on different scales the tension needed for that should be the same if my rusty physic skills do not fail me. However the longer the string the more elastic it should be and the easier to bend, because there is more material that can stretch. An example: If you have a rope fastened between two trees. If the trees are far away from each other and the rope is at a certain tension it is easier to pull it to one side as if the trees where very close together. This is because every inch of rope/string can be stretched by a certain amount. The longer it is the easier to stretch. Therefore I always found the opposite to be true: The longer the scale length the easier it is to bend. There is however another important part to this: On a Gibson the actual string length is much longer than on locking trem guitars. On a locking guitar the strings are only as long as the scale length. On a Gibson you have the whole length from tuners to bridge and then to the string anchor. This would explain the findings in this post. I always found Gibsons too hard to bend in comparison to a Strat....in the case of a Strat the string length between nut and tuners is quite long especially for the high strings and the scale is longer.

I have no time right now. But there has to be an old post by me where we discussed this and the manual of the Ibanez Edge unit which can be downloaded somewhere has details on this as well. I'll be back with details if needed....

Cant see whats wrong with the routes. Maybe the location is different to a real RG, but the routes for pu's, neck and trem look clean to me at least from the pictures.

Hmm....lol....what else if not promoting illegal downloading is it if you post how to obtain an aillegal copy? (Not that I think it's that bad in this case....because as long as you don't have your own shop and earn good money the price for autocad is damn unreasonable)

Okay....in a lamination you can use them. But the resulting sound still depends on the thickness of the maple stripes in the lamination. If they make up the majority of the neck wood they can rob you of the highs....

I definately have to disagree here!!!! EVERY professional guitar company on earth builds their maple necks from hard maple. Except for custom builders there are no exceptions I know of. Most books on guitar building recommend to use hard maple. I myself buy from the owner of the company supplying Peavey, Fender, etc. with neck woods. This supplier sold all neck blanks for the Peavey Wolfgang Series. I asked that guy exactly this question and he told me not to use soft maple because of several reasons: 1. It is not stable enough for a neck if not quatersawn or laminated with stronger woods and tends to warp 2. It gives you a neck that is very easy to bend 3. A soft maple neck gives the guitar a quite mellow and dull sound (this may be desired in some scenarios) I myself choose to build the neck for my 7-string from quatersawn soft maple laminated with bubinga anyway, because I wanted the curly figure. While the neck is stable enough due to the laminates and the soft maple being quatersawn it sounds way to mellow for my taste. I will build a new one from hard maple. So the bottom line in my opinion is: You definately can build necks out of soft maple, but it is only suitable for a certain sound and certain construction techniques which make up for the soft maple's weakness. Describing soft maple as the way to go when 98% of all guitar necks are made from hard maple with good reason is quite ridiculous....

Good ideas!!!! Thanks alot!

Hi! I wonder if there is a company that sells rack cases which are able to house a regular guitar amp head like a Peavey Triple XXX and some common rack format effects units? I know that the Peavey and most other heads are wider than a standard rack, but maybe some company offers such rack cases? if not I will have to build it myself.... Thanks in advance, Marcel Knapp!

Very nice guitar. The finish on the back looks great. But what happened on the top? I guess it is only dyed and not yet finished in these shots. At least it looks kinda unfinished and unreflective in the shots.

Maybe you can find some info here.