Home Forums Software and Equipment Good news, got my E. Guitar JH-600, but buzzes everywhere

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    • #21052
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      So, I got my guitar at a great deal LTD Jh-600 made in Korea /US inspection (regular 999.99 and sold out at Guitar Center) for $425.00 This collector only shelved it for display, it even lacks pick swirls. it was never played. There’s no signs of corrosion or adjustments on the screws at all. The frets are very gleaming, there’s not a fingerprint on the fretboard and the neck doesn’t look twisted.

      The problem is that on the 6th, 5th, 4th strings it buzzes everywhere from frets 7 onward to 19.
      On the 4th string it buzzes slightly on a few frets and the lighter strings have little buzzing.
      The guitar also has very high action (2mm-2.5)

      Ok, so referring to Doug Marks video on setup, I have made a quarter turn in my guitar to the right, clockwise. It’s about 6 hours already, so I’ll check again at 3pm tomorrow. Right now it didn’t seem to do anything, measurements didn’t change.
      The relief seems large as there’s more visible and feeling gap in the center of the neck and tight at the top.

      Measurements at 8th fret are 2mm (0.07 Inches) . I know it should be 0.010 inches , so the relief is much greater than should be, and very high action

      Dilemna is that I could go just get a setup for $40, but it seems I already invested just as much in the little parts that I need. I also don’t have a case and that’s another big spend to transport .
      So far
      $3.50 Capo
      $12.50 Straight edge metal ruler , long
      $7.00 Feeler Gauge
      $10.00 Kahler 3 allen wrenches for adjustments

      So if setting up the guitar is easy as the video suggests, I really hope I can get rid of this buzz. Do you think the truss rod is the only thing needed adjustment?

      View post on imgur.com

       

       

    • #21058
      Igglepud
      Participant

      I would adjust the bridge height before you adjust the truss rod. Since all the buzz is on that side, I would raise that side of the bridge a little and see if it solves the problem.

      MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

    • #21062
      pipelineaudio
      Participant

      See if you can make something like this out of any VERY straight stuff you have and give adjacent frets a checking. https://www.tmrzoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/fret-rocker-banner.jpg

    • #21063
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      I would adjust the bridge height before you adjust the truss rod. Since all the buzz is on that side, I would raise that side of the bridge a little and see if it solves the problem.

      Awesome sauce man! I used a sheet of paper and let the light go through with mm markings on them. The treble side is 3.5mm while the bass side is around 2.9mm!
      I’m still waiting for my Kahler specific allen wrenches in the mail, so I can’t adjust it today. What else would I need to adjust given that the action is very high. I’m trying to think this out. If I raise the bridge on the bass side it will be even higher, but then I’ll need to drop the action on the saddles to normal action which would make up for the distance.

       

      Pipeline: I don’t have such short straight edges or anything to cut that with

      Thanks

    • #21068
      pipelineaudio
      Participant

      I wasn’t completely clear if you actually checked the relief, you can actually just use your string by holding it down at the first and last fret and having a look. If your action is that insanely high, AND there’s relief, and still buzzes, then yes there is some fretwork to be done

      Often the fret is actually just loose, especially if the guitar wasn’t played much for so long. You can tap on the frets with a penny and often hear if they are loose, the loose ones won’t sound as “solid”. A good luthier can whack them back down with a rubber hammer. If the frets are just a bit messy, then usually a crowning tool can get them close enough. You’d be surprised what household items can be used as a fret rocker, see what you can dig up and test the frets in sets of three to look for high or low spots

    • #21071
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      When I adjusted my guitar quite a while back, I think I ended up cranking the truss rod two full turns in total to get rid of buzz (after changing to completely different size strings), altho it was my first time adjusting anything, nothing broke and my guitar played better. It would be handy to know “how many turns might be expected to be needed, for a guitar that needs adjustments?” as a rule of thumb kind of thing. Then again my guitar is a mix of resin and wood, so, it’s different than most anyways.

      By the way you put on new strings right?

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #21072
      MotleyCrue81
      Participant

      Know the difference needed in string height when the string is not being pressed down at all, compared to when it is being pressed down at the first and 17th fret. 2mm is about the average action height of the strings at the 12th fret when they aren’t pressed down. The .01 inches you talk about is what you want to aim for when the 6th string is pressed down at the first and 17th fret.

      If the action is super high, the strings shouldn’t be buzzing because they should be too far away from the frets to touch them. First thing you wanna do is get the neck straight, forget everything else, thevtruss rod matters first. Look down the neck to see if it’s bowed too far forward (meaning truss is too loose) or if it’s bent backwards (truss to tight). You should adjust the truss rod so that the neck is bent just barely forward. You’ll know when it’s right by doing this:

      hold down the 6th string at the first fret, and hold down the 6th string at the 17th fret. The string height around the 9th fret should allow you to fit a business card between the fret and the 6th string with the 6th string just barely touching the business card. Once you’ve got that, the truss rod is then set correctly for some nice low action. One thing to be aware of, make sure the guitar is in tune while making the adjustments.

      Once the truss is set, then move to bridge height. Set the 6th string side of the bridge so that there is around a little more than a 16th inch between the 6th string and the 12th fret. Set the side of the bridge the 1st string is on so that there is a hair more than a 16th of an inch between the 12th fret and the first string.

      With low action, there will always be a little bit of string buzz on the lower strings.

      But one thing to note: why do I mention the 17th fret when pressing the strings down? Well.. some guitars are ‘shelved’ meaning that the frets beyond the 17th fret were ground down just a little lower than the other frets. That will reduce string buzz. So because some guitars are shelved, pressing the string down at the 1st and 17th fret as opposed to the last fret will help you more accurately get that .01 inch.

      If you’ve done all this and you still have excessive string buzz or are even fretting out when doing bends, then you need some fretwork my friend.

      Bring hair metal back!

      • #21073
        DanzoStrife
        Participant

        Thanks for the advice Motley 😀

        Yea, surely the gap between the 12th fret when i do what you told me is pretty large, u could fight another 5th string in there.
        I think if i untilt the bridge’s bass and then fix the neck relief, I think my guitar will be free of issues. . (fingers crossed). Gotta wait a couple days until i get those above listed supplies in the mail to be sure!

    • #21110
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      Ok, so I sent an email to Wammi world about my Kahler.
      It seems <span style=”color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;”>I  went thru the whole website and watched the 3 Kahler vids on youtube and they didn’t mention how to adjust Bridge height (not saddle height)</span>

      The bass side strings on my LTD JH 600 (Hanneman) guitar all buzz . It seems when I measured it, the bass side is 0.5mm lower than the treble side.
      I’m looking at this page and don’t see which one u adjust https://www.wammiworld.<wbr />com/Setup.php
      Hopefully someone knows here or at least Wammi world will reply soon . It’s the weekend , so I don’t expect a response
    • #21116
      pipelineaudio
      Participant

      On the cam style Kahlers, if I remember right, there is no bridge height adjustment, as the cam is fixed in height by the body of the bridge itself and the string height is set by saddle height

    • #21119
      MotleyCrue81
      Participant

      I’d just look on YouTube. If there is no way to change the saddle height, check to see if maybe your neck is twisted. If nothing else, you could just shim the plate by putting some pieces of paper in between the plate and the body on the bass side to raise it.

      Bring hair metal back!

    • #21120
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      Update:
      OK I tightened the largest screw on the bridge on the right to make sure the bridge is completely attached to the body. i took a guess what it was..

      Either that fixed it or

      it seems I was reading my first measurement wrong or something. But measuring it again, the bridge is as flush as possible to the body. My ruler says my guitar is also flush so it shouldn’t be slanted.  And anyways, Wammi world told me that there’s no bridge height adjustment

      I tightened my truss rod once more 1/4 turn and now my guitar string action has changed from doing that . It reads as follows

      .015  on the 12th fret for the feeler gauge when doing the truss rod check w/capo.
      However, there is no space on the 7th fret when I press down on the 8th fret.
      Action on treble strings is measured at 1.5 , but G string is too high at 1.9mm
      5th string is measured at 1.5mm . Too low duh
      6th string action is measured at 1.6mm. This is too low on the 12th fret. I don’t have the tool in the mail yet to lower the action.
      Right now all the buzz is on the 2 bass strings 7th fret-14th.

      I think once I fix the action , I should be ready to go! I hope .
      I’ll update you guys when I receive the tool for this and thanks for all your replies 🙂

    • #21121
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      Oh , I forgot to ask

      Should I decrease the bow to .010-.012 or something instead of .015?

    • #21123
      pipelineaudio
      Participant

      On my ESP 25.5″ Neck thru my guitar, with Elixir 10’s is set at:
      High e just over the 0.75mm line at 12th fret.
      Low E 1.25mm @12th fret
      relief 0.3mm @8th fret

      • #21127
        DanzoStrife
        Participant

        ^ AND you have no buzzing with that?
        I’ve read 10’s have much less buzz than 9s as well.

    • #21129
      pipelineaudio
      Participant

      This setup works very well for me, no buzzes through the amp anyway

    • #21160
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      Ok guys it’s done!

      A lot of my problem stemmed from that I needed to change the strings. The strings I thought were new, since they felt new? But hey after I changed to new strings now I see..oh it was probably dented somewhere. Anyways, the most annoying part was intonation. I only moved in tiny fractions of a unit so I didn’t see much change. I finally got it intonated correctly. My 6th string was most pesky and had to move almost all the way to the end towards the bridge.

      My action is down to 1.2 mm on the bass strings and 1.00 mm on the treble side. Ofc there’s some light buzz, but I actually went through a lot of testing things out to see that’s actually normal if u want Low action AND 009 strings. So it’s not out of the normal buzz that any other guitar would be. My truss rod moved about 3/4 a turn in total to get where I needed my guitar to run perfectly. After that, I only had to lower the G string saddle a hair and the neck relief took care of the rest.

      I think I did better than this local veteran luthier who got my previous guitar setup (had light buzz as well), but I’m sure a GOOD luthier could give me that last 10% polish. Perhaps one or two? Of my frets are slightly lifted.

      But still, It plays pretty wicked now!! This guitar is quite amazing and I highly recommend getting one 🙂
      Thanks to all of you who assisted me! I’ll be back with some progress reports and covers 🙂

    • #21162
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      What happens if you tune down, to like drop D. Did you test that too? Might result in more buzz, more adjustment needed. Or maybe not? I had to tune to drop C for playing a SOAD song last year and I gave my truss rod another crank to support that cleanly. Depends what songs you’re playing but maybe drop D is a good yardstick? Not sure if I’ve seen this topic on adjusting playability across different tunings discussed in the many guitar setup conversations.

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

      • #21163
        DanzoStrife
        Participant

        Well, the Low E string area is a little short of absolute refinement. If i want 0 buzz, then I’d keep it at around E and have it at 1.6mm and no lower.  So I don’t think D will help matters. Not that it will make much difference in the amp recording though. 009’s just are too slacky . I think I’ll switch to 10-46 the next time I see a luthier.

        I guess i could change the relief from .015 to .010 but I might get more buzz elsewhere

        A luthier can address the weakness above

         

        John Petrucci has his guitar setup to 1 mm on all strings because he has one wicked setup, on a very expensive guitar that supports going that low all throughout the board.

      • #21164
        superblonde
        Keymaster

        If you mean the Petrucci signature guitars (music man?), wow those are slick, I spent over an hour playing one at a guitar store a couple different times, very very smooth guitar and yeah, strings are basically, wow, just a hair above the frets yet still plays great.. $$$$ Kind of a unique look as well, with a very tiny headstock. The other biggest thing that I liked about it was the piezo setup which sounded great too.

        I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
        And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #21165
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      Haha yea, I’m not too fond of the Petrucci guitar style.. BUT after hearing about how they feel and play and sound ? I’m very interested now.

    • #21166
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      ok, i just found something. Not sure what I did wrong bug on my G string, the sustain is dead on the 12th fret. The other notes have 4 seconds of sound while this dies on the count of 2 without a tail.

      Raise action on that string?

    • #21170
      pipelineaudio
      Participant

      You might have to. I make extensive use of this site: https://stringtensionpro.com/
      You can get a good idea of the tension on each string and the results may well surprise you. A LOT of string packages have ridiculous peaks and valleys between strings. It’ll show you also why so many of those thin and thick sets can make sense.

      For instance, my 29″ seven string is tuned standard except for the lowest string which is drop tuned to A, finds the most consistency at High e-9, b-12, g-17, d-24, a-32, low e-42 and low a at a whopping 62! That’s a jump of 20, and even that is low, a 64 would be better but it just feels far too weird to me. Don’t be surprised if you have to jump 20 or more to get even tension with drop tuning! However, some people like the dropped string to have a spaghetti feel and sound

      Regarding the 1mm on the petrucci, its not so much a function of price or anything exotic, its just a function of work. The 100 dollar Dean Vendetta XM can do this no problem with a bit of fretwork, as it comes with EXCELLENT factory frets with lots of meat for adjustment room. Around here it takes about 200 dollars for this type of work and our students often have it done to their Vendettas, making it a 300 guitar. Still WELL under what most of the purists (who our kids can blow the doors right off, on their 300 dollar guitars) would say is even the cost of an entry level guitar.

      1mm on the low e side with something besides string sizes approaching bass strings might be pretty difficult, at least to have it buzz free acoustically (though it may not be so hard buzz free through the amp).

      1.5mm on the low E is no problem at all with the 10-46 Elixir set (I doubt it needs to be elixirs, its just what we tend to use here in the rust capital of the nation, I think its just the size and tension that matters). And we do it all the time on these 100 dollar guitars

    • #21181
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      ^ There seems to be some coding error.. when I change to 6th string .046 I get a 6.24 lb reading lmao.

      Anyways, my bridge has the perk of only accepting UP to 10-46 strings, the cost of not having to deal with Floyd negatives (has a lock to fix the bridge for tuning)

      I’m not liking my dead note sustain on the G string and like more refinement so with my limited experience, I’ll need to send this one to a luthier no question about it. Gotta take a look at the nut and make sure all the frets are tapped in etc.  Looks like the bridge is perfect without 2nd guessing.

      At least I know what I’m doing to maintain an instrument and won’t likely to be ripped off by another luthier. I once went for a fret level that costed me $200 bucks and only leveled 2 frets. I still had a big dent in one fret and my buzz was no different than before. I could have a stainless steel refret for that kinda price. BUT oh nooo..Yelp recommended him 5 stars! Yelp is such a lie.

      Other luthiers who have 20 yrs experience are charging only $40 for fret leveling lmao.

    • #21182
      pipelineaudio
      Participant

      The tens place dissapears often on the latest version of the site, but you can confirm by clicking one above or below and having a look again, its usually right, just missing the ten’s

    • #21575
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      OK,  I just got my Guitar setup and here are the results:

      Problems found:
      Neck had to be SHIMMED. A piece of paper under the nut. The luthier said it’s just borderline too short so he just put it there and didn’t charge above the cost of the setup. He also replaced my pickup rings which were broken, intonated it . As for the action, he had to set a RADIUS to match the actual fretboard. That’s one thing I don’t have in my toolbox is to match action with radius!

      Frets were looked at closely and they were perfect, no need to crown, reseat or relevel. Korea builders did great here!

      I also switched to DR 10-46. My guess was spot on. The 10s feel exactly the same as my GHS boomers 9-42! Which means the GHS had thicker cores by default (Before they advertised this) . I guess my hands are strong by now as this still feels pretty spaghetti to me 😛
      The DR Dimebag strings sound verydifferent and very nice. Its like having a different guitar

      LOW action, no buzz,  guitar plays like a very different beast!  Barre Chords and action down the 12th fret and beyond is really sweet. Before it was very high up there.
      G string still has a slight dead note from 10-13th fret. It plays about the count of “two Mississippi” Which is half the length of the other strings. It’s still better than before though, but A setup didn’t completely cure this. I looked this up online and it seems almost there’s 100s of google pages on this. Some guitars have their resonant peak at the G string 12th fret, right on that spot . There’s a simple fix though, people have been recommending the Fender FatFinger. IT was made just for that!  I’ll buy it later.

      According to him, the only difference between this and the Japanese $4500 version is a emptier wallet and setup difference.

      COST: $45

      I think bringing him a donut and a muffin helped him keep the costs down XD

    • #21578
      safetyblitz
      Participant

      OK, I just got my Guitar setup and here are the results: Problems found: Neck had to be SHIMMED. A piece of paper under the nut. The luthier said it’s just borderline too short so he just put it there and didn’t charge above the cost of the setup. He also replaced my pickup rings which were broken, intonated it . As for the action, he had to set a RADIUS to match the actual fretboard. That’s one thing I don’t have in my toolbox is to match action with radius!

      Surprising that the nut was too low. Usually new guitars ship with nuts that intentionally err on the side of being too high.

      For the radius thing, on a “regular” Floyd, it’s typically accomplished with thin metal shims under the saddles; not sure how the height of the rollers on your Kahler are adjusted.

    • #21579
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      It’s really easy to adjust the action on the guitar, just move the string with y our hand and put the tiny allen wrench in. But I didn’t have a tool to get the radius to be 13.75″. I only knew how to get it high or low, not “rounded.”

      Lol , so my G string had a big difference in height compared to the D string so it was very jarring to attempt doing transitions from chords.

      This is where the Luthier came in. It was more than a truss rod adjustment.

    • #21622
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      Ok, actually I’ve been finding more problems with the guitar and I think I got a bad setup  =/

      I can’t even get a proper tuning on with my D string to my G. If I fret the D string on the 5th fret it won’t read G, but reads +8c too high so It sounds horribly out of tune when I play it together with the G string. It reads in tune on open only.

      Then this is as follows

      12th fret

      e –  -3cents
      b-5c
      g-8c
      D +5c
      A- good
      E+5C , also the first fret at low E is F +5c. There’s no perfect F.

      I think the luthier screwed up my guitar by raising the nut. So right now in addition to the tuning issues, the high E side is .019, but stewmac says it should be at .010!

      the G string sustain issue isn’t fixed either. I still only get the count of 1 -2 mississippi rather than 3-4 mississippi like my other strings.

      I think I should probably just rip out the entire shim?

    • #21625
      JL2112
      Participant

      As for the tuning problems the guitar might need to be intonated.The shim might be to high.

    • #21626
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      https://www.stewmac.com/How-To/Online_Resources/Learn_About_Guitar_Nut_and_Saddle_Setup_and_Repair/Nut_Making_and_Setup.html
      Well here’s another page I found on Stewmac. A low nut is actually very common and especially for Ibanez! Since my ESP LTD is closer to spec to an Ibanez, the nut wasn’t too low. IN fact .019 is rare spec and should be maximum.

      So when I fret a note up top, it always goes sharp like I’m bending notes. I removed the nut shim and now I’ll intonate the guitar. I think I’m doing a better job than this “professional”. The thing is, he claimed he already intonated the guitar. My ass! I had it intonated before I sent it to him.

      I got ripped off!

    • #21628
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      I wondered if a piece of paper makes for a good shim anyway. Wouldnt paper compress over time? And also be affected by humidity? ..just a couple things which made me go, “hmm…”.

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #21629
      JL2112
      Participant

      You are right SB plastic, wood or metal are used for shims

    • #21630
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      Yea, and not only that but Shims come in different sizes and THICKNESSES. The paper gives u no control on how thick it is, and u can’t measure it.

      But yea he argued with me that is standard.
      But now he refuses to return my messages and calls about my problem with the guitar. Why can’t anyone do a damn simple setup in my area?

       

      Oh and this is for Pipeline https://www.ghsrep.net/uploads/2/2/2/5/22258814/ghs_electric_guitar_string_guide.pdf

    • #21632
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      the only difference between this and the Japanese $4500 version is a emptier wallet and setup difference.

      I wonder if that is true either. There’s many components on a guitar, some visible and some not, that affect the price. Some guitars do seem to have artificial markup, but common models, I still assume that a higher priced guitar will be higher quality (not talking about just a better paint job), now, that doesnt imply that the lower priced one isnt perfectly fine to play on a stage, or in a man cave too, or doesn’t sound great too. I guess casually people might say “meh, they’re the same” since they probably mean the end result is satisfactory either way, but if getting into it with a good guitar tech I’d assume the tech would be able to get into the true details to say “yea they’re both just as playable but not really the same, because …”.

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #21633
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      Well it seems fixing the intonation isn’t working out. The D string is the only one that is giving the really bad issue here.

      It doesn’t  intonate on the 5th fret , it still sharp quite a bit but the 12th fret is intonated.
      This might have to do with the nut then?

      The tech got back to me.  I told him yea, I’m going to get it fixed with someone else, said he’d refund half the money once I get my guitar fixed.  And I told  him even that will have to wait, since I have to cough up more money for a 2nd guy to fix it. pssh , please he should have refunded the whole thing since my guitar is kinda unplayable.

      I really don’t know what he did. I wasn’t having open fret buzzing on the D string before, and the very least that I knew how to do was intonate the guitar. The intonation wasn’t broken, in fact i got it spot on. I brought it to him so he’d give it that extra low action and pizzazz.

    • #21634
      pipelineaudio
      Participant

      Unless the frets were put on wrong or crowned HORRIBLY wrong, this isn’t making sense. can you check intonation at 3rd fret, 5th fret, 7th fret and 12th fret? They should all move the same way by the same amount-ish off

      • #21636
        DanzoStrife
        Participant

        All the frets on the D string 1-7 seem quite off in intonation. It doesn’t get better until u go past 7.
        The other strings are better.

        I basically gotta save money and pay another name luthier to do a full scan on this thing and get it right.

    • #21637
      pipelineaudio
      Participant

      By “off” are some sharp and others flat or do they all go in the same direction?

      • #21638
        DanzoStrife
        Participant

        All are sharp and gradually less sharp as u go to higher frets. 5th fret is the worst tho.

        I removed the nut shim and the nut height seems fine. Theres still a gap when u press down on the 3rd fret. In fact, it was way too high with the shim. The chart says .020 is a max, u could go down .013 on bass side no problem, and in fact that’s where it is now.

        This doesn’t really add up. Nut height seems fine, but the D string can’t intonate up there. Thats why i gotta take it to the plek scanner setup.  I had a previous guitar setup there before, but I had to leave to Korea and didn’t even get to play the guitar but sold it. It’s a lot more expensive , but i can see why. They at least get the job done. I should have done this in the first place.  Well I’m pissed since I’m out of money and don’t have a playable guitar. I mean I can play this, but it would be easy to criticize that I sound out of tune.

        btw pipeline, did u get the link for the string gauges by GHS? It’s a lot easier to look at than D addario and has tension on different tunings too.

    • #21640
      pipelineaudio
      Participant

      Is it impossible to get the intonation right at the 12th fret? As in, the saddles wont go far enough forward or back? If it can be right but the 5th fret is wrong, you can take a good hard look at the nut and look at the depth of the grove…Sometimes, the groove of the nut is highest in a place other than the end closest to the frets. This can make the string too long and often makes it die from buzz on open strings as well

    • #21641
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      It’s not impossible, I already got it dialed in on the 12th fret. In fact, the luthier didn’t bother checking every fret to see if it was actually intonated. He stopped there!

      It seems to me either some frets are out of whack, or the nut is incorrect where the D string is at in that groove and nowhere else.

      Anyways, this is all beyond my capability , especially since the entire guitar gets out of tune EVERY 5 minutes and needs major rework.  I can only get through one song and then need to retune. The G string is still kinda dead in sustain so I’m going to need to take it to the top luthier here. I’ll need to shell out $200 for the full PLEK setup

      I mean, I’m tired of all these obstacles holding me back. At least I can say that I’m progressing on this attempt, but external factors are weighing me down.

      The D string might be dead, even if its new. I’ll try to see if that’s it.

    • #21642
      pipelineaudio
      Participant

      If you live in a place where you can get Plek’d for 200 you are lucky as hell…I doubt that would fix the problem though, I’m thinking something else is going on weird. If the sharp or flat trend is correct, then everything should point to the nut as far as I can think. Thanks for that GHS link. I’m having a lot of trouble doing apples to apples on some of the strings but I was very very very interested in whether the thick and thin core boomers they make could end some tension problems. I’m going to print them out so I can dissect it easier. I’ve been making a lot of videos lately about testing strings and things and didnt even know this GHS link existed (I had even emailed them asking if they had any tension data a few weeks ago and either got no usable response. They should be paying you!) until you pointed it out

    • #21643
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      The 200 plek includes a full setup, the nut too. The setup with just the nut is $75.
      Plek without any work is $25

      I have other complications that includes my Mom complaining that I’m spending too much. Also the car isn’t in my name  , but it should be..It’s a long story. So she has to actually go with me everywhere. She wouldn’t stop complaining every minute on the way to the other luthier >.> Actually screaming and yelling. Not sure how shes gonna take the $200 fix if she wasn’t cool with $45.  Which was the whole reason I went as cheap as possible

      Before my other car broke down, I was able to go around and not have to report everything. Sigh

      Anyways,
      My DR strings Dimebag surely can’t do drop C at all. It’s horribly loose, no surprise since the feel of the strings is identical to the 9-42.   D is just barely ok.
      I need to find some singles heavy core for just the 6th string that can do drop C tuning (with string 1-5 at D). REMEMBER I can only use a .046 on the 6th string due to limitation unless its upgraded.

    • #21644
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      Someone at reddit just brought this to my attention. DR strings have some reputation for not being able to intonate in many batches due to being handmade

      https://www.tdpri.com/threads/dr-strings-wont-intonate-properly.194759/

       

      OH man, I just ordered 2 more of these sets. How could Dimebag actually record for all t hose years being out of tune? I don’t understand.
      I got  D string from D addario 9-42 set and GHS, doesn’t match my 10-46 set, but is that ok I can use that for a test? Before taking this to the luthier, I actually had GHS. This is one of the variables that changed

    • #21645
      pipelineaudio
      Participant

      We had a student with brand new strings that couldn’t intonate. It was the weirdest thing. But it turned out to be a small dent. I swear I had looked at the string for anything obvious, but you just couldnt make the saddle short enough and then, boom one more trip with a magnifying glass and the dent was apparent. Another new string and then there we go. I guess that could be it.

      Give some new strings a try, but seriously, measure! Check the actual distance from the BUSINESS part of the nut to the 12 fret and the 12 fret to the bridge. Check against a fret calculator for the fifth fret.

    • #21646
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      Breakthrough–

      Hey, so I replaced the D string. But don’t laugh, I put on a 032. I was rushing to get this fixed and forgot the D was the 22 from the 9 set! SO now I have 2 x 5th strings XD

      But here’s the good news, the entire string is intonated now! Nowhere is there that sitar buzz either. But is this tension bad for my guitar? Should I remove this and put on the 22 I have ? (I don’t have another 10 set that’s proper)
      I just noticed now my high E and B string are not intonated now. I’m going to have to replace the entire DR set with something else.

      I hope I can stop that seller from sending me those DR strings. They suck!

      Well now that I know it’s the strings, I still can use this guitar. I will still need the PLEK to fix the fret buzz and the dead G string in near future. At least now its not an emergency!

    • #21647
      MotleyCrue81
      Participant

      Are you tuning to E standard? What string gauge are you using? If the guitar will intonate at the 12th fret, but intonation at the other frets seems just a little too far off.. well.. the actual construction of the guitar and placement of the frets on the neck might not be totally spot on. If your nut is already low, then you can rule out the nut height causing you to create extra tension when fretting a note around the 3rd to 5th frets. The only way to know that the construction is correct is to whip out a ruler and do some measuring. Even a fret being off by a little less than a millimeter can have significant effect. Just make sure that you adjust your truss rod so that your neck is completely straight when you measure. I’d check what the distances are supposed to be for your particular scale length. If all checks out, and the construction is accurate, then there should be nothing preventing you from achieving a good setup given that your nut is slotted correctly and your saddles are good and the bridge was mounted in the correct spot. But ya, regarding your struggle with having someone setup your guitar correctly, I live by the ‘If you want something done right, do it yourself’ motto haha. Most ‘luthiers’ are mediocre and do setups that put things in the ballpark for average people like you and me. They can’t spend their whole day doing one setup correctly or else they’d never make enough money to survive. I’ve been doing my own setups since I started playing and things have always been good, when doing any filing on nuts or saddles, little by little wins the race, too much and you’ll need to replace parts haha.

      Bring hair metal back!

    • #21648
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      Lol, Motley u just whizzed by the last post right above yours. I just replaced my D string with a different brand (GHS) from DR . It’s fixed now! (10-46)

      the DR ones suck badly! I gotta replace the whole set as the other high strings are now starting to give way to bad intonation suddenly.

      But you’re totally right man. You either gotta diy, OR get someone really good at what they’re doing.

      I don’t know what u mean by “business” section

      but I measured the nut to the 12th and 12th to the bridge and it checks out 25.5″

      EDIT: I also let the luthier know what the problem was and thanked him anyways. The Plek service is out of his range, so anyways , another Luthier just called back and said yea the DR string is surely the problem , the intonation should be off on uniformally not just one string. That’s where we have consistency issues with the DR strings brand.

    • #21649
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      I totally dont understand one of the replys from the other forum link you posted, a quote from the manufacturer’s customer support,

      any kind of super-accurate strobe tuner (such as Peterson) should not be used when intonating a roundcore string.

      How can this be correct advice at all, I just don’t get it: “don’t use a good tuner when intonating with our strings”.. what??

      I need to intonate my own guitar, since I changed strings last month (but Ive procrastinated on this since I’m going to change strings again to try another brand anyways), the interesting thing is, the bridge saddle on my guitar is not independent per string, it is a single adjustment which affects all strings (the strings bend over top a curved bar), so, there’s no adjustment possible to correct against some kind of funky awkward-behavior string set.

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #21650
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      Yea, I know . I read that. That makes zero sense. SO you’re supposed to use something inaccurate and ballpark so u don’t know it’s actually that bad? LOL!

    • #21651
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      How did you mount the strings, because, did you follow this part? So that the roundcore string wont slip etc. Just curious.. changing to a trusted brand seems a good way to go.

      read the instructions inside the box about making a sharp kink before cutting the string.

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #21655
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      The guitar doesn’t have a Floyd and doesn’t require cutting off the ball end of strings. This does not apply

    • #21659
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      The way I interpreted this instruction was, that the strings should be roughly eyeballed to see how much slack is needed to go around the tuning peg, and then bent sharply after that distance (lets say to be extreme, bend it into a tiny 180 deg. U-turn) and then cut to proper length after that bend, and then wrapped/tightened on the tuning peg.

      Random video pops up showing this.. I havent heard of this before so it’s interesting..


      Properly Installing DR Strings

      Hey, so I replaced the D string. But don’t laugh, I put on a 032. …

      But here’s the good news, the entire string is intonated now! Nowhere is there that sitar buzz either. But is this tension bad for my guitar?

      I don’t think it’s a bad thing from the various combinations of strings I’ve read about people using.. Only thing is that chords might sound more unique, because that string’s tone will stick out from the rest as unique. It would be in tune, just sound different. I thought the biggest gotcha with guitars which have a nut, is the oddball string’s size fitting in the nut’s groove?

      One point about the various costs though.. Here you’ve got a pro guitar for a significant discount which is great. Putting a couple bucks into it here and there, is a great investment that will pay off, and some running costs are necessary. When I tried guitar lessons at a local place, and saw these young grade school kids come into the place after me, carrying their guitars in their hands, it made me very sad in a way, because their guitars didn’t have a case, they were just carrying it from the car into the studio naked.. and obviously bumping the guitar on furniture here and there. These kids were scuffing their $150-$250 starter guitars by carrying them between car and lesson rooms because their parental units cheaped out and didn’t spend that extra $30 for a soft guitar case. Makes no sense, right. I bet those same parental units will instead drop $30 on a local bar tab for a single nite out after work and not give it a second thought. I remember I got an electric guitar and parental units were so insistent that I play it yet I never had a practice amp since they cheaped out as well (how can anyone really play an electric guitar without an amp? I’d practice with it plugged straight into the home stereo “mic” jack using a headphone cable – didn’t have an instrument cable either – and it sounded thin, low volume, and yucky, as expected). A guitar is a professional musical instrument. Not putting a couple bucks into it, to make it a real playable instrument, is like going to college then not buying textbooks and then trying to get good grades. Some investments are simply required. Would a classical player buy a violin and then say “nah I don’t need a bow” ? I mean that attitude is just ridiculous. What’s next, complaining that a $0.65 guitar pick is a waste of money? Or a newbie baseball player who buys a great bat and mit then refuses to buy a ball? I guess it kind of goes back to some old fashioned cultural idea that guitar, especially rock guitar, is simply a useless endeavor, or that playing skill happens instantly, and those aren’t very productive attitudes to push on someone who wants to learn to play. It does make for good songwriting though, for writing angry songs 😀

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #21661
      safetyblitz
      Participant

      One point about the various costs though.. Here you’ve got a pro guitar for a significant discount which is great. Putting a couple bucks into it here and there, is a great investment that will pay off, and some running costs are necessary.

      Honestly, this thread illustrates why my general guitar shopping advice to non-experts who will be making a purchase without my hands-on involvement is to buy from a service-minded mom and pop music store (or if necessary, a service-minded chain store). If you buy a guitar from a service-minded store rather than a private individual, headaches like this are usually solved before you even get the thing home. Sometimes a “bargain” is only a “bargain” if you place very low value on your time.

      The best music store I ever dealt with not only had their pro in the back consult with me prior to doing a complete setup and fret dress on my instrument at no additional charge, they scheduled a free followup a couple months after purchase for a final tweaking. Today, that wouldn’t matter to me so much, but it means in general buying a guitar from those guys is a guaranteed hassle-free experience.

      I will grant that this case has been complicated by the surprising unreliability of DR strings, and unsatisfactory work from the first “luthier”. In theory, the first luthier should have been able to sort this out for you quickly.

      Edit: Sounds like Pipeline might be on the right track re: your D string might not be breaking over the nut properly.

    • #21662
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      Safetyblitz and Everyone read this. It CONCLUDES and SUMMARIZES everything:

      Well, in a perfect world I could go to a great Mom and Pop shop like yours and get a great deal. I’m really glad u did! However, I’ve been to several around my area and they all suck. Mom and Pop means pawn shops or over priced “boutique” stores that charge you more than retail price for a used product and no returns. In fact my entire area works this way, including restaurants. I went on a mission to find a good mom and pop restaurant and went to 30 in a row. I was disappointed in every single one. Lack of service, ALWAYS more money than chain places, poor quantities, over rated lies on yelp etc. Fret dress would never be free, here that’s a $200 deal my friend.

      I also wanted this guitar. I’ve been wanting it since 2009.  I know any guitar will come with it’s issues, and I’m no stranger to that. New guitar had issues that costed me a lot, a higher end Japanese one costed me a lot. Both times I sold them and left myself at beginner level .

      And as I put before ( I know this post is messy). My guitar had only these issues
      1. Dead spots on G string 10-13th fret -not terrible but not great
      2. Some fret buzz, but not sure if its normal or typical.  Has not much affect with overall sustain or tone.
      3. Went out of tune sometimes, wasn’t too bad (but now it’s MUCH worse after the setup from “luthier)
      So I just wanted to perfect my instrument, get it to that 20% more level. I thought for $45, ok I’ll do it, what could it hurt???
      Besides, right now I have a lot more time than I have money.

      When I had sent this to the “Luthier” who is private from his house, I had a plethora of issues that u see here.
      And the Sitar buzz i said went away after I removed the D string. My guitar is no longer in emergency state, but it could use refinement. But it still has the normal amount of imperfections that a $1000 instrument would have. This is not a prestige guitar or the Japanese version . Well, even the Japanese Jackson costed me $200 for fretwork/setup. I only had that Jackson for a few weeks until I had a big career change and moved to Korea temporarily.

      New issues from “luthier”:

      1. Guitar goes out of tune much more -but I haven’t changed out every string yet.
      2. Shim added to nut made barre chords really tough and made them sharp also, did not like the playability. (REMOVED IT NOW)
      3. DR string Intonation and buzzing nightmare (RESOLVED)

      And also, the private “luthier” who installed the strings I’m not even sure if he did that crink in the string. That’s something I’d forget to do and I’m still not convinced that DR is any good.

      Now the high end luthier guy here who did my Jackson that I only had very shortly in 2009 , does some fine work and now I’m fully aware why this costs this much.  He is confident that he can make the guitar  perfect and I believe him from his past work from his shoppe.

      As for the nut, well I’ll have it looked it at during the fret stage, it’s still gonna have to go there anyways to the pro guy.
      I just have accepted that my area although has cheap guitars, also has mid to high pricing luthiers. Most luthiers in my area suck and have no idea what a 18v mod is or never worked with active pickups or Korean guitars (that private Luthier).

    • #21664
      pipelineaudio
      Participant

      I have a pile of super high end guitars, but more often than not I’m playing a budget guitar. Last few weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of testing videos and for the most part I’ve been playing a 180 dollar Rondo 7 string. This isn’t the 80’s, a KILLER guitar costs 100 bucks for a fixed bridge 6 string, and if you can’t play that one well, you really can’t play anything, so I wouldn’t worry so much on the money side, it just isn’t the issue it used to be.

      That said, since I’m in Hawaii now, I have to be sure that I can do any regular repair or setup that comes my way, and it really really really amplifies the power of your purchase to be able to work on your stuff, or at least measure it correctly.

      A good ruler and a fret rocker in your case would really, really, really be illuminating and if not solve every issue you have, at least allow you to specify them exactly to someone who has the tools you need to fix it.

    • #21665
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      I think if I had a pile of super high end guitars, I would wear one on my person at all times even while doing laundry, bang it into things around the house and not worry about it, let my belt buckle scuff the heck out of it and shrug ‘meh’, maybe even put four short upright wooden posts in my living area and set the guitar right on it as a coffee table and foot rest, and most importantly, I’d carry one out to the clubs and especially open mic nite without a case and lean it up against any old random bar stool just underneath where people are sloshing their pint glasses around. After all this I would consider myself truly punk rock 😀 😀 😀 Oh I almost forgot, I’d break one on stage. Every night. 😀 😀

      Edit.. I happened across rondo’s web site recently and looked over their crazy cheap and slightly suspicious looking guitar selection, maybe you could do a review.

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #21666
      pipelineaudio
      Participant

      I’m TERRIBLE about that, I was sweating bullets on your earlier post about cases. I always just stick the guitar in the front seat, usually leaning on my BMX chest protector and when I get to the show, if I forgot guitar stands, I either lay it in a booth or *gulp* lean it on a stool or amp or chair. I deserve every bit of preventable maintenance I have to do on these things. The Agiles Rondo sells are high end guitars by any measure, except the price I guess. I have a 727 and 728 Interceptor and Interceptor Pro of theirs, the 180 dollar one is a Douglas 725. That thing needed a bit of modding to make it play as well as any of my ridiculously overpriced guitars, but nothing you couldn’t do with basic luthier tools.

      The neck thru interceptor pros are BEAUTIFUL and play pretty awesome out of the box. About 600 dollars shipped

    • #21667
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      Man, I saw the reviews on youtube from some well experienced luthiers and they all say the Rondo Agile Les Paul guitars are really nice and typical to the other Korean guitars (high mid range like LTD). Not as good as Gibson they said, but surely will give Epiphones a run for their money.
      I also like how the Agiles feature more sleek neck designs and are somewhat weight relieved. This really makes me want to buy one, especially the blueberry burst finish 🙂
      Cons that i’ve read and saw on YT : The finish isn’t as perfect as the Gibsons, but not shabby either. Might need a nut shim or file, or a push in a fret or two which seems typical of all these mid range guitars.

    • #21668
      pipelineaudio
      Participant

      I don’t know anything about their gibson copies, all I’ve ever tried are their shredder guitars. I don’t think you could get a stock gibson or fender for any money that could compete with those. Its a different wheelhouse, and I wouldn’t be surprised if gibson beats agile at being gibsons.

    • #21669
      safetyblitz
      Participant

      That said, since I’m in Hawaii now, I have to be sure that I can do any regular repair or setup that comes my way, and it really really really amplifies the power of your purchase to be able to work on your stuff, or at least measure it correctly. A good ruler and a fret rocker in your case would really, really, really be illuminating and if not solve every issue you have, at least allow you to specify them exactly to someone who has the tools you need to fix it.

      Speaking of doing your own work, here’s a cool video on how to “tool up” for doing your own fret leveling on the ultra cheap:

      And a separate brilliant post on how to do “diy” double-sided tape:

    • #21670
      pipelineaudio
      Participant

      This is awesome

       

    • #21672
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      I’m in disbelief that there is a vlog called guns and guitars. How very nugentian.

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #21684
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      Lol yes, very Nugentian 😀
      Looking at that vid, reminds me that i need a dremel. Such a handy tool and I still don’t have one >.>;

      Dude, so I contacted DR strings more than 24 hours ago on their site and twitter. They didn’t give me a response for my trouble and  $money loss on those sets of strings. I thought they were supposed to stand on their guarantee? I’ll wait a bit longer, but with all the replies from forums about that, It seems they actually don’t respect their own guarantee policy.

    • #21686
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      There’s one very important point you mentioned, that you’ve always wanted this guitar. I think its great that we can buy our dream instruments and they really are not that expensive relatively speaking. Spending even a couple grand in cash to get a dream in hand, is a really good deal. Its common today for regular people to drop $60k upwards on a dream car and they dont bat an eyelash and of course it depreciates 1/4 of that sticker price in very short order. Later even throw several more grand at it for tires and rims or trim. With a guitar, those of us here know, we’re hyped with a dream, in a way, so a few bucks here and there is not a huge deal. The beef should be with the original owner who paid a high price for the guitar and let it sit completely unplayed. Like you said, not even played ever. That’s the tragedy to this story, with a cool new beginning.. the guitar is probably thanking you for putting it back in service.

      Motley’s previous point is a good one too.. what tuning do you plan to be in. I guess it would be good to try Eb as well, to check all is still good? The lowest I had to tune for metal was drop C. That increased buzz for me, but the nu metal distortion covered it up so it didn’t come thru the amp, though I could hear it acoustically from the guitar itself and I just ignored it.

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #21687
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      Yea, I can’t just be a guy to hang a guitar on the wall or stick it in a closet or something. I mean, does anyone just buy a car and put it in the garage? But that was the previous buyers intent. He just bought it in memory of the dead. (Jeff Hanneman’s signature guitar).

      Let’s say even if I put the $200 setup which includes the machine plek. I paid $450 for this guitar and the cost would still be $650,  (+another 45 for the first luthier loss) still a lot less than the $999 that you buy it for, it’s not even discounted anywhere, actually it’s all back stocked too.   Remember that the store $999 price version will need either a fret or a nut job too, so it wouldn’t have been any different. When I played this guitar in the store back in 2009, I was just thinking oh cool, this is a guitar of one of my favorite artists. But out of the guitars i’ve played, this one talked to me. It was very comfortable in my hands, I really like the ergonomics. Are there other guitars that are even better ergonomically? Sure. How about the cost? Several times more though.  I think the only guitar that i’ve tried in a store that didn’t need a fret job were the prestige/high end lines.

      I think everyone from time to time has to deal with stumbling blocks like this. It’s either time or money, its what you have more of. Surely if I had $4000 to spend, I’d take the original Japanese signature model . But then I’d still have repeated the mistake of bringing it to that private luthier guy for a setup, because I’d still think hey, this guitar is pretty close to being perfectly setup.. I just want that polish. I’d be in the same situation , even If I went back in time!
      I’d needed to have specific fore knowledge that this private luthiers 5 star rating is a lie.
      After talking with 3 different luthiers (2 high end and then also him) I can tell y ou those other 2 guys speak a mouth full, they have a lot to say about my guitar, gear in general and their abilities.
      There was a BIG RED warning sign when i went to his house and he kept asking me what I needed. I was testing him. I was say here, play the guitar what do you think is wrong with it? He didn’t have an answer, nor did he have an answer about ever working with Korean guitars. After he was all done, the funny thing was that he also put my pickups ALL THE WAY DOWN. If you know even the basics about EMG or active pickups is that their magnetic pull is only a small fraction of passives, so you need them HIGH , or at least twice the height of passives. I asked him why he put them so low, he said oh that’s what i normally do. I asked if he knew if they were passive and if he checked the battery compartment. Usually a guy who setups a guitar also checks how good the battery is. That affects your tone, but he didn’t even open it!  Of course, no surprise when I mentioned if he could do an 18v mod for me is that he never heard of such a thing LOL.

      btw, so you know you if you have a cat, there’s no changing strings undisturbed. My cat is fascinating by them 😛 While I can’t vouch for the quality of DR, my cat has a new toy now. And don’t worry, i put tape on the sharp ends so she won’t poke herself.

       

    • #21688
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      Tuning: Well, considering the guitar’s bridge has a limitation of .046, I need to change out the 6th string hook ($7) and the 6th string roller at the least ($5)

      I would like to use a 10-46 set and change out the E to a .052 so I could do Drop C.
      So strings 1-5 would be one step down and I already know they can handle that just fine.

      As for now, I can only do D standard or drop D. I would like to go back in between to E standard, so I think my choice in string sets is quite good as it would allow me to do that. A thicker E string in standard isn’t much of a hassle as I probably wouldn’t be needing crazy bends. And for songs that do require bends in the E string, usually they are tuned down one step. Example (Walk by Pantera).

      I really don’t see how the luthier couldn’t have noticed that the notes weren’t intonated throughout the lower frets. His ability to double check things is really..yuck. And that he couldn’t tell me what’s a normal fret buzz amount. I just noticed I’m getting fretted out notes on the 8th fret doing exercises for week 2 on the pentatonic lead. A lot of dead giveaways here that the luthier didn’t see!
      I’m still waiting for my new strings, so I’m hoping that will improve things slightly.

      Other note: Also that I have a guitar that I like and fought for, it’s not something I neglect. I have been practicing very consistently and don’t feel frustrated 🙂

    • #21689
      pipelineaudio
      Participant

      I mean, does anyone just buy a car and put it in the garage? But that was the previous buyers intent.

      Hand in hand with working on guitars is learning how to wrench musclecars, and yes, if you missed THAT market in the 90’s, it was insane, it took all of these fun cars out of the hands of the teenager working at mcdonalds and became only for d-bags with them in private collections, who never drive them but instead warehouse them to get destroyed in a fire. Musclecars were meant to be driven and guitars were meant to be played. Don’t even get me started on microphones

      DAMN YOU Barret Jackson and damn you ebay!

      On the plus side, I was able to trade my 500 dollar 340 duster for a 20k+ Jeep and he had to throw in a Carvin AE185 to sweeten the deal

    • #21690
      pipelineaudio
      Participant

      Thanks to airplanes, boats, telephones and other modern inventions, the country of origin for a guitar won’t tell you all that much about it, and when it comes to Korea, so many of these things are made at World, and if you ever get to meet one of these guys, or watch a video, they are FANATICS! You can see generations of families making these things and it looks like the shipper has to pry the guitar out of their hands, like every single guitar is their own baby, its actually pretty heartwarming to see these guys in their craft. There’s a lot to be said ergonocially, that is a tiny little country and most everything is a few miles from each other, so they usually have access to tech and tools we can only dream of in the states.

      I’ll take a guy using precision measuring tools ANY day over someone who eyeballs it, all things being equal

    • #21691
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      The guitar string toy-for-the-cat trick is a funny and great tip.. you should tell Doug, his 2 kittens might go absolutely bonkers for it.. I have literally never seen kittens follow a person around in lock step like little ducks following their mother, other than Doug’s kittens following him around.. LOL maybe he’s like the pied piper of rock guitar?

      Musclecars were meant to be driven and guitars were meant to be played.

      Here here! I had a previous thread somewheres about liberating guitars from people’s closets.. I think it would be a great marketing push for the guitar mags to take on these themes, “rescuing abandoned closet guitars”..

      Danzo what was the previous owner’s story on your guitar, why was it simply a museum piece? Did they buy it and then not have the motivation or time to learn to play, or ??

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #21695
      safetyblitz
      Participant

      I think it would be a great marketing push for the guitar mags to take on these themes, “rescuing abandoned closet guitars”..

      I think the guitar mags’ bread is buttered on a different side. It’s much more lucrative to the industry to pretend those guitars don’t exist, and convince people to pay $5000+ for “faithful reproductions” of iconic guitars.

    • #21707
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      Lol you guys are all still here?

      Well, I didn’t ask too much about the previous owner since it was from Ebay and I had already bugged him enough. But I do know for sure that his close friend owns a guitar shop, so he’s always getting massive discounts on guitars, usually the first served. His whole page has him selling guitars dirt cheap. He has nothing in stock now tho. But some of his guitars were Gibson Angus signature etc for only fraction of the cost.

      So basically I just think he flips guitars, might play occasionally and might keep a couple to look at for a while.

      Pipeline; haha yea I totally forgot about those dudes! Guys who fix up cars and don’t drive them. Well I happen to be a hybrid person.  I believe strongly in two things.
      1. Cars and Guitars are meant to be played/driven.
      2. However, I also believe that there’s no reason for them to look beat up and that scratches don’t necessarily add character! Only if you’re talking certain styles of course, that’s ok. But hey, would most anyone say scratches on a Ferrari add character? NO. I like all of my stuff, clean and pristine. There’s a big job and business for people who refinish, restore cars and guitars lol!

      Sometimes I like relic if it calls for it, but not typically.

      Safetyblitz: Yea, I mentioned in the other thread that it’s possible I may need a new SPRING. I mean the guitar was sitting in the closet for 4 yrs. It might have corroded. That may correct my tuning issue.

    • #21709
      safetyblitz
      Participant

      Safetyblitz: Yea, I mentioned in the other thread that it’s possible I may need a new SPRING. I mean the guitar was sitting in the closet for 4 yrs. It might have corroded. That may correct my tuning issue.

      The issues you’ve described so far have mostly been about intonation, which wouldn’t be a spring issue. And springs last a long time. When springs are a problem, it’s about them not consistently returning the bridge to the zero point after they’ve been slacked or stretched, which is more likely a question of quality control at point of manufacture (more likely on cheap guitars of mysterious origin) than changes over time (except in cases of gross abuse). And even in the “not returning to zero” problem, the problem is more often somewhere other than the springs themselves, but “known quality” springs are a cheap and easy change.

    • #21723
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      Ok, Ic Safety blitz. But I did mention that the guitar goes out of tune almost everyday just by playing it . (no Whammy usage) . I can’t possibly trouble shoot this or the sustain issue, so off it goes to the pro luthier. I need a standard of high quality first, before I go out on do everything DIY on my own , only guitar.

      It took me years of destroying my own computers before I could make good computers. A lot of $ loss and I’m not going to experiment on this.
      (I’ve burned out a couple of CPU’s, a couple of motherboards, sticks of ram and caused an explosion from the power supply which resulted in a fire. Cool purple, green and red sparks 😉 )

      This was before I had the shitty strings on it. Btw, another string broke from DR. I was just tuning it and it snapped. It was on pretty good too. I’m gonna change out the whole set today.

    • #21735
      safetyblitz
      Participant

      I can’t possibly trouble shoot this or the sustain issue, so off it goes to the pro luthier.

      Good decision. Unfortunate that the first guy you sent it to didn’t get the job done right.

    • #21743
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      he’s always getting massive discounts on guitars

      Sure that his business isn’t a two-finger discount? 😮

      Also maybe I missed the trick of the cheap luthier, he put on the suspicious strings? So was it, put on known-problematic strings so that the customer would come back for another ‘fix’ ? Not that it matters now, just kind of a plot twist.

      the entire guitar gets out of tune EVERY 5 minutes and needs major rework.  I can only get through one song and then need to retune.

      Once you find out whats causing this then post a followup because it would be very good to know.. I mean, there’s only two ends to a string, if neither one is slipping, then why would tuning go wrong.. It’s a common complaint in squire reviews (“this guitar is junk it won’t stay in tune!”) then read between the lines and it turns out those reviewers don’t know how to wind strings around the peg properly. Not saying thats your case but just that there’s things other than the hardware itself to look at. I had a string that wouldnt stay in tune after I changed it, turned out to be two problems, I didnt seat the ball properly on one end, thought I fixed that, still wouldn’t hold tuning, then found out I didnt get it tight at the neck either. So it was my fault. Then after fixing that, the string broke right off the ball because I had applied too much tension before (I’m guessing.. I wouldnt want to assume it was a bad string), so anyways it was a snowball effect of misbehavior, ha.

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #21745
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      No, the strings are my fault. The Kahler bridge has a few recommended strings (DR, GHS, roto) so I picked Dr because no reason really.
      About that, I contacted them again this time through email showing them my receipt asking for a refund giving my evidence on two sets of faulty strings. If they don’t listen, I’ll just threaten with bad social media reviews.

      The guitar going out of tune could be anything too. When I bought it, it was already like that.

      I changed my strings to KFK (Kerry King Dunlop) My string winds are also funny as well. I have like 10 winds on the Low E string after I put on my new strings lol…the Dunlop seems extra long compared to the GHS and D addario @_@
      But I was able to intonate the whole thing no problem. I bought it since it has an extra 052 in the box  (10-46 + 52) that I could use later after I change out the pieces of my bridge for drop tunes. It was intended for drop C .

      Safetyblitz: you’re right. Regardless if I chose bad strings or not, why didn’t the luthier catch this and say hey the 1-7thfret is all wonky and doesn’t intonate, can I just stick on any of the hundreds of strings I have in my garage instead to make it work? It just shows me that he didn’t bother with any time on the guitar at all.

    • #21853
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

        I came back from Sam Ash today and tried stuff out. Boy, does that place have almost no stock on anything. Only a handful of guitars and no amps worth trying. BUt I was able to make some comparisons to my guitar . I also tried some Monitors

      Items tested:
      GUITARS
      EVH /Fender? Red striped strat
      Jackson Kelly JS32 -white
      Jackson Soloist blue/green burst (wicked)
      Jackson RRXMG -White
      LTD James Hetfield Iron Cross (ESP) -White

      Monitors:
      Focal Alpha 65
      Adam A7x
      Yamaha HS7 and 5

      Keyboards
      Yamaha YPG 235

      Also just went around and lifted different guitars (Gibson blue les Paul, Epiphone, Schecter Omen)

      They didn’t have any high end Ibanez Prestiges, Schecter Hellraisers or SLSs, or Dean VMNTs that I was itching to try. They had like 5 amps on the floor..lol all crap.

      Main point 1 : WEIGHT: All guitars, including the more vintage Les Pauls were much LIGHTER by a great deal than my current guitar LTD jh-600.

      The EVH was a paperweight, I think it weight 6.5 lbs with all the weight over too much on the neck. It was tilting over ! Also the neck was too thick for me. It felt like a baseball bat and kept dipping towards the floor! BTW, I love light guitars!

      The one thing I’d change besides the setup on my guitar is the weight. My guitar isn’t routed in the back (no Floyd, it has a Kahler) so it’s heavier and also requested by Jeff to be heavier by using the heaviest available woods in the species. Also, it’s a neck thru maple, so the maple runs down almost all the way and the alder is the wings. Maple is really heavy.
      My guitar is simply very heavy! I don’t like that part of it, its fatiguing.

      All the Les Paul shapes: Actually felt lighter and more relieving to play, but I hated that I could only reach the 14th fret without then making a great position change to reach the bottom frets. No good for my style!  The James hetfield one had a nice style to it, but I really like the finish on the $2799 blueberry flamed top Gibson that I could’t reach.

      Jackson Kelly: WTH man? This was so light! And they made the back slim so getting to the bottom frets was great. The first Kelly I had back in 2009 had to be 3x this heavy. This guitar was also very light and was Poplar. The one I had was MIJ but was back breaking! I got so fatigued and moved to Korea for a while so I sold that thing. Thin neck, but not as thin as past models or the premiums.

      Jackson RRXMG: Woo another lightweight guitar and easy access frets. Again, the neck was similar to the Kelly, but still not as nice and thin as the MIJ ones. This was Indonesia. Lighter than the Kelly, but moot as they were both light.

      The Jackson Soloist was the newer edition (not the good MIJs with slimmer necks). The neck was too fat. The body was also paper light, but the neck was about as fat as the EVH , a bit better but still not great. It’s abnormal to be a “soloist” and have a FAT neck. none of them were this fat back in the 90s! Same problem with the EVH as the neck had a balance problem to the body.

      Main point 2: None of the guitars experienced the same issues I have with my guitar. On the low E string, u didn’t hear loud buzzing. It was so faint. The feel of the frets and moving around scales were a lot better. I really need to fix my guitar! My neck is a lot thinner than all of these guitars, so if I get it fixed, it will play much nicer (besides the 50% weight over the Les Paul) . The sustain issue wasn’t a problem on any of the guitars on the G string either. I checked the nut and they look identical to mine. Very low almost touching the first fret, but no issue with buzz or sustain. I don’t think the Nut height is a problem. It has to be the frets, the bridge (maybe but i doubt it).

    • #21855
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

       Yamaha HS7 and 5

      Yea just cuz u see almost every studio have

      well not a good idea to blind buy . Really disappointed here.
      These were the most nasal and DIRTY sounding speakers I’ve heard in ages. They are supposed to find places of imperfections, however they EXAGGERATE them to an extent of unnaturalness. The vocals and drums blended all together like mush!
      My bostons CR67s still sound more accurate and not unpleasant
      Adam A7x easily beat them ..but the slightly exaggerated bass response removes them from actual mixing.
      What I liked that you could hear the scratches of the bass drum when the bass pedal head made contact with the drum! Amazing details.
      They were much more clear and were the opposite in the weaknesses of Yamaha’s
      If u know where the exact area is of exaggeration and reduce it like 2-3db with some sorta of eq on all sources that would be a perfect setup
      but the Dynaudio BM6 III ive read beats that A7x no problem in that area, and all other areas. They didn’t have them for me to try!Focal Alpha 65
      Very similar to the Adams, but flatter . Impressive price of $399 each.</p>

      Synthesizer in Journey -Separate ways, had so much 3d Depth it was amazing! The bass clarity and vocal clarity were something else.</p>

      man, music sound much more lifelike on the Focals and Adams</p>

      the lack of bass of my speakers cant be forgiven in the Cr67 so I need to upgrade.I still need to compare to Dynaudios, but I’m surprised on the quality of Focals , and very disappointed about the Yamahas. I don’t see how anyone could get a good mix out of these. You’d be over compensating in the low midrange to remove “nasalness” that you leave your whole mix hollow. And then trying to clean up dirt that doesn’t exist.

      The Yamaha YPG 235 was a very nice feel to the keys, that they sticked more on the lower keys. I really need a new keyboard, more keys and better piano feel.<

       

       

    • #21858
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      As for weight, well you could install an evertune bridge. The review videos say the bridge requires routing out a very large section of the guitar. So then you’d get a bridge and a lighter guitar 😀 and supposedly it would never go out of tune. Mostly kidding though because I dont know the difference in weight.

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #21862
      pipelineaudio
      Participant

      I mixed part of this album on Hs-5’s, they  were fine

      https://www.bestbuy.com/site/guitar-wizards-vols-1-2-cd/23040264.p?skuId=23040264

    • #21863
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      Hey that’s pretty cool u got some album credits 😀 this is a compilation of classic songs, I see. Who is the label? Btw, I came from audiophile background before becoming a musician, so I’ve already been coming from a highly discerning (cough picky) ear. “fine” for you (average) is below average for me. But the clerk also agreed about the clarity was far worse on the HS7 than the Adams or Focals.

      Haha and well, I wouldn’t do a disfavor and put an evertune on the guitar when the signature guitar calls for a whammy. Its not the style of the signature artist, nor how I play 😛 (Floyd, Kahler or Ibanez tremolos please 😛 )

    • #21869
      MotleyCrue81
      Participant

      Hmm.. you say you want to tune to D standard but sometimes go to E standard. Changing a whole step tuning will change your string height a bit and would probably need a little adjustment to get things just right again. Rule of thumb: have multiple guitars to make setup life easier. I have 3 electric guitars. One tuned to E and the others Eb. I probably need to change one of the Eb ones to D so I can play some Crüe songs. Then you really never have to do much of any setup if you keep the same string gauge and tuning. Also, another kind of guideline to follow, use 9s for E standard, 10s for Eb standard and 11s for D standard. That way string tensions are fairly similar on the neck between those 3 tuning and string gauge combos. For instance, if I setup a guitar for E standard with 9s, if I change to Eb standard and use 10s, very minimal if any setup adjustments would be needed for that change because the overall tension from the strings on the neck would be fairly similar. If you plan on mostly playing in D standard, I’d put some 11s on there. Then if after a while you wanna go to E standard, I’d throw 9s on there and then you’d need to probably only intonate with minimal if any bridge height adjustment.

      Bring hair metal back!

    • #21872
      pipelineaudio
      Participant

      Audiophile vs engineer is always a classic jokefest in the studio. Engineers tend to go for accuracy, audiophiles tend to go for whatever unquantifiable, untestable buzzword that week, like warmth or presence or whatever.

      The HS5’s are NOT pleasant to listen to, most studio monitors aren’t, when they err, they tend to err by showing too much midrange, which is extremely unpleasant, but in a studio situation can make or break a mix, so its often seen as a feature rather than the bug it truly is. Adams and Focals are speakers you can listen to for a long time and actually enjoy the music. Yamaha anything, not so much. “Fatigue” is the term you often hear.

      The guitar wizards album wasn’t a compilation of classics, it was Versailles attempt to follow up the early 90’s Metal Blade release of Guitars That Rule the World. Just like that album, the idea was just to turn shredders loose and stick them on an album together, letting them do whatever they felt like. GTRTW had Paul Gilbert’s I Understand Completely and Reb Beach’s Black Magic…hoping that some of these become future classics like that did

       

    • #21876
      DanzoStrife
      Participant

      Whats up Pipelineaudio:
      It kinda sounds like you butted heads with some “audiophiles” before. But to group me in with them as a “joke” I really don’t think that suits me either.

      Either way, I use the term Audiophile rather loosely. I just mean that I don’t listen to my music using the phone speaker or $2 free earbuds, but rather value wav, flac, cds, dvd-Audio, and listening to music using real speakers.

      However, I don’t need $40,000 in gear just to listen to music or try to convince u vinyl is the only way to listen to music. I don’t belong to this cult.</p>
      I don’t think we’re that different in this regard.
      You mention “ACCURACY”
      but in the same paragraph you mention boosted midrange on the Yamahas and fatigue.
      Frankly, I don’t think either monitors are the best. The Adams have boosted bass and that’s just as bad.

      You don’t want anything boosted!

      Tho the Focals “SOUNDED” Flatter, i’d need a real curve visual test. They might be anemic in bass, mids and the room response counters it. This would also be bad to mix in. This was only an impression, and that will change (i never had a first impression not change)

      There’s a reason why monitors exist in the $3000 or $5000 range and the Yamahas are slightly above entry level price. I really don’t believe that a monitor has to have ANYTHING boosted (should be neutral) OR be fatiguing to be a great monitor. If you’re gonna spend hours on it, it better not be fatiguing.

      The Sam Ash demo room was far from a good sound isolated setup. Perhaps the Yamaha’s are most sensitive to bad room acoustics and the Adams/Focals weren’t. I mean it was only a first impressions. After good room acoustics, the Yamahs might even sound better than both. Just remember that. They should really have put foam in the room, or there’s little point in demoing the speakers. It wasn’t a full review, just an impression.
      And actually, the Hs5 sounded less nasal than the HS7 (in that room).

      If you look here, u can see the different 1k hump in the HS5 . It’s not really flat.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oFwIyxSKjY

      Perhaps in a good demo room, I may have liked the Yamaha’s more. But come to think of it, since I’m very sure about the A7xs boosted bass, I wouldn’t bother buying it. I’m sure you’re using to the Yamahas, so you’re used to mixing on them., that’s cool man. It doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot better out there though.
      But u also spend all day with these things right? I only spent 30 minutes in that room demoing. My opinion of these is highly subject to change.

      Presence: You’re a guitar player right? Doesn’t your amp have a Presence knob? I’ve seen many with that. It has to do with top mid to highs. Tho, i would like it if the amp told u in the manual at least what frequency range it boosts

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presence_(amplification)

      Warmth: Sound on sound has a full article on Warmth https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/analogue-warmth
      I just think it’s a LOT easier to say Warmth to the average joe who doesn’t relate to terms between “200-400hz” where bass warmth is.</p>

    • #21877
      pipelineaudio
      Participant

      Engineering has a priority of compatibility and that means 99% of the focus is going to be in discriminating the midrange. You’ll see hit after hit mixed on speakers which are absolutely horrible and painful to listen to because of this issue, but the discrimination they offer makes it worth it. Don’t get me started on Auratones 🙁

      In the recording field, there is myth and nonsense, psuedoscience everywhere, and it is bad, really bad. But it doesnt even begin to compete with the marketing nonsense and flat out flat earth garbage that comes out of the audiophile community at large. I know its not nice, and that this is a word that should mean GOOD things, but thanks to the echo chamber effect and the marketing machine (the recording side of which i directly attack in my don;t get jacked blog), we’re left with the tainted word, so when someone says audiophile I have to ask myself “you mean someone who enjoys listening to music on pleasant sounding rooms and systems, or does he mean someone who paints the sides of cd’s green, buys Shakti Stones, uses cable lifts, and buys 40 dollar “audio USB cables”?

      On the other hand audiophiles are pretty much the ONLY people who can appreciate our efforts in the studio to the degree we would like, so we need a thriving audiophile community, both the good and the bad

    • #21878
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      Personally I’m happy I got a pair of really good headphones rather than upgrade my drivers. The headphones to me are simply more versatile for listening and practicing and recording. Sure if I want to just hear rock n roll loud in the air, then I’ll play music in my truck. I got a super long headphone extension cable (yea I know blasphemy ha) and so I just seem to be wearing headphones like 8 hrs a day walking all around the man-cave with them on since the cable reaches everywhere. For practicing, headphones rule because I really like panning the guitar 100% right and the track I’m playing along with panned 100% left, there’s no way to escape hearing all the mistakes or perfect playing too.

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #21879
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      You’re a guitar player right? Doesn’t your amp have a Presence knob? I’ve seen many with that. It has to do with top mid to highs.

      Different brands have their own names for things. Sometimes cutesy names (like on some pedals). So one vendor has a Warble control while another calls it Twinkle. Who knows where they get these names from, well, it’s kind of the layman’s description of what happens when using it. “Ohh it sounds like it’s adding twinkling, it’s the Twinkle knob.” Hmm okay :-/ Presence is kind of a good word for what happens I guess. More mid/high means the guitar seems more present. It’s funny how amp reviews often always say “this guitar amp really cuts thru the mix.. yeah it really cuts thru the band”, what, they’re introducing knives into the situation now? I guess they just mean it has higher Q so more gain in the mids therefore the guitar pitches are louder compared to bass (low) and drums (low+high). But saying “cuts thru” is easier I suppose, once figuring out what they really mean.. but there’s no amps with a “cut thru” knob, so, whatev’s. Maybe guitar amps should have a Ginsu setting.

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

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