Alright, I thought I'd pose a couple of questions about some problems I'm having to the big guns here! I post over at VHLinks some, but I browse here quite often. I figured that some of you guys might be able to help me out. I have a couple of problems. Let me set the stage...
A couple of months ago I bought an Ibanez guitar from a used music gear store around Baltimore. It's closest to an RG1570GN (according to the Ibanez site) which had a HSH setup, floating Floyd Rose Licensed tremelo, 5 way switch and tone knob. When I first got it, I didn't have much trouble with the Floyd going out of tune, but it was weird in that the strings load from where the allen wrench posts are on a Floyd Rose original and up through the saddles all the way up the neck to the tuners. The strings are held in by the ball on the end, kind of like an old style Fender tremelo (I think). I have all Floyd (or licensed) model guitars, Kramer, Peavey Wolf, EBMM EVH, Fender w/ Floyd original, Jacksons...all have the clamping blocks in the saddles. So I figured everything would work well and didn't pay any mind to it at the time. Also the
bridge pickup was EXTREMELY hot, I would get squeelching feedback when I had my halfstack turned up to 2 (I usually play around 5-6 when with a drummer alone) and the volume knob barely on. I took it to a shop and the repair tech told me that they used to make pickups really hot back when everyone played that style of music. He suggested backing the pickup off of the strings (it was mounted via a mounting ring) and just experiment.
I wanted to lay an original paint job on it, so I talked to Rol last year and he gave me some suggestions. So I took the guitar apart, and reconfigured the body using body filler and wood blanks. What I have now is a direct mounted humbucker in the bridge, a single coil in the neck (ala George Lynch), a volume knob and a 3-way toggle where the tone used to be. The paint job and patch jobs are both pretty good, so I got psyched and decided to slap the pickups back in, throw on the tremelo, wire up only the humbucker (exactly as it was before, tone knob and switch hidden in the cavity...kinda Eddie-esque) and leave the single coil dummied in the front for now. Well, a couple things remain the same...
1) The pickup is unbearable! The tone on it is fantastic, but I still can't get the thing not to squeel (even when I'm not playing). I don't have this problem with any other guitars, and it doesn't happen when I use the clean setting on my amp. Also, I noticed the volume knob is getting some static when I turn it (at certain points, 7 & 10). Could all of this problem be a bad volume or tone pot? The volume is a 500K. Anyone have any suggestions? Eventually I want to try a
Seymour Duncan George Lynch Screamin' Deamon in the bridge, but this pickup sounds pretty good (from what I can tell). I might keep it if I can get it to work. [img]images/smilies/icon_mad.gif[/img]
2) The Floyd wacks way out of tune. I blocked the floating area off so that it only lowers, but when I dive it (or even just do hard bends with my fingers), I can hear the strings catching slack in the tremelo unit. It almost has the same sound as when you tug on the springs in the back, like a popping metal sound. The only way I can remedy it is to give the trem bar a quick knock (not pull-up) and it kind of pops more closely back into tune. [img]images/smilies/wutblau.gif[/img] It also seems it's always the low E string (mostly) and high E string that go out of tune. Any thoughts?
The guitar plays like a dream, the neck is fantastic and already broken in. The paint job turned out nice...still looks homemade without a gloss coat but is kind of refined. Anyway, I'm thinking of just scrapping all the electronics and getting new pickups and things (which I probably would just do, but that'll cost me some $$$ and I at least want it to work a little before HAVING to dump everything). Also, I might just buy a Floyd Rose Original, since I like the feel of that better anyway...but the $$$ again would be an issue. I can get all that stuff eventually, but it would take a little while to do the whole thing. So, if anyone has any thoughts that would be great. Thanks! [img]images/smilies/icon_cool.gif[/img]
P.S...I might have a quick question about the trem bar on my EVH EBMM if I can get some more time during work to post. Thanks again!
Linear Mode
