GregP

Nitefly, it wasn't whether you enjoyed Gwar when you were 13, but a question of whether 13-year olds NOW, in 2006, know who Gwar is. Greg

Blasphemy. Actually, anyone under the age of 13 won't ever have even HEARD of GWAR anyhow.

I have probably inlayed the least of anyone on this board who have actually tried inlay (ie. obviously I've done more than someone who's NEVER done it) and my research led me to superglue. I haven't tried epoxy by way of comparison. Superglue isn't recommended for wood because of the usual application-- a fairly small drop to bond 2 surfaces. This isn't the way it's used for inlay, so the results are different. It worked really well for me, but cSuttle has an important point regarding gaps-- if you have none, epoxy might be worth looking into. I had some noticeable gaps, and the superglue filled them in nicely and produced a pretty good look. Greg

I don't get it. What the heck kind of world are we coming to?

What a silly oversight on my part-- of course the inlays (non-dot, mind you. ) would be left- or right- oriented. (ie. Sharktooth inlay) The actual fretboard isn't shaped or sloped differently for righties or lefties, though. Greg

CAN somebody come up with a scheme to have a lefty board? Probably. Do they? No. A fretboard should be entirely symmetrical according to common convention. I've never seen or even heard of a lefty board. There's always room in this world to dream, and maybe someone has dreamed one up, but the basic answer to your question without getting into the hypothetical: there is no difference. Greg

I put "new" in quotation marks because this is old news to many people on this forum; however, it's the kind of information that could use repeating every now and then, and I like the frankness with which he approaches the "problem" of dissonant chords. From a thread at the Blues forum: http://34net.com/bluesforum/index.php?topic=24.0

Oh I understand all right. Same damn thing happened to me on my lap steel build. You can get special tools for the job, and I'd recommend looking into it. The way I did mine was a mediocre workaround, and my broken screw wasn't right next to the tuning peg holes like yours. One of the most low-tech ways to do it is to use this special screw, whose name I don't know offhand, which will be screwed in more or less alongside the stuck one, and force it up. The special screw is then removed, but of course the hole leftover from having essentially 2 screws side by side makes that spot unusable until you've filled it with a plug of some sort. I won't mention my way because it was a bad idea, and I don't want anyone to think, "Hey, it worked! I'll give it a try!" No, it was purely a bad idea. Greg

I got a similar board from LMI and was frankly disappointed to begin with. I decided to use it for my lap steel project because I pretty much just wanted to be rid of it. By the time the project was finished, I had grown to really appreciate the more striking grain pattern than typically found on other rosewood-fretboard guitars. I would order it again in an instant, now. It's kind of like how when you hear a song for the first time and you don't really like it... but repeated listening makes you see extra layers to it, and your appreciation grows. Then the song becomes one of your favourites, outshining more obvious choices on the album. Greg

A "multibucker" (ie. *4* coils!) seems more useful to me than a 3Xsingle-coil at least. The hum is still cancelled. BUT, you wouldn't often or ever try to use all 4 of those coils individually in any sort of way. You might use the one closest to the bridge and then the one closest to the neck. Maybe. As for a schematic-- your best bet is to actually look for a 3Xsingle-coil schematic that accomplishes what you want to accomplish. The fact that a strat-style triple-single configuration "looks" different shouldn't affect how the wiring is done in a really drastic way. That's be the easiest kind of schematic to adapt. You can get them at most of the major manufactureres, plus at Guitarelectronics.com Greg

To each their own, of course, but wiring in series is the only way to get any intrinsic "benefit" (using the word loosely, because it might end up sounding crap) of having 3 single coils so close together. Having an odd number of coils will cancel out the hum cancelling to a degree, too. Greg

I sort of agree. That was what my original response to the "humbucker" guy was meant to say. But just to be pedantic, they're still not single coils. And he obviously doesn't mind a bit of extra output (that's why I say "medium output") as hinted at in the DiMarzio description of their HS-3. They agree that it's NOT a high-output pickup, but also go on to describe a "warmer than typical" sound and something about the way it drives the amp that's also not exactly like a strat single-coil. I can't remember the exact text. Greg

Well... as I already mentioned on page one, except for his true vintage "I don't wanna mess with this" guitars, he actually uses medium-output humbucking single-coil replacements. Greg

Sooo... frickin.... sweeeeeet..... Dunno if my back would be up to it, though. <grunts like an old man> But dang that looks great.

Welcome aboard!

Scab, A humbucker is just 2 single-coils, side by each, reverse-wound and reverse-polarity so that they cancel (buck) the hum. Mikhail is absolutely right that there is SOME minor difference between the two coils, but in my opinion not enough that one should bother having them selectable separately. Regarding the hum: If you're already handy with a soldering iron, I would set up a star ground. It sounds like you're getting a ground loop somewhere along the way, which can happen when one "over-grounds" everything. A nice star ground takes care of all that. If you google for Star grounding, you should find some info, but the main principle of it is that instead of grounding pots to each other, the tailpiece to one pot, etc., ALL grounds go to one central spot. I use a tabbed "O" ring for mine. This means that the lug on the volume pot that is normally just bent back to touch the pot casing is ALSO desoldered, and a wire is attached to it which terminates at the "star" as well. The shielding foil is essentially "one unit" for lack of a better term, but it "adds" the pots to itself when the pots come into contact with it, so that the pots are essentially just an extension of the shielding, too. This gets sent to the "star" as well. Once all grounds terminate at the star, ONE wire goes to ground at the ouput jack. The star itself is wrapped in electrical tape so that it doesn't touch the copper foil. If that doesn't make sense, there are better sites (ie. guitarnuts.com) to make sense of it all. Greg

@ spazzy. I can't even tell what you said. <chuckle> Wood = good, pickups = more important. I think.

Oh, I would never say the wood doesn't change the sound of the guitar, but I DO think that it's only one of the many factors, especially with crushingly high gain. I mean, Basswood is the "vanilla" of solidbody guitar woods, and most "metal" guitars are made with basswood as mentioned earlier in the thread. I mean, the pickups and the amp's level of gain is MORE important than the choice of wood, IMO, but that doesn't mean I would say that the wood is inconsequential. It's ironic that you use Zakk Wylde as an example, though, because he's the very player who coined the now-famous "put EMG's on a piece of plywood and they'll sound good" phrase. In short: if you like to work basswood, give'er. Greg

Yes, you could do that, but there's no intrinsic benefit of one of the "halves" over the other, so you don't really need access to both of them. You can get a 5-way superswitch and accomplish more things, in a more 'ergonomic' way. Some people prefer having individual control over their humbuckers when splitting them, but not for the purposes of using each coil. In other words, they'll have "humbucker" and "single coil" as 2 modes (not 3) activated with a push-pull pot or something like that. As for the copper shielding-- ideally you will remove your pots and switches while shielding (or completely re-solder while you're at the shielding job, creating a star ground) and they'll already be in contact with the copper foil, so no need to add an additional wire from the back of the pot to the shielding. Greg

Harummm? I don't follow Yngwie at ALL, and I know that the above isn't true. He values his vintage strats and uses single-coil pickups in those. His stage and studio guitars use humbucking single-coil replacements (for hum cancellation and SLIGHTLY higher output) but he prefers medium-output pickups that allow him to maintain clarity and articulation, which are more important than output. In general, high-output pickups ARE better for metal, though, particularly depending on the amp they're in front of. Some amps are more easily driven than others, though, so it's not strictly "necessary." Lots of classic metal has been made with single-coil low-output pickups, and lots of modern metal continues to be made with medium-output humbuckers. I personally (and only personally) continue to believe that a full spectrum of sound is important to tone, and I don't like the particular range you get from high-output pickups. However, I am also not a metal-meister. Greg

Sounds to me like you might be fretting out. Does the same thing happen when NOT plugged in?

Mattia: I'm quite certain we are. Spazzy: nuts like the Earvana that mammoth suggested address problems like the one you're adjusting. Earvana offers a less expensive solution because they can say, "well, it's common knowledge that the G needs to be compensated more than the rest" and then they just compensate to a more or less arbitrary (arbitrary but reasonable) amount. So yes, even compensation without painstakingly scientifically calculated measurements should still help for the G string issue. Greg

Well... practically speaking, for a guitar, yes. You can't really fret your string without introducing discrepancies. However, there DOES exist "even tuning"... the term "tempered" is there for a reason, otherwise they'd just call it, "tuning." I suppose strictly speaking, the full name would be "even tempered tuning," but it's understood in the vernacular that simply saying "tempered tuning" is referring to NON-even. No need to be pedantic. I think you'll find it's very UNcommon for luthiers to compensate their nuts. Definitely not "pretty much each one." Someone like Perry is less common than you'd think. And yes, what I described is exactly the same thing-- that he's patented a specific degree of out-of-tunedness based on extensive quantitated measurements. I'm not saying that's a good thing-- I think it's better for a custom builder to just do it on a per-instrument basis. However, it's his reams of papers with measurements on tension, scale, and elasticity (ie. "scientific" documents) that allowed him to obtain a patent. Compensation is basically a modification to scale length in small degrees, so of course it affects the entire length of the string; however, it is used primarily to correct god-awful sounding open-position chords, where the very short distance from the nut to the point of downward pressure makes the effect noticeable. The closer you are to the middle of the string, the less effect it has-- and since you don't press down on the string anywhere near the bridge, that's why compensation is important mainly to correct open chords. Damn right. It's his approach to marketing that makes people think there must be something "magical" about it, when it's really not a mystery. No doubt. It's insanely expensive. As for the tuning, I think it's hugely important to tune by ear if you're playing alongside another musician (ie. a piano) which might sound odd if you try to achieve an "even" tuning. I still like tuners for my home recordings, though, since many of the other parts are sample-based and tuned to A=440 standard tuning. Greg

The Earvana is more in line with what luthiers have done for decades-- compensates for the known "problem" strings at the nut. The Feiten system has a few differences, which is why he was able to patent: 1. He has done calculations on differences in tension right down to different guages of strings and possibly (haven't actually seen) even particular brands. 2. Compensates at the bridge in a slightly different way than standard-- ie. his formula will have it so that the fretted and unfretted notes are NOT exactly in-tune with each other the way we normally do it. 3. Amount of compensation at nut and bridge factors in scale length as well 4. Special tunings... what the hell is the word... tempered? which are specific to your setup. (ie. guage and scale length) Now, keep in mind that my above points are speculation-- I've never actually taken the Feiten course, and if I had, I would have had to sign an NDA. So I can't say with absolute conviction that I'm perfectly correct; however, it's fairly reasonable to make those assumptions based on his publicly-available information. As for how "great" it is-- really, the main factor in MY opinion is simply: how much do you play open chords? Because even without compensated nuts, you can do your own custom tempered tuning that will make open chords sound nicer. The compensation is definitely nice for open chords-- there's no doubt about it-- but if you've been happy without it, I don't imagine that it'll be the "world of difference" that many professionals claim to experience. If you're more a soloist or play up the neck, compensation won't help you that much. Greg

Don't park'er in neutral like I've done... just give'er, give'er, give'er!