All 'Bout Dat Body

So in my last post, I made some decisions about the more technical adornments to be installed on Big Riff.  I was feeling pretty good about my conclusion until my hilarious, uber-talented, and very red-headed Jazzmaster aficionado buddy Mike insisted that I revisit the issue and go for the floating Floyd Rose / EVH D-tuna idea.  (His words: "I JUST WANT YOU TO BE HAPPY!")  More research to ensue on that.  I'm nowhere near ready to order anything yet, except perhaps the D-tuna piece itself for about fifty bucks, which I can test out ever-so-carefully on my beloved Jackson Soloist.  Over the past few days with that guitar, I've noticed that I do tend to pull up on the trem arm for vibrato far more often than I push down.  I have plenty of time to change my mind if I like.

So it's time to shout out what I already know I'm looking for:

Hell yes.  I want the body wood to be dense and heavy for the brightest sound and fastest attack possible.  One of my biggest peeves about about Fender bolt-ons in the past has been the lack of sharpness when I'm trying to play some heavy-handed palm muting.  To me, Fenders tend to have a sag when I dig the pick into the strings, some of which can be attributed to their bridges (Is there anyone else on this earth who hates those Tele three-saddle bridges the way I do?  Staying away from those height adjustment screws is seriously distracting when you're trying to palm mute and haul @$$.), but for this reason also I'm deliberately going to avoid the usual alder and swamp ash altogether.  Also, I know that I want the guitar to have a solid color paint job, so it doesn't make sense to spend extra money on some really exotic wood from, I don't know, Hawaii or Madagascar or the Amazonian rainforest, only to have that rich wood grain covered up.

Classical question: "So Nick...  If you want so much brightness and attack out of your maple body, why cover it up with a paint job?  Wouldn't that kill the kind of resonance you're going for?"

Romantic answer: Because it's cool.  Leave me alone.

I've always wanted a guitar with a surf green color.  This goes right back to when I was fifteen years old, enjoying my Squier Affinity Stratocaster and wondering about the new possibilities of the world that had just opened up to me.  Somehow the Musician's Friend catalog made its regular appearance to my house, and I loved flipping through the pages and pages of guitars.  I had no idea what the differences in features or price were, but I felt the passion and the connection with rock and roll...  through gazing at photos of surf-inspired Strats and Teles.  Weezer, punk, hardcore, and metal would all happen to me in waves across the next several years, but for that first year of guitar, it was all about the surf thing.  I never carried it further, but always looked back on it and wondered when I was going to get that dream guitar.  I guess now's the time.

Warmoth offers two versions of a solid green color that both look fun:

Surf Green

Seafoam Green

I'm picking the seafoam green because it will have a bolder contrast with the black hardware I intend to put on the guitar.  I'll save that stuff for my next post.

Also, notice how the traditional Strat input jack hole is right there on top.  (Shouldn't it be called the output jack?  Think about it.)  It shouldn't be a big deal to anyone else, but for some reason in my mind it's simply vitally important that I stick with the original design here.  Perhaps, with as many design liberties as I'm taking with this thing, I should still be able to look at it and properly call it a Strat.

I came across this blog today and loved all of the points offered, except for #6: "Your guitar (and amp) doesn't matter at all".  That's utter B.S.  Building your chops, practicing, and developing your playing style can and should be matched with your gear choice(s).  Start small and work your way up.  My USA Jackson performs in a particular way that suits my playing style.  The fast and heavy palm muting I love doing so much on that guitar can't be done in the same way with the same results on, say, an Epiphone semi-hollow body.  I get Bryan Baker's point that every guitarist should be well-rounded enough to be able to handle any musical situation that comes across, but the truth is, there really is something crucial that happens when you've got an axe in your hands (and amp cranked behind you) that's doing exactly what you want it to do.  It takes your focus off of the gear itself, you feel great, your muscle memory kicks in sooner, and you perform better.

To borrow from the synthesizer world, let's leave it to Dr. Robert (Bob) Moog to describe this mystical connection between the head, hands, and the musical instrument.  Fast-forward to the section between 11:47 and 15:21:

Big Riff's Big Tech Decisions, Compromises

I want to have answers sooner rather than later, because this month alone I have a ton of music-related stuff going on outside of my usual balance of full-time work and part-time school.  I probably won't be able to post again for another three weeks after today.  After some research and deliberation, I think I've finalized how I'll approach the previous two tech nightmares relating to Big Riff's body: Yes, I want the feedback controlling pickup, and yes, I want a Floyd Rose with a D-tuna installed.

I've decided to go with the Sustainiac Stealth Pro.  The circuit board is smaller/thinner, and I would have the freedom to mount the external switches anywhere I like; unlike the Fernandes Sustainer, whose switches are attached directly its wide PCB.  It's a little bit of a shame, because I honestly think the Sustainiac looks a little ugly with its funky diagonal exposed magnet on the top, whereas the Sustainer has a no-nonsense jet black cover.  But it's not a deal breaker at all.  I'm expecting to tuck the Sustainiac's circuitry underneath the pickguard.  More research to ensue on wiring the thing, for there seems to be quite a few configurations, but for the time being I'm happy to commit.

I've tried to read through all of Sustainiac's website.  I appreciate that they're not shy about putting every piece of information available on the site, including what works and what doesn't work with their system(s), but seriously, it made my eyes hurt a little and my brain a bit muddled.  I think the influence of my Seattle design-savvy-extreme-nerd-media-professional friends is rubbing off on me, so maybe I'll ask the company to organize their site better for future users, but whatever.

Sustainiac's website.  Several pages of this.  Organize, organize, organize!

Time to stop being a baby.  Here's what I'm finding out:

-Installation of the Sustainiac requires that the 9-volt battery is running, even when you've set your pickup selector for your other pickup, which may be passive.  The Sustainiac is itself an active guitar pickup, and from what I gather on their site, it's supposed to sound a little warmer like a Seymour Duncan '59 in the neck position.  I'm a longtime user and fan of the '59, so this seems good to me overall even though I'm chagrined by the thought of running a battery down when I may not be explicitly using it.

-When you turn the switch for the Sustainiac on, the pickup selector is bypassed and the other pickup on the guitar is automatically activated for sending signal out.  The Sustainiac switches from its active pickup function to its sustaining function.  (I meant to say "electromagnetic sustaining function", but an active pickup function is, of course, also electromagnetic.)  The guitar returns to whatever function the pickup selector is in when the power switch is turned back off.

-Pickguards will usually have an aluminum or copper shielding underneath them to prevent outside electromagnetic interference (you know, hum) from messing with the internal wiring.  However, Sustainiac recommends removing the shielding from around the pickup(s) because the driver pickup needs to emit an electromagnetic pulse to get the strings to start vibrating.  ...Or something like that.  This is where my attention span trailed off...

-$200+ and it will need to be ordered separately, most likely direct from the manufacturer so I can pick and choose which switch and knob setup I prefer.  For example, I could go with a push-pull pot to turn the Sustainiac on or off rather than have an external mounted switch.

"F***ing electromagnets, how do they work?"

Let's talk about that Floyd Rose.  I called Warmoth and asked them if they could or would do that extra custom rout behind the low E string so that a recessed floating bridge with a D-tuna installed could move freely.  The guy I talked to on the phone told me that they've done it for one customer, who later returned the guitar because he wasn't happy specifically with the way that rout was cut.  I was told that if I absolutely know that I want the job done, I'd have to give them very highly detailed instructions on where and how to cut into the top, and I'd have to swear a blood oath that I would never attempt to return the guitar, all sales final.

After much thought, I've decided that the floating D-tuna attempt just isn't worth the trouble, so I'm going with a flush-mounted Floyd Rose setup to keep the D-tuna function.  This means the bridge will rest flush with the guitar body; I can dive down on the strings, but can't pull up.  I've already got a recessed float setup on my Jackson Soloist and the maintenance for that alone is a bigger pain in the neck than a truss rod adjustment (hahahaha...  get it?).  The trade-off of losing float for gaining the ability to switch to Drop D tuning on the fly is completely fair.  I'm not a heavy Floyd user; I mainly use it for light vibrato and the occasional metal dive-bomb.

If the guitar will stay in tune after pulling a stunt like this, I'm totally happy.  Not saying I'm capable of pulling off stunts like this.

Ah, well, I can't leave off this post without featuring one of my guitar heroes, Ben Weinman from The Dillinger Escape Plan.  I'm actually going to have a chance to meet him in a couple of weeks from now as part of a live recording class.  Check out his signature "Party Smasher" guitar.  Neck-through on a semi-hollow body?!  Brilliant.  If I wasn't so dead-set on having a Floyd Rose and preferred a hardtail instead, I'd very seriously consider having an Evertune bridge installed.  That thing is going to be revolutionary in the guitar world very soon.

Floyd Rose Whoas / Woes

Rule Number One about owning Floyd-Rose-equipped guitar: own a SECOND Floyd-Rose-equipped guitar.

The point of getting a Floyd Rose bridge to work properly is to match the string tension with the spring tension inside the body.  The strings are locked into place at the nut.  If set up correctly, the bridge will "float" in between these two sets of tension.  This means you can lower or even raise a note by pushing down or pulling up on the trem arm, and it will snap back to the original tuning when you release.  It's a mechanical marvel, truly, but there are drawbacks.  If you break a string, the springs will pull all of the other strings sharp, so much as to make it unplayable until you change your strings and reset the bridge all over again.  This is what is meant by the rule at the beginning of this post.

I LOVE my USA Jackson SL2H Soloist.  Such a killer guitar.  The neck-through body, the 12- to 16-inch compound radius neck, the bookmatched flame maple top, the jumbo frets, the sharkfin inlays, the transparent green finish, and the Floyd Rose trem.  Everything about it screams SHRED, and it has continued to be a source of inspiration.  My current green Soloist is actually my second one; my first one had a metallic black finish and I rocked it when I was playing for a metal/hardcore band called Overcome back in 2010-2011.  I sold the black one to help take care of moving expenses to come to Seattle, and missed it so much that I just had to own another.

Overcome at Cornerstone Festival, July 2010.

Right from the moment I had one, I took "proper" care of the Floyd Rose bridge, and it in turn took care of me.  Setup and maintenance on these things can be awfully tedious, and there are a number of shortcuts available to quickly tweak an FR into a basic playable condition.  Jason, the other guitarist in my band back in the Overcome days, resorted to the shortcut method(s), and he usually had tuning problems with it.  During a show, I never needed to touch the bridge's micro tuners; my tuning always stayed dead center, even when I dive-bombed the hell out of my strings (I've chosen Ernie Ball as my lifetime preferred string brand for their strength).  I still broke quite a few strings, but thankfully enough it only ever happened at practice and never at a show.  If you take the extra time to set it up correctly, there are real advantages to be gained.

And so it's no surprise to me that I should want Big Riff to sport a Floyd Rose trem.  The performance characteristics are just incredible and, just like the sustaining pickup devices described in my last post, useful for more than just metal.

One day at a certain major musical instrument retailer I used to work for, I sat down for a demo session with one of the newer Eddie Van Halen Wolfgang Special guitars.  Fast and snappy attack, but flawed with way-too-small frets.  What I liked best was the new "EVH-licensed!" Floyd Rose D-tuna system.  It's a small device that fits on the tail end of the bridge at the low E string to quickly and accurately drop the string's tuning when you want to play in Drop D.  If I remember correctly, in years past Ibanez at least has had this option available with their own version of a locking trem bridge.  Anyway, the EVH D-tuna is an aftermarket part that can be retrofitted relatively easily into any existing Floyd.  It runs for about fifty bucks.  I'm definitely interested in this for my Warmoth Strat.

I do have a couple of glaring concerns with the D-tuna, though.  I've only ever seen the D-tuna installed on a Floyd Rose bridge that isn't the fully floating kind—it rests directly on the body when the trem arm isn't being pulled.

Stock image.  The EVH D-tuna is originally meant to be fitted to Floyd Rose bridges that rest flat against the body.

Warmoth's angled pocket routing option on the left allows for the version of the Floyd that rests on the body.  The routing option on the right is the traditional style that includes space for pulling up on the trem arm, allowing for notes to be raised.

If I try to install the D-tuna on a floating bridge, there may be an issue with the action of setting the low string from E to D and vice versa, offsetting the tuning of the other strings.  Remember how string tension is balanced with spring tension?  Since the "fixed" version of the FR rests on the body, notes can be lowered or dive-bombed, but can't be raised.  I need to know if the float is interrupted by having a D-tuna...  hopefully not.

If I'm in the clear with what I want out of the D-tuna and the FR's float capability, there's a second issue at hand to deal with.  I'd have to have an additional section of wood routed out on the top to accomodate the inch or so of the D-tuna's length if I raise up on the trem bar.  Routing wood like this actually isn't much of a technical issue, but since I want the body to come from Warmoth pre-painted, I'd have to call and ask them if they will do an extra special custom job in this area.  I want the body and paint job looking totally pro.

Google image search: this photo shows exactly the problem with installing the EVH D-tuna on a recessed (floating) bridge setup.  It's going to ding the body if you pull up on the trem arm.

Yes!  I'm hoping it would be possible to call up Warmoth and ask them to rout an additional section of wood as shown here.  Do what I ask and I'll give ya MONEY!

One additional thing I need to find out.  On the design section of Warmoth's website, when I add the Floyd Rose, the locking nut is also included, but apparently there are different models listed as R2, R3, R4, and R5.  Never seen this before.  I'll have to look into it (and possibly think of the neck design sooner than I intended) so I get this right.

This and the sustainer devices are the biggest technical details I need to have sorted out for Big Riff.  The rest will come easy, but for now it's

research,

research...

RESEARCH!

Marty Friedman at his Jackson/Floyd Rose shredtastic best.