Reply With Quotev---- what BTG said
OK, I just restrung my Ibanez after having the thing for like a year (yeah, they were filthy). It was a pain because the bridge kept moving, but I found some tips online and it's fine now. However, the action is just too low. With the new strings, the buzzing is very noticeable. Now I know where the bolts are that raise the action, but I'm scared of doing it because I'm afraid it will fuck up the intonation or something. Anyone have xp with raising the action on a floating bridge?
v---- what BTG said
Last edited by Rimbo; 07-20-2007 at 06:35 PM.
Robert: it WILL fuck up the intonation. Anything that moves the strings at all will fuck up the intonant. Different brand and gauge strings will fuck up the intonation. Adjusting the truss bar, changing the nut also fuck up the intonation.
Intonation is a twitchy beast =)
Find a qualified luthier and have them do it (and have them do a general setup afterwards), because buzzing isn't just the domain of the tremolo. You may need a nut adjustment (HARHAR) and there's a possibility that you'll need a truss rod adjustment as well.
Hey Robert,
Sounds like you put on a lighter gauge set of strings than you had on before. Rather than messing with your action, which will screw up your intonation to a degree, you may simply want to try heavier strings -- if you just purchased .009s, go with a set of .010s and see if your action doesn't return to normal.
Alternatively, if you prefer the thickness of your new strings, you may want to try one (or both) of the following things to get your action back to where you like it:
1.) Raise the action on your Floyd by loosening those bolts you mentioned, but just a little bit at a time - maybe half a turn each - before re-tuning your guitar and seeing where you're at.
Or...
2.) You can try decreasing the tension of your Floyd's springs (located in the back cavity of your guitar), thus allowing the tension of your strings to pull your bridge up a little bit. Again, you're going to want to make very slight adjustments (here, it's best to go a quarter-turn at a time -- make sure you're loosening both screws the same amount) and then re-tune your guitar before loosening again (if necessary).
-Vede
Great. And how much will that run me?
Actually, the string gauge is the same. I tried going heavier, but that caused all sorts of problems, so I went back. The problem was there before, but I ignored it. Now I want to fix it.
Also, wouldn't heavier strings cause MORE buzz as it hits the boards more?
It'll run you anywhere between $30 and $150 (or more), depending on who you're having do the work and what exactly they're doing. I've got a guy that does my setups for about $35, but he says that's a "bro" price. :-)Originally Posted by Robert Sharp
They may cause your neck to bow slightly, causing a bit of buzz up high when you fret certain low notes, but in general, adding heavier strings to a guitar with a Floyd is going to put a ton of extra tension on the unit’s springs, causing the trem to be pulled up, thus raising your strings higher off the fret board, likely decreasing buzz but negatively impacting playability (until you get a setup).
I would recommend grabbing a copy of The Guitar Player Repair Guide.
Of course, you can't go wrong by having a qualified tech go over your guitar, but it's been my experience that the vast majority of regular maintenance can be self-managed, even if it seems a little intimidating at first.
Good idea. Having a reference like that probably would help. But I may still get a professional to set it up for me the first time. I can then maintain it myself.
I'd definitely recommend having it done professionally. It's not that expensive, and you could easily waste hours messing with all the different variables and just end up with your instrument sounding shittier than it did when you started. Once you have everything properly aligned, you shouldn't need to have it messed with again for a while, and routine maintenance like changing strings will be much less likely to cause you trouble (unless you change your string gauge or something).
Do you actually use the tremolo? On my strat, I just locked the bridge down for simplicity's sake, although I can't do any sweet mid-80's shreds now. Of course, I couldn't with it unlocked, either. But it's a pretty common practice to lock the bridge if you don't use the tremolo.
H.
You have a strat with a floating tremolo?
I don't use it much, but every now and then I like to pull of some crazy artificial harmonic...or just end a bluesy song with it.
But it doesn't matter. With a Floyd Rose, changing strings and altering things can be a bitch, whether you USE the whammy or not.
All Strats with trems were floating (maybe the old Kahler models from the 80s weren't). There were the HipShort equipped trems that had a kind of soft backstop as well, I think the Beck signature models of the 90s had that.
Blocking the trem is the best compromise I think. You can still dive bomb, but palm muting or breaking a string won't screw up your tuning.
*DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME*
When I wanted that, I just bent the neck a bit. Did I mention I'm a shitty, shitty guitarist?
H.
How do I block it then? Or do you mean block it while changing things? First, I won't change all the strings at once again. I'll do them one at a time, like you should. But none of this helps me with raising the action, which is the real issue. Palm muting isn't screwing up my tuning (why would it?). It's a locking system. Everything works fine. It doesn't go out of tune at all. I just want to raise the action a little bit.
On a strat, you can do two things. Either shim the bridge so that it can't move (jam something under it) or add a third spring to the bridge, which pulls it down to the body.
H.
I've heard really good things about the Tremol-no.
Floyd Roses arent that bad surely?, I lowered the action and changed a string within a day or so of getting my last guitar. Ok, it was a bit of grief tuning it back, but when i realised I had to get it back to where the original owner (half a step down) had its been playable since. I reckon I'm confident enough with the theory to change a full set of strings or put on my usual 10-52s. The only thing I won't want to touch is truss and neck adjustments, as it's not a cheap guitar. If i fuck up the string change then I'll try and figure it out. If I still can't then I'll take it in for a pro setup.
As far as i know i cant bend a truss rod or otherwise break the guitar by changing strings, but if anyone knows otherwise please say so! :)
Nope. It wasn't that bad, once I realized I needed the same guage of strings to get things to work, and once I realized I should tune them up in a certain order to avoid having the bridge rise too far.
With raising the action, I'm just more worried about screwing up the intonation. But I'll do it anyway, maybe this afternoon. If I can't fix it, I can always take it in.
I think it depends on the guitar. If there's a flaw in the neck, it's gonna break no matter what you do, eventually. If it's solid, then you can't hurt it without going crazy on the strings.
H.
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