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Just got a used , very nice condition Jackson Adrian Smith import model....I've been tinkering with the setup to get the action lower but have reached a point where low action is going to = buzz on some frets. I guess the only option is maybe a plek job, as the neck bow already has the proper relief to it, so I don't think I can adjust that and the bridge sits parallel now after some adjustment, but as I said, any lower and there's too much buzz but I would like for the action to be a hair lower. The guitar when I first got it would not hold tune at all, so I swapped the springs for some trusty Ibanez ones that always snap back to being in tune and the bonus is the whammy action is quite a bit less stiff now. The last action on the whammy will be some plumbers tape on the threads to take out the slight play to it. So onto the two disappointing things (the action is disappointing as well, but I can live with some of the buzz especially with moderate gain or picking less aggressively)...
1. the string spacing is very nice for my chunky fingertips , but , they come at the cost of having the low and especially high E strings VERY close to the fret edge. WAY close! We're talking any bending downward to the floor and and it's onto the fret edge. Not good. Since this has the fixed Floyd style nut, and both the low and high E strings are both pretty much exactly equal distance from their fret edges, I can only chalk this up to poor design? For the time, I'm compensating by playing extremely lightly and taking care not to bend down, but man what a drag!
2. 2nd disappointing thing is, the very noticeable lack of sustain. But it's more than that..it's like notes just die off too quickly even though the string is still vibrating some...This is comparing it to my similar HSS lowly but trusty Peavey, which outsustains it by a bit. The difference there is it's a 6 screw Fender style bridge. I've had plenty of other FR equipped guitars though none in the last 6 months or so, and I don't remember any of them having the notes die out like that so fast. The initial tone is nice and works great for rock/hard rock, but the sustain is shockingly bad. This guitar is 2nd hand and I haven't yet looked under the hood at the electronics, but it looks totally stock so I'm kind of doubting someone may have changed something there but we'll see. ...My current thought it, this guitar just doesn't sustain like my $60 used Peavey does and I won't be able to record a tune that has some bent and held notes. Major bummer. Hopefully I can experiment with a few things on the guitar before resorting to compression.
Those two major things aside, I like it. Versatile sounds, the whammy now solid after changing the springs and it has that 'do anything' look to it that doesn't make it appear it's designed for a single genre. Traditional but modernized.
So playing blues, jazz or country works too.
1. the string spacing is very nice for my chunky fingertips , but , they come at the cost of having the low and especially high E strings VERY close to the fret edge. WAY close! We're talking any bending downward to the floor and and it's onto the fret edge. Not good. Since this has the fixed Floyd style nut, and both the low and high E strings are both pretty much exactly equal distance from their fret edges, I can only chalk this up to poor design? For the time, I'm compensating by playing extremely lightly and taking care not to bend down, but man what a drag!
2. 2nd disappointing thing is, the very noticeable lack of sustain. But it's more than that..it's like notes just die off too quickly even though the string is still vibrating some...This is comparing it to my similar HSS lowly but trusty Peavey, which outsustains it by a bit. The difference there is it's a 6 screw Fender style bridge. I've had plenty of other FR equipped guitars though none in the last 6 months or so, and I don't remember any of them having the notes die out like that so fast. The initial tone is nice and works great for rock/hard rock, but the sustain is shockingly bad. This guitar is 2nd hand and I haven't yet looked under the hood at the electronics, but it looks totally stock so I'm kind of doubting someone may have changed something there but we'll see. ...My current thought it, this guitar just doesn't sustain like my $60 used Peavey does and I won't be able to record a tune that has some bent and held notes. Major bummer. Hopefully I can experiment with a few things on the guitar before resorting to compression.
Those two major things aside, I like it. Versatile sounds, the whammy now solid after changing the springs and it has that 'do anything' look to it that doesn't make it appear it's designed for a single genre. Traditional but modernized.
So playing blues, jazz or country works too.
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