Custom shop flawed guitar, looking for help!!!

[leftykingv2]

Anyone else notice that the third pic has a toggle and a tone knob missing?

[straycat]

Something fishy going on here.

[Vass]

Those little inserts are piezo pickups.

Thx Toe. To close the loop fully, according to a poster on Jemsite (must be true!) 700 Floyd plates were mis stamped but are still being sold. According to the poster there have been people refusing them because they look bogus. No big deal if you're not selling I guess but add that to the annoyance... It's a CS guitar, it shouldn't have factory error parts on it.

http://www.jemsite.com/forums/f30/original-floyd-rose-concern-a-fake-126238.html

the font used clearly has a serif (check the "d") and the correct Floyd logo is san serif. There are many other differences but the d is the easiest one to make a clear comparison on.

[leftykingv2]

Something fishy going on here.

+1

[Dave Rocks]

He sent me a PM and it says he lives in Italy. Also His first couple posts made it sound like the dealer told him to go fuck himself and he wasn't going to help him at all. Now over the span of 24 hours the tune has changed and he's "trying to work it out with the dealer and the guitar is still at the shop." The pics of the guitar definitely showed things are off but how do we know the guitar just came from the Custom shop? How do we know he didn't try to modify the guitar himself? Where is the hang tag? He could mention who he bought said guitar from without fear of repercussion but refuses to do so. Why would this guitar not be shipped directly back to Jackson as soon as the dealer looked at it? The flaws are very easy to see. The fact that it's still sitting in the shop really makes no sense at all and is highly unlikely. How could a dealer who is doing this to a customer be a Jackson Custom Shop dealer. I have spoken to many dealers in the Pgh. Pa. area and I am friends with quite a few as well. They all say it's not easy to get to be a Jackson Custom Shop dealer. With the way this dealer is "Supposedly" treating his customers I find it very unbelievable that Jackson wouldn't have dropped him.

Nothing fishy is going on. The OP probably jumped the gun on this like many of us do (me too). I've been emailing with him and someone else I know trying to help and they are on the way to working this out.

Out of respect for both parties, let's not speculate anymore - let's give them a chance to work it out.

It's a real jackson, from a great dealer. Some miscommunication, that's all. They will sort it out.

[leftykingv2]

I hope so for his sake! It would be horrible to have dealers being able to pass stuff like this off. I was starting to think he bought a counterfeit guitar and that was why the dealer didn't want to return it.

[toejam]

Thx Toe. To close the loop fully, according to a poster on Jemsite (must be true!) 700 Floyd plates were mis stamped but are still being sold. According to the poster there have been people refusing them because they look bogus. No big deal if you're not selling I guess but add that to the annoyance... It's a CS guitar, it shouldn't have factory error parts on it.

http://www.jemsite.com/forums/f30/original-floyd-rose-concern-a-fake-126238.html

the font used clearly has a serif (check the "d") and the correct Floyd logo is san serif. There are many other differences but the d is the easiest one to make a clear comparison on.

I actually didn't think there were real Floyds with piezo saddles. I knew Graph Tech makes their own Ghost version, but can't recall ever seeing a genuine Floyd with them.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/accessories/graph-tech-ghost-lb-63-floyd-rose-bridge-with-piezo-pickups

[Vass]

Nothing fishy is going on. The OP probably jumped the gun on this like many of us do (me too). I've been emailing with him and someone else I know trying to help and they are on the way to working this out.

Out of respect for both parties, let's not speculate anymore - let's give them a chance to work it out.

It's a real jackson, from a great dealer. Some miscommunication, that's all. They will sort it out.

Unless the OP is totally full of shit it sounds like more than a miscommunication, so respectfully I'll wait to hear from the OP or the dealer. I appreciate that you've involved yourself to try to help, but this is of more interest to more people than a dispute in the classifieds. I'd also love to hear Jackson's thoughts frankly.

Toe, the bridges they've done that I see online have their own graphtech logo. Maybe they offer replacement saddles or something? Interesting product.

[rjohnstone]

You can buy standalone peizo saddles for a Floyd.
I'll have to dig up the link, but I though of doing it to my PC-1 at one time.

Here they are... http://www.graphtech.com/products/br...ckups---guitar
Ghost saddles from GraphTec.
Pretty cool, just not cheap.

[toejam]

Interesting. I knew you could buy regular Graphtech saddles by themselves, but didn't know about for a Floyd. Ibanez also has at least one trem model with the piezos built in.

[leftykingv2]

Interesting. I knew you could buy regular Graphtech saddles by themselves, but didn't know about for a Floyd. Ibanez also has at least one trem model with the piezos built in.

The Edge Pro. I have it. It came stock on my Prestige RG 1550 ML. They call them metal sound chips!

[Mike73]

I don't wanna go OT, just a quick esplanation about the Floyd saddles. Honestly I did not notice the font used on the Floyd (I had other priorities...), but the specs are: Floyd rose original with graphtech piezo saddles up-grade. I tried them on another guitar and there are at least two good reasons I chose them: there's virtually no 'quack' while strumming hard, the string sits on a fixed part while the fine tuning is achived by moving the rear part of the saddle (this way the bridge radius is constant at every angle). As far as I know these saddles are from gotoh then machined to host the piezo sensors. The guitar is equipped with the acoustiphonic system and a 5 way super switch (to give the chance to try a lot of pick-ups configurations in the future).

[Mike73]

Anyone else notice that the third pic has a toggle and a tone knob missing?

The picture was taken when the guitar was still at the custom shop in the luthier's hand (I was told was Mike Shannon...). In that picture the acusticphonbic system was not installed yet. The switch is a quick switch to choose from electric to piezo or blend when using a mono cable, the missing tone knob is the piezo volume actually, which includes the color switch as well (push/push switch).

[Mike73]

He sent me a PM and it says he lives in Italy. Also His first couple posts made it sound like the dealer told him to go fuck himself and he wasn't going to help him at all. Now over the span of 24 hours the tune has changed and he's "trying to work it out with the dealer and the guitar is still at the shop." The pics of the guitar definitely showed things are off but how do we know the guitar just came from the Custom shop? How do we know he didn't try to modify the guitar himself? Where is the hang tag? He could mention who he bought said guitar from without fear of repercussion but refuses to do so. Why would this guitar not be shipped directly back to Jackson as soon as the dealer looked at it? The flaws are very easy to see. The fact that it's still sitting in the shop really makes no sense at all and is highly unlikely. How could a dealer who is doing this to a customer be a Jackson Custom Shop dealer. I have spoken to many dealers in the Pgh. Pa. area and I am friends with quite a few as well. They all say it's not easy to get to be a Jackson Custom Shop dealer. With the way this dealer is "Supposedly" treating his customers I find it very unbelievable that Jackson wouldn't have dropped him.

You know, I think the tune hasn't changed. The thread was about looking for help to solve this situation, because of lacking customer support from delaer and fender customer support as well. I mentioned the guitar was finally arrived to the music shop, and I thought it was not important my location since even if I would live just beside the dealer, I wouldn't pay the balance nor get the guitar out of the shop. You know, I have been looking on the web for complains about the jackson custom shop, and apart for the long time needed to fulfill an order seams there are no flawed instruments around, and every comment on jackson is all about its tremendous quality. When I stated in the official jackson forum I had a custom shop guitar with flaws, at the beginning I found scepticism because 'this is jackson, not ESP'. Well, even if this would be the first case in history, it doesn't matter, Jackson shipped a defective and uncomplete instrument and that's it. Pretty disappointing, but you know errors may happen, so a defective instrument won't put Jackson out of business and there are bazilion of happy owners out there. This is one of the reasons why I didn't tell the dealer's name yet. I am pretty sure there are a lot of people happy with him, so this case would be probably listed as a miscommunication or a mistake. The point here is to by-pass this subjects and get in touch directly with jackson which is something I just don't know how to achive (my bad...). My goal is to get the guitar as soon as possible, and well done, and if the best solution is to pass through the same dealer with the help of you guys, then I will follow this way even if it's clear after such an experience I won't deal with them anymore. To cancel the order and place another one to a different dealer would just reset the time counter, and for sure I am not going to wait 2 more years.
This is one of the answers I got from the dealer after I put my complains:

"Hey Michael, I’ll certainly let Jackson know about your complaints, but we all looked at the guitar, and checked all the alignments and everything is fine. I’m not confident they can produce a guitar to your standard and liking, so I think its best if we move on from this. Send me your address and I will send a check in the mail."

Don't know if this fits with your 'sounds like the dealer told him to go fuck himself and he wasn't going to help him at all', but for sure this is not miscommunication and I felt I had no options other than finding someone like you willing to help. Beside, this was in mid september, and I was informed at the beginning of october the call to the custom shop was yet to come. Where is the tag? It's a very good question, I didn't notice it was not visible in the picture, I guess it's the dealer's way to present the instrument, but the third picture showes the guitar at the custom shop during final assembling, and there, some flaws were visible (I am sorry I didn't noticed back then), so no modifications occurred, just a bad build from jackson. To make a file to jackson explaining of everything would be nice, but again, I don't know how to reach them directly, can you help? I understood I can tell the dealer's name here, but I am afraid this could impact in some way (especially a bad way), the situation which seams to move forward now, thanks to the help of one of you guys. They still have my deposit, my guitar and I am on the other side of the globe, this makes me feel in a pretty weak postion.

[toejam]

Maybe try sending a PM to forum member Mike McGregor who works at Jackson... his screen name is Bionic. Maybe also try Brian McDonald whose screen name is McD.