TheEclectic
19th November 2007, 2.20 pm
String Tension
I increased the string tension on my Megatar and it made a very big improvement in the synth triggering. I worked with Jim at Warr guitars (aka Blackie) to have a custom set made. Jim has been very helpful and I have enjoyed my correspondence with him.
My string tuning and tensions are as follows (modified Bass Bottom):
Treble (High to Low at the 2nd fret)
E - .010 ; B - .013 ; G - .016 ; D - .025 ; A - .035 ; E - .045
Bass (High to Low at the 2nd fret)
D - .035 ; A - .045 ; F - .065 ; C - .085 ; G - .096 ; D - .118
I have been able to reset all of the patches on my Axons to the factory defaults and I am making some minor tweaks to them. Prior to that I was doing all sorts of experimenting and tweaking trying to improve my triggering. I have also had to tweak the input settings on my Axons, VG-88 and V-Bass as the new strings have a different output. Curiously, this output difference was not linear.
For some reason there are one or two notes per string that still have some triggering issues and my guess is that it is somehow overtone related as it happens as the note decays. It is for these few notes that I am having to tweak the settings – otherwise I could use straight defaults. The 1/2 step trigger problem that I was having has almost gone away.
I have to admit that I was very concerned when I noticed that the bass strings had an unwrapped core that sat on the piezo bridge. However, all turned out well. I had modified a few of the bass saddles to allow the original bass strings to lay flat on the piezos, but that is no longer an issue. I have an extra set of piezos and I might switch them out in the future. (The Megatar uses Import Strat saddles for all strings.) I also had to widen the gap thru which the strings pass for the two lowest bass strings, which will have to be done to the new saddles as well.
I also had to drill-out the hole in three of the tuners to make them large enough to accept the strings. For some reason this was not an issue with the original strings.
Neck Shim
When I added the Ghost saddles the action got raised because of the ghost saddles have a wire on the underside that needs some clearance. I added a shim – a 3/16” piece of model making grade birch plywood – and I have been able to lower the action. The highest string passes the dime test, but the action gets higher as I transverse across the neck. If I had a light touch I could have gone lower on the bass strings, but I am heavy handed and I was getting some buzz when I played hard.
While I was at it I also leveled the frets. They were not too bad, I think that they were done pretty well at the factory many years ago. At some point I will work on lowering the frets starting about where the neck joins the body toward the bridge so that there is bit of a drop off, which is typical for how I was taught to do on a guitar. This really helps in getting really low action. However, I need to get a fret crowning tool for low narrow frets in order to do it right.
Soundboard
Over Thanksgiving I am going to replace the pickup array and pickguard with a spruce soundboard that I have had lying around for a few years. I do not really know what to expect from this acoustically, but I want to give it a try. As I exclusively use the GK output from the Ghost system, I am replacing the pickup array so that I can put some of the Ghost controls where the volume/tone knobs were. I will update my post with pictures at that time.
I increased the string tension on my Megatar and it made a very big improvement in the synth triggering. I worked with Jim at Warr guitars (aka Blackie) to have a custom set made. Jim has been very helpful and I have enjoyed my correspondence with him.
My string tuning and tensions are as follows (modified Bass Bottom):
Treble (High to Low at the 2nd fret)
E - .010 ; B - .013 ; G - .016 ; D - .025 ; A - .035 ; E - .045
Bass (High to Low at the 2nd fret)
D - .035 ; A - .045 ; F - .065 ; C - .085 ; G - .096 ; D - .118
I have been able to reset all of the patches on my Axons to the factory defaults and I am making some minor tweaks to them. Prior to that I was doing all sorts of experimenting and tweaking trying to improve my triggering. I have also had to tweak the input settings on my Axons, VG-88 and V-Bass as the new strings have a different output. Curiously, this output difference was not linear.
For some reason there are one or two notes per string that still have some triggering issues and my guess is that it is somehow overtone related as it happens as the note decays. It is for these few notes that I am having to tweak the settings – otherwise I could use straight defaults. The 1/2 step trigger problem that I was having has almost gone away.
I have to admit that I was very concerned when I noticed that the bass strings had an unwrapped core that sat on the piezo bridge. However, all turned out well. I had modified a few of the bass saddles to allow the original bass strings to lay flat on the piezos, but that is no longer an issue. I have an extra set of piezos and I might switch them out in the future. (The Megatar uses Import Strat saddles for all strings.) I also had to widen the gap thru which the strings pass for the two lowest bass strings, which will have to be done to the new saddles as well.
I also had to drill-out the hole in three of the tuners to make them large enough to accept the strings. For some reason this was not an issue with the original strings.
Neck Shim
When I added the Ghost saddles the action got raised because of the ghost saddles have a wire on the underside that needs some clearance. I added a shim – a 3/16” piece of model making grade birch plywood – and I have been able to lower the action. The highest string passes the dime test, but the action gets higher as I transverse across the neck. If I had a light touch I could have gone lower on the bass strings, but I am heavy handed and I was getting some buzz when I played hard.
While I was at it I also leveled the frets. They were not too bad, I think that they were done pretty well at the factory many years ago. At some point I will work on lowering the frets starting about where the neck joins the body toward the bridge so that there is bit of a drop off, which is typical for how I was taught to do on a guitar. This really helps in getting really low action. However, I need to get a fret crowning tool for low narrow frets in order to do it right.
Soundboard
Over Thanksgiving I am going to replace the pickup array and pickguard with a spruce soundboard that I have had lying around for a few years. I do not really know what to expect from this acoustically, but I want to give it a try. As I exclusively use the GK output from the Ghost system, I am replacing the pickup array so that I can put some of the Ghost controls where the volume/tone knobs were. I will update my post with pictures at that time.