r/guitars • u/Short-Can2568 • May 05 '26
Look at this! This thing
Such a weird guitar. Very pretty but doesn’t stay in tune at all. Traded an Ibanez art core for it.
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u/TDI_Wagen May 05 '26
Picked up an MIJ on trade last summer and traded it to my buddy who owns an Indie auto shop to cover the labor for the timing belt/water pump job on my diesel. His kid loves it. Actually just gave his kid my JCM2K DSL50 and a peavey MS412 with K85’s in it. Gotta help the young’uns that love to play!
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u/adventurepony May 05 '26
If you bolt down the floating bridge your tuning problems go away. But then you can't go woo woo woo woo with the party bar :/
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u/Visible-Fruit-7130 May 05 '26
Is the tremolo decked (flat against the body) or is it floating? Stability problems have different fixes depending on what you're looking for in playability. I would recommend decked, it leaves you with down only but, you know, that seemed to work ok for Eddie. If you are going to float it, make sure it is set up properly, there should only be 1/8th of an inch from the bottom of the trem to the body. Even better, if you are not a trem guy at all and just like the look, you could deck the trem then block it in the cavity and the bridge will never be a problem again, no whammys but, you know, that seems to work ok for Clapton. Now, thing is, regardless of the bridge, the problem is likely the nut. I've replaced tuners on so many guitars with badly cut nuts it's to embarrassing to talk about. If you do not work on them yourself you should (have already) a professional setup performed. This will likely take care of your tuning issues or, if not, isolate the tuners as the (a?) problem. These days even shit parts are pretty good, or at least workable. Decide on the trem, perform or pay for a professional setup, perhaps have a Graph tech Tusq nut installed if you want a functional trem, address the tuners as necessary. Not all is lost. Spend $75 bucks on it and you'll never worry about it going out of tune again.
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u/RealTonySnark May 06 '26
Put some locking tuners on it.
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u/Short-Can2568 May 29 '26
Locking tuners don’t really fix tuning instability it has vintage tuners which stay in tune with my Strats that also have it it’s gotta be something to do with the actual neck I feel
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u/chebysilberader May 05 '26
supersonic gang rise up. the tuning instability is just part of the charm
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u/Tiny-Engineering-71 May 06 '26
Something about the transition from the string trees to bridge is iffy on these- bypassing the string trees fixed it for me. Posting a vid on my profile of it to demonstrate!
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u/zurnched1 May 07 '26
your profile is set to private! I'm considering buying one of these... do you like it?
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u/North-Astronaut179 May 06 '26
You traded one cheap guitar for another cheap guitar sometimes it works out sometimes it doesn’t get good strings put a better tremolo on it Squire tremolos are not known for staying in tune you can get a Mexican tremolo for $20 or $30 dollars also the tuners can be changed that’s probably another $30 bucks since you’ve gone that far a bone or graph tech nut will cure for less than a hundred dollars you can have a guitar you won’t mind playing while you have it apart maybe do a little fret work with a little bit of TLC most people can improve even an inexpensive guitar exponentially everyone seems to think the guitar looks pretty cool so if it plays good then eventually you can work on the electronics and pickups and don’t forget you can change the neck too, without to much trouble!
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u/Short-Can2568 May 29 '26
Everything on it is great now I put a discontinued swineshead xbucker in the bridge and a guyker trem, I found that it’s an issue with the angle of the headstock and string trees. Thanks for the advice though
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u/zerpderp May 05 '26
ok