supposedly arrived at my door this morning! heading home at lunch to check it out

 

Take some pics

 

arrived in one piece, everything is more or less as described.

Jebus though. Messed around with tuning for like 20 minutes at least. Thing is a PITA. i'm assuming it gets easier with practice.

 

Oh yeah tuning (especially with fresh strings) is a learned skill with a bridge like this.

Start by just putting the strings in the right ballpark to get roughly the right tension on them. Then tune the high and low E, intentionally a LITTLE bit sharp, then bring the rest up. If you're tuning and finding that the change in tension is pulling the bridge forward enough that the other strings are dropping out of tune, start tuning the strings a little intentionally sharp.

Once you get it set up right, you'll only need to touch the fine tuners a little bit now and then until it's time to change strings again.

 

fine tuners?

 

The little knobs on the bridge? Those are fine tuners that adjust string tension a very small amount, without the need to loosen the lock nut.

 

gotcha.

 

Awesome dude! Pics are blurry but it looks good.

Once you get how tremolos work, it will make sense.. it's a balance act of the string tension and the springs underneath.

Or watch this vid I skimmed through it, but it looks like he knows what he's talking about[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQQT9-Y0R9A [/media]

I wouldn't mess with it too much unless you know for sure you can't get it to stay in tune.

It's like when Hammond messed around with the settings on the Gumpert and made it worse.

Those bridges are bullet proof though, once you have it set, you will have to tune very rarely.

 

so here's how it's been going. i looked at http://www.ibanezrules.com/tech/setup/

i overtuned (sharp) the low e string, then went down the line, just like it said. by the time i got everything adjusted though, the action was .. not *really* high, but higher than i think it should be. and the bridge looked like it was way too far out. This is something the instructions warned would happen... if you tried to tune it like a conventional guitar... but i was following the instructions. so, i'm confused. oh, and while i was tuning the damn thing i broke the high e string, so there's that.

fukn annoying first night with it over all. i asked a guy i know who is knowledgeable if he or someone he knows can help me set it up properly. we'll see how that goes.

also, thanks for the help everyone.

 

You know what, you got the guitar super cheap. Take it to a shop and have it professionally set up. ( and ask to watch )

They'll set up the action, tuning, intonation and as long as you use the same strings it should last a lonnng time.

It can be frustrating.. it was for me years ago. Now I can do it like it's nothing. Just practice and patience.