Just got my red bluesbird back from the tech, with the Tom Short undercover mini p/us installed. How they sound (sweet!!) is another whole post, but it was a setup variation that caught my attention. This guitar came to me with strings top wrapped over the stop tail, which was set down to the body. As so:
My longtime favorite guitar tech saw this, said (in effect) "I doubt you need it." We talked it over, I said why not, restring it your way. Let's see how it goes. With .11s, which is my usual preference.
So I get it back - not top wrapped, stop tail elevated - and it plays very differently. Not better. Stiff, hard to bend. Where before it was a slick, easy player. So I restrung it, this time with .10s, reverting to the lower stoptail, top wrapping as before. Big change. Back to slick player. So I kept fine tuning the action, also restrung the top three strings with slightly heavier (.18, .14, .11), leaving the lighter gauge strings on for the bass side. That feels like the perfect setup for this guitar.
It's a pretty dramatic difference. I kept going back and forth between the BB and my Les Paul, with a lower bridge, strung the regular way. Which is such a fine player. Realized it had to be the string angle off the bridge on the BB, so much steeper when you don't top wrap. And so it seems to be. A little lower string angle off the bridge transforms the action.
MD
My longtime favorite guitar tech saw this, said (in effect) "I doubt you need it." We talked it over, I said why not, restring it your way. Let's see how it goes. With .11s, which is my usual preference.
So I get it back - not top wrapped, stop tail elevated - and it plays very differently. Not better. Stiff, hard to bend. Where before it was a slick, easy player. So I restrung it, this time with .10s, reverting to the lower stoptail, top wrapping as before. Big change. Back to slick player. So I kept fine tuning the action, also restrung the top three strings with slightly heavier (.18, .14, .11), leaving the lighter gauge strings on for the bass side. That feels like the perfect setup for this guitar.
It's a pretty dramatic difference. I kept going back and forth between the BB and my Les Paul, with a lower bridge, strung the regular way. Which is such a fine player. Realized it had to be the string angle off the bridge on the BB, so much steeper when you don't top wrap. And so it seems to be. A little lower string angle off the bridge transforms the action.
MD