Dougal
Member
Hi all,
So I've had an LTD for about 4 or 5 months now; really like the feel of it but I'm having some rather irritating problems with it.
I got it, and straight away without really playing it properly, switched the pickups for 707s (and gave the factory pups away) and sanded the finish off the the back of the neck. After getting that sorted and settling in to play it properly, I found two things driving me nuts that I could do with some help with if possible.
First, the intonation is all over the place. An in-tune low B or E is horrible sharp at the 5th fret. All the usual adjustments seem to make no difference. I've changed strings more than once, checked the truss rod adjustment, nothing seems to be helping. The intonation on all strings is very hard to get tight actually, but the bottom two are the worst offenders. It does not stay in tune well either; re-tuning every 2 mins is not unusual.
Secondly, the tension on the low B is far too loose. Playing with anything above a gentle picking can cause the note to vary by up to a half semi-tone, which is obviously no use. I've raised the bridge to ridiculous levels without much improvement. Only thing I can think of doing is increasing the tension in the truss rod, but that seems like a bad idea to me...
I've been playing for some time (20-ish years), and this is far from my first guitar and I'm pretty happy doing my own work; but this thing just isn't behaving like I would expect a guitar to. I've got a 15 year old Squire Tele with a complete mish-mash of parts that stays in tune better and plays cleaner than the LTD.
I must confess I assume that the guitar is faulty in some way, but the shop I bought it from won't touch it due to the modifications. They won't even take a look at it without charging me though, so before I change the tuners / get the neck looked at I thought I'd have a post on here and see if anybody has had any similar issues.
Cheers!
So I've had an LTD for about 4 or 5 months now; really like the feel of it but I'm having some rather irritating problems with it.
I got it, and straight away without really playing it properly, switched the pickups for 707s (and gave the factory pups away) and sanded the finish off the the back of the neck. After getting that sorted and settling in to play it properly, I found two things driving me nuts that I could do with some help with if possible.
First, the intonation is all over the place. An in-tune low B or E is horrible sharp at the 5th fret. All the usual adjustments seem to make no difference. I've changed strings more than once, checked the truss rod adjustment, nothing seems to be helping. The intonation on all strings is very hard to get tight actually, but the bottom two are the worst offenders. It does not stay in tune well either; re-tuning every 2 mins is not unusual.
Secondly, the tension on the low B is far too loose. Playing with anything above a gentle picking can cause the note to vary by up to a half semi-tone, which is obviously no use. I've raised the bridge to ridiculous levels without much improvement. Only thing I can think of doing is increasing the tension in the truss rod, but that seems like a bad idea to me...
I've been playing for some time (20-ish years), and this is far from my first guitar and I'm pretty happy doing my own work; but this thing just isn't behaving like I would expect a guitar to. I've got a 15 year old Squire Tele with a complete mish-mash of parts that stays in tune better and plays cleaner than the LTD.
I must confess I assume that the guitar is faulty in some way, but the shop I bought it from won't touch it due to the modifications. They won't even take a look at it without charging me though, so before I change the tuners / get the neck looked at I thought I'd have a post on here and see if anybody has had any similar issues.
Cheers!