NGD Rusti Guitars Lotus #1 headless

[DirtyPuma]

Only one who has played nothing but entry level or trash may find a Suhr amazing.

Well then you are calling J custom and prestiges as well as Skervesen and Music Man crap I guess? OK. So far, I had nothing better.

Also, this is not adding value to my statement.

 

[StevenC]

Well then you are calling J custom and prestiges as well as Skervesen and Music Man crap I guess? OK. So far, I had nothing better.

Also, this is not adding value to my statement.

Skervesen are bona fide grade A1 trash. I've been saying that for a decade now and I stand by it.

 

[DirtyPuma]

Skervesen are bona fide grade A1 trash. I've been saying that for a decade now and I stand by it.

Well, then the Rusti Guitars I got must be the pinnacle of trash.

 

[xzacx]

Well the trem is the biggest one indeed. Isn't that big enough?
The builder did not want to acknowledge an issue there. Sent OP to the manufacturer of the trem. Said it was his personal preference which was wrong.
He did "ultimately" fix it (although, can you trust it if the geometry is wrong in the first place...) maybe. But you say "ultimately" as if that's a good move on the part of the builder. If that "ultimately" only comes after legal action threat, then that's kinda problematic, no?
Then there's the sound. You are still trying to diminish it by talking of pseudo-science, but even the builder acknowledged that the guitar shipped with defective components. Why did that pass QC?

The OP himself said "the issue did not pop up frequent enough to be much noticed in the short time at the shop." I think it's pretty unfair to put that on the builder when that's not who made that part. If there's a QC issue there, it's the manufacturer of the component. It's totally reasonable to believe it wasn't encountered when wiring it up. That kind of blame (along with trying to quantify someone as subjective as tone) IMO is what made people turn on the OP so fast.

 

[ArtDecade]

The OP himself said "the issue did not pop up frequent enough to be much noticed in the short time at the shop." I think it's pretty unfair to put that on the builder when that's not who made that part. If there's a QC issue there, it's the manufacturer of the component. It's totally reasonable to believe it wasn't encountered when wiring it up. That kind of blame (along with trying to quantify someone as subjective as tone) IMO is what made people turn on the OP so fast.

@DirtyPuma to blast you in... 10... 9... 8... 7... 6...

 

[DirtyPuma]

The OP himself said "the issue did not pop up frequent enough to be much noticed in the short time at the shop." I think it's pretty unfair to put that on the builder when that's not who made that part. If there's a QC issue there, it's the manufacturer of the component. It's totally reasonable to believe it wasn't encountered when wiring it up. That kind of blame (along with trying to quantify someone as subjective as tone) IMO is what made people turn on the OP so fast.

This was just the drop in sound. The issue with the missing upper frequencies was there all the time on all pickups. It should have been noticed. You can even hear this on the provisional video of the guitar, even with all that editing and mixing on top.

 

[mbardu]

The OP himself said "the issue did not pop up frequent enough to be much noticed in the short time at the shop." I think it's pretty unfair to put that on the builder when that's not who made that part. If there's a QC issue there, it's the manufacturer of the component. It's totally reasonable to believe it wasn't encountered when wiring it up. That kind of blame (along with trying to quantify someone as subjective as tone) IMO is what made people turn on the OP so fast.

Maybe I misread then. I thought the guitar always sounded bad and unusable from the start.

 

[DirtyPuma]

Maybe I misread then. I thought the guitar always sounded bad and unusable from the start.

BTW Rusti Guitars is not even able to wire up these guitars themselves (although the guy builds electric guitars). He outsources any wiring to somewhere else, this is not disclosed in any official info. Same for paint jobs.

Therefore, he would not even be capable of checking any electronics.

 

[StevenC]

Well, then the Rusti Guitars I got must be the pinnacle of trash.

That's certainly a possibility. Alternatively you might have no fucking clue what you're on about.

 

[tian]

https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.07016 ?

Got damn, hit him with the a full on arXiv pre-print and this shit is still going.

I haven't been sure what the goal of this thread has been since the second page. If it's not just trolling at this point, I don't know what to say. As precedent has shown, this sort of bickering only ends when one of the parties involved literally dies...

 

[StevenC]

Got damn, hit him with the a full on arXiv pre-print and this shit is still going.

That's why they call him Dr J

 

[nickgray]

 

[Millul]

You should have just said "I'm German, I bought a guitar from an Italian and then started arguing about it with Americans" and we basically wouldn't have needed the actual thread, it would have all been intuitable logically from that point.

There's so much truth in this post, it hurts

 

[Rusti]

I see some of you are still pointing out the bridge “issue”, which i briefly addressed in my first post, but here we go again, more in details. We’re getting technical:

Sophia Tremolo with Dual Stabilizer has 2 pins on the brass block: these two act like car suspensions allowing the bridge to go back to the flat position each time, assuring a better tune stability. When bridge is flat on the top they barely touch the cavity walls.

These two (as car suspension) have a mobility range:

• When you divebomb they detach from the walls they were touching, float free (just like a car jumping over a bump) and the bridge can go until the strings have very little tension.
• When you pull the armbar up the pins are pressed against the cavity walls and they don’t have infinite range (just like car suspension pressed against the ground): they have about 3mm range until they hit the walls and stop the bridge. These 3mm still convert into a good range for the baseplate and consequently the string tension.

The armbar usage feels like a perfectly normal bridge when divebombing, but you can feel the pins resistance when pulling the armbar up. That’s part of the game.

For how I designed and set the guitar, with a low string action, when pulling the armbar up the pins would reach the end of their range by touching the walls BEFORE the bridge base plate is touching the bridge cavity on the top. That is why a deeper cavity ISN’T needed.

When the customer started to complain about the setup I tried to guide him into it. When he later told me that the bridge was now set completely low and at the same time the strings action was very high I knew something was very wrong, but I couldn’t figure it out by WhatsApp, so I started asking him to send it back for a setup. The guitar was perfect before leaving here; it must have been just matter of setup. Or even if it wasn’t, I couldn’t tell what was going on without personally seeing the guitar.

Instead sending it back he decided to unmount the bridge and remove the pins (he didn’t like the resistance they made when pressed against the wall) and that’s when the brass block now pin-less, gets the free-motion range of a regular tremolo, and that’s when the bridge plate would hit the base of the routing. The bridge isn’t designed to be used that way and consequently neither the guitar.

It’s fine if a customer doesn’t like the way a feature (of a component he asked me to mount) works. It is fine if he decide to unmount it from his own guitar. It is NOT fine to complain about the new playability after the improper use of a tremolo (now pin-less) being used on a guitar designed to be used with pins, as it was order.

Proof that the guitar was actually fine is that when I’ve got it back it just needed a good setup, mounted back the pins, and I’ve added a little step routing for the wheel to work properly.

The incomplete usability of the wheel is my fault. When I asked Sophia about its use they gave me a few use for it, and I underestimated one of them, so I decided to keep it with zero gap. Still that was a quick fix and didn’t change the playability or the pins resistance that the customer didn’t like in first place. And YES, there was a 0.2mm gap between the 2 pins alignment, which I decided to compensate with the small paper\pads the bridge comes with. They also soften the pins when hitting the walls. I don’t really consider it a issue unless you are intentionally looking to point out imperfections. Fixed that with the route step mentioned a few lines ago.

At the end it was something I fixed quickly and easily but i honestly think the customer kept it took long trying to fix it on his own (this stuff went on for months) that he got sick of it and decided he didn’t want it anymore.

Do I need to mention that the electronics was working fine when it left from the shop?

Bye

 

[Gango79]

You should have just said "I'm German, I bought a guitar from an Italian and then started arguing about it with Americans" and we basically wouldn't have needed the actual thread, it would have all been intuitable logically from that

The world will be a better place thanks to people like you…and these clichés

 

[mbardu]

I see some of you are still pointing out the bridge “issue”, which i briefly addressed in my first post, but here we go again, more in details. We’re getting technical:

Sophia Tremolo with Dual Stabilizer has 2 pins on the brass block: these two act like car suspensions allowing the bridge to go back to the flat position each time, assuring a better tune stability. When bridge is flat on the top they barely touch the cavity walls.

These two (as car suspension) have a mobility range:

• When you divebomb they detach from the walls they were touching, float free (just like a car jumping over a bump) and the bridge can go until the strings have very little tension.
• When you pull the armbar up the pins are pressed against the cavity walls and they don’t have infinite range (just like car suspension pressed against the ground): they have about 3mm range until they hit the walls and stop the bridge. These 3mm still convert into a good range for the baseplate and consequently the string tension.

The armbar usage feels like a perfectly normal bridge when divebombing, but you can feel the pins resistance when pulling the armbar up. That’s part of the game.

For how I designed and set the guitar, with a low string action, when pulling the armbar up the pins would reach the end of their range by touching the walls BEFORE the bridge base plate is touching the bridge cavity on the top. That is why a deeper cavity ISN’T needed.

When the customer started to complain about the setup I tried to guide him into it. When he later told me that the bridge was now set completely low and at the same time the strings action was very high I knew something was very wrong, but I couldn’t figure it out by WhatsApp, so I started asking him to send it back for a setup. The guitar was perfect before leaving here; it must have been just matter of setup. Or even if it wasn’t, I couldn’t tell what was going on without personally seeing the guitar.

Instead sending it back he decided to unmount the bridge and remove the pins (he didn’t like the resistance they made when pressed against the wall) and that’s when the brass block now pin-less, gets the free-motion range of a regular tremolo, and that’s when the bridge plate would hit the base of the routing. The bridge isn’t designed to be used that way and consequently neither the guitar.

It’s fine if a customer doesn’t like the way a feature (of a component he asked me to mount) works. It is fine if he decide to unmount it from his own guitar. It is NOT fine to complain about the new playability after the improper use of a tremolo (now pin-less) being used on a guitar designed to be used with pins, as it was order.

Proof that the guitar was actually fine is that when I’ve got it back it just needed a good setup, mounted back the pins, and I’ve added a little step routing for the wheel to work properly.

The incomplete usability of the wheel is my fault. When I asked Sophia about its use they gave me a few use for it, and I underestimated one of them, so I decided to keep it with zero gap. Still that was a quick fix and didn’t change the playability or the pins resistance that the customer didn’t like in first place. And YES, there was a 0.2mm gap between the 2 pins alignment, which I decided to compensate with the small paper\pads the bridge comes with. They also soften the pins when hitting the walls. I don’t really consider it a issue unless you are intentionally looking to point out imperfections. Fixed that with the route step mentioned a few lines ago.

At the end it was something I fixed quickly and easily but i honestly think the customer kept it took long trying to fix it on his own (this stuff went on for months) that he got sick of it and decided he didn’t want it anymore.

Do I need to mention that the electronics was working fine when it left from the shop?

Bye

Well I don't know... Nobody can really tell because we don't have the guitar in front of us in person, but the first picture at least makes it look like the angled trem block could possibly have touched the wood of the very narrow cavity when pulling, even despite the pins.

I'd be tempted to think "now...that's unlikely to happen, a good builder would probably do their homework on that". But of your admission, you're not super familiar with that unit and had to review the routing of the guitar after the fact in order to enable the full function and what the manufacturer considers "correct" setup of the unit (with range in both directions).
Also saying "It is NOT fine to complain about the new playability after the improper use of a tremolo (now pin-less) being used on a guitar designed to be used with pins, as it was order"... Is that a conversation that was had specifically with the OP during order? What would be improper uses and proper uses that you'd allow? Because it sounds like this is a supported mode of the trem that was recommended by the manufacturer of the bridge in this case. Like, if I ordered a guitar that came stock with a tremol-no, but just removing the tremol-no now made the guitar non-functional and/or voided the warranty, that would be weird.

It's a shame at the end of the day. Especially- I bet the 200 extra the OP paid towards the build could easily have covered return shipping to fix things in person and get a happy customer instead of telling him "now it's yours, you have to pay to ship it back for a checkup if you're unhappy", especially on a prototype. Bickering and tone and who-said-what aside, in this scenario, you as a builder even benefitted by being able to get that real world feedback and make immediate fixes/improvements to the design as a result of that case.

At least I think it's a shame. I personally have only good things to say about the beautiful shape, finish and inlay work- and have no reason to believe it couldn't sound great with working electronics. Plus, it has the best feature ever in my book ie flush straplocks.

 

[DirtyPuma]

Hello c

I see some of you are still pointing out the bridge “issue”, which i briefly addressed in my first post, but here we go again, more in details. We’re getting technical:

Sophia Tremolo with Dual Stabilizer has 2 pins on the brass block: these two act like car suspensions allowing the bridge to go back to the flat position each time, assuring a better tune stability. When bridge is flat on the top they barely touch the cavity walls.

These two (as car suspension) have a mobility range:

• When you divebomb they detach from the walls they were touching, float free (just like a car jumping over a bump) and the bridge can go until the strings have very little tension.
• When you pull the armbar up the pins are pressed against the cavity walls and they don’t have infinite range (just like car suspension pressed against the ground): they have about 3mm range until they hit the walls and stop the bridge. These 3mm still convert into a good range for the baseplate and consequently the string tension.

The armbar usage feels like a perfectly normal bridge when divebombing, but you can feel the pins resistance when pulling the armbar up. That’s part of the game.

For how I designed and set the guitar, with a low string action, when pulling the armbar up the pins would reach the end of their range by touching the walls BEFORE the bridge base plate is touching the bridge cavity on the top. That is why a deeper cavity ISN’T needed.

When the customer started to complain about the setup I tried to guide him into it. When he later told me that the bridge was now set completely low and at the same time the strings action was very high I knew something was very wrong, but I couldn’t figure it out by WhatsApp, so I started asking him to send it back for a setup. The guitar was perfect before leaving here; it must have been just matter of setup. Or even if it wasn’t, I couldn’t tell what was going on without personally seeing the guitar.

Instead sending it back he decided to unmount the bridge and remove the pins (he didn’t like the resistance they made when pressed against the wall) and that’s when the brass block now pin-less, gets the free-motion range of a regular tremolo, and that’s when the bridge plate would hit the base of the routing. The bridge isn’t designed to be used that way and consequently neither the guitar.

It’s fine if a customer doesn’t like the way a feature (of a component he asked me to mount) works. It is fine if he decide to unmount it from his own guitar. It is NOT fine to complain about the new playability after the improper use of a tremolo (now pin-less) being used on a guitar designed to be used with pins, as it was order.

Proof that the guitar was actually fine is that when I’ve got it back it just needed a good setup, mounted back the pins, and I’ve added a little step routing for the wheel to work properly.

The incomplete usability of the wheel is my fault. When I asked Sophia about its use they gave me a few use for it, and I underestimated one of them, so I decided to keep it with zero gap. Still that was a quick fix and didn’t change the playability or the pins resistance that the customer didn’t like in first place. And YES, there was a 0.2mm gap between the 2 pins alignment, which I decided to compensate with the small paper\pads the bridge comes with. They also soften the pins when hitting the walls. I don’t really consider it a issue unless you are intentionally looking to point out imperfections. Fixed that with the route step mentioned a few lines ago.

At the end it was something I fixed quickly and easily but i honestly think the customer kept it took long trying to fix it on his own (this stuff went on for months) that he got sick of it and decided he didn’t want it anymore.

Do I need to mention that the electronics was working fine when it left from the shop?

Bye

Hello Claudio, I see your talking bullshit again.

The two stabilizer pins should make contact with the cavity at the same time. Since the way you routed the cavity / attached the bridge posts to that guitar, the bridge was actually crooked, meaning the pins did make contact at two different points of the motion. This is not as it is expected by the designer. The brige block should be parallel and have the poins make contact at the same time.

Furthermore, the global tuning wheel should be set in a way which has a 1 mm gap for the zero condition. How you routed everything, there was no gap at all. The global tuner wheel was not working as intended, since it only went in one direction. You could not go in the other direction, because the pins were too close to the cavity on that side. Therefore, the pins had to be removed to get the wheel setup as intended. No other way without changing cavity and therefore redoing a very basic part of the body.

Also the trem cavity is routed in a way, which makes the base plate (that thing were the single-string saddles are mounted on top) touch the cavity early on one side, therefore hindering a free-floating trem use. This is not as designed and intended. Neither as was told to you. This is just bad design.

And here we are, obvious faults from your side which were even acknowledged by the manufacturer of the CLS trems, who is acc. to you in "no position to tell" whether your cavity and bridge mounting is correct.

"Electronics was working fine when it left the shop!" Then tell me why the guitar already sounds quite muffled on the demo vids from Alessandro? I mean it is obvious when you know of the actual issue and that he did not dial in this sound (and I guess he even tried to alleviated this with the profiler / amp sim he used + editing and mixing). You did the same blame game for the chipped-off part of one of the wooden pup covers, until I pointed out to you that you can actually see this chip-off on the provisional pics before that guitar ever left your workshop. Wanna go back to page 1 and have another look at my evidence?

Halleluja!

Again, you did not provide any proof of the fixed things, you could just make things up here.
Pathetic.

 

[DirtyPuma]

Well I don't know... Nobody can really tell because we don't have the guitar in front of us in person, but the first picture at least makes it look like the angled trem block could possibly have touched the wood of the narrow cavity when pulling, even despite the pins.

I'd be tempted to think "now...that's unlikely to happen, a good builder would probably do their homework on that". But of your admission, you're not super familiar with that unit and had to review the routing of the guitar after the fact in order to enable the full function and what the manufacturer considers "correct" setup of the unit (with range in both directions).
Also saying "It is NOT fine to complain about the new playability after the improper use of a tremolo (now pin-less) being used on a guitar designed to be used with pins, as it was order"... Is that a conversation that was had specifically with the OP during order? What would be proper and improper uses? Because it sounds like this is a supported mode of the trem that was advised by the manufacturer of the bridge in this case. Like, if I ordered a guitar that came stock with a tremol-no, but just removing the tremol-no now made the guitar non-functional and/or voided the warranty, that would be weird.

It's a shame at the end of the day. Especially- I bet the 200 extra the OP paid towards the build could easily have covered return shipping to fix things in person and get a happy customer instead of telling him "now it's yours, you have to pay to ship it back if you're unhappy".

At least I think it's a shame. I personally have only good things to say about the beautiful shape, finish and inlay work- and have no reason to believe it couldn't sound great with working electronics.

To remove the pins is no mod, this is what Geoffrey from CSL trems told me to to in case the pins do not work out at all. And with that cavity and routing / mounting it was just not possible in any other way. And all of that for a 5 000 € price tag and 2 years waiting time.

The builder only came here with lame excuses and could not disprove any of the images I provided. Now you can imagine how discussion was with a builder who doesn't even know what the global tuner wheel is for, while he actually build it into his expensive guitar and then wants to charge YOU for shipping back a guitar for "setup" (although there are clear faults from his side, he even acknowledges this here openly, furthermore, he states that he had no clue about trem / cavity design / mount).

Just to stress this: the BASE PLATE of the trem and not the trem block touches the cavity of the trem when up-bending the trem unless you go for ridiculously high string-action (far above 2 mm). The whole cavity would have to be rerouted, actually the guitar body kind of brought back to initial stages. He took 2 years for the build in the bad shape it came in. How should that guy be able to fix this stuff in decent time (at all?). I have no trust in that luthier whatsoever at this point and this experience.

I am sorry, this is such a blame game and really sorry excuses for a sub-par product, which was shipped after a total of 2 years from deposit.

 

[nickgray]

I am sorry, this is such a blame game and really sorry excuses for a sub-par product, which was shipped after a total of 2 years from deposit.

Just get a used Prestige.

 

[DirtyPuma]

Just get a used Prestige.

I would get a used 200 dollars RG rather than this mess of guitar from Rusti Guitars. His statements just do not match up with the evidence I provided, this makes matters even worse. Having to distrust a person is even worse than having to expect bad quality.