alantig
Zombie Four, DFZ
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2012
- Messages
- 15,449
I'm pretty heartsick right now.
If you've been following the reclaimed wood threads, you may have seen that I got one of the Velas. I didn't get a lot of play time on it this week, but I loved the tone and feel - pretty much everything about it.
Last night, after a couple of games of hockey on my PS4, I decided to put strap locks on the Vela - standard thing I do to all my guitars. Didn't need to do it right then, but I figured then I'd be ready to go today, when I did plan to play a bit.
One thing I learned - or thought I learned - was never to start a mod project (new pickups, new OS, update software, etc.) late at night. I even said something to my Sweetwater rep a few weeks ago when he called about shipping dates for my Holcomb pickups. I didn't want to be tempted to try to install them late at night because my weekend was busy.
I forgot that rule last night, or ignored it because "it's only strap locks".
Did I mention it was 1:00 AM?
Everything went smoothly - screws out. Stock screws fit through the Schaller strap pins (technically Grover, but they work with the Schallers without me ending up with a bunch of extra strap ends). Felt washer added. Five minutes tops. Back in the bag, upstairs to see what might be on the late-night movie channels.
Fired everything up this morning and...it sounds like crap. Cut the volume on the amp, even acoustically the guitar sounds like crap. My initial thought was maybe the tubes are dying in the Archon, so I switched to the 2-channel C. Same thing. This doesn't feel right. So I went to my Budda, guitar -> cable -> amp. Just for background, I've never failed to get a good sound out of the Budda.
Until today.
By this point, I'm 15 minutes in and pretty much discouraged. So I put the Vela away and grabbed my DGT and moved back to the Archon to work on something else. It sounded glorious. WTF? I didn't even change amp settings. So I pulled the Vela out again. Nope - muddy, dead tone. The thing had only been finished a week before I got it, so the strings are only a couple weeks old, but I changed them anyway. No luck.
So I shut everything down. Thoroughly frustrated at this point. I may give it a shot later, but right now, all I can think about is how happy I was with it at the beginning of the week, and now this.
So, to summarize, in case anyone has any ideas:
If you've been following the reclaimed wood threads, you may have seen that I got one of the Velas. I didn't get a lot of play time on it this week, but I loved the tone and feel - pretty much everything about it.
Last night, after a couple of games of hockey on my PS4, I decided to put strap locks on the Vela - standard thing I do to all my guitars. Didn't need to do it right then, but I figured then I'd be ready to go today, when I did plan to play a bit.
One thing I learned - or thought I learned - was never to start a mod project (new pickups, new OS, update software, etc.) late at night. I even said something to my Sweetwater rep a few weeks ago when he called about shipping dates for my Holcomb pickups. I didn't want to be tempted to try to install them late at night because my weekend was busy.
I forgot that rule last night, or ignored it because "it's only strap locks".
Did I mention it was 1:00 AM?
Everything went smoothly - screws out. Stock screws fit through the Schaller strap pins (technically Grover, but they work with the Schallers without me ending up with a bunch of extra strap ends). Felt washer added. Five minutes tops. Back in the bag, upstairs to see what might be on the late-night movie channels.
Fired everything up this morning and...it sounds like crap. Cut the volume on the amp, even acoustically the guitar sounds like crap. My initial thought was maybe the tubes are dying in the Archon, so I switched to the 2-channel C. Same thing. This doesn't feel right. So I went to my Budda, guitar -> cable -> amp. Just for background, I've never failed to get a good sound out of the Budda.
Until today.
By this point, I'm 15 minutes in and pretty much discouraged. So I put the Vela away and grabbed my DGT and moved back to the Archon to work on something else. It sounded glorious. WTF? I didn't even change amp settings. So I pulled the Vela out again. Nope - muddy, dead tone. The thing had only been finished a week before I got it, so the strings are only a couple weeks old, but I changed them anyway. No luck.
So I shut everything down. Thoroughly frustrated at this point. I may give it a shot later, but right now, all I can think about is how happy I was with it at the beginning of the week, and now this.
So, to summarize, in case anyone has any ideas:
- A simple change seems to have gone horribly wrong.
- Previously good tone ruined by a "simple" change.
- Rules are rules for a reason
- Installed strap locks - no other changes. The plastic is even still on the pick guard!
- Locks should make that much difference, but it's all I touched.
- Felt washers might play a part, but didn't hurt other guitars.
- Outside of return period, so I'm stuck if I can't fix this.
- Only me. Only me. #@(*ing only me.
- Look at the summary again.
)
