FU-Tone's Hardware Guitar Upgrades
From brass blocks and claws to titanium posts, saddle inserts and screws, FU-Tone will make your six-string roar. To demonstrate just how easily and quickly FU-Tone can refresh your six-string, Guitar World Tech Editor Paul Riario sat down with FU-Tone founder Adam Reiver to add upgrades to a Jackson Pro Series Dinky.
Transcript
00:00 (explosion)
00:02 Hey what's up, it's Paul from Guitar World
00:06 and today is an exciting day because I have
00:09 Adam Reaver here from FUTone
00:12 and we are gonna take this Jackson Pro Series Dinky
00:16 in this awesome, almost glow-in-the-dark green,
00:19 but that's not the point.
00:20 The thing is, we're gonna take this guitar
00:22 and turn it from ordinary to extraordinary
00:26 by adding a whole bunch of upgrades on this guitar.
00:30 You'll get to hear what it sounds like before and after.
00:33 You know, Adam works on it.
00:35 So, let's take a listen to the guitar now, pre-upgrade.
00:39 I'll start here on the clean channel,
00:41 just to give you a couple sounds from the selector switch
00:46 and then we'll move over to a more dirtier setting
00:48 so you can hear that as well, pre-upgrade.
00:50 Here we go.
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02:21 What are the things that we will do?
02:30 - Upgrade the key components of the bridge,
02:32 starting with the block underneath the bridge.
02:35 - Okay.
02:35 - The saddle inserts.
02:37 - Yep.
02:37 - We'll do all the hardware, the string lock screws,
02:40 the saddle mounting screws, the nut clamping screws.
02:42 We'll change the springs, the heavy duty noiseless springs
02:46 and we'll do the claw and brass as well.
02:49 - Yep.
02:50 And did you also mention that we might do
02:52 the tremolo stopper as well?
02:54 - Trem stopper.
02:55 - Trem stopper, okay.
02:56 - Yeah.
02:56 So obviously an option for this, this bridge floats.
02:59 - Yep.
03:00 - But we're gonna set it for dive only.
03:01 - Yep.
03:02 - Trem stopper makes it more stable for tuning.
03:04 You can rest your hand on the bridge when you play
03:06 and it has a huge tonal benefit.
03:08 - Yep.
03:09 - By making direct contact to the block right into the body,
03:12 just even more resonance hitting the wood.
03:14 - Yeah, I've always noticed that too as well.
03:16 I actually have the trem stopper on some of my guitars
03:19 is it just for that point that it just adds so much
03:22 to the overall tone.
03:23 So Adam, now that we have the guitar on the bench,
03:25 take me through how you will start
03:28 or where you will start here and what you'll do.
03:30 - Basically I'll remove the strings,
03:32 I'll remove the springs, take the bridge out,
03:35 rebuild the bridge, upgrade the block, the inserts,
03:38 all the screws, the posts, springs and claw.
03:41 - Got it.
03:42 - Drop the bridge back in, re-intonate it
03:45 and set it up, get it ready to go.
03:47 There's full step-by-step instructions
03:50 on how to do this on FU
03:51 and it doesn't take very long at all.
03:53 - Yeah, it's rather quick and probably under an hour
03:56 and some cases under half an hour.
03:57 - Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
03:59 - And I think an important point that you want to,
04:02 thing to point out is the fact that the parts
04:04 that you are putting on here match the color of this guitar.
04:08 - That's bonus.
04:09 - That's the bonus.
04:10 - That's a complete bonus.
04:11 - Well that's always the thing.
04:11 - Green titanium.
04:12 - Green titanium, but just so everyone else knows
04:16 the fact that depending on the color of your guitar
04:18 or even your hardware, you have every color
04:22 under the rainbow.
04:23 - Options, so in titanium.
04:25 So all the basic screws, string lock, saddle mount,
04:27 nut clamp, instead of steel, we do them in titanium.
04:31 I even do them in black titanium.
04:33 So if you want it to look the same, black titanium,
04:35 silver, red, blue, green, purple, white.
04:40 I mean, tons of colors.
04:41 And they sound better, they function better.
04:44 And that's the point of titanium.
04:45 - Yeah, pretty much if you want to make the guitar pop
04:47 just in looks alone, you got them covered.
04:50 - Bonus, total bonus for the looks.
04:52 - All right, well let's get to it.
04:53 - Let's go.
04:54 (heavy metal music)
04:57 (heavy metal music)
05:00 - And we're back, here we are.
05:22 Adam has installed all these upgrades
05:23 and has turned this Jackson into a beast.
05:27 So as you can see, it's just, it looks incredible.
05:32 And of course, the one thing that we noticed before,
05:36 which we didn't do, but the great thing about it
05:39 is that even acoustically, the guitar sounds louder
05:42 and more present.
05:43 Like, it just has a different sort of ring to it, right?
05:48 It just, it's just open sounding right now.
05:53 So with that, let's say we take a listen.
05:57 See what it sounds like, right?
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06:02 That's loud.
06:15 - I love the look on your face when you do that.
06:17 - It's like, wow.
06:19 But you can hear it, it's just louder.
06:22 And it's got a little more,
06:24 little more resonance to it, right?
06:26 (heavy metal music)
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06:58 It's just powerful, just powerful, wow.
07:00 And now, let's see when we get to some gain.
07:06 (heavy metal music)
07:09 So I can hear that mid-range, just cut it,
07:19 that's like a slice.
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07:36 Yeah. - Happy?
08:03 - Oh, it's incredible.
08:05 It's incredible, listen to that.
08:06 (guitar music)
08:09 Yeah, it's a huge improvement.
08:15 So Adam, I wanna quickly run down each of the parts,
08:20 and you can quickly explain that to me.
08:21 How about we do that?
08:22 - Quick. - Okay.
08:23 - No problem.
08:24 Right here are the posts.
08:25 We did green titanium.
08:27 So all the green parts we added are titanium.
08:29 So the posts, one, two, green titanium.
08:33 The saddle inserts, the little blocks inside the saddles
08:36 that pinch the string, green titanium.
08:39 Saddle mounting screws, string lock screws.
08:43 Up at the top, we have the nut clamping screws.
08:46 And then in the back, under the hood,
08:50 we were able to go up to a 37 millimeter brass big block.
08:55 We've got the heavy duty, noiseless green springs,
08:59 brass tremolo stopper, brass claw, brass claw screws.
09:03 - And you find that between having all the brass here,
09:06 it just totally adds to the overall tonal equation?
09:10 - Brass increases the vibration.
09:13 It amplifies the vibration.
09:15 So when the string rings, it goes through your saddle,
09:18 hits the bridge, that piece of brass rings like a bell
09:22 and just pushes it back out into the guitar.
09:24 You're not hearing the brass,
09:26 you're just hearing more of the guitar.
09:28 - Gotcha.
09:29 - So we're just pushing the vibration out.
09:31 - And with the noiseless springs,
09:33 the idea of course is that, do you hear a lot of that?
09:36 - Yeah, so if you were to take any guitar
09:39 with regular springs in it and muffle the strings
09:42 and just do like a chunk, acoustic chunk,
09:45 you would hear the springs reverb, like a reverb.
09:48 - Really, okay.
09:49 - You put your ear on the guitar.
09:51 That sound's going through your sound the whole time.
09:54 It's dirt in your sound.
09:55 - Yeah, right, right.
09:56 - This takes a lot of that dirt away.
09:58 - Interesting, awesome.
10:00 And there you have it.
10:02 That's a good run through
10:03 and understanding how each thing works here.
10:05 All there, really just make this guitar play like a dream.
10:10 And sound like a dream.
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10:27 Well, there you go, enough said, right?
10:31 - You have such guitar face and I love that
10:34 'cause that's what happens, that's the point.
10:36 - If you could do anything for your tremolo equipped guitar,
10:39 it's doing it like this and it's just incredible.
10:41 - Thanks man.
10:42 - Yeah.
10:43 - To accomplish all this, where do I go again?
10:45 - Simple, fu-tone.com.
10:49 - And I'll find all those parts here
10:51 and they're all affordable.
10:52 - Yes.
10:53 - So, F-U Tone.
10:55 - Guitar World.
10:56 - Guitar World, oh, thank you.
10:57 - You know what's up.
10:58 - That's right, definitely check this out.
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11:05 - It's like popping wheelies.
11:28 - I know, right?
11:29 It's like.
11:30 (guitar playing)
11:31 I always get that.
11:32 (guitar playing)
11:34 Yeah, so cool.
11:40 - Fun.
11:42 - Yeah, you get all that, they're all popping out.
11:44 It's awesome.
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