Ibanez UV77SVR

[Slimjim]

Warning: Not a Professional Musician. This shows the Ibanez and its Blaze pups through an assortment of preamps. All descrips are titled into the video. Comments always welcomed.

:headbanger:

[Harley Hexxe]

Cool Stuff, nice Axe too

[MarshallJMP]

Nice playing, good sound too !

[Kim]

Cool!  I enjoyed that. 

[Dante]

WARNING: You may actually be a professional musician

Sounded Noice!!

[vansinn]

Cool stuff! I love comparison vids; often works better than a single dedicated checkout.
We just had a thread about the JMP-1 vs the MP-1, so good to hear some actual differences.

And so nice having you too back in here ;)

[Slimjim]

Great to be back.  :waving-banana-smiley-emoticon

Agree on the preamps, it is nice to put them into context. We can try to verbalize... what the ear distinguishes within moments.

My first floating tremolo! Wow, these all.most never go out of tune... and I would have thought just the opposite. A week later, winter on the way, and its still within 2 cents... The MOST stable guitar I have!

Thanks guys, I usually do 1 take but I wanted to filter out the trash parts so was done in 3 takes... ironically I could NOT play this weekend due to sore fingers. The string felt like razors cutting my finger tips... I was telling myself 'dude, don't do it'. But it was a 4 day weekend!! I had the time so 'dude, shut up and play'!

;)

[rnolan]

Hey Slimjim, Floating trems are great if you have a good one  .  Downside like anything floating is you have to over bend a bit as the bridge pulls up with the additional tension. I put a hipshot trem setter in both my floyd guitars (Anderson and Silhouette tele (I routed and fitted a schaller floyd to the tele).  It makes the trem action a little stiffer but cuts back on the over bend required.

[Dante]

I always lock the heel of my floating trems, they are bend-down only. It's quicker to change strings and I'd like to think it adds a bit of sustain, but that's probably speculative on my part. They do stay in tune though...man o man.

I love my D-tuna too  which you really can't use unless you either route the body or keep the heel locked like mine.

BTW: Totally agree about comparing the preamps side by side like that, I'll take the MP-1 (no surprise there). It reminds me of a hot rodded Marshall with more bottom end. Biting clarity without the fizzy shrill top end. It cuts through the mix best, IMHO

[vansinn]

Yeah, I think the JMP-1 works the best with speakers having a somewhat early roll-off at the high end against the fizz, and a healthy low end.

WRT trems keeping in tune, I have too little experience, though I've had my own one (on my Düesenberg) locked for a couple of decades.

Funny thing.. I have a Vintage Reissued V6 Filmore stratcat with a classic Wilkinson six screw mount trem, adjusted hard up making it's base almost rest against the body. No trem arm, just resting my hand on it for a soft hovering pitch vibrato action with chords.
This way, I can drop-D it without going out of tune - but the requirement is using a slightly slinkier low string than normal, so as to let the other five string predominantly carry the tension. Life is full of surprises..
If I keep this axe, I'll add a Hipshot detuner for the drop action.

[rnolan]

Well horses for courses I spose...  I like floating trems (with hipshot or similar stabilisation albeit not "strictly" needed).  I find string change easier with these (FR style) if you take it off the guitar i.e. remove strings (I loosen then cut them (over neck PU) off), remove springs and bridge, oil/dress (as required) FB, clean body etc. (I use a little lemon oil on cotton cloth).  Cut off ball ends, insert and tighten into "jaws of life", reinstall bridge, springs (use cloth folded under back of bridge to get it close) restring, tune, little stretch (DRs don't need much) re-tune, lock nuts, fine tune, little stretch, fine tune.... good to go.  Sometimes I "fix" one string which I facilitate by using at least 3 turns on the machine head (generally it's a D string break with me) so then you can cut the string, pull a bit more through and you get through the night.. Otherwise I always change the whole set.

[Slimjim]

I am just now wading into the floating trem 'setters' now, and it appears as though Steve Vai uses them on all of his guitars. I don't want to lose any swing in either direction, it is fun to positive pitch as well as dive. This one, its somewhat painful, but can set the float height to give a 2 step + on the 2nd string, my fave string to shank on. A harmonic on 7 and 12, and then + it accurately...

It appears as though he has 2ea per guitar. I must learn more about them. I prepfer to not drill holes, so those are not for this guitar, but some of them are 'non-invasive surgery' and those are looking good.

Honestly, for unison bends and 5th bends, which I found to be very fun, and traditional sounding when I started playing Gibson, I have often put down the UV, somewhat disappointed. You have renewed my faith. Guthrie's Charvel had more features than I had seen and this tipped me off, you guys have been super helpful, as always, thank you.

HSH config pickups, the Blaze pups have a detrimental single coil vibe to them. The bridge pickup is some weird splittable humbucker. Position 2 on the 5 way splits the humbucker and quacks like a telecaster... (tries not to puke) that's not what I wanted out of this guitar. All I wanted was a balls out, mean sounding humbucker. Now before I trash these verbally, let me confess the DP103 pups in my 335 are amazing, truly a set of cuties. So I suspect that the UV77 wiring to split the bridge pup is somehow telling that pup to sound like to single coil pickups in series. (???) Total guess. Since its a chrome 7 string, I cannot find a replacent. But the only complaint I have about this guitar is the single coil feel of the bridge pickup. If I could have built this, there would be the Gibson style electronics with a vol knob for ea pickup, no middle pickup, and no single coils...

Which brings me to the Jem 77WDP, Dark Matter pups. If you have seen this new Jem 'Woody', the Mrs and I both LOVE the guitar itself, she loves the SteamPunk pickup covers but I already wanted to change those to Gibson 59 Tributes. When she heard that I planned to modify the guitar immediately and lose the cool covers, she said skip it. At that price, the decision was easy. I told her about the Mahogany wood body and the warmth of a Gibson low gain pickup, and that's when she stopped me and said 'Are you trying to make this sound like a Gibson? Just play your Gibson!'

So I ordered an amp.

[Harley Hexxe]

SJ,

    I'm a little puzzled, about why you got the UV77 instead of one of the RG 7-string models, since those don't have a middle pickup. In any event, If the single coil in the UV77 holds true to form with the other Vai signature guitars, then that is  probably the wimpiest single coil ever to put copper windings to waste. According to the fine folks at DiMarzio, it is not available to the public because it is only used in the Vai Jem guitars, but if you wanted to get that sound from another Dimarzio pickup, you could use one coil from the HS-2, which is a lame sounding stacked coil pickup.
   If it's aggression you are looking for, You may want to check out the DiMarzio Crunch Lab

[rnolan]

Hey SJ, with my floating trems I set them so the top of the bridge plate is level with the top (so sunken) and this is how my Anderson Proam came..  I had a little trepidation fitting the hipshot trem setter as it required one hole (which you never see) at the back of the spring recess.  But well worth the addition, the trem action is a little heavier , but you adapt to that pretty quickly and it gives nice stabilisation, not total like a fixed bridge guitar.  I more recently put a tremsetter in my tele which I'd put in a sunken Schaller FR (copied the anderson routing), again, the trem action is a little heavier, but makes a floating trem a little easier to play (so you can enjoy the wild benefits of a floating trem  >:D ) and not work quite so hard with double bends etc..

[Dante]

Just for posterity, I highly recommend you check out the videos on this page regarding setting up a floating trem. This guy explains it very well, and he is very responsive if you have any questions. His name is Adam.

Click Here for Floyd Setup Vids