Guitar neck had to be steam treated - problem fixed, but guitar sounds different... w

[BluesGuyJ]

Alrighty folks. There was some warping going on at the higher frets and my tech had to take the neck off and run it thorugh a steam treatment twice.... I am assuming, you add moisture to soften up the wood to bring it back into appropriate shape, that the truss rod can not account for....

It's playing very well, is holding tune decently (for a nonlocking trem) and seems to be as resonate in volume as it was before the procedure.... however, I really feel like the acoustic tone of the guitar has changed... it sounds a bit duller and I am quite confident has lost some high frequencies....It has less treble response than it did before and lost some of that "juicey" translation through the pickups and into the cable and out from the amp....

My tech's shop is closed right now but I am thinking it may be one of two things?

-he restrung my guitar with a different brand of string and this could be accounting for the difference in tone I am hearing/have been used to for the last 3 years

-the treatment has left moisture in the neck and it will be some time before this neck actually dries out, and comes back to the physical status it was before? maybe the steam process has filled it with more water and this is impacting the resonance of the guitar and is what is causing the perceived loss of high frequencies....?

I'm a little heart broken, as the tone of my number 1 is not really here right now, and I hope it will come back....

 

[LReese]

Re: Guitar neck had to be steam treated - problem fixed, but guitar sounds different.

I'd just try to put your regular brand of string on your guitar and go from there.

 

[jon the art guy]

Re: Guitar neck had to be steam treated - problem fixed, but guitar sounds different.

Did he mess with pickup height at all?

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

 

[BluesGuyJ]

Re: Guitar neck had to be steam treated - problem fixed, but guitar sounds different.

I do not believe he touched the pickups, would see no need to do that.... I am going to try a restring tomorrow and see how it comes out by the following day, after the strings stretch and settle in...

 

[epi]

Re: Guitar neck had to be steam treated - problem fixed, but guitar sounds different.

maybe your pickups are de-magnetized or it could be the strings

 

[epi]

Re: Guitar neck had to be steam treated - problem fixed, but guitar sounds different.

if he had the pups really close to something magnetized like amp or other pickups, fret dust (metal dust) it could de-magnetize

 

[kilphody]

Re: Guitar neck had to be steam treated - problem fixed, but guitar sounds different.

I would never use steam bending on anything but raw wood. He restrung the guitar with different strings? That requires a complete setup as well. Go back to your old strings and hope for the best. Where did you find this guy, the bulletin board at Guitar Center?
PC

 

[Rockstar216]

Re: Guitar neck had to be steam treated - problem fixed, but guitar sounds different.

It could be the neck pocket is not as tight or tighter then it was before. Could be the pickups need to be adjusted. Did he say if he restrung using pure nickel or regular strings?

 

[BluesGuyJ]

Re: Guitar neck had to be steam treated - problem fixed, but guitar sounds different.

Let me correct myself, he put the neck thorugh a heat press.

Not a steam press treatment.

He may have used a different brand of string when he restrung and the note made about how tight the neck was bolted back on is also interesting.

He opens back up on Monday and I am going to give him a call then.

 

[kilphody]

Re: Guitar neck had to be steam treated - problem fixed, but guitar sounds different.

This reeks like an abortion before Roe v Wade.
PC

 

[BluesGuyJ]

Re: Guitar neck had to be steam treated - problem fixed, but guitar sounds different.

There was no other way around fixing the issue in the neck. A fret dress would only be a band aid and would not get to the root cause, so what would you have done? There was warping and moving of the finger board beyond where the truss rod is concerned... this tech really knows his stuff and is someone I started seeing more recently, as this issue seems to have been present for a while, but my past tech did not detect this, or more rather, simply avoided the issue by perfomring bandaid procedures.... he has a huge list of local/national professionals he works with... Many people would still find this to be an amazing sounding guitar, but I just know that it is acoustically a smidgen different right now... like 5% of the tone has changed and it has lost a little bit of that sparkle/pop in the high frequencies... I'll be able to ask questions on Monday and he's a stand up guy... he'll take it back in with no question and will do what he can to address my concerns... string brand and tightness of the rebolt are really making me think those must be the issues...

 

[stringbender11]

Re: Guitar neck had to be steam treated - problem fixed, but guitar sounds different.

I'd wait until you talk to the tech on Monday but my bet would be different strings and/or pickup height was changed somehow.

 

[Rockstar216]

Re: Guitar neck had to be steam treated - problem fixed, but guitar sounds different.

I really think it's a case of adjusting the pups. Think about it if the fret board is no longer warped then that means the fret board radius changed a bit which mean the saddles had to be adjusted and intonated to the new measurements and depending on how much the strings moved changed the distance between the string and pups.

 

[BluesGuyJ]

Re: Guitar neck had to be steam treated - problem fixed, but guitar sounds different.

Pickup height is interesting to think about, but my bet is with the strings. I did tell him that I use D'adarrio 10s, but maybe he used nickel wrapped where as I think I typically use pure stainless steels... that could totally be the issue....

 

[uOpt]

Re: Guitar neck had to be steam treated - problem fixed, but guitar sounds different.

Chances are that the fretboard now separated from the neck wood.

It's still fixable if you really like the guitar. Fretboard off, level surfaces again, glue fretboard back on. If the fretboard surface is now uneven judge whether a fret level does the job or get the frets off and re-radius the board.

Pics?

 

[kilphody]

Re: Guitar neck had to be steam treated - problem fixed, but guitar sounds different.

^^ uOpt is wise here , Does it have a slightly more "hollow" sound? A weird resonation?
PC

 

[trevorus]

Re: Guitar neck had to be steam treated - problem fixed, but guitar sounds different.

I once had a guitar where the fret board warped back at the 3rd fret. I was able to split it off, straighten it, and re-glue it. It was never the same guitar again.

 

[BrianS.]

Re: Guitar neck had to be steam treated - problem fixed, but guitar sounds different.

OP is saying a 5% change in tone. That's virtually insignificant and could be caused by a variety of small things that have already been mentioned. If the fingerboard was loose, that would probably have a much larger affect on the tone.

OP should change his strings or mess with PUP height and leave the tech alone. If the "problem" doesn't go away after making these changes, then take it back to the tech.

 

[trevorus]

Re: Guitar neck had to be steam treated - problem fixed, but guitar sounds different.

OP is saying a 5% change in tone. That's virtually insignificant and could be caused by a variety of small things that have already been mentioned. If the fingerboard was loose, that would probably have a much larger affect on the tone.

OP should change his strings or mess with PUP height and leave the tech alone. If the "problem" doesn't go away after making these changes, then take it back to the tech.

I say 5% can be significant, but your solutions are spot on.

 

[BluesGuyJ]

Re: Guitar neck had to be steam treated - problem fixed, but guitar sounds different.

I am just noticing a little less sparkle in the tone... the way it rings out unplugged is not causing alarm, it just sounds a smidgen different to my ears. As the strings break in more and more, I am noticing a bit of a different feel in the strings as they age, compared to my typical experiences... I am really starting to think he used a different brand of string than I thought he used.... if so, this will make for a great story on how drastic string brand can change tone/feel... if it's not the strings, we'll move forward from that point and figure out what is going on... the theory for the fretboard separating from the neck is interesting.... again, I am legally blind, so taking photos is not my forte, but I can take a dozen or so with my Iphone and send them via email... email me at joshcrary@comcastdotnet and I'll reply with some photos of the area where the work was applied to....