Salvage my Warmoth's tone!

Re: Salvage my Warmoth's tone!

Hey guys.... I have seen and played this guitar and it is very dark sounding acoustically. I was the one who suggested to the original poster that maybe all that Tru Oil was killing the tone of the body. Maybe I have used Tru Oil wrong all these years, but I always put a thin coat of it on, wait for it to completely dry, put a second coat on, let it dry and then steel wool it with #0000 and it feels like raw wood.

But what AC has done is gotten so much Tru Oil on this body that you can see how thick the finish is on top of the body. It's like after the body absorbed all it could drink, AC put several more coats on top of each other and he has not steel wooled it at all. It looks like a clear poly finish on a stained alder body.

The thing looks really nice and I hope he can get it sounding as good as it looks. I will be learning something new too if a finish that soft and thick doesn't effect the tonality of the body. The neck is finished like that too.
 
Re: Salvage my Warmoth's tone!

IMO, it has little or nothing to do with the finish (though from what Chubtone describes hitting it with steel wool wouldn't hurt). I've built a few parts mongrels like that myself in my day, and while Alder would NOT have been my first choice, I'm betting Big-Blocking (even the regular Brass one, unless you just WANT to try the Titanium - I do too, so if you do get back to me with a review on that one...LOL!) the Floyd and putting in something like a PG or a C8 would totally solve your problem. :cool:
I'm going to go ahead and bet even with the standard block, the CC's the culprit. Would not describe it as 'Bright'. Having the same problem with my Warmoth Koa Strat (which IS Big-Blocked, btw)...the CC has probably one of the best midrange snarls I've heard, but the bass is lacking and there could stand to be a bit more high end. Total Love/Hate thing going on with it right now, but I'm leaning towards making it a C8.
 
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Re: Salvage my Warmoth's tone!

I don't think it is unreasonable to think that over application of an oil would affect the guitar's tone. Alder is tight grained wood, but it will still soak up oil. The oil will evaporate over time, but it wouldn't hurt to help it along by removing all the build up. I've never applied oil so thick that it builds up on the surface like that.

Many have already commented on the pickup. The CC would have been among the last to come to mind for use in a bright axe (in fact, it probably would have never come to mind). For the tone you are looking for the Custom would work well, but the DD or JB are more era appropriate.
 
Re: Salvage my Warmoth's tone!

MikeS said:
I don't think it is unreasonable to think that over application of an oil would affect the guitar's tone.
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Nor do I, but I wonder if it's more the CC/Alder combo overall, slightly deadened by the layer of goo, of course - and yet...:scratchch


But like I said, I do NOT like Alder...
 
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Re: Salvage my Warmoth's tone!

Well put it this way. The Custom Custom was supposedly built for EVH when he was using the Kramers, which were made from bright Poplar or Maple bodies. The Alnico2 was used to tame the brightness. After Kramer, he switched to Basswood bodied guitars (EB/MM, Axis, Charvel).

I've used Tru-Oil alot, but I can only get the spray cans. Maybe the spray is preventing me from putting on too thick a coat?

My Tru-Oil guitars and necks don't have a gloss to them. If you keep putting more coats on, it will build up a gloss. I put a coat on, let it sit overnight, steel wool, spray another coat, repeat, just until the guitar looks sealed up. Tru Oil will seal the wood up nicely, but there's no point in trying to build up a gloss coat- it'll never get a PRS type gloss.
 
Re: Salvage my Warmoth's tone!

put a full shred, screamin demon, distortion or perhaps a JB in it and it will have much more bite.

i have loads of super strats and the one thing i've found...the CC sucks in them...it just has the wrong EQ curve for the typical alder/maple/floyded super strat. the C5 is my favorite but it may be too chunky for you in that guitar.

-Mike
 
Re: Salvage my Warmoth's tone!

Primary example why you should playtest bodies before painting them.

Apart from discovering pieces of junk not worth painting you can also figure whether your painting did harm and later see whether things go back to normal after a period.
 
Re: Salvage my Warmoth's tone!

Wow, thanks for the replies everyone.

I'm beginning to agree about dual acting truss rods. Every neck I have that has a dual acting truss gives off a clunky and dull tone when I knock on them. The four necks that I have with single acting truss rods sound brighter and more lively . The four dual acting all sound like ****. But, they suit a Floyded guitar well since they're more sturdy, and don't need tweaking/adjusting, which is a large benefit because I live in a salty, moist, humid beach climate. If all else fails, I can always just build another guitar right? This is when you know you're an addict:

http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/5951/p1010574ah2.jpg

Thankfully neither I nor none of my roommates use that table :D



Real quick — I should clarify my reasoning for getting an alder body and a CC. The only other Floyded guitar I have is an EBMM Axis. The guitar is ridiculously bright. I thought alder would even out some of the edge but not drain it. I played the CC in Chubtone's (the guy in post #21 in this thread) alder bodied Charvel, and it sounded totally awesome. SD's tone chart describes the CC's freq response as 3/7/7? I don't agree with that all, I'd say it's more like 9/9/0.
 
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Re: Salvage my Warmoth's tone!

Atomic Chameleon said:
I'm beginning to agree about dual acting truss rods. Every neck I have that has a dual acting truss gives off a clunky and dull tone when I knock on them. The four necks that I have with single acting truss rods sound brighter and more lively . The four dual acting all sound like ****. But, they suit a Floyded guitar well since they're more sturdy, and don't need tweaking/adjusting, which is a large benefit because I live in a salty, moist, humid beach climate. If all else fails, I can always just build another guitar right? This is when you know you're an addict:

http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/5951/p1010574ah2.jpg

Thankfully neither I nor none of my roommates use that table :D
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Yeah, I actually think Warmoth is only pushing this to have less warranty cases. Replacing wood with steel in the neck and then getting all hyper about having SSS instead of HSS routings in the body "for better tone" just doesn't go well together.

Myself, I'm beginning to get very careful even about their "vintage modern" truss rod. Should be kosher, right?

Atomic Chameleon said:
Real quick — I should clarify my reasoning for getting an alder body and a CC. The only other Floyded guitar I have is an EBMM Axis. The guitar is ridiculously bright. I thought alder would even out some of the edge but not drain it. I played the CC in Chubtone's (the guy in post #21 in this thread) alder bodied Charvel, and it sounded totally awesome. SD's tone chart describes the CC's freq response as 3/7/7? I don't agree with that all, I'd say it's more like 9/9/0.
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My experience matches yours 9/9/0.

I have found that people often mix up which Custom they actually have, and I think that Seymour Duncan's messy naming of these pickups contributes a lot.

The Duncan Custom (ceramic) is not always a bright, cold pickup. Nobody who ever heard Michael Schenker live can hold up that view. Driving the right kind of overdrive it produces the warmest, fullest tone you can imagine. It just doesn't like clean picking and the like. No country this one.

The Custom Custom is named so unfortunately that I think a lot of people who actually have a DC think they have a CC because their DC sounds to warm when they drive some hard rock rig and they might have gotten confused about the names.

Not that I say anybody in this thread does.

Furthermore, the Custom in all it's forms seem to be the popular victim of magnetic swaps. I bet that a lot of stuff with a "CC" sticker on them bottom has something else in it.

Disclaimer: I have yet to test my CC in a Fender style guitar.

The MM Axis with the maple top might be dominated by the wood and the Floyd. Maple top, maple neck and Floyd might make even a CC bright.
 
Re: Salvage my Warmoth's tone!

My experience with the CC certainly places at least an "8" on the mids, but I'd place the low around 4 and highs around 5. A 9 on the lows? No way its bottom end is that strong, at least in any of the guitfiddles I've tried it in. Good voice, full and sweet lead tones, but it didn't fit me at all.

Toss a ceramic magnet in that CC (making it a Custom) and let her rip. If that's not bright enough you'll need to jump to another pickup, like the DD or JB I and several others have mentioned.
 
Re: Salvage my Warmoth's tone!

jmh151 said:
Tru Oil will seal the wood up nicely, but there's no point in trying to build up a gloss coat- it'll never get a PRS type gloss.
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you can actually get a very nice gloss out of tru-oil but it will set you back a huge bucket of elbow grease ;)

I refinished my '79"the paul" with hand rubbed tru oil.. and approached it much like my nitro finish i did on my supersrtat. Many thin coats. lots of wet sanding . and then an a$$load of wet sanding up through 12000 grit micromesh and 20 min with my random orbital polisher through 3 grades of liquid polish.
here's a pic where you can see the shine/gloss. the finish is paper thin and still gleams.
 
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