Some recent D'Avanzo guitars...

[XSSIVE]

Re: Some recent D'Avanzo guitars...

The thread title says it all!

Great stuff Mike, as always! #15 is calling my name!

Thanks! DA.015 is a special one, specs for it were actually chosen by me, Mike Hickey (Joe Bonamassa's tech) and my brother and it went to Roy, Joe's business partner/manager.

Yeah, it's a pretty vital area. I feel that the Fender style square heel on my old Ibz gives them a level of oomph and sustain, particularly the 24 fretter on which the neck joint starts at the 17th fret.

It's very important and after hand shaping some heels during testing I found you can really impact the overall resonance and sustain of a guitar if you over sculpt it for no reason. I also found that you don't have to take a ton away to make a HUGE difference in upper fret access. So I got rid of all the junk and kept the good stuff all out of the way of you palm.

 

[kramersteen]

Re: Some recent D'Avanzo guitars...

I am coming to NY. I am your new apprentice. We will have our good and bad days.

Whats your thoughts on dragons and skulls? :headbang:

 

[King IzzO)))]

Re: Some recent D'Avanzo guitars...

Awesome stuff Mike.

Have you done a 1963 yet?

 

[Matt42]

Re: Some recent D'Avanzo guitars...

I love that JD body shape. One day... one day...

 

[Agileguy_101]

Re: Some recent D'Avanzo guitars...

I love that JD body shape. One day... one day...

Make it happen. I did and I've never been more happy in my guitar playing life. It's just such a good body shape, and it (along with, I assume, everything else Mike makes) plays as well as any $5K+ guitar I've played, if not better. And mine was nowhere near that much money.

Gotta go fellas, need to play my D'avanzo.

 

[XSSIVE]

Re: Some recent D'Avanzo guitars...

I am coming to NY. I am your new apprentice. We will have our good and bad days.

Whats your thoughts on dragons and skulls? :headbang:

Apprentice? That's means I get to say "you're fired" in my best Trump voice right? LOL. Hmmm dragons and skulls? Well after I saw the movie Airheads back in the mid 90's I wanted a PRS with a dragon inlay, but that's about it.

Awesome stuff Mike.

Have you done a 1963 yet?

Thanks. No 1963s aka "Firechickens" have been ordered by any customers yet so I haven't done one. I'm itching to do one, with a Floyd of course haha. I did a mock up and my headstock both regular and reverse and it works great with the shape. If anyone wants one I'll give you a heck of a deal for being the first to order it, especially if it's Floyded. After DA.019, DA.020 and DA.021 are done and sold I'll do a 1963. I also need to do a 1958 come to think of it, that one would work better with my T shape headstock like on DA.011 I think.

I love that JD body shape. One day... one day...

Thanks! Whenever you're ready!

Make it happen. I did and I've never been more happy in my guitar playing life. It's just such a good body shape, and it (along with, I assume, everything else Mike makes) plays as well as any $5K+ guitar I've played, if not better. And mine was nowhere near that much money.

Gotta go fellas, need to play my D'avanzo.

Thanks Jordan, glad you're still loving it.

 

[KeeperOS]

Re: Some recent D'Avanzo guitars...

Awesome, awesome axes man. Have you ever thought of making a 24-fretter? Or are you a die-hard Charvel-style guy

 

[Ashurbanipal]

Re: Some recent D'Avanzo guitars...

It's very important and after hand shaping some heels during testing I found you can really impact the overall resonance and sustain of a guitar if you over sculpt it for no reason. I also found that you don't have to take a ton away to make a HUGE difference in upper fret access. So I got rid of all the junk and kept the good stuff all out of the way of you palm.

Mmm, I agree. That plus having a tight fitting joint.

Thus, I feel that the Ibanez AANJ is over sculpted; the RG I had always had a weak sounding E string past the 12th fret, even after a neck swap, and I wondered whether the small footprint of the overall neck joint contributed to that.

Anyway, keep up the excellent work .

 

[XSSIVE]

Re: Some recent D'Avanzo guitars...

Awesome, awesome axes man. Have you ever thought of making a 24-fretter? Or are you a die-hard Charvel-style guy

24 frets are in the future but not a major rush to do it priority for me. They actually take more redesigning than adding a 7th string does. That said, the next deviation from what I've been doing will be 7 strings probably, most notably a 7 string version of my JD since I think it would be awesome as a 7. Basses are also on the future "to build" list and adding some frets is on the list too.

Mmm, I agree. That plus having a tight fitting joint.

Thus, I feel that the Ibanez AANJ is over sculpted; the RG I had always had a weak sounding E string past the 12th fret, even after a neck swap, and I wondered whether the small footprint of the overall neck joint contributed to that.

Anyway, keep up the excellent work .

Yeah, I didn't want to point fingers but you landed on one that's very much over sculpted IMO. Sure it looks cool but there's no need for such a flimsy joint, they removed way more than needed to be removed and went more cosmetic instead of functional. I tried to walk that line of making it look nice but removing as little as possible. The screw placement on mine evolved since the first one (Jordan's JD) and I let that go more cosmetic and put them in a \ \ pattern to follow the visual flow since moving one screw from \ | to \ \ didn't have any impact on anything since it was a fraction of an inch move, but it looks better. So in some areas you can let form guide you but in others (like amount of wood removed) it's best to let function (tone in this case) guide you.

The whole design of my JD shape was the same way, me balancing function and form. Getting the cutaway big enough that your entire hand fits in it unobstructed (function) while still making it look good and not comical (form). The placement and angle of the forearm cut, getting it just right so your arm lands nearly dead center (function) and giving it a nice smooth transition (form). The shape and size of the lower bout near the jack, making it sized and shaped so the guitar balances nicely while sitting or standing (function) but making sure it wasn't too big or small (form). All that and more, every area and transition on the body was tweaked 'til I was 100% happy with it and I felt it had that form and function balance.

 

[Ashurbanipal]

Re: Some recent D'Avanzo guitars...

^^ Yeah, a seemingly small tweak can go a long way.

Btw, love the Floyded HSS you've got in the works on your Instagram page; reminds me of a certain guitar I own .

 

[d1dsj]

Re: Some recent D'Avanzo guitars...

Mike, whilst I am happy with my guitars I'm almost fed up with the same old same. However, your JD design is the only guitar that has sparked my interest in quite a while. The whole custom build process is very cool and I know your attention to detail will be second to none.... I really hope I can place an order in the future. Awesome work so congrats on doing yourself and your dad proud!

 

[XSSIVE]

Re: Some recent D'Avanzo guitars...

^^ Yeah, a seemingly small tweak can go a long way.

Btw, love the Floyded HSS you've got in the works on your Instagram page; reminds me of a certain guitar I own .

I've become a big fan of reverse angled middle and neck singles so it had to be done again, but better, meaning with a Floyd haha.

Mike, whilst I am happy with my guitars I'm almost fed up with the same old same. However, your JD design is the only guitar that has sparked my interest in quite a while. The whole custom build process is very cool and I know your attention to detail will be second to none.... I really hope I can place an order in the future. Awesome work so congrats on doing yourself and your dad proud!

Thanks VERY much for that. I'm happy to build customers the industry standard S, T etc shapes with my twists to them like my contoured heel or my newly tweaked Floyd route shape, but it's even more fun for me when it's my JD shape I'm working with. Any time you're ready just drop me a line.

 

[Ashurbanipal]

Re: Some recent D'Avanzo guitars...

Yes indeed. This is what I've got, so I'm pretty keen seeing your version.

One question has just come to mind - you use several different vibrato and fixed bridges, what do you think of the fine-tunerless Floyd/straight nut combination? Like on Guthrie's Charvel.

 

[XSSIVE]

Re: Some recent D'Avanzo guitars...

Yup, that's one of the cooler guitars Ibanez made, too bad they don't do cool stuff like that anymore. Non-fine tuner Floyd with a regular nut and locking tuners is a great combo if you don't want a full double locking setup. I prefer the double locking setup myself since I like it extra bulletproof where you can really abuse the bar if you want. I also like the tone of the metal lock nut since it makes the tone of the open strings match the fretted strings since the strings are always sounding off a metal contact point when fretted or open. The non-fine tuner Floyd with locking tuners and regular nut is a big step up from a vintage trem or 2 point trem in terms of stability though and the next best option. It actually fixes the biggest problem with tuning stability, the vintage trem itself. Yes, the vintage trem (and 2 point trem) is where the problem is. It's usually not the tuners or nut, assuming the nut is properly cut and the tuners are of good quality. The reasons vintage trems can go out of tune are from the strings shifting inside the block and possibly binding and even more so than that it's the saddles shifting under the string when tension is let off from a dive leaving the string to land in a slightly different area on the saddle or the saddle itself to land in a slightly different place. People always blame the nut or slipping tuners but having the strings go through the block then over saddles that can move around left, right, forward and back is the real problem that's unfixable. I can set up a vintage trem to stay in tune amazingly well but for heavier bar use locking the strings into the trem makes things FAR more stable. Non-fine tuner Floyd, regular nut and locking tuners are certainly an option I'd do on my guitars if a customer wants it.

 

[DKSEARS]

Re: Some recent D'Avanzo guitars...

Very nice! Hoping I'll get the point where mine start turning out the well. For now, I'm just able to do Warmoth type builds until I can get a good shop space back.


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[XSSIVE]

Re: Some recent D'Avanzo guitars...

Very nice! Hoping I'll get the point where mine start turning out the well. For now, I'm just able to do Warmoth type builds until I can get a good shop space back.

You've got to start somewhere. I (and many other builders) started the same way, from random parts on up the food chain to full on custom.

 

[B2D]

Re: Some recent D'Avanzo guitars...

Killer stuff, as always.

 

[Ashurbanipal]

Re: Some recent D'Avanzo guitars...

Yup, that's one of the cooler guitars Ibanez made, too bad they don't do cool stuff like that anymore. Non-fine tuner Floyd with a regular nut and locking tuners is a great combo if you don't want a full double locking setup. I prefer the double locking setup myself since I like it extra bulletproof where you can really abuse the bar if you want. I also like the tone of the metal lock nut since it makes the tone of the open strings match the fretted strings since the strings are always sounding off a metal contact point when fretted or open. The non-fine tuner Floyd with locking tuners and regular nut is a big step up from a vintage trem or 2 point trem in terms of stability though and the next best option. It actually fixes the biggest problem with tuning stability, the vintage trem itself. Yes, the vintage trem (and 2 point trem) is where the problem is. It's usually not the tuners or nut, assuming the nut is properly cut and the tuners are of good quality. The reasons vintage trems can go out of tune are from the strings shifting inside the block and possibly binding and even more so than that it's the saddles shifting under the string when tension is let off from a dive leaving the string to land in a slightly different area on the saddle or the saddle itself to land in a slightly different place. People always blame the nut or slipping tuners but having the strings go through the block then over saddles that can move around left, right, forward and back is the real problem that's unfixable. I can set up a vintage trem to stay in tune amazingly well but for heavier bar use locking the strings into the trem makes things FAR more stable. Non-fine tuner Floyd, regular nut and locking tuners are certainly an option I'd do on my guitars if a customer wants it.

Yeah, I love it - great Strat and bucker sounds in one, especially after pu change. I'd like to get some of the others in the range like the maple and walnut ones but they're hard to find and I'm too broke .

These days I don't use the Floyd much for what it was designed but I like the overall tuning stability; once you've got it all dialled in, it's a breeze to set up. Plus, the Ibanez Edge is a fairly neutral sounding bridge, they did design/make it with the intention of addressing the complaints people had about Floyds in the day regarding brighter/thinner sound.

Indeed, movement inside the block and string landing on a different part of the saddle after use. I guess that's why Fender invented those bullet strings to try to combat some of the problems...

 

[XSSIVE]

Re: Some recent D'Avanzo guitars...

Killer stuff, as always.

Thanks!!

Yeah, I love it - great Strat and bucker sounds in one, especially after pu change. I'd like to get some of the others in the range like the maple and walnut ones but they're hard to find and I'm too broke .

These days I don't use the Floyd much for what it was designed but I like the overall tuning stability; once you've got it all dialled in, it's a breeze to set up. Plus, the Ibanez Edge is a fairly neutral sounding bridge, they did design/make it with the intention of addressing the complaints people had about Floyds in the day regarding brighter/thinner sound.

Indeed, movement inside the block and string landing on a different part of the saddle after use. I guess that's why Fender invented those bullet strings to try to combat some of the problems...

I love non-recessed dive only Floyds for the tuning stability, feel under my hand and even the tone of them plus the lock nut, I don't actually use the bar too often either.

 

[B2D]

Re: Some recent D'Avanzo guitars...

Thanks!!

I love non-recessed dive only Floyds for the tuning stability, feel under my hand and even the tone of them plus the lock nut, I don't actually use the bar too often either.

I wish there was some way to get the smooth action of a tremolo with the sustain and resonance of a hardtail... I haven't found a solution or at least not looked hard enough. Would a dive-only floyd resting on the body do that?