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