FU-Tone's Hardware Guitar Upgrades

Guitar World

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.

Transcript

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

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01:41guitar solo

02:21What 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

02:42clamping screws.

02:42We'll change the springs to heavy duty noiseless springs, and we'll do the claw in brass as

02:49well.

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, but we're going to set it for dive

03:01only.

03:02Yep.

03:02Trem stopper makes it more stable for tuning.

03:05You can rest your hand on the bridge when you play, and it has a huge tonal benefit by

03:09making direct contact to the block right into the body, just even more resonance hitting

03:14the 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

03:28where you will start here and what you'll do.

03:30Basically, I'll remove the strings.

03:32I'll remove the springs, take the bridge out, rebuild the bridge, upgrade the block,

03:38the inserts, all the screws, the posts, springs, and claw.

03:41Got it.

03:42Drop the bridge back in, re-intonate it, and set it up, get 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

03:52long at all.

03:53Yeah.

03:54It's rather quick.

03:55I'm probably under an hour, 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

04:05you 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 even

04:19your hardware, you have every color under the rainbow.

04:23Options in 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,

04:39white.

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.

04:59And 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.

05:43Like, it just has a different sort of ring to it, right?

05:49It just, it's just open sounding right now.

05:53So with that, let's say we take a listen, see what it sounds like, right?

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, right?

06:28It's got a little more resonance to it.

06:58It's just powerful.

07:00Just 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.

07:28And now let's see when we get to some, some gain.

07:29And now let's see when we get to some, some gain.

07:30And now let's see when we get to some, some gain.

07:31And now let's see when we get to some, some gain.

07:32And now let's see when we get to some, some gain.

07:33And now let's see when we get to some gain.

07:34And now let's see when we get to some gain.

07:35And now let's see when we get to some gain.

07:36And now let's see when we get to some gain.

07:37And now let's see when we get to some gain.

07:38And now let's see when we get to some gain.

07:39And now let's see when we get to some gain.

07:40And now let's see when we get to some gain.

07:41And now let's see when we get to some gain.

07:42And now let's see when we get to some gain.

07:43yeah happy oh it's incredible this is incredible listen to that

08:06yeah it's a huge improvement so adam i want to quickly run down each of the each of the parts

08:20and you can quickly explain that to me how about we do that quick okay no problem right here are the

08:24posts we did green titanium so all the green parts we added are titanium so the posts one two

08:31green titanium the saddle inserts the little blocks inside the saddles that pinch the

08:36string green titanium saddle mounting screws string lock screws up at the top we have the nut clamping

08:45screws and then in the back under the hood we were able to go up to a 37 millimeter brass big block

08:54we've got the heavy duty noiseless green springs brass tremolo stopper brass claw brass claw screws

09:03and you find that between having all the brass here it just totally adds to the overall like

09:08tonal equation brass increases the the vibration it amplifies the vibration so in the string rings it

09:16goes through your saddle hits the bridge that piece of brass rings like a bell and just pushes it back

09:23out into the guitar you're not hearing the brass you're just hearing more of the guitar

09:28gotcha so we're just pushing the vibration out and with the noiseless springs now do the idea of course

09:35is that do you hear a lot of that yeah so if you were to take the any guitar with regular springs in it

09:40and muffle the strings and just do like a chunk acoustically chunk you would hear the the springs

09:46reverb like a reverb tank okay yeah you put your ear on the guitar that sounds going through your sound

09:53the whole time no it's dirt in your sound yeah right right so this takes a lot of that dirt away

09:58interesting awesome and there you have it that's a good that's a good run through of an understanding

10:04how each thing works here 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 it's doing it like

10:39this and it's just incredible thanks man yeah to accomplish all this where do i go again simple

10:46fu-tone.com and i'll find all those parts here and they're all affordable yes so fu tone guitar world

10:56guitar world oh thank you you know what's up that's right definitely check this out

11:09it's like popping wheelies i know right it's just like i always get that

11:32yeah so cool fun yeah you get all that they're all popping out that's awesome

11:44you

11:54you

11:55you

11:57you

11:59you

12:01you

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