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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02:17What 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.

02:55Okay.

02:56Yeah.

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.

03:04You can rest your hand on the bridge when you play, and it has a huge tonal benefit

03:08by making direct contact to the block right into the body, just even more resonance hitting

03:14the wood.

03:14Yeah.

03:15I'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?

03:24So 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, I'll remove the springs, take the bridge out, rebuild the

03:36bridge, upgrade the block, the 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 and 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.

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,

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.

04:54Let's go.

04:54And we're back.

05:21Here we are.

05:22Adam 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.

05:31And 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'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, right?

06:14That's loud.

06:15I love the look on your face when you do that.

06:17That'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?

06:25It's got a little more resonance to it.

06:26It's got a little more resonance to it.

06:27It's got a little more resonance to it.

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

06:29It's got a little more resonance to it.

06:30It's got a little resonance to it.

06:31It's got a little resonance to it.

06:32It's got a little resonance to it.

06:33It's got a little resonance to it.

06:34It's got a little resonance to it.

06:35It's got a little resonance to it.

06:36It's got a little resonance to it.

06:37It's got a little resonance to it.

06:38It's got a little resonance to it.

06:39It's got a little resonance to it.

06:40It's got a little resonance to it.

06:41It's got a little resonance to it.

06:42It's got a little resonance to it.

06:43It's got a little resonance to it.

06:44It's just powerful. Just powerful. Wow. And now let's see when we get to some gain.

07:14So I can hear that mid-range. Just cut it. That's like a slice.

07:44Yeah. Happy? Oh, it's incredible. It's incredible. Listen to that.

08:06Yeah. It's a huge improvement. So Adam, I want to quickly run down each of the parts and you can

08:20quickly explain that to me. How about we do that? Quick. Okay. No problem. Right here are the posts.

08:25We 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 string,

08:37green 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,

09:02brass claw screws. And you find that between having all the brass here, it just totally adds to the

09:08overall tonal equation? Brass increases the vibration. It amplifies the vibration. So when

09:15the string rings, it goes through your saddle, hits the bridge. That piece of brass rings like a bell and

09:22just pushes it back out into the guitar. You're not hearing the brass. You're just hearing more of

09:27the guitar. Gotcha. So we're just pushing the vibration out. And with the noiseless springs,

09:33now do the idea, of course, is that do you hear a lot of that? Yeah. So if you were to take any guitar

09:39with regular springs in it and muffle the strings and just do like a chunk, acoustically chunk,

09:45you would hear the springs reverb, like a reverb tank. Okay. Yeah. You put your ear on the guitar.

09:50That sounds going through your sound the whole time. It's dirt in your sound. Yeah, right, right. So

09:56this takes a lot of that dirt away. Interesting. Awesome. And there you have it. That's a good,

10:02that's a good run through and understanding how each thing works here. All there really just make

10:07this guitar play like a dream and sound like a dream.

10:30Well, there you go. Enough said, right? You have such guitar face. And I love that because that's what

10:35that'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?

10:45Simple. FU-tone.com. And I'll find all those parts here and they're all affordable. Yes. So FU-tone.

10:55Guitar world. Guitar world. Oh, thank you. You know what's up. That's right. Definitely check this out.

11:00It's like popping wheelies. I know, right? It's just like...

11:30Yeah. So cool. Fun. Yeah, you get all that. They're all popping out. That's awesome.

11:44You get all that.

11:47Yeah.

12:03It's like...

12:03You get all that?

12:04You get all that.

12:04You get all that stuff.

12:07Yeah.

12:13Yeah.

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