msp guitars,,,dont trust them!!1

[tommywho5150]

ok in another thread i asked for some advice regarding the high action on my guitar and wether a neck shim would help, i also posted the same question on myspace (coz i have a lot of players on my friends list).
now the general reply was yes use a shim at the rear of the neck pocket, exept 1 and the main reason im bringing this to your collective attentions is its a so called proffesional manufacturer of guitars who claim to be high quality and second to none, hell they even make signiture model guitars for some people and i pity the poor sads if what im about to copy and paste from my inbox is anything to go by


my first question was this.....

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: tommywho5150
Date: Dec 24 2006 7:12 AM


i recently built my own guitar and have a small but slightly annoying problem.
the action is really low at the nut but really high over the 12th fret i have lowered it as much as i can without it fretting out and i have taken as much "bow" out of the neck via the trussrod as i can but its still a little high, so my question is this do i need to shim the neck or do i need to shim the nut??

kind thanks and merry christmas

tom


their first reply was this....

You need to file the frets

If you think about it for a while / shimming the nut would do you No good / once you fret the stings that fret position becomes "the nut" for lack of a better word

There should always be a slight bow in a neck / even with really low string action / it helps prevent back bow which is not what you want

If you purchased a replacement neck / there is a 99% chance the frets were never filed


i mailed them back (quite astounded at this first suggestion)......

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: tommywho5150
Date: Dec 24 2006 8:52 AM


many thanks, the neck i used was from a fender strat circa mid 70's (u know the big headstcok one) and the frets have been dressed coz they'd seen better days filed and polished, i have checked the neck and its not warped and theres no visible damage that i can see, i was thinking about shimming the neck near the neck pickup thus back angling the neck a little this was what i thought would make sense
anyway thanks for the help and have a good christmas

tom

and this is the reply i got....

Dec 24 2006 13:02
Flag as Spam or Report Abuse [ ? ]
Subject: RE: RE: RE: question for guitar players /builders
Body:

Changing the angle of the neck will not do anything

Once a string is depressed on a fret it only has one way to the bridge / angling the neck does not change the original points / which are point of contact to point of contact / I.E. fret to bridge saddle

anyway i totaly ignored their "advice" and went ahead and shimmed the neck with a 1.4mm pick at the rear of the neck pocket (like i originaly thought and most people suggested anyway), hey presto it worked perfectly now it plays like butter.

i only really posted this to highlight the fact that the advice of some "builders" is quite often way off the mark and sometimes its better to ask some genuine and helpful people from a comunity such as this.

much respect

tom

[kowski]

It sounds like they were basically ignoring what you were asking altogether. Filing the frets would help if you had buzzing or the strings were fretting incorrectly, possibly due to low action with unfiled frets, but your action was too high. I like their bogus made-up percentage, too ("If you purchased a replacement neck / there is a 99% chance the frets were never filed").

Anyone that has done any guitar work would probably suggest shimming the neck, and they call themselves a professional manufacturer? Ack.

[tommywho5150]

well 87% of all statistics are made up!!!!!!!!

[AT]

It sounds like they were basically ignoring what you were asking altogether. Filing the frets would help if you had buzzing or the strings were fretting incorrectly, possibly due to low action with unfiled frets, but your action was too high. I like their bogus made-up percentage, too ("If you purchased a replacement neck / there is a 99% chance the frets were never filed").

Anyone that has done any guitar work would probably suggest shimming the neck, and they call themselves a professional manufacturer? Ack.

Yeah, they just misunderstood. A fret level is indeed a good thing if there is buzzing and fretting out in various places, but action is something completely different.

[tommywho5150]

ok since i posted this original post i have spoken to a couple of people, 1 is an msp guitars endorsee and the other is the main man at msp himself, marc.
it would appear that the explanation of my problem wasnt quite clear and this is what led to the confusion with their answer.
so basically this whole post is the result of confusion and should it not be taken that msp guitars are in any way inferior or of poor quality.

i have it on good authority that msp guitars are of very high quality and the are very playable,
so therefor i would like to take this oportunity to appologise to marc for any distress this post may have caused and wish him and all msp players the best for the new year


tom

(and before anyone says anything i have not been bribed or contacted by a man in a suit carrying a briefcase nor have i been offered an endorsment deal..lol)

[tommywho5150]

p.s. could someone please close this thread now

much abliged

tom

[homeunit]

p.s. could someone please close this thread now

much abliged

tom