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.
Category
🎵
MusicTranscript
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
01:37guitar solo
01:45guitar solo
02:15what are the things that we will do upgrade the key components of the bridge starting with the
02:33block underneath the bridge okay the saddle inserts yep we'll do all the hardware the
02:39string lock screws the saddle mounting screws the nut clamping screws we'll change the springs to
02:44heavy-duty noiseless springs and we'll do the claw in brass as well yep and did you also mention
02:51that we might do the tremolo stopper as well trim stopper trim stopper yeah so obviously an option
02:58for this this bridge floats yep but we're going to set it for dive only yep trim stopper makes it
03:03more stable for tuning you can rest your hand on the bridge when you play and it has a huge tonal
03:08benefit yeah by making direct contact to the block right into the body just even more resonance
03:13hitting the wood yeah i've always noticed that too as well as i have i actually have the trim stopper
03:17on some of my guitars is 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
03:28will start here and what you'll do basically i'll remove the strings i'll remove the springs take the
03:34bridge out rebuild the bridge upgrade the block the inserts all the screws the posts springs and claw
03:41got it drop the bridge back in re-intonate it and set it up get it ready to go yeah there's full
03:48step-by-step instructions on how to do this on fu and it doesn't take very long at all yeah it's
03:54rather quick and probably under an hour and oh this is under half an hour yeah yeah yeah and i think an
04:00important point that you want to thing to point out is the fact that the parts that you are putting
04:05on here match the color of this guitar that's bonus that's that's a complete bonus well that's
04:11always green titanium green titanium right but just just so everyone else knows the fact that
04:16depending on the color your guitar or you know or or even your hardware you have you know you have
04:22every color under the rainbow options so in titanium so all the all the basic screws string lock
04:27saddle mount nut clamp yeah instead of steel we do them in titanium i even do them in black titanium
04:33so if you want it to look the same black titanium silver right red blue green purple white i mean
04:40tons of colors and they sound better they function better yeah that's the point of titanium yeah pretty
04:46much if you want to make the guitar pop just in looks alone you got them covered bonus total bonus for
04:52deluxe all right well let's get to it let's go
04:54and we're back here we are
05:21adam has installed all these upgrades and has turned this jackson into a beast so as you can see
05:29it's just it looks incredible and of course the one thing that we noticed before which we didn't do
05:37but the great thing about it is that even acoustically the guitar sounds louder and more present like
05:44it just has a different sort of ring to it right it just it's just open sounding right now so
05:53with that let's say we uh take a listen see what it sounds like right
05:58that's loud i love the look on your face when you do that that's like wow but you can hear it it's
06:20just louder and it's got a little more um a little more resonance to it right
06:25so
06:33it's just powerful just powerful wow
06:46it's just powerful wow and now let's see when we get to some uh some gain
07:06so
07:16so i can hear that mid-range just cut it sli that's like a slice
07:20so
07:30so
07:32so
07:41so
07:43yeah
08:03happy oh it's incredible this is incredible listen to that
08:07yeah
08:12it's a huge improvement so adam i want to quickly
08:16run down each of the each of the parts and you can quickly explain that to me how about we do that
08:22quick okay no problem right here are the posts we did green titanium so all the green parts we added
08:28are titanium so the posts one two green titanium the saddle inserts the little blocks inside the saddles
08:36that pinch the string that pinch the string green titanium saddle mounting screws
08:40string lock screws up at the top we have the nut clamping screws
08:46and then in the back under the hood
08:49we were able to go up to a 37 millimeter brass big block
08:54we've got the heavy duty noiseless green springs
08:58brass 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 tonal equation
09:09brass
09:11increases the the vibration it amplifies the vibration so in the string rings it goes
09:17through your saddle hits the bridge that
09:19piece of brass rings like a bell and just pushes it back out into the guitar
09:24you're not hearing the brass you're just hearing more of the guitar
09:28gotcha so we're just pushing the vibration out
09:31and with the noiseless springs now do
09:33the 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
09:40and muffle the strings and just do like a chunk
09:43acoustically chunk you would hear the the springs
09:46reverb like a reverb tank
09:48okay yeah you put your ear on the guitar
09:50that sounds going through your sound the whole time
09:53it's dirt in your sound yeah right right
09:56so this takes a lot of that dirt away
09:58interesting awesome and there you have it
10:01that's a good that's a good run through
10:03and understanding how each thing works here
10:05all there really just make this guitar play like a dream
10:09and sound like a dream
10:10well there you go enough said right
10:31you have such guitar face and i love that
10:34because that's what happens that's the point
10:36if you could do anything for your tremolo equipped guitar
10:39it's doing it like this and it's just incredible
10:41thanks man yeah
10:42to accomplish all this where do i go again
10:45simple fu-tone.com
10:49and i'll find all those parts here
10:50and they're all affordable
10:52yes
10:53so fu-tone
10:55guitar world
10:56guitar world oh thank you
10:57you know what's up
10:58that's right
10:58definitely check this out
11:09it's like popping wheelies
11:28i know right
11:29it's just like
11:29i always get that
11:32yeah
11:39so cool
11:40fun
11:41yeah you get all that
11:43they're all popping out
11:44that's awesome
11:44you