anderson review/rant

[ranalli]

WOW .. when I was talking about the ESPs I meant just a tad off. What you have on your guitar is ridiculous IMO.

I don't think it would cause a problem but that looks like shit and is crap work IMO.

 

[Anonymous]

after 5 years of abuse and 30-40 string changes.

30-40 string changes in 5 years? When do you have time to actually play the thing?

Steve

 

[Digital Jams]

after 5 years of abuse and 30-40 string changes.

30-40 string changes in 5 years? When do you have time to actually play the thing?

Steve

Ya...........I may have embellished my story just a tad

 

[Anonymous]

I am done with the Pebble Beach concours fancy smancy blue ribbon beauty contests, lets see how it has held up over 5-10 yers of abuse.

See... its this type of attitude that just pisses me off. To me, a guitar is like a beautiful piece of furniture to be set out as part of my living room's design. I'm looking to impress visitors to my home with the concept of music/guitar - not to actually play the damn thing. There is no greater feeling on this earth than when an envious visitor declares, "MY GOD! The spalted maple top on that thing complements the lines of that Indian drum coffee table superbly!". To me, THAT is what its all about...

Steve

 

[Marshall Freak]

after 5 years of abuse and 30-40 string changes.

30-40 string changes in 5 years? When do you have time to actually play the thing?

Steve

Ya...........I may have embellished my story just a tad

Why? That's once every two months. I go through 10-20 string changes a year on a guitar I play a lot. Sometimes as much as once a week or two.

 

[Digital Jams]

I am done with the Pebble Beach concours fancy smancy blue ribbon beauty contests, lets see how it has held up over 5-10 yers of abuse.

See... its this type of attitude that just pisses me off. To me, a guitar is like a beautiful piece of furniture to be set out as part of my living room's design. I'm looking to impress visitors to my home with the concept of music/guitar - not to actually play the damn thing. There is no greater feeling on this earth than when an envious visitor declares, "MY GOD! The spalted maple top on that thing complements the lines of that Indian drum coffee table superbly!". To me, THAT is what its all about...

Steve

My JVM headshell compliments my Ethan Allan Dining room set but everyone here busts my balls about it

 

[Death by Uberschall]

That is a lack of detail in my opinion. Anderson probably never took into consideration the nut platform/pad when designing the headstock cut and shape. Will it make a tonal or playability difference, who knows, probably won't. But you buy those guitars in order to get something above the standard that the corporate companies build.

I just got a Warmoth neck in and it's cut for the R4 locking nut, The pad is the same size as the nut and screws in from the back of the neck. Perfect fit.

 

[cyndicate]

I think Suhr's have the same thing going on when you go for a Floyd. Maybe John Suhr or Ed can give their reasoning for it. It never bothered me though.

 

[thiswaythatway]

My Charvels nut is perfect...and that is on a $999 guitar.

But still, comparing a Charvel to an Anderson is like a Ford Focus to a Porsche 911. IMHO.

 

[Marshall Freak]

My Charvels nut is perfect...and that is on a $999 guitar.

But still, comparing a Charvel to an Anderson is like a Ford Focus to a Porsche 911. IMHO.

Exactly. It would be pathetic if the Focus's doors are aligned better than the Porsches are. They still open just fine, but why the 1/2 inch difference in the gap from the top to the bottom of the door?

 

[thiswaythatway]

That is a lack of detail in my opinion. Anderson probably never took into consideration the nut platform/pad when designing the headstock cut and shape. Will it make a tonal or playability difference, who knows, probably won't. But you buy those guitars in order to get something above the standard that the corporate companies build.

I just got a Warmoth neck in and it's cut for the R4 locking nut, The pad is the same size as the nut and screws in from the back of the neck. Perfect fit.

"Lack Of Detail" ? You have it backwards. They might be putting too much thought into it to use the larger nut. If some Floyded Anderson had a nut that fit, and some didn't, THEN we would really have something to argue with them about. But since ALL his FLoyded guitars are like this then they do it for a specific reason.

 

[Digital Jams]

My Charvels nut is perfect...and that is on a $999 guitar.

But still, comparing a Charvel to an Anderson is like a Ford Focus to a Porsche 911. IMHO.

What if the Stig from Top Gear is driving the Focus and some 16 year old kid is driving the 911 at Limerock?

 

[ratter]

Pete, my EBMM EVH nut sits exactly like that (overhang), but it's a 1 5/8 neck, so there's no gap on the sides. Oh, and I have 3 shims under the nut!!

I think somebody hit the nail on the head in terms of them just choosing not to redesign the neck to accomodate the floyd nut. That would be my guess. I can sort of understand that, especially since I'm not convinced the overhang would make any difference in terms of tone or performance.

As for the shim, if none of the Charvels are shimmed, is it because they don't need them or because the QC on the way out the door isn't tight enough to really care? The presence of the shim on the Anderson, to me, says that somebody went the extra step to get the setup as perfect as possible. Think of the floyd nut as a precut, preslotted plastic nut blank you'd get from MF. Would you trust a factory that slapped the precut, preslotted nut on every neck and sent it out the door? Sure you get lucky sometimes and the fit is great right out of the gate, but if the Floyd nut is a hair too low, you either live with it, shim it, or cut a new neck. Shimming it seems the right choice to me.

I just have a hard time buying the "lack of attention to detail" argument that some have posted. Guys like Anderson, Suhr, etc. - I would bet the details pretty much consume their lives...

I will say though that the gap on the sides would probably bug the shit out of me. Especially considering that if somebody is looking for a 1 11/16th floyded guitar, they might be expecting that string spacing at the nut and a 1 5/8th nut might not be an improvement to them...but it's obviously a conscious choice he made.

 

[thiswaythatway]

My Charvels nut is perfect...and that is on a $999 guitar.

But still, comparing a Charvel to an Anderson is like a Ford Focus to a Porsche 911. IMHO.

What if the Stig from Top Gear is driving the Focus and some 16 year old kid is driving the 911 at Limerock?

We better stop now before it turns into a USA versus Japan automakers arguement.


So is anyone going to start a thread on the Anderson forum and ask why his nuts are like this? Then, we can ask about Petes guitar....

 

[Digital Jams]

Pete, my EBMM EVH nut sits exactly like that (overhang), but it's a 1 5/8 neck, so there's no gap on the sides. Oh, and I have 3 shims under the nut!!

I think somebody hit the nail on the head in terms of them just choosing not to redesign the neck to accomodate the floyd nut. That would be my guess. I can sort of understand that, especially since I'm not convinced the overhang would make any difference in terms of tone or performance.

As for the shim, if none of the Charvels are shimmed, is it because they don't need them or because the QC on the way out the door isn't tight enough to really care? The presence of the shim on the Anderson, to me, says that somebody went the extra step to get the setup as perfect as possible. Think of the floyd nut as a precut, preslotted plastic nut blank you'd get from MF. Would you trust a factory that slapped the precut, preslotted nut on every neck and sent it out the door? Sure you get lucky sometimes and the fit is great right out of the gate, but if the Floyd nut is a hair too low, you either live with it, shim it, or cut a new neck. Shimming it seems the right choice to me.

I just have a hard time buying the "lack of attention to detail" argument that some have posted. Guys like Anderson, Suhr, etc. - I would bet the details pretty much consume their lives...

I will say though that the gap on the sides would probably bug the shit out of me. Especially considering that if somebody is looking for a 1 11/16th floyded guitar, they might be expecting that string spacing at the nut and a 1 5/8th nut might not be an improvement to them...but it's obviously a conscious choice he made.

I agree with your assessment.

 

[* velcro-fly *]

I just have a hard time buying the "lack of attention to detail" argument that some have posted. Guys like Anderson, Suhr, etc. - I would bet the details pretty much consume their lives...

I will say though that the gap on the sides would probably bug the shit out of me. Especially considering that if somebody is looking for a 1 11/16th floyded guitar, they might be expecting that string spacing at the nut and a 1 5/8th nut might not be an improvement to them...but it's obviously a conscious choice he made.

See my above post - that was info given to me by the head of production at Anderson. Their optimum string spacing is somewhere between the 1 5/8 and 1 11/16 Floyd nut spacing for their 1 11/16 guitars....personally, I found it really annoying if for no other reason than I had to look at it on a really expensive guitar. Its pretty safe to say that Floyded guitars make up probably less that 1% of their total output...

 

[ratter]

Agreed and yet the nut on my Charvel is perfect and it seems that all of the Anderson's Floyd nuts need shims and have poor placement? It appears that you should have said a Ford Focus and Lincoln... Since the nut is not up to Charvel's standards .

Having to adjust the nut from side to side means that they need to use it to compensate for a poor neck/bridge alignment. If the nut is off center it will pull on the neck differently and cause different problems like intonation, etc. Personally, I will not buy a guitar unless I can play it or someone I trust can play it first. Just my .02.

I think you misread - the nut isn't off-center to compensate for anything. It's a 1 5/8" nut (chosen for string spacing) centered on a 1 11/16" neck, leaving 1/32" 'shelf' of wood on either side of the nut...

 

[nbarts]

Pete, my EBMM EVH nut sits exactly like that (overhang), but it's a 1 5/8 neck, so there's no gap on the sides. Oh, and I have 3 shims under the nut!!

I think somebody hit the nail on the head in terms of them just choosing not to redesign the neck to accomodate the floyd nut. That would be my guess. I can sort of understand that, especially since I'm not convinced the overhang would make any difference in terms of tone or performance.

As for the shim, if none of the Charvels are shimmed, is it because they don't need them or because the QC on the way out the door isn't tight enough to really care? The presence of the shim on the Anderson, to me, says that somebody went the extra step to get the setup as perfect as possible. Think of the floyd nut as a precut, preslotted plastic nut blank you'd get from MF. Would you trust a factory that slapped the precut, preslotted nut on every neck and sent it out the door? Sure you get lucky sometimes and the fit is great right out of the gate, but if the Floyd nut is a hair too low, you either live with it, shim it, or cut a new neck. Shimming it seems the right choice to me.

I just have a hard time buying the "lack of attention to detail" argument that some have posted. Guys like Anderson, Suhr, etc. - I would bet the details pretty much consume their lives...

I will say though that the gap on the sides would probably bug the shit out of me. Especially considering that if somebody is looking for a 1 11/16th floyded guitar, they might be expecting that string spacing at the nut and a 1 5/8th nut might not be an improvement to them...but it's obviously a conscious choice he made.

I know we disagree about many things, but cmon, man, just from one crappy pic from one view you can see there is so much wrong there at all the sides. Are you saying that you think it's OK for a guitar of this caliber?

 

[* velcro-fly *]

Having to adjust the nut from side to side means that they need to use it to compensate for a poor neck/bridge alignment. If the nut is off center it will pull on the neck differently and cause different problems like intonation, etc. Personally, I will not buy a guitar unless I can play it or someone I trust can play it first. Just my .02.

I think you misread - the nut isn't off-center to compensate for anything. It's a 1 5/8" nut (chosen for string spacing) centered on a 1 11/16" neck, leaving 1/32" 'shelf' of wood on either side of the nut...

What Ratter said I think the shelf issue brought up though is the base the nut actually sits on, from front to back and not side to side. Dave implying that Anderson has "to adjust the nut from side to side meaning that they need to use it to compensate for a poor neck/bridge alignment" is innacurate. I think you will have a really hard time finding guitars built to tighter tolerances than Andersons or any of the guys that occupy that upper echelon builder realm. As Ratter pointed out, those details are agonized over. I just think that again the actual production of Floyded guitars by Anderson is so small compared to the big picture that the nut thing is a non issue for them.

Pete - seriously post this question here and see what Tom Anderson says - he will personally respond, guaranteed: http://www.andersonforum.com/board/index.php

 

[* velcro-fly *]

Here you go - from Tom Andersons own mouth, the reasons behind this in full color glory:

http://www.andersonforum.com/board/show ... loyd+width