Ibanez S7320 Help!

[Brandon Strader]

Hi!

I am an idiot.

(pause)

I tried to change my strings on the Ibanez S7320 last night, and I epic failed... which caused my double's dash with bjkmenu to have to restart with only 50 minutes left, and I think I messed up the tremolo beyond my comprehension for fixing it. I wobbled it a good bit and I think I got everything back to where it goes, but now when I press the whammy bar, it has a little type of grind as if it is catching on something, or it's not as tight as it should be? It's also bending the note faster than it used to but also not bending as far. So like it'll drop a whole step really fast but beyond that, not as much.

I've got all the screws conbiobulated, which is my word for messed up and I don't know how to set it right. I tried to replace the strings, which included chopping off the bottoms and pinching them into the holes. The high E string popped out twice, and just would not stay in that hole to save its life. I spent a good 10 minutes trying to tune it, but the strings will not stay in tune. I tried to get them as close as I could then lock them down with the lockers near the headstock. But it's not good enough. I also re-screwed the tremolo in the body after this to get the strings to the correct height off of the fretboard so that they don't buzz when I play them. Of course the low B buzzes a little but it did that before. Now they're all out of tune again.

If anyone knows what I did to completely destroy this guitar, please let me know. I'm starting to think I will have to take it to a professional to get it fixed.

[Fishy]

Please tell me you did the strings one at a time. The last thing you want to do is take them all off. You will have completely unbalanced it if you took them all off. If you can; lift the bridge out of the recess and stick a block of wood under the bit with the fine tuners to get it parallel to the body and try stringing it again.

Pinch the strings in the bridge tightly with at least 1-2cm through the gap.

When you tune one string up, the rest go down because the bridge moves to compensate. You need to really overdo the tuning. Tune everything a tone sharp and tightening the other strings will bring it back down. It's a bit of a juggling act at first but you can hear and see it happen after a while.

I'd have to see it to say more. They REALLY should warn people about this when they buy guitars with floating trems. It takes 10 minutes of research to avoid problems like this that people might not realize exist.

[Brandon Strader]

Please tell me you did the strings one at a time. The last thing you want to do is take them all off. You will have completely unbalanced it if you took them all off. If you can; lift the bridge out of the recess and stick a block of wood under the bit with the fine tuners to get it parallel to the body and try stringing it again.

Pinch the strings in the bridge tightly with at least 1-2cm through the gap.

When you tune one string up, the rest go down because the bridge moves to compensate. You need to really overdo the tuning. Tune everything a tone sharp and tightening the other strings will bring it back down. It's a bit of a juggling act at first but you can hear and see it happen after a while.

I'd have to see it to say more. They REALLY should warn people about this when they buy guitars with floating trems. It takes 10 minutes of research to avoid problems like this that people might not realize exist.

Oh snap, I did take them all off at once. o_o So they're unbalanced now, even though I've got 6 out of the 7 strings on there? Putting something under the bridge to hold it up while I restring would put it back in balance? How would that work if it just goes back to normal after I take the wood out?

And that would get the whammy action back to normal too, and make the strings stay in tune better -- or is that just the way the strings are on these until you lock them down?

I've at least figured out that changing the screws way at the bottom changes how far each string bends. x_x

Setting that right also seems to have gotten rid of the "grind" that I was hearing/feeling when using the whammy. x_x