kill me now (guitar problems)

[suzumebachi]

so i finally got around to restringing my guitar right? (it's an ibanez S470DX). So everything is going fine (blocked the trem in place to keep it at the right angle... floating trem != fun) until i get down to the last two strings.. when i realize the little metal wedges that hold the strings in place on the tremelo are missing. gone. kaput. after several minutes of panic, followed by many hours of frantic searching, i have given up on any hope of ever finding it. so... now what the fuck do i do? i looked at warmoth and the closest thing they sell is locking nuts for original floyd rose trems (which is not what i have-- i've got a shitty Lo-TRS II). so then i looked into a replacement trem ($180-200, way more than i can afford at the moment)...

i.. i dunno what to do. i feel like breaking down and crying. you have no idea how badly this sucks. my guitar is thus rent by 2 tiny ass fucking pieces of metal. i don't understand how i could have lost them in the first place. i mean, you normally can't even pull them out if you try.

needless to say, i am endlessly confused and frustrated and double locking trems can die DIE DIE DIE DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

also, those who don't know what im talking about, here is an illustration:

ok anyways, im going to go eat a cinder block and jump off a really tall bridge. afk.

[SnappleMan]

hey Suzu, PM me your address. I may have a couple of those little things sitting around that I can send to you.

[Potshot]

Haha this happened with my 80's ibanez 540s, just go into any decent guitar store with it and ask them for string blocks for your trem. I spent a few months trying to find replacement parts and such with no luck, by the time I just took it in somewhere and got it done, came home and magically found the missing block

[Cerrax]

I have a problem of my own. My guitar will not make sound when I plug it into the amp. I know its not the jack because I just got it cleaned and repaired about six months ago. I know its not the cable because I tried several different ones. Is it possible that just a wire or two came loose or is it much worse than that? If it is the just a loose wire, how much does that cost to fix?

[SnappleMan]

Does the sound continue after the cable is fully plugged in?

If not, then it's just a normal sound because the ground portion of the plug is the last bit to go in. If yes, then there is a possibility that either:

1) Your guitars output jack is slightly messed up

2) Your cable needs replacing

3) Your amps input jack is... jacked

4) Your guitars pickups are just noisy

To fix #1 is pretty simple. You just CAREFULLY take the jack apart and check for loose wires. If there are some, just solder them back into place. To fix #2... buy a new cable. To fix #3 do the same thing you did to the guitar on the amp, just be more careful and make sure you ground yourself before working on the amp. To fix #4, buy better pickups. If you have single coil pickups, the noise will never go away.

[suzumebachi]

i just ordered some saddle blocks from www.allparts.com. they also had the pickup ring i needed to fix my LP too, so when that shit arrives i'm back in business. it surprises the hell out of me that warmoth (or any other well known parts shop i can think of) didn't have it. but oh well. --and thanks anyways for the offer snapple

Cerrax: i know this sounds stupid, but have you turned up your volume knob? have you tested your amp to make sure it works? have you tried putting your pickup switch in a different position? if none of the above fixes it, then odds are it's probably a short or a loose wire or something. if it is a loose wire, you can most likely fix it yourself in about 2 minutes with a soldering iron. electric guitars are actually super simple when it comes down to the electronics. at most you may have bad pickups (highly unlikely) and those aren't too terribly expensive to replace (and it's definately worth it to replace stock ones anyways). you may just have to clean the pots or replace a switch or a knob or something.

[Legion303]

i just ordered some saddle blocks

Next time you lose one, trim a small piece of sturdy nylon or plastic off of somethine else and go ghetto. Mine's (Ibanez RG560) been like that for about 10 years now. Actually the nylon's pretty much worn away entirely, so now it's just the screw holding the string on.

Eh, save yourself $8, at least.

Cerrax: plug a known good cable into a distortion pedal and run a known good cable from that to your amp. With everything on and loud you should be able to hold the insulated pard of the cable with one hand, touch the very tip of it with your other, and hear a well-defined pop and hum. You can do it without the distortion too but it's not going to be as loud. If you hear nothing, the problem is with your amp. If you hear it, check your guitar's jack for broken wires.

-steve

[Potshot]

While we're on the subject of guitar problems, I'd like to vent about one of the most annoooooooooooying things ever. Acoustics upon which the intonation goes bung. Unless it's uniform across the entire fretboard, a truss rod adjustment will do nothing. It's about fucking time somebody came up with a decent bridge on an acoustic with adjustable string saddles so I don't have to bin one of my favourite guitars and get a new one

And before anyone says anything, I'm aware of the logistics behind such a bridge, I don't care, I still want one.