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Midtown Custom owners: does your tailpiece look like this?


Fleece

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Just got my Midtown, and I absolutely love it, but it seems like the tailpiece is set very high. It could be perfectly normal, I just wanted to make sure it's not indicative of a problem they encountered when setting up the guitar.

 

Does your Midtown's tailpiece look similar to this?

 

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Hi Fleece,

 

The tailpiece on my Midtown Custom actually looks higher than yours! Your tailpiece looks like it is set slightly lower than mine on the treble side, but on the bass side, I can see an extra thread on the screw that isn't visible on yours. I have no idea if height makes a difference, so I left mine just the way it came from the factory. Does anyone know if Gibson has a recommended specification for the height of the tailpiece like they do for the height of the Tune-O-Matic bridge?

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My Midtown Custom looks pretty much the same as yours.

There's no reason you shouldn't be able to lower it you want, as long as the strings don't touch the back end of the bridge on the way down.

Allegedly, lowering the stop bar increases sustain and resonance, and it certainly didn't hurt on my Les Paul (although this might only be the case if you lower it all the way down, which in turn might need the strings to wrap around over the top of the stop bar to prevent them from hitting the back of the bridge).

 

But the Midtown has plenty of sustain, and is already maybe a bit too generous with the feedback, so I didn't want to fix something that wasn't broken and end up making a problem where there was none.

 

My nut is a little tight though...

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Hi Fleece,

 

The tailpiece on my Midtown Custom actually looks higher than yours! Your tailpiece looks like it is set slightly lower than mine on the treble side, but on the bass side, I can see an extra thread on the screw that isn't visible on yours. I have no idea if height makes a difference, so I left mine just the way it came from the factory. Does anyone know if Gibson has a recommended specification for the height of the tailpiece like they do for the height of the Tune-O-Matic bridge?

 

Thanks for your reply, Mark. I agree that it would be extremely helpful if there were some kind of guidelines for the height. I'm not even sure what factors would create different heights being set at the factory.

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My Midtown Custom looks pretty much the same as yours.

There's no reason you shouldn't be able to lower it you want, as long as the strings don't touch the back end of the bridge on the way down.

Allegedly, lowering the stop bar increases sustain and resonance, and it certainly didn't hurt on my Les Paul (although this might only be the case if you lower it all the way down, which in turn might need the strings to wrap around over the top of the stop bar to prevent them from hitting the back of the bridge).

 

But the Midtown has plenty of sustain, and is already maybe a bit too generous with the feedback, so I didn't want to fix something that wasn't broken and end up making a problem where there was none.

 

My nut is a little tight though...

 

Thanks Kennis, I'm glad to hear that mine isn't out of whack with the norm. I plan to soon bring it to a local luthier I've heard great things about to see what alterations might be done (including maybe wrapping the strings around the stop bar). As you point out, though, it already has a quite a bit of sustain and feedback right out of the box.

 

I'm curious: how does the nut being too tight manifest itself?

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when I tune the strings up and down they "jump" a little bit, making an audible ping. makes it hard to get it just right.

 

Ah, I'm experiencing that as well, as I have on other guitars. Frustrating, especially when the 'ping' on the G and B strings seems to be right it needs to be tuned.

 

I've also noticed that my E A D strings will tend to become sharp after not playing the guitar for a bit. Have you? I'm not sure what that signifies, but most guitars I've had will tend to go flat when they get out of tune. I've only had the guitar a couple weeks, so I'm hoping it settles down.

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Ah, I'm experiencing that as well, as I have on other guitars. Frustrating, especially when the 'ping' on the G and B strings seems to be right it needs to be tuned.

 

I've also noticed that my E A D strings will tend to become sharp after not playing the guitar for a bit. Have you? I'm not sure what that signifies, but most guitars I've had will tend to go flat when they get out of tune. I've only had the guitar a couple weeks, so I'm hoping it settles down.

 

that might be the nut's fault as well. if it's too tight there can become a discrepancy between the string tension on either side of it which can alter the tuning as you play and bend the strings.

If you're taking it to a luthier he'll probably fix this for you no problem.

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