Tuning on Ibanez S420 and S520 with floating bridge, and lack of spring tension wheel on S520

m_cheung

I tried out an S420 and S520 today - the shop said that once the S420 had sold out the S520 would be put on display, but kindly they pulled an S520 out of the stock room for me to try :-) 

Playing-wise the two felt no different (except the fret edges were quite sharp on the S420 - perhaps just an issue with that particular one?)

Anyway, the reason I was checking out these models is because of the zero point trem. My current Ibanez is the entry level GSA60 and I'm rather tired of having to tune up after whammying a couple of times! (Seriously, even a gentle fluttering knocks it out...)

I'm not sure if it was an 'incorrectly' set up guitar but for both the S420 and S520, I was knocking them out of tune after playing with the trem - I don't mean all strings out but perhaps 2 at a time.  I asked the sales person why they were going out of tune even with the locking nuts and zero points and was told that "it's bound to happen because of physics", "there's only so much tension a string can take" etc.  I was quite disappointed to find that even with these special bits and pieces in place you can still quite easily knock one of these guitars out of tune, especially after I'd read a couple of forum posts about them staying 'perfectly in tune' even after heavy dive-bombing :-S

My first question is, is it simply that those guitars I tried needed setting up 'better'? Or is it that the locking nut/zero point trem system really cannot take heavy tremolo playing? - I accept that if you whack the trem for hours something will go out of tune but is it really normal to go out after saying 3 dive-bombs (+ wobbles)?

My second question is, I noticed the S520 doesn't have the spring tension wheel on the back.  What's the benefit of having the wheel like on the S420 and given the choice of S420 with the  wheel and S520 without, what would people go for?

Thanks!

Michael 

ThePrettyDamned

The strings were presumably brand new? They need to be stretched in. Once that's done, they will be fine. You would need to take it to a knowledgeable tech to set it up properly, too.

Niallmo

The trems will stay in tune. Likely the strings were not stretched properly. I have an Edge Zero II on my RG 350 and it's excellent. Physics does play a part but the salesman is clearly not quite educated enough on the main reason that trems go out of tune.

maltingsaudio

once the strings have stretched in on a double locker you should be able to do what you want with it and it will stay in tune.Strings reach  a point when they just won't stretch any more. So at this point there are two things which can happen the string either breaks or something else takes up the elasticity the strings have lost ie the springs on the trem. Sounds like a set up problem to me assuming all hardware is how it should be.

With regards to your second point the less you can fiddle with when the guitar  is not on the bench the better

m_cheung

ThePrettyDamned said:

The strings were presumably brand new? They need to be stretched in. Once that's done, they will be fine. You would need to take it to a knowledgeable tech to set it up properly, too.

Niallmo said:

The trems will stay in tune. Likely the strings were not stretched properly. I have an Edge Zero II on my RG 350 and it's excellent. Physics does play a part but the salesman is clearly not quite educated enough on the main reason that trems go out of tune.

You know, I was wondering if they had simply not stretched in new strings but 

1. the strings weren't new - no shimmer or zing to them...
2. the sales person actually said "we spent twice as long setting up these guitars because of the locking nuts and zero point trems" 

but then again, I didn't actually see them setting them up, haha

sweepy

I smell Bullshit Shop Monkey talk tbh  I despair at the average level of knowledge of music shop staff. but on the flip side, would you bust a gut for minimum wage and low job security ?

m_cheung

maltingsaudio said:

With regards to your second point the less you can fiddle with when the guitar  is not on the bench the better

Okay cool, I'm leaning towards this philosophy :-)

At the same time though, how does the spring mechanism differ between the s420 and s520 - I'm assuming here that the wheel means something different is happening inside (or not...) ?

ThePrettyDamned

sweepy;237272" said:

I smell Bullshit Shop Monkey talk tbh  I despair at the average level of knowledge of music shop staff. but on the flip side, would you bust a gut for minimum wage and low job security ?

Wisdom here.

And they are strings on a Chinese or Indonesian guitar. Cheap and nasty, and old - that doesn't mean stretched in the only way to do it is to get quality strings on it, set it up properly (twice as long, bull - I bet it was fresh from a box).

Locked in, it won't go out of tune unless the trems were faulty in some way, which I really do doubt.

m_cheung

sweepy said:

I smell Bullshit Shop Monkey talk tbh  I despair at the average level of knowledge of music shop staff. but on the flip side, would you bust a gut for minimum wage and low job security ?

Haha, to be fair they said they were 'learning', and I do admire their 'think on your feet' attitude, haha

Richardj

The older models have the ZR trem system and the new ones have the Edge as used on the RGs so it is a completely different setup. I am personally a big fan of the ZR and once it is set up properly it is totally stable. Actually not hard to do with a little practice.

m_cheung

ThePrettyDamned said:

sweepy;237272" said:

I smell Bullshit Shop Monkey talk tbh  I despair at the average level of knowledge of music shop staff. but on the flip side, would you bust a gut for minimum wage and low job security ?

Wisdom here.

And they are strings on a Chinese or Indonesian guitar. Cheap and nasty, and old - that doesn't mean stretched in the only way to do it is to get quality strings on it, set it up properly (twice as long, bull - I bet it was fresh from a box).

Locked in, it won't go out of tune unless the trems were faulty in some way, which I really do doubt.

Okay, thanks for instilling confidence in me that it was simply poor set up - will be visiting couple more shops at the weekend and have another play, hopefully correctly set up

m_cheung

Richardj said:

The older models have the ZR trem system and the new ones have the Edge as used on the RGs so it is a completely different setup. I am personally a big fan of the ZR and once it is set up properly it is totally stable. Actually not hard to do with a little practice.

Okay cool - what do you prefer about the ZR and what is it about the Edge that you don't like?  Am I right in thinking the S420 has ZR and S520 has Edge - sounds terrible but I couldn't tell any difference between them!

sweepy

I do a lot of the work for my local shop in Banbury and all they do is take it out of the box, usually give it to the Saturday lad to tune, perhaps polish it and thats all . I doubt many other shops do anything differently especially after trying out even some mid to top end guitars in the larger chains Guitar Guitar PMT etc

m_cheung

sweepy said:

I do a lot of the work for my local shop in Banbury and all they do is take it out of the box, usually give it to the Saturday lad to tune, perhaps polish it and thats all . I doubt many other shops do anything differently especially after trying out even some mid to top end guitars in the larger chains Guitar Guitar PMT etc

Okay interesting, good to get an insiders perspective

mike_l

As has been said, once the strings are stretchedany locking trem system should hold tuning.

FWIW I have locking trems on 4 guitars, I know I can pick any of them up and they will be in tune (within a couple of cents)......

Some of the cheap Ibanez trems wear out the knife-edges quite quickly, but I doubt they'd be an issue on a guitar in a shop......

sweepy

I agree on the knife edges on some Ibanez terms, iirc there was a bad batch of Jems and Prestiges  that needed replacement knife edges as they had the habit of "binding"

Richardj

That is the beauty of the ZR system. It runs on roller bearings and is super smooth.  It doesn't have exactly the same sound as the Edges but as said I personally like it.  I can get some almost Bigbsy-esque wobbling on it as well as the mad stuff.

racefaceec90

i have an s 420 ibanez and can vouch that it does stay in tune (i don't use the whammy much though tbh).i also like the fact as said above that there is no knife edge point to wear out.

haven't tried an s520 so cannot comment on the difference,but the wheel does make things easier when you want to adjust the tension.

tbh mine needs to be set up properly as i bought it mail order from anderton's,but it is a great guitar.

notonlybutalso

I had a 520 with the zero point bearing trem and I never had trouble at all. Extremely stable and smooth movement, hardly ever out of tune even after giving it some serious work and it was a doddle to change strings and set up in no time at all. As for the wheel it's just a really handy way of adjusting the spring tension without faffing on with the back plate. Not crucial just useful

m_cheung

mike_l said:

As has been said, once the strings are stretchedany locking trem system should hold tuning.

FWIW I have locking trems on 4 guitars, I know I can pick any of them up and they will be in tune (within a couple of cents)......

Some of the cheap Ibanez trems wear out the knife-edges quite quickly, but I doubt they'd be an issue on a guitar in a shop......

Richardj said:

That is the beauty of the ZR system. It runs on roller bearings and is super smooth.  It doesn't have exactly the same sound as the Edges but as said I personally like it.  I can get some almost Bigbsy-esque wobbling on it as well as the mad stuff.

racefaceec90 said:

i have an s 420 ibanez and can vouch that it does stay in tune (i don't use the whammy much though tbh).i also like the fact as said above that there is no knife edge point to wear out.

haven't tried an s520 so cannot comment on the difference,but the wheel does make things easier when you want to adjust the tension.

tbh mine needs to be set up properly as i bought it mail order from anderton's,but it is a great guitar.

notonlybutalso said:

I had a 520 with the zero point bearing trem and I never had trouble at all. Extremely stable and smooth movement, hardly ever out of tune even after giving it some serious work and it was a doddle to change strings and set up in no time at all. As for the wheel it's just a really handy way of adjusting the spring tension without faffing on with the back plate. Not crucial just useful

Thanks for all these comments, and shedding light on the knife edges and spring tension. 

It seems it must simply have been a case of poorly setup guitars... I was quite downtrodden when the tuning went out as both were exactly what I'd been looking for, great sound great feel, but now I can rest assured that the tuning will lock properly, whichever i go for, thanks everyone! 

If anyone has any comments on whether to go for the s420 and s520 I'd welcome those! 

Thanks! 

M

mike_l

m_cheung said:

If anyone has any comments on whether to go for the s420 and s520 I'd welcome those! 

Thanks! 

M

Which one plays/sounds/looks best to you?

That's the one to go for.