Quantcast Ryan's Guitars: JP Saddle Replacement

Monday, November 28, 2005

JP Saddle Replacement

Well, friends.... I replaced the saddles on my EBMM John Petrucci model guitar today with Graphtechs in the hopes that they would improve the stability issue I have been having with the tremolo. But, unfortunately, this did not work like I anticipated.

The Graphtech saddles are better than the ones that come stock on the JP, both tonally and performance-wise... but I have discovered that my problem is at the nut... just as I first suspected. No matter what I do to the nut (lube, burnishing, yelling at it, etc.) the strings still want to bind in the nut slot when using the trem (but only when using the trem). The main offenders are the G, B, high E and low E strings. The A and D stay perfectly in tune, and the low E just barely goes out, but not as much as the treble strings. This tells me that if part of the nut is working and another part is not, it has to be the nut slots and not the tremolo mechanism itself. If it were the mechanism then all the strings would go out, not just a few.

Oh well, now I have to decide what to do. I have a couple of choices. I can send it back to Ernie Ball only to have them open the box, pack it back up and send it right back to me having touched nothing. ;) Or... I could get a new nut put on it by a local luthier. I am leaning toward the second option, even though it will certainly void my warranty.

Pretty disappointing, but I think there is a way to solve this. I'm pretty sure a new nut will do the trick. I'll keep you posted.

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