Monday's S

Lots of things on my mind, bills, health, extended unemployment... But there's always time to just leave everything aside & play guitar. Today, the S570B is the guitar of choice. That's right; strong urge to hear the Seymour Duncan in action. Was on the bridge position mostly & just enjoyed hearing what the TB-5 could do with lots of distortion on tap. Hope your Monday had started well. Have a good week ahead, everyone.

Indoors

Had been indoors for the last couple of days. Not really in a festive mood, not when I'm in this situation bogged down by uncertainty. The best discourse - play guitar. Had been playing my S-Series a lot lately because these are my fav Ibanez. The RGs are necessary distractions. The thing with the S-Series is, they don't have too many models out since Ibanez-dom is still revolving around the RG. Of late, the AZ models are taking centre stage but I always return to my S-es. Neither of these guitars feature stock pickups. The S1620 has a pair of covered Distortions. The bridge model (TB) is a special order through Davis GMC. The S570B has a Custom / Quarter Pound / Jazz lineup. I prefer Seymour Duncans in my Ibanez & that's not gonna change soon.

Thank you folks, for your kind contributions. If you wish to make some donations to somewhat cure my December deficit, please refer to the QR code on the left shoulder of this page. This won't be a permanent feature, it will disappear next week. In the mean time, let's get ready to welcome the long weekend.

Re-string Sunday

Wanted to go for an early morning walk but it poured, breakfast was indoors as well. Gave my S570B a re-string. Had not been playing this one for a while because I'm not really into 24-fretted S-Series any more; these just turn me off. This one, I  kept because it sounded awesome after the pickups swap: Seymour Duncan Jazz / QP Staggered / Custom. Also, bought Curt Mangan strings to re-live the moments. Not returning to this brand due to the price increase. 

The Custom is an interesting pickup, it's a ceramic magnet pickup but voiced to be medium output with a generous treble serving. Despite being scooped-sounding, I don't hear much of this through the amp. That's why we need to hear pickups in action as opposed to relying on the manufacturer's EQ spec. 

Pic: SD

Singles attack

Had been spending time with these two for the last few days or so. Why? Single focus + Seymour Duncan tone. Both guitars sport only one pickup to give maximum attention to playing. Also, I like to hear these pickups in action when aggressive music is the order of the day - JB (blue) / Custom Custom (copper). Coincidentally, these two represent a re-finish adventure that turned out real well. For both guitars, the bodies were originally white. Whatever the distractions, I still return to my preferred Seymour Duncan tone.

Project subtraction (5): Mission accomplished

Here it is, if it's ever in real production, it'll be called the S510. Thank you Master Beez for the final touches today. Some appraisal to come, stay tuned :-)

Project subtraction (3)

This plank of wood serves as a filler/ insert provider. Of course, there is a need to saw the correct bits sizes. I've not used my hand saw for a long time but it's still good as ever.

The first bit were pasted here to block the 5-way selector slot.

This is how it looks like in front. The purpose of this is the provision of a base to hold the wood filler.

The S570 neck pickup pocket has a missing cavity wall since Ibanez revised the S-Series to hold a 24-fret neck. I plugged it with wooden pieces & the excess depth filled up with wood filler.

This is how it looks like with both cavities filled up. It need not be a neat job, the re-finish process will see the surface leveled & buffered. So everything looks good & on schedule :-)

Project subtraction

Well this is an Ibanez S570 body. It was an Ibanez S570 body, now that it's stripped off its hardware & electronics, it's not one any more.

OK, you'd say it's still an S570 body due to its pickup cavities & stuff like that but hey, would there be the same number of cavities left once this make-over is done? :-)

SOLD: Ibanez S570B (not mine...)

If you fancy this Ibanez S570B, it's going for a superb price of $450. Guitar features a DiMarzio Tone Zone (bridge) & Breed (neck). Please contact Mr. Fabian: 82-82-239-0

Guitar SOLD 16-12-12. thanks!

Duncans in S570

Goodbye- The Infinity pickups in my Ibanez S570B had their last performance early yesterday morning... They are decent pickups but they do not manifest my preferred voicings for distortion. I prefer more bass in the bridge humbucker.

In with the new:

• Neck: Duncan Jazz
• Mid: Duncan Quarter Pound (Staggered)
• Bridge: Duncan Custom

Duncan single coils come with default Strat-type mounting screws so they are oversized for the Ibanez cavity. I had to used the original Ibanez screws for it. Manufacturers should consider providing 2 sets of screws in the package because not everyone buys single coils for Strats- we have other guitars, don't we? Thanks Beez for the speedy job!

The psychology of playing different (neck profiles)

I'm supposed to re-string the above guitars but I ended up playing instead, I guess the re-stringing will happen later.

It's definitely a positive move to own more than one guitar with all intentions to help you play better off course (collection flaunting isn't the primary concern). I started off with the Ibanez S570B & played for about 20min then moving on to the Fender (American Special) Strat. There is more than a change of tonal responses here, it's the change in feel & playability that helped me pay attention to fretting technicalities. The different neck profiles somehow forced me to adapt to playing the same thing but with a different tool. Some of us are bothered by this, we have a singular preference, we stick to the instruments that work & allow very little room for variation. But I believe we learn more by adapting to changes.
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PS: NOT going to Swee Lee sale.

Ibanez S570B: (Slight) Set up

I was rather fortunate to have acquired this particular Ibanez S570B as it manifested one of the best QC from the Indonesian plant. The neck was ramrod straight so no adjustments were required but take a look at the bridge in the above pic- it's embedded too much into the cavity implying a very low action. To many of us, we equate very low action to shredding goodness- the lower the action so the more desirable it would be, yes? But that's not the case if it impedes movements, especially so if it affects your (individual) playability.

So the objective here was to raise the action to suit my playing comfort, first up would be the unlocking of the top-lock (nut) device. Many of us tend to overlook the (bridge) fine tuners before we do this, we should level the tuners prior to unlocking the nut because we need a 'neutral' positional reference when we next fine-tune our instruments. Raise/ lower the tuners to a mid-point position, this way we get equal travel to compensate the need to sharpen/ flatten tuning after we lock the nut. 

After tuning, do check your bridge alignment (side view) to see if it's sitting parallel to the body's top surface; in my case, it wasn't. The springs-strings required a balancing act & I couldn't be more grateful to Ibanez for this exposed feature- it provided easy access to the thumb-wheel adjuster. 

And there we have it, a raised action (but still low) & a leveled bridge alignment. Since it was a slight adjustment (magnified by the big photos here) the intonation stayed true so no adjustments necessary there. Great guitar this S570B.

Ibanez: S570B

Got this Ibanez S570B from the Swee Lee sale (BB branch) which happened yesterday. It wasn't my initial target but it's a lovely compromise. It needs a little set up, though. This will be done soon, I see some spare time come National Day.

My other S-series:

• S540LTD
• S1620
• S420