Ben Elder
From:
La Crescenta, California, USA
|
Posted 28 Dec 2010 2:12 pm |
|
Both were designed by Zane Beck (who previously worked for Sho-Bud in the early days), but you'd never guess it to look at their undercarriages side-by-side. ZBs are complex, dense and tricky to work on, but all in service of a tone that many of us consider unsurpassed. BMIs are amazing in their minimalist simplicity, have a completely different scheme of construction and sound just fine. BMIs usually sell for a lot less than they deserve to and are an affordable fully professional alternative to a student guitar.
ZBs have rods with turnbuckle couplers and some rods are actually curved to work around other undercarriage hardware. ZBs also employ yokes that allow pulls on separate strings to start and end together. All the engineering, as one who's been frustrated to the point of screaming exasperation by it, is ingenious in its complexity. The downside is that ZBs require Full Wizard Certification to get them working smoothly and positively. ZB-FWC Forumites include Kevin Hatton, B. Greg Jones, Billy Knowles, Tom Bradshaw (and from personal experience) Jim Palenscar. (Any corrections or additions they might make to the foregoing are to be taken as carved-in-granite gospel.)
_________________
"Gopher, Everett?" |
|
