Washburn

All things guitar, Les Pauls, Strats, Teles, Tokai, Ibanez etc. etc. etc.

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Rog
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Washburn

Post by Rog »

The other guitarist in one of my bands broke his Jackson and bought a Washburn to replace it. I've never been much of a fan of Washburns - I consider them (rightly or wrongly) as a fairly lightweight guitar for the country music scene.

I don't know his model, but it was a SSH config.

I noticed when he was playing that it had a rather more mellow tone than his Jackson, but the tonal range seemed faily limited, which surprised me considering the pup configuration.

I had a short play on it and was surprised by the neck, It was wide and not very thick - almost flat fingerboard, much like a few of the Ibanez's I've played. Was fitted with the factory 9s and with the wide neck and light strings completely invited much string bending, even with chords.

Quite a light guitar to wear - certainly much lighter than my Strat. Came with a nice HSC. I can't discuss the trem, since I don't use trem and have my strat locked into hard-tail all the time, so I didn't even try his.

Overall, I thought it was an easy guitar to play, although the dots were not in Fender style - easy to confuse old farts that way - limited range of tones - but a good meat and potatoes gat.

He spent about 3/4 of an hour during the night trying to keep it in tune - typical in my experience for guitars with the fine tuning at the bridge and that smegging stupid allen key bar lock at the nut. Man, I loathe that configuration. My son's Ibanez has it too. Why do I loathe it? Very simply beacause whenever I've played with a guitarist using one, they've had to constantly fiddle with their tuning and when one breaks a string, it takes about 9 hours to change a string.

Apart from that - an OK guitar, nothing special, but under $600 new.
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Post by darkness »

both my guitars are washburns (just by chance, not specifically because I was looking for one).

I'm sure there are better guitars out there but I think they are pretty good. The acoustic has a beautiful sound and it's quite loud too.

The electric is pretty good too. It actually stays in tune pretty well. but yea if a string broke all the other would go out of whack because of the floyd rose. I've got a HSH pickup setup though. and the fretboard/neck seems to be on the medium size.
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Re: Washburn

Post by Bluesbird »

Rog wrote:The other guitarist in one of my bands broke his Jackson and bought a Washburn to replace it. I've never been much of a fan of Washburns - I consider them (rightly or wrongly) as a fairly lightweight guitar for the country music scene.
As opposed to Jackson? :lol: Does that make them a heavyweight of the country music scene? :wink:
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Re: Washburn

Post by Tsuken »

Rog wrote:He spent about 3/4 of an hour during the night trying to keep it in tune - typical in my experience for guitars with the fine tuning at the bridge and that smegging stupid allen key bar lock at the nut. Man, I loathe that configuration. My son's Ibanez has it too. Why do I loathe it? Very simply beacause whenever I've played with a guitarist using one, they've had to constantly fiddle with their tuning and when one breaks a string, it takes about 9 hours to change a string.
This of course is one of the reasons I love the trem on my s470. It's a full-on locking trem (yes, with locking nut and fine tuners at the bridge ;) ), but it's extremely easy to tune, and if you break a string (unless it's a low E, A, or D) you can just carry on playing - at least until you finish the song - as it doesn't go that far out of tune. Changing the string is real quick - and it's easy to get back in tune. 8)

Anyway, back to Washburn ;) As Darkness said, both his Washburns are really nice - especially for the money he paid for the electric. 8) Personally I never actually found even normal Floyds to be a pain; I never had a problem with tuning, and the stability of the tuning with whammy use is brilliant - or should be unless it's buggered/set up badly. (So I'm puzzled your guitarist had to spend that much time keeping it in tune.)

The neck on darkness' guitar has a very flat radius as you describe; but I would say it's thicker than say the Wizard II on my Ibanez (- a little too thick for my tastes in fact :P ).
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Post by ash »

There's a big difference between the ZR1 trem on an S470 and any other Floyd style unit. I really don't know whythey don't put the ZR1 on ALL Ibanez guitars... They don't cost any more than the Edge-Pro variants, but are waaaay better.

Static tuning instability on a FR often means the pivot edges are poked.

Washburns are fairly good value units. Not too crap, not too flash, not too pricey. The Washburn name was around over a century ago in Chicago or thereabouts as a budget banjo brand for the Lyon & Healey empire (harp builders), which eventually succumbed to the CBS buying spree that also sucked up Fender.

Washburn they're all made in one of the factories Ibanez also uses.... could be Samick, Korea I think. Most need decent pickups first and then a better quality bridge/nut to be at their best.
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Post by Rog »

To be fair on the tuning side - this guitarist spends most of the night fiddling with his tuning on most guitars I've seen him play, with two exceptions - an Ibanez SG double neck 6/12 and my Strat.

He's also a Marshall user - so he's constantly fiddling with his amp as well. I guess, in fairness, he just seems to be one of these guys who constantly wants to get his tone, but doesn't know what he's looking for. The closest he's come to finding that elusive tone is with his Fender Princeton Stereo Chorus in the front, then looped out of the preamp into his Marshall. That way he gets the tone shaping he likes, with the Marshall power he likes. It gives me amusement... I plug in, turn on, set my volume for the night and just play...
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Post by Tsuken »

ash wrote:There's a big difference between the ZR1 trem on an S470 and any other Floyd style unit. I really don't know whythey don't put the ZR1 on ALL Ibanez guitars... They don't cost any more than the Edge-Pro variants, but are waaaay better.
Absolutely, but I've played standard strat bridges, standard Floyd, and Jackson version of a Floyd as well as ZR on my Ibanez. I had the most tuning problems with the standard strat-style one - unless I didn't even breathe on the bar :roll: The last time I restrung my Samick strat (before I pulled the plywood p.o.s. to bits :P ) - with the Jackson Floyd fully floating - I did it completely by ear, and it took probably less than 5 minutes (that's including actually putting the strings on). If you know how to treat a Floyd, they treat you well in return. 8)
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Post by TMG 03 »

Those locking/ floating trem setups are just to much hassle. I had a Jackson with one that It did my head in so I gave it away. You could never really do a live gig with one as if a string snapped you would never get it re strung in time.

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Post by JamesW »

One of our guitarists at rockquest last year broke a string with a whammy bar on. Wouldn't have a clue what sort of bridge it was but the rest of us ended up standing up on stage for about 15 minutes while the tech guy tried to tune it. He ended up borrowing someone elses guitar to play. Ahhh... brings back memories...

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Post by angry_young_poet »

that's why locking tuners are god-sent.. a string can be replaced in under a minute!

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Post by Tsuken »

I still maintain that sort of thing is user error ;) I've never had any major problems with floyds 8)
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Post by B45-12 »

Going on from Rog's point, does anybody find their 'sensitivity' to tuning varies quite a bit depending on tiredness etc. Sometimes I find that the most tiny error on say the g string of a 6 string or in the b pairs of a twelve string drives me nuts, othertimes no worries. Surprising (and humbling) sometimes to check after a playing session with a tuner and find out just how far 'out' you are despite constantly checking tuning between songs/pieces.
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Post by Bg »

I had a couple of floyd rose's, never had a serious problem. Snap a string anyway and you're looking at 5 mins with sweaty fingers. Thats why you have a backup (or in TMG's case, 4 backups....)
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Post by Rog »

I've never broken a guitar string on stage and the last bass string I broke at a gig was in the '70s. Although last year I did blow out a reed on a harp..
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Post by Bg »

Rog wrote:I've never broken a guitar string on stage and the last bass string I broke at a gig was in the '70s. Although last year I did blow out a reed on a harp..
oh you've gone and done it now ha ha ha...
So, is that low alcohol or no alcohol at all? mmmm, no alcohol, do you want to try it? Noooooooooo.

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