New guitar!

Hi there!

It's time for my first real post. I bought myself a used guitar a couple of weeks ago. It was actually a Christmas gift from my mother in law, but she does not know it yet :-).

It is a B.C Rich Mockingbird Pro X. The case is not standard BC-case, it is a home built/modified case made by the last owner. Looks really cool, almost like a vampire coffin :-). Nice job!! The locking feels kind of weak though so they have to be tested before I dare to wonder about with this babe!

Here are some facts about the guitar taken from the B.C Rich home page:


Mockingbird Pro X
Dark, sleek and sexy, this Mockingbird will drop jaws wherever you take it. A Shadow complexion contrasts with a gold Floyd Rose Original Series tremolo and Grover Super Rotomatic tuners. EMG 81 (bridge) and 60 (neck) pickups provide the voice while a 24 5/8 inch scale and 24 jumbo frets on any ebony fingerboard provide the touch.


CONSTRUCTION: Neck Through
BODY WOOD: Mahogany
TOP STYLE: Deep Arched
TOP WOOD: Available in Quilt, Solid and Burl
BODY BINDING: Aged Cream
HEADSTOCK STYLE: 3-to-a-Side Traditional
HEADSTOCK COLOR: Matching
HEADSTOCK BINDING: Aged Cream
TUNERS: Grover Super Rotomatics
NECK WOOD: Mahogany
NECK BINDING: Aged Cream
FRETBOARD: Ebony
INLAY: Diamond
FRETS: 24 jumbo
FACTORY STRINGS: D'Addario EXL120 (.009-.042)
SCALE: 24 5/8
BRIDGE TYPE: Floyd Rose ® Original Series Tremolo
PICKUPS: EMG 81 Bridge / 60 Neck
CONTROLS: 2 volume, 2 tone, 1 three way toggle
Click to see control diagram
HARDWARE: Gold

I was told that the guitar was tuned down to D and that the intonation had been adjusted by a music store. But the first discovery that I made, after I discovered it's beauty of cause, was that the neck had no relief at all when tuned to pitch at D!! How is that possible? Either no music store had been involved in the setup of this guitar or the personnel at the music store did not really do their job. I'm not surprised really. Ever since I  started to bother about the setup of my guitars I realized a couple of things: 

1. Few people know how to do a good guitar setup
2. It's really not that hard to do a good setup yourself
3. A good setup of a guitar is very much dependent upon the guitar player's playing style and personal preferences

For me it did not mean that much that it was not setup right because I will change things on the guitar that forces me to redo the setup anyways. The changes I plan to do are:

1. Change strings and get it back to normal tuning. I will use this guitar in the band Fire in the Basement. We play 70's hard rock and we do it in normal tuning :-)
2. Increase the action. In the 80's and 90's I liked my guitars to have as low action as possible, but nowadays I find it much better to have slightly higher action. I don't like it when the string above creeps in under my fingers when I do bends. I also imagine that it gets easier to play cleaner with higher action
3. Install a tremsetter. I started to use tremsetters in the 90's and I cannot play without them. Bending, unibending and double stops are all a big part of my playing style and I cannot get it right when the bridge gets pulled by the force of me bending the string and lowers all the other strings :-(

So now it's time to set it up! 

To be continued....

Rock on!