MIJ Love Rock (2001) Tailpiece material??

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Dominik

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Hi there,

I think about upgrading the Stop-Tailpiece on my 2001 MIJ Love Rock with the Gotoh Aluminium Vintage one. Does anybody know, if the Stop-Tailpiece that is installed in the factory is steel or aluminium??

Any insight is highly appreciated.

Cheers,

Dominik
 
It's the standard heavy tailpiece - steel, zinc, whatever.

Gotoh make an aluminium tailpiece sold through allparts for a very reasonable price; a sensible match, given that tokai's entire hardware complement is gotoh.
 
Hi Paladin2019,

thanks for your answer.

I guess I will order the Gotoh aluminium Tailpiece from StewMac then.

I am awaiting the arrival of some brass saddles for the Tune-o-matic and am curious as to what a difference in sound it will make.

The best improvement yet was a new bone-nut from a local luthier and the David Barfuss PAFs.

Cheers,

Dominik
 
Hi Dominik!

I've got a Stewmac/Gotoh Alu nickel TP waiting to be installed. You won't beat it for price, and it looks to be fairly true to the originals (the top profile being quite angled so that it could be used as a non-compensated 1-piece bridge/tailpiece)

If you're interested, I weighed the parts...

Bar = 28 grams
Insert = 9 grams each
Post = 16 grams each

It seems to be the lightest stop bar of the ones I've seen mentioned (Gibson Historic, 50s, Pigtail, RS Guitarworks)

Best wishes,
Ian
 
Hi there,

so I finally ordered a Gotoh Vintage style Alu Tailpiece from Stew-Mac. It arrived three days later and it is really light-weight.

I removed the old Gotoh Tailpiece from my Love Rock and installed the new Alu-type. The sound is a bit warmer and sustain seems to be a tad longer.

Definitely worth the money!

Cheers,

Dominik
 
That's the question Arthur,is worth enough spending certain amount of money in certain hardware or not?I can name Tonepros,Callaham,Vintique,etc...Suggestion or not?
 
Hey guys,

as far as new hardware goes, I guess you can hear the difference. But you have to know what to listen for. The guitar seems to "breath" a bit more.

I installed some brass saddles on my Tele MIM classic a couple of months ago and this really helped the sound. More meat.

I gues new PUs will make the most dramatical change. My Fillmores by David Barfuss made a tremendous difference. Next in the list is the nut. After having my luthier install a bone nut ( the original is bone as well) that was correctly shaped, the Love Rock was sounding stronger and playability improved.

Then there are cosmetical or haptic changes, like installing a bell-shape truss-rod-cover and some Speedo-knobs.

Electrically wise, I think that the 50s wiring made for a vast improvment as well. While doing that, I installed some Polypropylene caps which made the sound more balanced. One weak point is the taper of the original Tokai pots. I have played some other LPs and swells are nicer on them. So I might swap the pots as well in the future.

My 2 Euro-cents worth,

Dominik
 
ArthurS said:
Does the sound really improve when plugged-in, too, or is it just audible when the guitar is played acoustically?

It's most noticeable unplugged, but you can hear a difference clean or at low gain.

I have the Tonepros stuff. It made the guitar ever so slightly brighter and gave an improvement in clarity but nothing dramatic. Its main strengths are technical.
 

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