Bit disappointed in my Tribute ASAT Special

Hello everyone,
I'm very new to the forums and guitar world in general. My second (and only atm) guitar is a Tribute ASAT Special. I really love it, I do, but in the past month I've been having so many issues with it that I bring it in to get looked at every other week. I'll try to be brief.

(1) I bought the guitar in the end of August, got it set up right away. Come October, the neck has moved substantially, so I had to get a resetup. According to my luthier, it was still getting used to the climate here in CA, but he did note that he noticed the neck moving the day after he set it up.
(2) Within a week of getting it back, a screw fell out from the bridge. Luthier fixed it, gave me a key so I can adjust it every now and then in case it becomes loose.
(3) Just last night, I was going to plug it into my amp when the output jack fell out. I panicked for a bit because I really did not want to bring it back into the shop again until I realized I have different screwdrivers at home and could probably fix it. I did in the end and it seems to be okay now.

Now please understand that I'm very new to the hobby and I don't know any better. I'm afraid the guitar might break again. Within one month it managed to give me three scares and that's not good. I have been toying with the idea of getting a US G&L, one that I could keep and cherish for a long time, but my guitar is giving me second thoughts. I know it's unfair to compare QC in Indonesia to one here, but still, I need a reliable guitar that I can enjoy playing during my downtime and not have to part with it every other week waiting for it to get fixed.

I really love my Special, which is why I've been wanting to get a Bluesboy or a Deluxe, but now I'm having second thoughts and asking myself whether I should just get a 15 LP Studio. It sucks because I'm a girl with tiny hands and a LP weighs about 10% of my body mass, the neck is huge and uncomfortable to grip. I also live in a landlocked area where I can't travel any G&L dealer to play with the guitars.

I'm not sure why I'm posting this, tbh. Looking for re-assurance, most likely, from this extremely nice and wise community.
- Cider

The general consensus is that the USA models have far superior build quality. That said, it could be that your guitar was not of the highest build quality. Or, the previous owner did not treat it very well.

You can find ASAT Specials on eBay. I got my Tribute Bluesboy and a Godin LG HMB on eBay for $425 and $270, respectively. I'm quite happy with both. I had trouble keeping the Bluesboy in tune for a while and thought I might have intonation problems. I bought the TC Electronics Polytune to attempt to intonate the guitar myself, but once I used the tuner to get the guitar in tune, it turns out that the intonation is OK.

Did you buy the guitar new?

In your situation, I would ask my guitar tech to give the guitar a thorough going-over and use his evaluation to decide whether to sell the guitar and get a different one, or spend less money to fix the problems he finds.

HTH,

Mike

That's the million dollar question. Did you buy it new? If so, immediately contact G&L for warranty repair.

Agreed. If you bought it new, the neck should be addressed under warranty. I have a Trib Special (the one in my avatar) and have not had these issues. Keep in mind, any guitar requires tinkering from time to time. Get familiar with the adjustments on yours and find out what size screwdrivers, etc. you need to keep it in good shape... It will save you a few trips to the repair shop but you shouldn't have severe neck problems. If your weather changes drastically, it will cause problems, especially if the humidity drops to negligible and you cranked up the heat in your house.

Hope you get your problems taken care of and I wouldn't let it deter me from getting a USA G&L.

Hi all, thank you for the follow up questions. I bought the guitar from a Premier G&L dealer on Reverb and it's supposed to come with full manufacturer's warranty. The guitar wasn't listed as "New" but "Excellent". it came with the box and all tags.

The thing about sending it back for warranty is that it's going to take so long and it's my only guitar. My luthier charges a premium for a setup, but he will tweak it for as much as I want within a year. The problem is that I'm not sure if it's worth holding onto or if I should get rid of it and move on to something more reliable

Oh, today I found yet another problem: When playing unplugged, the 2nd and 3rd string on the 8th and 9th fret would hiss - not sure if it's the correct description :/

Does the "hiss" ("buzz"?) appear when amplified? It can be caused by a very marginally over-low action or over-straight neck adjustment, on any instrument. A surprisingly small change may be all that's needed. But you may simply find that you play less forcefully when amplified, and it isn't actually a problem.

If you love the guitar, I think you're already 80% of the way to happiness. If you love to play it, and how it responds to you, you have found a partner. And that being so, I really do doubt that a Les Paul of any year will be anything remotely similar, and least of all a 2015 one.

I'm not convinced that the neck movement you describe is anything to worry about long-term, or even pretty soon.
I find that new or new-ish guitars almost always need "bringing up in good habits" with regard to neck adjustments, a need which diminishes as they mature, and also that some movement soon after an adjustment is normal too; I don't feel I've really done a truss adjustment until it's still right 4 or 5 days later. This applies to guitars of any price tag.

The "saddle-lock" bridge on the Special is a great design. It is ideally adjustable, comfortable (unlike the great majority of others) and sounds extremely good too owing to its solidity and great coupling with the body wood.
But it can have the issue that you describe, most often for the common reason of folk believing that bridge saddles should be adjusted in an ARC to match the fingerboard radius.
Their HEIGHTS must of course be adjusted so that the strings heights match the fingerboard, but the individual saddles shouldn't be ANGLED. They should just be STEPPED, if I'm making sense. There is absolutely no sonic or playability benefit in angling them. When the grub-screw at the side of the bridge casting is tightened after setting up the saddles (only needs to be gently done, by the way) angled saddles will be pushed into an increased arch, and the higher screws will be lifted clear of the base casting. This will defeat the object of the design, and the screws can vibrate out, as yours did. Small dab of a low-strength form of Loctite can be good too.

I see in your tea-leaves some allen keys, some enquiry and patience, and perhaps some discovery of the lower-strength grades of thread-locking compound suitable for guitar parts, and with surprisingly little difficulty you will have become a self-sufficient and wisely-adjusting electric guitarist.

Any queries, do ask around here, lots of good heads at G&LDP. I would write more except it's getting late here in UK!

Don't panic. But I would of course agree that no-one should continue to pour a lot of money into setups. You want either a solid result or else some solid advice from the luthier / tech that's taking the payments.

The loose jack socket is unfortunate, but doesn't indicate a generally bad instrument. Once fixed properly, it will almost certainly stay fixed for decades, and it can happen on Gibsons etc too....

Quite where you stand re warranty, if the guitar wasn't bought new, I'm not sure.

(edited for a couple of afterthoughts)

hey, cider. you've had alot of good advice here on the forum. IMO, these trib asat specials are quality guitars that are built well from high quality materials, and perform well. as with any guitar, they require a little maintenance, tightening of some screws and periodic adjustment of the truss rod, some basic guitar maintenance we all need to live through and learn. we get better at it as we go. search the knowledge base on this forum and you will learn alot, and don't be afraid to ask Q's.

Oh, today I found yet another problem: When playing unplugged, the 2nd and 3rd string on the 8th and 9th fret would hiss - not sure if it's the correct description :/

Did you change your strings to 10-52 like you said in another thread? If so, did you need to cut the nut, and, if so, did you cut it yourself?

Not to be Mr Negative here, but it sounds to me like your doing a fair amount of fiddling with the guitar before getting used to playing it. If you've only been playing a couple of months how can you know the difference between playing .09s, .010s, or .011s? Unless you're a really quick study, you're better off sticking with the guage that came on the guitar until you have a good reason to change.

Also, is your "luthier" a luthier, or a guitar tech at the local music shop. Different beasts. Some guitar techs are very skilled and others aren't. Talk is cheap at the old music shop.

Unfortunately, electric guitars are like old cars. They need maintenance. They also need the right parts and adjustments to makes them go properly. You might want to invest in one of Dan Earlewine's guitar repair books before your continue fiddling with whatever guitar you end up with:

http://www.danerlewine.com/guitar_repair_books.html

Just play the damn thing!

--GDub