major factory defect on my new custom order.

Those of you who know me on here Might know that I have a bit of a history with bad luck. This one might really take the cake. I ordered a custom ASAT Bass, and I wrote another thread on here about how it was destroyed before being shipped out from a shipping accident. They had to make it again which they did promptly and I appreciate it. However, when it arrived not only did they completely neglect to install the single coil option, which means they use 2 conductor pickups rather than 4, and obviously I could not split the pickups. That would have been a relatively easy fix. I then took it home and gave it a basic setup and started to realize major playability issues. I inspected the neck and took a bunch of measurements and I realized a grave Factory defect on the low E side of the neck.

https://i.imgur.com/SUl87x8.png

*UPDATE* I redrew the lines to show more clearly what I mean. it's really subtle, and before it might have been unintentionally misleading. It's subtle but once you catch it you see the lump in the neck on the low E side. It's tiny but caused a catastrophic series of problems. I think the problem is mostly oversanding at the 21st fret but this lump is definitely there. it's subtle but it's there. Sorry about the poor quality pics.

I got the problem verified by my dealer and sent it back and, to their credit, g&l is going to make it right and get it to me soon as possible. It is already been close to 20 weeks since I place my order and it was very very expensive so needless to say the opportunity cost of sitting on that amount of wealth for that amount of time is starting to annoy me but I have tried to keep a good attitude about it and I have tried to be patient. It is still a first world problem after all. Anyway I just needed to vent about this little bit.

Last edited by neutralomen on Sat Jan 20, 2018 6:28 pm, edited 4 times in total.

For those interested, the way I discovered it was, the heel of the neck, which should be more or less parallel to the body on the fretboard side, was lopsided. The low E side looked significantly lower to the naked eye.

Consequently, if I got a good measurement on the 12th fret, there was crazy string breakaway on the 21st fret. If I straightened the neck, the 21st fret was still disproportionally high and the whole neck was fretting out.

I think both the higher frets gradually sink down too low, possibly from being oversanded, or a measurement being off, or the lump in the middle. Could be one or the other. I'm not a guitar builder, but I know how to sight down a neck and use basic luthier measuring tools!

*sigh* I'm sorry. This has been a rough couple days.

Here's how it looked for the one day I had it. This bass has been my dream for about 8 years. This was the year I took the plunge so you can imagine my distress.

https://i.imgur.com/5n2tFxa.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/coU0RQF.jpg

Last edited by neutralomen on Sat Jan 20, 2018 6:48 pm, edited 4 times in total.

It's a beautiful Bass no doubt and I am sorry you have had such bad luck. I will point out one thing though, it's hard to see the defect from the pictures you posted. Can you post some more pics in focus pics to the forum?

Thanks, and sorry for your troubles (I had nothing to do with them),

Tom

It's a beautiful Bass no doubt and I am sorry you have had such bad luck. I will point out one thing though, it's hard to see the defect from the pictures you posted. Can you post some more pics in focus pics to the forum?

Thanks, and sorry for your troubles (I had nothing to do with them),

Tom

That was the best shot I could get with my camera and lighting. But if you look, I drew magenta lines along the fretboard in the first image. The low E side has a lump right in the middle of the neck. It's definitely not level. The high E side, however, is basically a perfect straight line, how it should look when you sight down a neck. This neck had .012-.014 relief at the time too, I had just measured it.

look at the magenta guide lines in the first image and you'll see. it's a big image so you may have to pan over to the right to see both images.

Last edited by neutralomen on Sat Jan 20, 2018 6:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It's a beautiful Bass no doubt and I am sorry you have had such bad luck. I will point out one thing though, it's hard to see the defect from the pictures you posted. Can you post some more pics in focus pics to the forum?

Thanks, and sorry for your troubles (I had nothing to do with them),

Tom

Once you see it, you'll REALLY see it.

It's a beautiful Bass no doubt and I am sorry you have had such bad luck. I will point out one thing though, it's hard to see the defect from the pictures you posted. Can you post some more pics in focus pics to the forum?

Thanks, and sorry for your troubles (I had nothing to do with them),

Tom

That was the best shot I could get with my camera and lighting. But if you look, I drew magenta lines along the fretboard in the first image. The low E side has a massive lump right in the middle of the neck. It's very clearly not level, and not even close to level. The high E side, however, is basically a perfect straight line, how it should look when you sight down a neck. This neck had .012-.014 relief at the time too, I had just measured it.

look at the magenta guide lines in the first image and you'll see. it's a big image so you may have to pan over to the right to see both images.

Your close up photos are so blurry they look like abstract art more than a guitar. As a photographer, I thought I would enjoy the challenge of figuring out the photos but eventually I gave up. Did you take those pics with a phone or a dedicated camera? Whatever you used, you should learn how to focus it on the exact spot that you want to be clear. The closer you are to a subject, the more important good focus becomes.

The last photo is very clear but your camera is too far away to demonstrate the problem very well. However, it does look like the action of the low E string becomes high at the body. Classical guitars are made that way because, with classical music, higher notes aren't played on the 6th string. I don't know about bass guitars.

Last edited by DugT on Sat Jan 20, 2018 7:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Your close up photos are so blurry they look like abstract art more than a guitar. As a photographer, I thought I would enjoy the challenge of figuring out the photos but eventually I gave up. Did you take those pics with a phone or a dedicated camera? Whatever you used, you should learn how to focus it on the exact spot that you want to be clear. The closer you are to a subject, the more important good focus becomes.

The last photo is very clear but your camera is too far away to demonstrate the problem very well. However, it does look like the action of the low E string become high at the body. Classical guitars are made that way because, with classical music, higher notes aren't played on the 6th string. I don't know about bass guitars.

Yes I know. The only way I could sight it with the phone was to hold it at the butt of the guitar and zoom in. I know the photo is blurry, but I added magenta guides along the fretboard to demonstrate that one side is straight and level, and the low E side is all mangled with a huge hump in the middle of the neck.

Action should always be a LITTLE higher at the 21st fret, it's just a matter of how guitars are made. However, the difference between the 12th and 21st fret should be 1/64th under normal relief situations.

So, if you have 6/64" at the 12th, it should be 7, no higher than 7.25/64" at the 21st. There is some room for variation, but on this instrument, when I got 6/64ths at the 12th fret, I got 8/64ths at the 21st, maybe even a bit more(with a relief between .012 and .014 feeler gauges. This is actually pretty damn straight so it's not a matter of too much relief). I originally thought it was because the 21st fret is sloped down from oversnading, which I still think it is, but it may be compounded by the lump in the neck, making fret 12 high, which makes the action at 21 too high.

These may seem like super minute measurements, but with a neck, they really matter because they cause systemic playability problems.

Hmm, I was not aware that the SCM option was available for the ASAT Bass. Did your dealer work a special option with the factory for that?

Here is what is listed on G&L's Bass Option page:

L-2000 / L-2500 Electronics Options
Single Coil Mode (SCM) for L-2000 and L-2500 only. 2-way Series/Parallel switch is replaced with a 3-way Series/Split/Parallel switch.
Pickups are specially made with individual coil leads to accomodoate.
ORDER CODE: SCM

Glad to hear that the dealer and G&L are taking care of this for you.

Hmm, I was not aware that the SCM option was available for the ASAT Bass. Did your dealer work a special option with the factory for that?

Here is what is listed on G&L's Bass Option page:

L-2000 / L-2500 Electronics Options
Single Coil Mode (SCM) for L-2000 and L-2500 only. 2-way Series/Parallel switch is replaced with a 3-way Series/Split/Parallel switch.
Pickups are specially made with individual coil leads to accomodoate.
ORDER CODE: SCM

Glad to hear that the dealer and G&L are taking care of this for you.

asat bass is an l-2000 with a different silhouette. it would mean literally no difference if they popped it in an l-2000 or this because it's literally the same guts.

I put the option on my order, I was charged for it, and nobody protested. When the news hit G&l that it wasn't installed, I was told someone dropped the ball over there. it was supposed to go in and it will. im not nearly as concerned with that as I am having a neck that's up to spec

I wasn't sure myself btw, whetehr or not they'd let me. I figured Id' order it and if there was a problem, they'd tell me no. Seemed like it was a reasonable enough request so they just rolled with it I guess.

For those interested, I made a visual to send to G&L along with my instrument to demonstrate the most prominent part of the defect. The small fret hump is very subtle in comparison. This image below points out the real problem, and it's a problem that can't be fixed without a neck replacement. I probably won't hear back about it until after Namm, but G&L has usually been pretty expedient.


https://i.imgur.com/CKdT4j7.png

correct me if i am wrong, but don't they call it a reversed curve?
i have this problem with a guitar neck (no G&L) where from the body to the 8 fret from the nut i get a soft relief and then towards the headstock i get a back-bow.
to my fortune it has a dual action rod and together with the lesson from Ron Kirn on TDPRI i have leveled the frets again where i hope to get everything playable.
(waiting for some nutshaping tools to do a good setup)
don't know what can cause this, but yours is the second guitar neck i see behave like this

I have a rick 4003 with a dual truss rod and in that case you can achieve "compound relief."

that's not what's going on here. g&l has a dual action rod, but still one rod. the high frets on the bass side are what simply appear to be a sloppy fretboard job or maybe some fret lift. that would be fixable theoretically.

my most recent picture is the real problem. the oversanding on the rosewood itself which caused the radius to slope down on the bass side. this causes systemic and irreparable problems along the whole neck especially above the 12th fret.

hopefully g&l will get back to my dealer tomorrow and give me a timeline. pretty sure the only option is a new neck.

I ordered this instrument in October and I'm getting a little ticked, but I'm being as patient as possible.

hope this turns out for the good, if G&L wants to stand out, than this is a moment to do that

I've had FOUR rebuilds due to defects or accidents now. They have a sterling repuation for QA, but the law of average has me by the balls. Statistically, SOMEONE has to be the brunt of several cases of misfortune from one manufacturer. Apparently I'm the lucky guy.

As much as it really distresses me to sit on huge amounts of cash due to defects or accidents out of my control, I really do applaud G&L's spillage policy. They stand by their instruments and don't seem to stop until they get it right.

I'm hoping for good news tomorrow.