Floyd Rose DST-3 Initial Impressions

[marnold***]

Funny, isn't it, how when you're waiting for a guitar to arrive that every vehicle that goes by sounds like the UPS truck?

Anyway, my DST-3 came about an hour ago. The trem was set with the tremsetter actuated (i.e., it can only go down, not up). All the fine tuners were in the middle. Following the instructions on their site, I used the allen wrench to tune it. I also lowered the bridge a bit. All in all, it didn't take very long even though I've never owned a trem-equipped guitar before. Unfortunately, it didn't come with the instructions for the trem, but I used the PDF version on their site. Someone from FR is sending me a hard copy.

The guitar comes with all the various allen wrenches that you'll need, a cheap guitar cable, a couple of FR-branded picks, and a gig bag. The gig bag doesn't have much padding, but it'll do the trick if you're careful.

The guitar is HSS with only one volume and a five-way switch. Initial impressions of the pups are surprisingly favorable. The humbucker isn't as hot as the one on my Fender (which is over 16K), but it's still pretty hot without getting muddy. The single coils sound better than the stock ones that came on my 51 or my former Charvel Model 7.

The neck has a nice satin finish on it that I love. It probably would be called C shape, but it's not as fat as a typical Fender. The 12" radius is nice. If it weren't for the Floyd on it, I'd say that the neck is my favorite feature. It seems to have just the right amount of relief in it. The fretwork seems really good with no sprout.

I've been beating the crap out of the trem and it refuses to even slightly go out of tune, despite the fact that I'm sure that the strings aren't terribly new. It came with all four springs installed, but I think I'm going to remove one because it is very stiff. I didn't check the intonation with a tuner, but by ear it's got to be pretty close. Since I'm going to change string gauges, I'm not going to mess with the intonation, etc., until that's done.

The only problem I've noticed is that the bridge seems to have been mounted slightly too far towards the bottom of the guitar. As a result, the strings barely go over the pole pieces on the humbucker. The problem basically resolves itself by time you get to the single coils. Not a huge deal unless one it quite A.R.

That's it for now--I'm being paged for supper. Pics and maybe clips will hopefully follow as the weekend progresses. Right now, it seems like a super, ultra, mega, screaming deal for $149.

[marnold***]

I double-checked my tuning and the intonation is actually spot-on. Rather surprising, actually. I found another hopefully minor problem. The adjustment for the truss rod is actually at the heel of the neck. There was a metal bit that had slid down. I took off the pickguard to take a look. I'm assuming that it's just the adjusting nut and not the entire truss rod that had slid down. It went back up easily and I was able to make minor trussrod adjustments. I have a call into FR to check on that design.

Taking the pickguard off showed me a few other things.
1) The volume pot looks insubstantial, but it seems to work fine.
2) I don't believe I'd be able tap the humbucker since there is only one lead.
3) I thought there might be a "swimming pool" route underneath the pickguard. It is in fact an HSH route with a bit of wood cut out to connect the routes together. I assume that all the Discovery series guitars would have this route.
4) Taking off the pickguard "forced" me to remove the strings and thereby test the Speedloader system. Let me tell you, folks, it's all that and a bag of chips. I didn't time myself, but it went VERY quickly. Now that I've done it once I'd guess that I could do it in less than two minutes without really rushing. Yeah, it's that easy. Floyd outdid himself. The sheer ease of changing the strings makes the extra cost worth it, IMO.

A question for you guys with Floyds: how many springs do you keep on? It came with all four installed. I might cut back to three because it requires a lot of effort to depress the whammy bar.

[marnold***]

I posted some pictures. Please ignore my lawn which desperately needs to be mowed. After getting very little rain all summer, it rained all last week. Today is the first day that it even would have been possible to mow.

I noticed last night that there is a black smudge under the finish on the top horn. I tried to get a shot of it, but it's hard to photograph. It is more obvious in real life.

Pictures of my DST-3 on Picasa

[SuperSwede]

A question for you guys with Floyds: how many springs do you keep on? It came with all four installed. I might cut back to three because it requires a lot of effort to depress the whammy bar.

I have 4 springs installed in my Aria Pro 2... works for me.
Really nice guitar btw.

I love your lawn... keep it up nature boy

[duhvoodooman***]

Please ignore my lawn which desperately needs to be mowed. After getting very little rain all summer, it rained all last week. Today is the first day that it even would have been possible to mow.

Sure--ain't that just like a guitarist! Fooling around with his new axe when he should be mowing the lawn!

Seriously, nice looking guitar. Looks much better in your photos than the catalog pix I've seen. Sounds like an absolute steal for $150!!

[Spudman***]

I run 3 springs with 10-46 strings on all but one FR equipped axe. I did one with 4 to see if it keeps the rest of the strings in tune better when I bend a string. With the tremsetter that might not be an issue for you.

[oldguy]

Kudos on the new axe, Matt. Looks nice, couldn't see much of a smudge myself. Haven't owned anything w/ a Floyd for about 5 yrs now, but I ran 3 springs on them back then, played 10's for strings.

Hope that rain lets up before you have to buy a hay baler and rake...

[marnold***]

Whelp, I bought some new strings. The local shoppe was selling them for $6.50 a pack. I only got two, but I may regret that. Anyway, I restrung it which took all of two seconds. It took a bit longer to tune it with the heavier strings (10s instead of 9s), but no biggie. I then tried to float it which has proven to be an adventure. They shipped it with the tremsetting device putting a good amount of pressure on the block, so it didn't just keep the block from pulling back, it was actually forcing the block "up". So it took a good amount of work to get the base of the trem flat with the top of the guitar. It doesn't want to stay in tune as well anymore. I'm not sure how much of that has to do with floating and how much has to do with new strings.

I'd consider dropping to three springs, but the tremsetter thing is right in the middle of the claw and block which presumably is where you'd put the third spring. Will there be a problem with putting two springs on one side and one on another?

[333maxwell]

Whelp, I bought some new strings. The local shoppe was selling them for $6.50 a pack. I only got two, but I may regret that. Anyway, I restrung it which took all of two seconds. It took a bit longer to tune it with the heavier strings (10s instead of 9s), but no biggie. I then tried to float it which has proven to be an adventure. They shipped it with the tremsetting device putting a good amount of pressure on the block, so it didn't just keep the block from pulling back, it was actually forcing the block "up". So it took a good amount of work to get the base of the trem flat with the top of the guitar. It doesn't want to stay in tune as well anymore. I'm not sure how much of that has to do with floating and how much has to do with new strings.

I'd consider dropping to three springs, but the tremsetter thing is right in the middle of the claw and block which presumably is where you'd put the third spring. Will there be a problem with putting two springs on one side and one on another?

Can't you leave on 4 springs and back off the claw a bit to make it less stiff?
In contrast to having an uneven tension of an off centered 3?

[marnold***]

Well, I tried going to two springs in a V formation but I couldn't crank the claw arm down far enough for the bridge to actually be level. I suppose if I had kept 9s on there I would have been OK. So I'm back to four springs and that's where I'll stay. The real bugger is that at one point my needle nose pliers slipped and now I've got an official "love tap" on the back of my guitar.

I took the pickguard off and took a picture of the underside. It looks like this. The pot is an Alpha one. I also took the opportunity to bust out a multimeter and check the resistance of the pickups. When they said that they were hot, they weren't kidding. The bridge humbucker weighed in at 17.75K. The middle single-coil is 7.09K and the neck single-coil is 6.78K.

[Tone2TheBone]

....The real bugger is that at one point my needle nose pliers slipped and now I've got an official "love tap" on the back of my guitar.

Don't worry...that love tap will keep the evil spirits away. It's gotta have a flaw somewhere.

[marnold***]

Don't worry...that love tap will keep the evil spirits away. It's gotta have a flaw somewhere.

Well, it already had the black smudge and the slightly offset trem . . . At least this love tap is one I inflicted on it. It's thankfully just a tiny chip and not a big-ol' scrape.