My Strum Fix Plus experience.
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So, I got a Strum Fix Plus and a Strum Fix Duo to fix up my two best RB guitars that had fucked strum bars.
Primarily, my RB2 Strat with the automatic calibration sensor, and rosewood fretboard. This thing makes playing just.. so much easier. So much more fluid and fun. The throw of the strum bar is much shorter, and more satisfying when it actuates, and the gentle click is much less audible.
In another guitar that had a jacked strum, I put the duo in..
This one was a bitch. The little clamps meant to hold the wires in didn’t screw in right, so I had to tie the wires to stripped-down bread ties, then fold over an end of the bread tie and tape it all in there, then insulate with electrical tape. It worked, in the end, though… But the Duo is a complete mindfuck to use. It makes bass a lot more fun, and long streams of notes a bit easier, but it does get a lot more confusing overall. Enough that it messed up my fretting somehow. It get the feeling there’s a lot of potential for greatness if I got used to it, but I’ll probably be playing the other guitar more often…
But either way, I’m happy to have recovered two of my instruments that were previously unusable. Now if only I could fix that whammy bar…
The duo does take a bit of getting used to if you’re not used to alternating two fingers for sure.
Glad you got the duo working that the first time I’ve heard of an issue with the screws holding the wires in place. The issue that I had with my duo was figuring out which wires went where (but IIRC they fixed that since I got mine).
I hope your bread ties hold out – I think I would have asked for a replacement if that happened to mine …
The duo does take a bit of getting used to if you’re not used to alternating two fingers for sure.
Glad you got the duo working that the first time I’ve heard of an issue with the screws holding the wires in place. The issue that I had with my duo was figuring out which wires went where (but IIRC they fixed that since I got mine).
I hope your bread ties hold out – I think I would have asked for a replacement if that happened to mine …
I did contact support, too, but I was determined to make it work for now. I used to repair SNES power boards with bread ties, there’s a little wire that burns out after a while, and bread ties are almost exactly the same size as that wire, so if you strip it down and solder it on, it’ll work perfectly. I figured there wasn’t a lot of voltage, nor amperage going through those buttons, so it wasn’t that big of a risk to put those in there. The strum bar was totally fucked anyways, so I wouldn’t be losing much if it didn’t work.
Yeah, it’s really helpful for some songs, though. Especially the custom chart of Orion by Metallica on this forum, which has a lot of palm-muted triplets in the middle of legato sections, so being able to easily do alternate picking is really handy. Plus it plays to my love of bass guitars, as a musician. I feel more in tune with my actual instrument instinct when using it.
I recently bought my first Strum Fix Plus and I’m loving it. It blows away the stock strummer on the sunburst RB2 stratocaster. I have another Strum Fix Plus and a duo in the mail to replace my other guitars. The other RB2 stratocaster will become a bass with the duo, and the other strum fix plus is destined for my RB3 Telecaster. I may have to get creative to install it as it’s not a compatible model, but I’m going to make it work. The stock strummer on the telecaster requires at least twice as much effort per strum compared to SFP
I do testing for Scott (owner/designer of Strum Fix) and if you tell him you had a problem with the duo not holding the wires he may be able to help. He is a very good guy and wants everyone to succeed in replacing their broken guitars.
I too have the duo. I put it in my Hoffner (naturally) and it took some time to get used to it, but in the long run it makes playing bass songs much more fun. Almost all of my guitars have the replacement strum bars and I couldn’t be happier with them.
For your duo, you do have it setup that when pushing either bar down that onscreen one goes down and the other goes up, correct? That is proper function.
About your whammy bar….stay tuned
Cheers!
I recently bought my first Strum Fix Plus and I’m loving it. It blows away the stock strummer on the sunburst RB2 stratocaster. I have another Strum Fix Plus and a duo in the mail to replace my other guitars. The other RB2 stratocaster will become a bass with the duo, and the other strum fix plus is destined for my RB3 Telecaster. I may have to get creative to install it as it’s not a compatible model, but I’m going to make it work. The stock strummer on the telecaster requires at least twice as much effort per strum compared to SFP
Hell yeah. It’s absolutely amazing. It breathed new life into my RB2 strat, and made playing so, so much easier. It does take a little getting used to, though, with not needing to force the bar all the way down for it to actuate.
I do testing for Scott (owner/designer of Strum Fix) and if you tell him you had a problem with the duo not holding the wires he may be able to help. He is a very good guy and wants everyone to succeed in replacing their broken guitars.
I too have the duo. I put it in my Hoffner (naturally) and it took some time to get used to it, but in the long run it makes playing bass songs much more fun. Almost all of my guitars have the replacement strum bars and I couldn’t be happier with them.
For your duo, you do have it setup that when pushing either bar down that onscreen one goes down and the other goes up, correct? That is proper function.
About your whammy bar….stay tuned
Cheers!
I did send an e-mail to guitar@bytearts.com, and got a response from Scott. He told me that some (although pretty few) guitars have thinner wires on their strum bars, not leaving enough wire to get crimped down by the screws, and complimented my solution. He said that he might just include some thick copper wire with them to fix that in case that becomes more common..
Nice. Ever since I started playing actual guitar, I wanted a Rickenbacker bass.. And when I started playing Rockband, I wanted a Rickenbacker bass controller. I still can’t afford either, lol.
Anyways, yeah, I do have it configured like that. I thought about changing the jumpers at first, but after spending a little more time with it, I do like it how it is now.
Ooohoho.. That’s incredibly exciting.
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