Photo of the Day
Shoutbox

SHADOWNIGHT5150: Bank accounts are a scam created by a shadow government
274 days ago

sysmalakian: TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY!
260 days ago

dp: dude
242 days ago

Bango_Rilla: Shout Bananas!!
197 days ago

BillyBlastOff: See you kiddies at the Convention!
181 days ago

GDW: showman
132 days ago

Emilien03: https://losg...
54 days ago

Pyronauts: Happy Tanks-Kicking!!!
47 days ago

glennmagi: CLAM SHACK guitar
33 days ago

Hothorseraddish: surf music is amazing
12 days ago

Please login or register to shout.

Current Polls

No polls at this time. Check out our past polls.

Current Contests

No contests at this time. Check out our past contests.

Donations

Help us meet our monthly goal:

64%

64%

Donate Now

Cake January Birthdays Cake
SG101 Banner

SurfGuitar101 Forums » Gear »

Permalink What strings for a SGV?

New Topic
Goto Page: 1 2 Next

Should I use flat wound or round wound strings for a SGV 300?

What type of strings are famous SGV players like Shigeo Naka and Takeshi Terauchi using?

Thanks,
Björn

I think most of us use rounds, either 9's or 10's. The two trem springs really can't handle anything more than that, and right now mine doesn't even handle 10's very well. It pulls the trem too far forward, causing the arm to angle down toward the body and making it difficult to use. D'Addario makes a set of ultralight flats if you wanted to try them.

The Mystery Men?
El Capitan and The Reluctant Sadists
SSS Agent #31

i have .12 chromes one mine. stays in tune, no matter how much i use the tremolo bar. trem is absolut parallel to the guitars body. therefor i replaced the two spring with ones, that are made for 7string guitars.

If the arm is too close to the body there is a way to add another spring. Look at the pic below: fabricate a flat piece of metal to go over the top of the bridge posts, make holes in the ends of the piece to put the springs through into the posts, and add another hole in the middle of your fabricated piece to add another spring. PM me if this doesn't make sense.
image

Personally, I wouldn't go higher than 10's. I found that with heavier gauge strings the 300's skinny neck makes for rather stiff and uncomfortable playing, and even with more macho trem springs, I found it wouldn't stay in tune for very long. Two of the big reasons I reluctantly sold mine a few years back.

--Crispy

I tried rounds and flats on SGV300s. I prefer roundwounds on SGV300! I tried different gauges. After years of Yamaha guitar science research with 5 different SGV300s I recommend for Surf: 12-16-18-32-42-52

I dont use complete sets. I mostly buy single strings in a bigger amount, so its much cheaper than complete sets where I cant use every string. I dont care about the brand! For me it`s only important to have the right gauges. So I have strings on one guitar from Dean Markley, D Addario, ghs etc...

Of course the trem bar has to be absolute parallel to the body.
I used two heavy heavy trem springs. (Not easy to install them!)
No detuning problems! Tone is great!

The SGV300 needs a bit of time and patience to get a perfect individual set up. (like other guitars also for sure...)

Okay, hope this helps a bit!?

Twang cheers!

Ralf Kilauea

www.kilaueas.de

https://kilaueas.bandcamp.com/album/touch-my-alien

this week normally i will recept my SGV 300 CAR ,i will set up first with my classic string 10 52 to see how it work and after i will try yours (but at first i am a little scary cause my jag set up in 12 52 chrome is really hard to play,maybe the string are a little be to hight too ? 2,5mm bass 2 mm treble and with a wound g(24) i didn't arrived to make a bend one step i will try a plain 20 )

Last edited: Jun 03, 2012 07:51:09

Fritz, long ago someone posted a pic of the mod you're describing. I don't remember who and I don't think it's floating around on the board, but I understand what you're saying. I'm not sure exactly how I'd go about it or what type of piece I'd use. It seems like heavier trem springs would be the simplest thing to do. A quick Google search didn't turn up a great deal. There's these and I saw that Gotoh makes some.

The Mystery Men?
El Capitan and The Reluctant Sadists
SSS Agent #31

I would try 10s, at the maximum. One factor is the bridge saddles. It has a Mosrite sort of design; larger gauges may want to pop out with aggressive playing.

SSIV

Thanks for all the info!
I recently bought a SGV-300 in a bad shape. I have restored it and will soon put all the parts together again. I plan to add a 'bar' to make it possible to use a third spring. Would be nice to be able to try 011 Chromes. Wink

If anybody's gonna be making one of those bars, I'll paypal ya a few bucks to send me one, too. I have .11 Chromes on my SGV and no matter how much I screw around with the claw or springs that I have, it always goes way flat when I move the bar down and way sharp when I move it up...
Maybe the super-heavy springs would be worth it, I dunno yet.

I think it was Wannes (WR) that first posted about this mod. Here's a picture I mocked up a while back - I should have taken a picture of the real thing. I used a piece of brass that I got from Ace Hardware - it was about 1mm thick, and about 5mm wide. It worked great, and only cost a few dollars and a 1/2 hour of time to make.
image

"You can't tell where you're going if you don't know where you've been"

Last edited: Jun 03, 2012 18:42:28

i used to use chrome 10's on my 300. loved it, and it took some of the edge off those pickups. i think that guitar is built for 10's, nothing but trouble when i tried heavier.

I've had 4 of these in my possession over the last few years (an 800, a 700, and 2x 300's), and have to admit I didn't do much experimentation with gauges the way I have with strats/jags, but have experienced good stability with 10 rounds on all of them. I pretty much treat them like Mosrites though, they really seem to be designed for 10's.

Mike
http://www.youtube.com/morphballio

I found some thin brass strips like Sonichris described on a hobby shop's eBay page...I also bought some .10 Chromes. Hopefully this double whammy will take care of things, I'll post again with results.

Achtane wrote:

I found some thin brass strips like Sonichris described on a hobby shop's eBay page...I also bought some .10 Chromes. Hopefully this double whammy will take care of things, I'll post again with results.

I look forward to it Smile
Please attach a photo !

then i have try my SGV 300
really cool guitar ,i wanted to set up for 10 52 but i have not string here (i was sure i have but i don't find them ?)
no works on it (it is at the yamaha spec )then i am really happy just a little cleaning and set up the trem cause it is tune in E flat ?maybe an SRV or Hendrix fan
as first seen there is 09 46 or 42 on it
i don't know if she will support 10 52 without another spring cause the plate for spring is already tighten there is less than 8 mm to continu
for those who have it is necessary to have an another spring with
10 46 round
10 52 round
or not ?
i like a lot 10 52 but with this sort of trem (floating) maybe i must put 11 49 cause the set is more balanced ?

on my jag i have lowered the action is reaaly more playable ,in fact with big strings you can have low action ,i have try a jazzmaster too with 12 and low action is not really hard to play as i think before and in fact i like it a lot

Last edited: Jun 10, 2012 09:47:58

what is the goal of the 2 screws in the red circle ?
to ajust the high of tremplate ?
image

not sure, but i think you can adjust the resistance off the trem arm with these.

maybe you find a answer there: http://www2.yamaha.co.jp/manual/pdf/guitar/english/elegui/SGV800_QC55690_EN.pdf

Goto Page: 1 2 Next
Top