Axis stainless steel change....tone change?

[franko5150]

I have a question about the change from nickel to stainless steel frets some years back. Since the Axis was based on the EVH Signature guitar with minor changes and I believe uses the same pickups as the original, I'm wondering how that has affected the tone on the Axis since stainless steel frets tend to be a tad 'brighter' or more trebly than nickel frets. I know the pickups are proprietary to the Axis/EVH in that they were EQ'd to the specific wood, neck wood, etc of the guitar at the time. I was curious as to how the change in the frets affects the sound since there is an audible/sonic difference. I'm sure someone here has both an EVH Signature & and Axis for comparison.
I never did pull the trigger on an EBMM, but I'm looking to do that within the next 3 months going with an Axis (hopefully a Macha green one).

 

[beej]

… since stainless steel frets tend to be a tad 'brighter' or more trebly than nickel frets …

I don’t think that’s a given. At least, it hasn’t been my experience.

 

[DrKev]

I know the pickups are proprietary to the Axis/EVH in that they were EQ'd to the specific wood, neck wood, etc of the guitar at the time.

I just read about this yesterday! As Larry DiMarzio and Steve Blucher tell it, Ed wanted something like his favorite Seymour Duncan JB humbucker in his favorite striped guitar, but that had a damaged coil which changed the sound a little versus a stock JB. That became the benchmark for the bridge pickup design. In the end there were two different but similar bridge pickups EVH was considering for the guitar, but Ed couldn't decide which he liked best so Steve Lukather made the decision. (The other pickup was later released by DiMarzio as the Tone Zone).

I was curious as to how the change in the frets affects the sound since there is an audible/sonic difference. I'm sure someone here has both an EVH Signature & and Axis for comparison.

Re: stainless frets, the best demonstration I've seen was done by Warmoth, they did a blind test with two necks on the same body, you'll find it on their youtube channel. The difference is very small and sometimes completely inaudible. If it's real and not due to the different performance or different neck, it's certainly no bigger than differences we'd expect between two guitars off the same production line (because no two pieces of wood are the same and there is always variance in the pickup and pot values). In terms of buying decisions longevity of stainless is a plus and they always feel great without regular polishing. When my clients/guitar students ask me I tell them that and to forget about 'tone' considerations.

 

[mikeller]

My experience is probably more limited than some of you and i have 71 year old ears with severe tinnitus from gigging very regularly over the past 20 years.
With that said - what I have noticed on the stainless vs nickel question is the sonic difference is way more noticeable with the guitar un-amplified in a quiet environment than it is amplified etc.

 

[Sweat]

yea to many people concerned with stuff like this, as Frank said , shut up and play

 

[PeterVV]

Theres a lot of hype about the difference in SS frets, a lot of people who say there is a difference are trying the guitars unplugged or on a totally pristine clean amp. I wish the Luke had SS frets.

 

[beej]

Most of my guitars have SS frets at this point, and I've had the same models with nickel and SS frets at the same time, so I feel like I've had a chance to compare directly.

Acoustically, the only audible difference I've noticed is the different 'ping' of fret buzzing on SS frets. I don't hear a difference in fretted notes. And to the earlier point, any subtle differences you could possibly hear would most likely be lost when amplified and distorted. (The fret 'ping' doesn't really come through my amp, for example.)

On the other side ... the frets don't wear, and they feel much smoother.

Back to the Axis ... the pickups weren't exactly "EQ'd to the specific wood, neck wood, etc" ... they're just what MM, Ed, and Luke (who made the final pick on Ed's behalf) liked the sound of. And it's not like they're miles off from other options.

All of this stuff is so subjective and, IMO, is far outweighed by other choices you make downstream- cables, amp settings, speaker choice, etc.

 

[franko5150]

My experience is probably more limited than some of you and i have 71 year old ears with severe tinnitus from gigging very regularly over the past 20 years.
With that said - what I have noticed on the stainless vs nickel question is the sonic difference is way more noticeable with the guitar un-amplified in a quiet environment than it is amplified etc.

THat kind of makes sense. I hadn't thought about the difference between unamplified vs amplified.

 

[DrKev]

There’s another thing that I think makes a difference here. Nobody puts a brand new set of strings on a guitar just before they send it in for a refret. In effect they are comparing a memory of nickel frets with old strings, to stainless frets with brand new strings. I suspect that a lot of people attribute the new brightness to stainless frets rather than the new strings.