167 – 311014 Z5 – SOLD – Zachary Handcrafted Guitars | Bass| Pedals | Strings

Inspiration

This was a groundbreaking guitar for me in terms of innovation and the direction I would take going forward.

1. a new body shape, 2. a new tuning concept, 3. a new neck joint system

The New Z5 Body Shape

My friend Mark Miller, a multiple Z guitar owner, is responsible for getting me back to building at this time. He requested a basic Z3 but with a modified body with better high fret access. Normally I would not entertain such seemingly misguided requests but then I thought about it and hung up my own ego, instead of resorting to my usual, ego-driven, knee-jerk reaction. Upon closer examination, his request or suggestion made sense to me. I thought what the F, let's give it a shot, its an opportunity for me to be creative, which I never dismiss and see what I can come up with. Previously I really liked what I did with the ZT body shape, in updating the tired, old and clumsy Telecaster, by taking my own Tele shaped version (the F1), and making it even relevant, practical, attractive and original, in the form of the ZT.

As I was drawing out the shape of this new body, it was really appealing to me. Its simply a Z3 body with an amputated lower horn, as on the ZT and I also gave it slightly deeper lower body waist contour. Here is the result and it might just become my main Z shape from now on. This new body shape I will call the Z5. Its very versatile and quite adaptable to any style of guitar theme and configuration. Thanks for the suggestion Mark and I am glad I did not tell you to F-off, which would have made me deservedly look like a fool and it would have been my loss. Even I am capable of curtailing my ego, when its warranted.

The New Low E' 6th string Tuning for Guitar

The new tuning with low E' tuned 6th string is another idea, which came to me over the last two years. Being the originator of Optimized string sets for guitar and bass, I am able to design a bass string, to be tuned to a bass note and create a string which will work in this capacity on a guitar. The idea just occurred to me to combine a guitar and bass within the same instrument. I did some experimentation, using my already developed low 8th string, used for my 8-string guitar application. The tension was not quite high enough on that string but the concept was promising and addictive to play. An octave lower than the normal E string gives, depth and fullness to the sound of one's playing. Its a whole new experience. The great thing is that this low bass string is still tuned to an E. Therefore you do not have to relearn how to play a guitar, you don't need to perform any mental gymnastics and you don't even have to think; unlike on a 7 or 8 string guitar. You simply play the same way, the same compositions and arrangements but you get a whole new sound and vibe to your playing. A convenient thing is the way I have designed the interchangeability between the regular low E and the Bass low E strings. You simply remove the bass string (do not damage it but save it) and install the regular low E guitar string whenever you like. This way you can use this guitar conventionally or with the low bass E string, either way, with the same nut.

For this low E' tuning I had to create a custom string at a specific tension, to be optimized to all the other strings within the set. I also had to maintain enough tension on the bass string, in order for it work on a 26" scale neck. 26" is the longest scale that I will use on a guitar in order to maintain its playability as a guitar. Ignorant guitar manufacturers use longer than 26" scales to compensate for non existent conventional string sets, realizing their guitars don't function, because they failed to realize they do not have the proper optimized strings to string them with. The application of what they shamefully call standard 7 and 8-string sets is appalling and a disgrace. If they had any instrument design knowledge, they would realize that its not the scale of the instrument they need to increase, its the string set which has to be optimized for the specified tuning. I do not agree in creating guitars with longer scale lengths because they become unplayable as guitars and are simply relegated to being just "noise makers", which seems to be all the requirement these days anyway for the new generation of the pathetically small number of juvenile "players" entering the guitar world. I also had to taper the string winding at precisely the right places, at both the bridge and at the tuner ends, to make it fit and contact the guitar bridge and tuner, both. Yes, this new bass string has a small guitar ball end on it to fit my chosen guitar bridge for this application.

The New Spiked Neck Joint Tilting System

I have two identical pairs of vintage speakers connected to my vintage stereo system. I am able to listen to two sets of speakers at the same time from the same stereo tuner and also to A/B compare them by the push of a switch. I noticed something amazing and disheartening. One pair of these speakers I placed on spiked metal stands and they sounded great. The other set of speakers, which are identical by brand and model, did not have any stands or spikes, so I just placed them on the carpet. The sound coming from the speakers with no spikes was awful; muffled with boomy bass and very undefined; like some low quality boom box. Well, something had to be done, so I bought some sharp metal spikes and skillfully installed them on the bottom of the un-spiked speakers. I instantly made them sound as good as the other pair with the spiked metal stands. So the secret was in what the spikes did to the sound of these high end speakers. All resonance was concentrated on a sharp solid point, contacting a hard surface, instead of a soft surface, which is in fact a massive damper. This elimination of dampening - by the concentration of resonance into a small solid point and into a solid hard surface - intrigued me and I immediately wondered how this would work on a guitar by improving the connection or coupling between the neck and body. I had to devise a way to do this same thing on a guitar.

As you should know by now, there are many myths about guitars. Well, regardless, the low-knowledge guitar enthusiast will believe anything that collectively is postulated and promoted by the guitar industry; he will believe what he is told by the collective. However, many of these dogmas are simply the result of intellectual incapacity and the lack of creativity. No, your beloved Les Paul does not sustain well, it sounds muddy and undefined and conventional string sets make it function even worse. Now you know the truth but don't expect the guitar industry media to tell you this, they are not any smarter and they of course have an agenda in keeping the status quo. Its time to go to the next level Jimmy Page, instead of re-mastering your led Zeppelin catalog every 5 years for a continuous greedy cash-grab. The previous multiple re-masters were quite sufficient, thank you. Shame on you. But I digress.

I wanted to achieve two things with a new neck joint concept, one was to be able to rout a flat (not angled) neck pocket. This would greatly simplify my construction process. I also wanted to be able to adjust the neck tilt at will to have greater control over the string height of the instrument and not to be limited to the bridge saddle heights. I previously had to rely on needing to perform very precise calculations prior to routing the neck pocket and then anticipating a correctly positioned neck to body relationship, as to what neck angle I needed for the variety of bridges and arrive at the perfect string height. (and you thought guitar building was easy)

I also wanted to eliminate the 5th and middle neck screw, which was specifically placed there just to in my previous screw-type neck joint design, for the purpose of immobilizing the neck from moving horizontally in the line of string tension toward the bridge. If you noticed Fender has wood between the neck pickup cavity and the edge of the neck, while a Zachary does not.
So what I have done is to come up with the installation of a neck tilting adjustment bolt/spike through the body and into the neck pocket from underneath, tilting the neck upward if needed, while the four neck screws pull the neck down precisely pressing on the neck tilt spike.

However, I went further. Instead of having this metal bolt (the spike) tip contacting the bottom of the wooden neck in the neck joint, I sharpened and rounded off the point of the bolt tip, essentially making it into a spike and then had it contact a hard metal surface embedded into the bottom of the neck. To solve the other need of keeping the neck anchored from horizontal movement, the metal surface embedded in the neck is a round metal part with a hollow center (like a donut), into which the metal tilting bolt (spike) fits tightly and rotates inside of. Here the spike is able to turn within this metal contact area to increase the neck angle but it also immobilizes the whole neck from any movement in the direction of string pull. In essence the neck is pressed down onto the metal spike by the four neck screws, always holding the neck in place and pressed metal on metal.

So there you have it. I have given you way more information than you need.

The result as predicted is noticeably more sustain and more tonal definition from this new guitar. When playing it clean, you can totally hear the bell-like chime and long sustain of every note. Its a very tonally advanced instrument, unmatched by anything else in terms of a glued, screwed or neck through body design. The advantage is highly concentrated metal on metal contact and the much improved transference of the string resonance between neck and body.