SG standard
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Biddlin, first, I admire and respect the fact that you’re willing to stand by your words. A lot of people wouldn't do that, especially the words 'neck dive is 99.99% psychogenic.' This is not meant to be an attack on you, I’m really not interested in trading insults. I want to know what you mean by some statements, and what attitude is informing some of your advice in this and similar threads. That’s all.
Secondly, Plain English actually means something. You move away from it when you make up a spurious statistic. People do it all the time, for a reason, but it’s not in keeping with the principles of Plain English. No one who reads your sentence can tell if you mean ‘on 99.99% of occasions’ or ’99.99% of the effect’ – good Plain English equivalents would be ‘almost always’ or ‘almost entirely’. Try putting those words in place of ’99.99%’ - See the difference? That’s how Plain English works.
Ironically, this lack of clarity isn’t the issue. Rather than simply standing by these words, could clarify two points?
Firstly, and less importantly, why encourage people to ‘get over it’ when there are a multitude of ways they can effectively deal with it – as outlined in this and other similar threads? What is it that troubles you about people dealing with any neck dive issues, and sharing their methods? You’re baffling me with this attitude, can you explain why it bothers you so much?
Secondly, what do you mean by “neck dive is psychogenic”?
Perhaps we mean different things by ‘neck dive’ so lets be clear: I mean the effect of the headstock moving towards the floor due to poor balance of the instrument and the effect of gravity. This movement will continue until the guitar comes into balance, unless arrested or prevented, (by hand support, strap friction on clothes, alteration to balance, etc.). It’s something that happens ‘in the world’ rather than being a private, mental event: You could record it on a video, play it to some one, and they would be able to observe it. Broadly speaking, do we mean the same thing by ‘neck dive’?
Now, something is psychogenic when it is caused by a psychological process, i.e. its origin is psychological. The word is often used in a medical context, distinguishing between psychological and physiological causes. But if I could move an object using nothing but the power of my mind, it would be reasonable to say the movement was psychogenic in nature.
What you're saying is: 'Neck dive is caused by a psychological process'.
So, Biddlin, how do you support your claim that ‘neck dive is psychogenic’? Are you saying that gravity is just a theory, and you’ve got a better one? There’s a research team who’ll give $10,000 to anyone who can prove paranormal abilities in their lab. If you can get your SG’s headstock to neck dive using nothing but the power of your mind, I’m sure they’ll let you off the 0.01% caused by gravity!
Really, I would love to hear your explanation….
Finally, and only because you’ve said several similar things before, and I think it needs addressing as it encourages people to walk away from SG ownership:
Seriously? I never had you down for being such a quitter! You’ve surprised me. Let’s just recap on the ‘seriousness’ of my ‘issues’ with 3 of the last 5 SG’s I’ve owned:
1] An SG I hope to be playing till the day I die. I finally got around to resolving its neck dive tendency permanently, and to my entire satisfaction. (As described here). But if I were you, I’d have a sad SG-shaped hole in my life.
2] A stock SG with a similar degree of neck dive to what [1] had. I tend to play it sitting. I don’t gig, but if I did, I doubt I’d use it. If I still recorded at all, I’d probably use it – though it’s recently been sonically overshadowed by a Reverend Sensei. Who knows, one day I might sell it, but I do love SGs, so perhaps not. Note that I can love something, and still be aware of flaws in it, that’s down to psychological flexibility, so I’m happy to own that SG. Something I couldn’t say if I were you as I wouldn’t have bought it.
3] An SG Standard bass – not surprisingly it had ferocious neck dive. I bought it new (discounted), enjoyed it, loved the sound, but sold it as soon as I needed space. I made a £100 net profit, and got to experience owning and playing an SG bass, albeit briefly. It’s fair to say that neck dive wasn’t the only reason I sold it – but if it had the balance of my Ibanez bass, I’d probably have sold the Ibanez instead. Had I followed your advice, my life would’ve been poorer, experientially & financially.
Can you still seriously say that if you had ‘the kind of issues I have’ with SGs you wouldn’t own one?
That’s almost as peculiar as saying 'neck dive is 99.99% psychogenic.' Neck dive can be dealt with in a multitude of ways, why fall at the first hurdle, give up, quit & miss out on owning an SG?
Please don’t delude yourself. (And the above quotes all come from just this one thread, I really can’t be bothered to dig through any more of your ‘advice’ on this subject).
