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Aria pro II ZZ custom guitar


sideswipedv

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Okay so here it goes, Do any of you have any experience with the Aria pro II ZZ custom? A friend of mines son is a begining guitar player. He aparently went to a pawn shop and picked this guitar up pretty cheap. As far as i can tell it was produced sometime in the mid to early eightys.

 

Problem is it has a Floyd rose copy type tremolo. He broke a string. Now he has asked me to fix it for him. This trem doesnt even have fine tuners!! Not to mention that i have little experience with floating trems. Anybody have any suggestions ??

 

I do all of my own guitar work e.g. setting intonation, saddle, nut, bridge, truss rod, and generally any simple guitar setup and maintainence stuff but this thing is a real pain in the a$$. I now know why i stick to my strats and accoustics :mad:

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im not sure, but this past year i picked up an Aria SG that im really impressed with. it was only $20 because it needed some fixing up, as well as some wiring issues and low frets.

 

its all fixed up, and other than the low frets its a really nice guitar. i like it and im going to start keeping my eyes out for more Aria guitars. the frets are still high enough for fast metal chugging/chording - but not so great for lead.

 

also, i got an electra omega LP copy thats also a japanese guitar from the late 70s/early 80s and man its really cool. it plays so well, looks great and sounds great. the frets were still actually close to jumbo height on it - even that old! i like it every bit as much as some of the "real" LPs ive owned in the past.

 

 

anyway, i know i didnt help you much - but i wanted to point out that some of those japanese guitars are really something worthwhile. i even took the bridgebucker out of the omega and dropped it in one of my strats today!

 

i hope you get it fixed up man, im no good with those trems so i cant help you (im a fender guy, i know the fender trems but no real help with floyd styles)

 

 

 

by the way - how is your friends Aria other than the problem with the broken string?

 

you may as well throw a whole new set on it for him while you are at it

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Originally posted by seifukusha

what are you talking about? isnt agile the way to go?
:wave:

 

oh yeah -- yes it is, it most certainly is

 

*checks ebay to make sure old mij stock is not escalating in price*

 

 

 

 

 

my #1 for like a hundred years was a '78 Aria ash strat. best strat i've ever laid hands on.

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From what i remember The ZZ custom is a set neck explorer copy with a floyd licensed trem called the Act III. It HAD fine tuners at one time if it is original. Viv Campbell played one during his DIO days and a buddy of mine had one. They wer mid to late 80's guitars out of the matsumoku (sp?) factory and were damn fine players.

 

What is the problem?

You have to cut the ball end off of the string and use the bridges locking mech to afix it to the bridge which should be just a matter of finding the correct allen wrench.

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Well, my ZZ custom definitely doesn't have either a set neck (mine's bolt-on) or lockers/fine tuners in the tremolo bridge. Others might have been, but mine wasn't.

 

I shitcanned the locking "nut" off mine long ago, and made the bridge a hardtail a while after that by jamming a couple peices of wood in there. Like you said: It's a pain in the ass, since the simplistic "Froyd" copy bridge lacks finetuners, and the cheapass "nut" pushes the strings out of tune as it tightens down..

 

I'd say take the cheapo locking "nut" off, but leave the tremolo alone at first. I don't remember the tuning problems being too bad with an active tremolo and no locker.

 

But I also don't know how hard your friend's son is going to attack the whammy bar :D:D:D:D

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Originally posted by sideswipedv

sounds like you have the same thing ive got, cause this ones got a bolt on neck and a damn cheap trem. check the pics

 

Yup... same thing, except mine's metallic purple/red (depends who's describing the color). I like the blood-stripes though, kinda non-classy. :D

 

It's not a bad guitar, really... except for the bridge/"nut" combo.

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Oh hey... waiiiitaminnnit. I can't tell one thing from your pics:

 

Does yours have a regular slotted nut, as well as the crap brass block "locking nut", or does it have a "zero fret"?

 

Mine has a regular slotted nut.

 

I doubt the "zero fret" scenario, but I can't tell exactly from your pics.

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The Matsumoku factory stopped building guitars in 1987. Matsumoku was originally a sewing machine manufacturing facility. They dropped their guitar their manufacturing division in late 1987, after they were bought out by American sewing-machine giant Singer. Aria and approximately 20 other guitar makers who had their guitars mass-produced in the Matsumoku factory were forced to either move manufacturing to Korea or they simply went out of business. Most of them folded. Aria is one of the larger companies that survived and made the move to Korea. The Matsumoku factory was then destroyed in 1988, a full year AFTER they ceased production of guitars. I see people all the time on Ebay who say that Matsumoku stopped making guitars because the factory was "destroyed by a great fire in 1987." That is NOT why they stopped making guitars! It was a corporate decision by a business giant (Singer & Co.) a year and a half before the factory was destroyed.... and it was supposedly an earthquake, not a fire, that destroyed Matsumoku.

 

Anyway, that ZZ could be one of the Korean Aria's, circa 1988/1989. I've been told that those were a couple of bad years for Aria because there were quality control issues when they first made the move over to Korean shores. Supposedly, the ZZ's were the worst of the bunch (in quality control) those first couple of years. If you check Ebay a lot, you'll see that the ZZ's sell for a lot less than all the Japanese-made Aria's. The reviews also reflect a difference in quality, depending on the individual guitar. It was either a great player, or it kind of sucked.

 

Check the reviews, and you'll see what I mean....

 

http://www.harmony-central.com/Guitar/Data4/Aria_Pro_II/ZZ_Deluxe-1.html

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Originally posted by sideswipedv

this one says made in japan on the neck plate

 

Hmmm...

 

Maybe one of the last ones that were built in a hurry? :D:D:D

 

No seriously, the ZZ's always seemed to either be praised or slammed, and there's almost no in-between.

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Mine says "MADE IN JAPAN" as well.

 

Looking at AriaUsa's website

here , in the archives section, it says the ZZ Customs were made from 84-86. Their website pretty much confirms your timeline, so it looks like they're Japanese made.

 

Or at least the bolt on neck plates are ;)

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