New strings make the guitar a mess to play?

[AKoppenheffer]

Hey everyone, I'm not super experienced with guitars, I just buy a few nice ones to keep in the studio and mess around with. But anyway, I bought an ESP LTD Eclipse EC-1000. Very nice guitar, however, when I bought it I picked up a set of GHS Heavy Weight Boomers for dropping to C. The guitar sounds great, but as soon as you try to play a note it's way out of tune. The frets are tall as well, so if you press down firmly, it's goes sharp like your bending the neck. It's impossible to play. Is this just the strings? As it's not set up for such a heavy gauge? Or is it just a bad guitar? I didn;t pay attention to anything when it had it's normal strings on, and at Guitar Center you can't hear a damn thing. Like I said in my disclaimer, I'm not really a guitar player, and most of my experience is with Strats, Teles, and Les Pauls... All tuned to standard E. Thanks for any insight, I'm probably going to be returning the guitar tonight. Not that I want to, but I can't deal with this. Thanks.

 

[FIXXXER]

so if you press down firmly, it's goes sharp like your bending the neck.

if you press too hard you bend the string.

cheers
S.

 

[Splat88]

Anytime you change tunings or string gauges, you need to do a setup on the guitar. Truss rod adjustment, then action, then intonation.

 

[motomoto]

Get it to a tech to setup the guitar for that particular tuning.That should do the trick.You cant just change string gauge like that.The guitar needs adjustment too

 

[STINNETT]

Anytime you change tunings or string gauges, you need to do a setup on the guitar. Truss rod adjustment, then action, then intonation.

^ This.

Don't blame the guitar.

 

[AKoppenheffer]

That's what I figured it was. And as far as the pressing... I'm not even pressing hard and the thing goes out... It's bad. But now I just gotta find a shop to set it up...

 

[Splat88]

Its really not that hard to do it yourself if you invest a little time to read about it and get the proper equipment. If you decide to have a go at it, just remember to not go crazy with adjusting the truss rod or you'll be balls deep in the feces.

 

[ahjteam]

Anyone have a good youtube-video about the adjusting at hand?

 

[AKoppenheffer]

Well, sure enough... It just needed the setup. What a difference. If anyone is in South East PA... Penn Avenue Music rocks. They even let me wait on it! The girl who set it up was named Beth, real stand up girl. I love the guitar now, sounds so heavy. I'd like to learn how to do it myself now.

 

[Notuern]

Depending on how your previous setup looked, you might need to make a new nut/readjust it, and file down the saddles.. also, when you are fretting your guitar, you shouldnt fret harder then that the string actually touches the fret(When playing this is hard or almost impossible of course.).
If you press harder, it will go sharp, and if you press to loose, it would just go "BOINK".