Answering questions about the clever fix made to address limitations around replacing the zero fret on Brian May’s famous Red Special guitar. Great thinking…
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A while back, I wrote about some methods for enlarging holes — for instance, if you wanted to fit larger tuners or a larger control pot into a hole that had housed something smaller.
But what if you want to go the other way? What if you want to remove some hardware that’s bigger than the stuff being installed?
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Guitar and bass neck sometimes get ski jump deformations. Turns out it’s important how you define your ski jump. Avoid confusion and check this out…
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While not completely irrefutable yet, I find the correlation of poor shimming practice and ski jump deformations in instrument necks to be compelling. I strongly recommend using a full-pocket (wedge-shaped) shim if you ever need to shim your bolt-on guitar or bass.
Please read my reasoning…
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Sooner or later you’ll have to make a small hole bigger to accommodate some new piece of hardware — tuners are a common one. You can’t just hack at it with a drill bit so find out how to safely make holes bigger.
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So, after publishing the advice to always tune UP to a note for stability, I had a lot of questions about some advice from Fender saying the opposite when using locking tuners. Should you always tune up or should you sometimes go past the note and tune down?
Where’s my Debunking Hat?
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So, we need to talk. There’s one thing in the whole ‘tuning chain’ that is worth considering as being a source of tuning problems. It’s a bit delicate, though. And, well… it’s you!
No, really…
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If you were lining tuning problems up against a cop-station height chart, the NUT would be the prime suspect. He’s got motive and opportunity and his alibi is looking shaky.
That damn nut is probably the biggest cause of tuning problems.
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String-stretching is an oddly contentious subject so I’m not opening the floor for arguments or opinions. What follows is my considered view on how and why to stretch new strings. It works and it helps.
Feel free to disagree but do it on your own site. 😉
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Continuing our look at tuning problems, let’s start with something pretty fundamental. If your guitar’s not strung well, you’re already on the back-foot. Get this right and it just might lead to a more stable instrument.
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It might be counter-intuitive but replacing your tuners might not actually solve your tuning problems. Here’s the story…
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When you say your guitar goes out of tune, what to you mean? Does the tuning slip over time as you play or does it sound out of tune in different places? How we attempt to solve things means we have to get to the bottom of what’s really wrong.
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