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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Time for a slight rant. I often meet players who insist on treating an electric guitar like an acoustic guitar. And, that’s something that comes with some compromises.
What am I talking about? Read on…
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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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The thrilling second instalment in the terrific tremolo tuning troubleshooting series. If you’re having trouble keeping your vibrato bridge in tune when you wiggle that whammy, check it out. It might just help…
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Tremolo bridge not staying in tune? While the maintenance and troubleshooting of vibrato systems could fill a book, here’s part 1 of a ‘dump’ of tips. Maybe one of them will help you out.
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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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“…as low as possible without any buzzing…” says Steve Vai. That’s one of those phrases that really rattles my cage. Simplistic and missing an important nuance. Read me disagree with Steve Vai.
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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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