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Humidifying

nebuchadnezzar — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 17:21:10 +0000

Humidifying your guitar during the cold (dry) months is extremely important. If you don’t humidify your guitar it is likely to crack and warp in a variety of ways. Each year, I perform many expensive repairs on guitars that have been neglected and not humidified. Ideally, Guitars are built at around 50 percent humidity. Keeping them around 50 percent would be healthy, but when the heat comes on in the winter it is almost impossible. The goal is to keep the humidity as high as you can.
The best way is to keep your instrument in a hardshell case with a wetted Dampit or similar sponge type humidifier whenever not being played. Wetting the humidifiers at least two times a week may be necessary in some circumstances, i.e. very dry heat or a poorly sealed case. If a soundhole cover is supplied with your humidifier do not use the cover as it will prevent humidity from getting to the neck. For this reason I do not reccommend the On-Tek humidifier. Another good way to humidify your instruments is by using a large room humidifier in a smaller room with a door that can remain closed. This is a good way to humidify multiple instruments. If you use this method the humidifier needs to be kept filled and running twenty fours a day. It is hard to impress upon people how important this is. Think of your guitar as a sponge with strings on it. When a kitchen sponge dries out on a sink it does not come back to it’s original shape, it’s distorted. The same things happen to a piece of wood that is cut and glued at fifty percent humidity. Especially, when it has 100-200 pounds of string tension on it. Humidifying is not necessary when the heat is off, but should begin the first day that the heat comes on for the cold season.

Vintage or CRAPPY?

nebuchadnezzar — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 16:19:39 +0000

There is a lot of talk about vintage guitars. This is partly because everybody wants one and partly because vintage guitars often need much explanation. Unless you have been with a guitar every minute since it was built you can’t be sure of it’s history. People often make claims that a particular is all original – but how do they know if they haven’t slept with a guitar since its conception. With the values of guitars skyrocketing as they did ten to fifteen years ago many people started to have regrets about things they did to their guitars in something I call the “dark time”.

I suppose with most things rock and roll the Beatles could be credited for starting the trend of refinishing and altering their guitars. It seems like when George Harrison Psychedelicized his blue Fender Stratocaster, and John Lennon stripped his Epiphone Casino, (actually a friend did it for him claiming it would improve the tone) the rest of the world was soon to follow people also started taking it upon themselves to “customize” their guitars. This included stuff like changing tuning pegs, pickups, other hardware, adding switches for more sounds, whammy bars, brass nuts, unplated brass hardware of all kinds… you name it. Some of these modifications were for good reason, a lot of good guitars came with bad tuners and many Gibson guitars had bridges that could not be intonated for example. People often experimented with pickups replacing them with different ones or sometimes altering them by rewinding them or by putting in different magnets. As I pointed out it is hard to know where a guitar has been. You have to remember back in the “dark time”, guitars did not have the crazy value they do now and people didn’t think twice about making modifications. I have said many times I spent my youth taking Kluson tuners and “F” tuners off of Gibsons and Fenders and replacing them with Grovers and Schallers and I am getting old removing and replacing the Grover and Schaller tuners with “repro” tuners or old worn out salvaged originals (which sell for a lot of money on Ebay), even though they don’t work well. Similarly, a Fender guitar can be completely taken apart with a screwdriver, some of the parts are dated, some of the parts have distinct details that identify to a particular year or period, but not every part.
You have to take a guitar apart and be a serious expert to be able to tell if pickups have been rewound or solder joints have been resoldered or even routed holes in guitars that have been filled in and finished over.
Unscrupulous people have been perfecting this art for decades. There are many all original guitars still out there – but you want to be sure. You might be able to find an “all original 1962 something” but even if all the parts are dated correctly and look correct – how do you know the pots and the switch didn’t come from one guitar and the neck and the body from another, etcetera. Given how easy they are to take apart and how popular it was to change them, not to mention the bins of “original” parts for sale at guitar shows and EBay, it is likely that many “original” guitars today are actually collections of rare authentic parts from a particular year.
If you are a collector or investor, buying an all original guitar might be important to you, be educated and buyer beware. For many people that just want a good guitar to play sometimes an old guitar that is not all original is a great thing. Do you really want old worn out tuners and a thirty year old volume control and a sagging tune-o-matic on a guitar that you want to enjoy? I feel that the wood and other materials in some older guitars are superior to those used today. But, this does not mean that everything old is great or that an old guitar will always perform perfectly.
There are a lot of deals to be had on really good older guitars that have been refinished, routed or had headstock repairs. a lot of them just need some love, glue and maybe a fret job. An old guitar, (all original or not), with old growth wood and whatever might remain of natural lacquer will always sound and feel better than any new polyurethane covered sweatshop guitar you can buy today.

Capo Versus Tuning

nebuchadnezzar — Mon, 02 May 2011 02:24:49 +0000

I have had the good fortune to accompany many great songwriters. I have, on occasion encountered the phenomenon I like to call Capo versus tuning.
First, a little bit about tuning.
When a guitar is in tune, unless a string slips or stretches, playing it cannot make it go flat. However, strings can be inadvertently pulled sharp. For example, if a string is pulled to the side or pressed harder than necessary to reach the fret the extra tension will the make the note sharp. Along those same lines, if action is too high, or if the nut slots are too high, the strings will be need to be pulled farther than necessary resulting in sharp notes.
When one plays a barre chord and has two fingers on a given string it can happen that one squeezes a little too hard and you can hear the “out-of-tune-ness”.
Given the nature of a tempered fret scale (fret spacing), a major third already sounds a little sharp, there is no tolerance here for more “sharpness”. If one presses any harder than necessary to get a clear tone from a string it will be a little sharp. This becomes even more of a problem with on a guitar with larger frets. Similarly, lighter strings are pulled more easily out of tune. Now we have an understanding why notes on a guitar tend to sound sharp not flat.

A little bit about Capos
Capos serve many purposes. The main one is that it allows us to change key easily by shortening the length of the scale(neck). Like your fingers if a capo applies any more force than necessary it will pull the strings sharp. A capo is also likely to pull the low strings even more because they are thicker and sit higher above the frets. Placing a capo closer or farther to the fret will help one to account for these inconsistencies. I favor some capo designs over others. I like a clamp style capo that can be adjusted to just the right amount of tension. Some people prefer a spring loaded capo which may be easier to use, but this type of capo is always pressing as hard as it can, more likely to cause of “out-of-tune-ness”.

capo on guitar

A little bit about accompanying capo users.
When one is playing by oneself tuning problems are not so noticeable. If you are playing with someone else who is not using a capo. You are likely to find yourself sounding a little sharp which can make your accompanist sound bad.
To close
Choosing the right capo and a little technique will work wonders. Any time one applies or moves a capo they should be prepared to a little fine tuning (after moving the capo !). An electronic tuner is the best effect pedal money can buy. Your capo need not be an enemy in the battle for good tuning.