Articles in the How To Category
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This is my Fender Blues Deluxe amp.
It’s a beauty. I’ve had it for years and I love it. It’s full of Fender. Really, there’s so much Fender in here that it bursts out in sparkly loveliness whenever I plug in a Strat.
In fact, there’s too much Fender in here.
It’s too damn loud. It might be fine if I were placed it at one end of a football stadium and ran a really long lead to the other end but in my house it rattles the windows as soon as the …
Accessories, How To »
I love these little Planet Waves SOS tuners. They call them SOS: Strobe On String and they work by pulsing two little LEDs at a particular frequency. You pluck a string and shine the light on it. If it’s out of tune, the pattern made by the light wobbles about. When the string is in tune, the pattern becomes stable. Easy peasy.
I’ve got a couple of these in my workshop as I frequently need to tune guitars (or even necks mounted on temporary—surrogate—bodies for refrets) with no pickups to plug …
Featured, How To, Workshop »
There’s a funny thing that happens with some basses. It’s called the dead spot.
What’s A Dead Spot?
The dead spot is a particular note that won’t seem to ‘ring’. It won’t sustain and instead, the fundamental just dies away almost immediately. Sometimes you’ll hear some overtone-type vibrations of the note sustain very faintly but for the most part, the note is gone.
This tends to be most noticeable on one particular string and on one particular note but it can be evident (possibly to a lesser extent) a half-tone higher or lower …
Featured, How To, Workshop »
I’ve written a little about specific headstock repairs and it occurred to me that might be a good idea to give you an overview with some tips and considerations on how to prevent broken necks and what to do if the worst happens. It’s a little long but could well prove useful to know…
The worst thing in the world?
You’re finished the gig and you’re enjoying a well-earned beer at the bar. You’re careful to keep an eye on your pride and joy, propped up against your amp on stage, to …
Featured, How To, Workshop »
Buzz is the bane of the guitarist. Fret-buzz is the one that gets all the press and, to be sure, it’s a serious pain. Frets are not the only thing that is likely to buzz, rattle and hum on your guitar though. If you’ve got a Gibson (or Gibsonesque – the one below is a Gretsch) guitar it’s possible that your Tune-O-Matic bridge may be the cause of that buzz you hear.
If you can hear a metallic rattle or buzz when you pick a note – sometimes all notes, sometimes …
Headline, How To, Workshop »
The 3-Saddle Intonation Problem
If you play a Telecaster with a 3-saddle bridge (like the one shown opposite), you may be aware that setting intonation on the instrument is a matter of compromise. Because a single adjustment screw sets the intonation on two different strings at the same time, Telecaster intonation is really a matter of ‘balancing the differences’ and getting each string as close as possible without putting its partner string out by too much.
Move to a 6-saddle bridge
If this really bothers you, you can move to a 6-saddle bridge. …
How To, Workshop »
You’re a millionaire playboy guitarist with a vintage Fender or you’re just someone with one of many current or past Fender originals and reissues.
Whatever the case, you’re finding that those big blues bends that you love doing are buzzing or, worse still, choking-out completely and dying. Your guitar plays fine and buzz-free the rest of the time but as soon as you go for a nice, soulful, bent note, it buzzes or chokes.
Annoying.
Possibly more annoying is when I tell you that there’s a good chance it’s just a limitation …
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