An acoustic guitar with a dodgy, onboard preamp that had to be replaced.
What should have been a straightforward job became a little more complicated becauset the original preamp had a particularly large footprint. It was an older, discontinued model and the manufacturer was unable to supply a replacement that was as large. As it turned out, it was pretty difficult to find any manufacturer that had a unit that would cover the existing hole (and patching and recutting wasn’t favoured for cost reasons).
After quite a bit of internet rooting, a …

In a previous post, I gave my opinion on what I saw as the problems with the neck-joint design of a guitar I’d recently worked on. I thought you might be interested in some more detail about that repair (without my whinging about design issues). While some of the steps undertaken in this repair are common with any job that involves removing a guitar’s neck, you might find it useful to, first, check out some of the ways in which this guitar differed.
The guitar had taken a knock and its …

What the…? What’s going on here? It’s a guitar. Sort of. It’s all futuristic and stuff. It’s got backwards bits. I mean… What?
Say hello to the Jasperbridge Percussion Guitar. It’s the brainchild of Tom Shaper (guitarist and inventor). The strings are on BOTH sides.
What?
Yeah. So the strings head down the neck as usual and then make their way through a tunnel of sorts before appearing at the (offset) rear of the guitar.
Why?
Good question. Shaper says that it’s to allow you to play guitar with a drumstick or similar. You fret …

I should definitely preface this post by stating that what follows is my opinion only. It may be that I’m alone in these views or it may be that other guitar builders and repair-techs agree. The post below, however, is my take on things.
I recently had a Tanglewood TW130 through the shop for repair.  It’s a nice little acoustic—I’ve always been a sucker for all-mahogany acoustics. The guitar had taken a fall and the heel had come away from the body. I’ll detail the steps taken to assess and repair …

New track from Radiohead’s upcoming appearance on From The Basement.
I went off Radiohead for a while. What to you think of this one though—good ‘Head or bad ‘Head?

Frenzied, manic, vigour. Nick Cave and Warren Ellis can teach the youngsters a few things about cramming massive helpings of angst and lust into a song and about filling a live set with sweat-drenched energy.
From the opening Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man, Cave alternated between leaping around the stage of Dublin’s Vicar Street and prowling it like some predatory lounge lizard. He is the Grinderman—all unbuttoned shirt and thrusting crotch, he looms over the front row, bending down, holding their hands, their heads, pulling them to him. Cave gives …

Here’s one to split opinions and have guitarists arguing over their beer for a while. The Big G has reintroduced the RD Standard, a guitar originally offered back in the late ’70s.
First beer-argument point: the looks. Personally, I love how this thing looks but I can definitely see how there are some that might not. Does that make me right and them wrong? Probably, but if it’s your round, I’m prepared to enter into debate.
Second beer-argument point: the specs. Gibson have released the RD Standard in typical Gibson dress. It’s …

Joe Bonamassa is a man close to my heart. Not only is he an incredibly talented guitarist; not only is he working tirelessly to deliver some great blues and rock; not only is he a total guitar-geek but he was also the guy I presented with the first of my Haze BC-1 model guitars (yes, I do have to work it in to every conversation).  Top it all off with the fact that he’s a genuinely nice guy and you’ve got the total package.
And, speaking of total packages, Joe has …

Yes, yes, it’s me. I’m blowing the dust off the old blog and getting things moving again. I have a new broom and I intend to get this cobwebby place ship-shape once more. I will not stop mixing metaphors until it’s done.
So, I know things have been a bit—ahem—slack around here for a while. I could make excuses about dogs eating my homework or my spiralling despair at not being an internet millionaire quickly enough but you don’t want to hear that.
Nope, what you want is guitar geekery.
And that’s what …

The massive-noggined boffins at TC Electronics have just released an incremental version of PolyTune for iPhone.
You’ve probably all read about the PolyTune tuner pedal – the world’s first polyphonic tuner. Strum all strings together and the clever gubbins in the pedal shows the tuning situation of each of your six stings. You can easily tell if one or more strings is out of tune.
Not content with hammering all that cleverness into a stompbox, TC also ported it to the iPhone. And now, that app is at a 1.1 release. It’s …