Tips & Tricks
Question:
What is scalloping a neck?
Answer: The process
of scalloping a neck involves removing the wood between
the frets to eliminate the friction from the fret board
when stretching or bending notes. This is taken from the
Indian sitar style of fingerboard. one of the first to
use this was John Mclaughlin and later Ritchie Blackmore
then Malmsteen. It is a labor intensive process and
there is no turning back once it is done. i have done
this to almost all the guitars I own (including
acoustics) and find it really helps my playing. The
notes you use for vibrato are easier to achieve and you
won't lose a string when going for huge stretches. the
drawbacks are the fact that when you play a chord, you
can totally pull it out of tune by pressing too hard. It
is similar to high frets but still different. Tracy
Question: How do
strings affect my tone?
Answer: Great
question! First let's look at some of the types of
strings that an electric guitar uses. Roundwound, this
is the most popular, it is a solid core with round
windings. Flatwound (or ribbon wound) this is a solid
core with flat wire around it (sounds dull, great for
jazz). Groundwound, this is a cross of both of the
previous strings, it is a solid core with a round wire
wrap that is ground slightly flat after being wound (not
as dull as flatwounds). The early strings were wound
with nickel over a steel core, this gave a soft bluesy
tone that is much back in style right now. The rock
strings are a steel core with nickel plate wrap wire,
this will give the pickup magnets more information due
to the steel, and will be brighter, and more powerful
than nickel wound. Most rock players are buying nickel
plated steel strings. Tracy
Question: When or
why should I have my guitar refreted?
Answer: Two reasons.
One is if there isn't enough fret material or "meat"
left on the fret for another fret level and dressing,
then you should consider a partial, or complete refret.
Second, if you think your frets are too tiny, or the
curve(radius) of your fret board is too much, then you
can have the frets pulled and the fretboard re-raduised,
and then a larger fret wire installed. keep in mind that
if you are dealing with a vintage instrument, that you
should stick as close as possible to the same specs for
the fretwire and radius. Fret wire comes in many
different widths and heights, so ask your tech about
what is best for your style. Tracy
Question: I own a
Strat and Les Paul and I use 9's on both of them. The
Strat seems stiffer than the Les Paul, almost like the
strings are 10 gauge, why?
Answer: Scale
length. Without getting too specific, the distance
between the nut at the headstock, and the saddles at the
bridge is called your scale length. On Gibson electrics
this distance is shorter than on Fender Strats. It takes
more tension to achieve the same note on Strats, and it
will feel stiffer. Paul Reed Smith guitars have a scale
length right in between Gibsons and Fenders at 25
inches. Many players in your situation will put a gauge
lighter on their fenders to even the feel of the guitar
to the Les Paul. Tracy
Question: How can I
keep my strings and hardware from rusting and getting
tarnished so fast? I put new strings on weekly but they
still tarnish.
Answer: You probably
have a high acidic content to your sweat on your hands.
I have seen this in many of my clients, who after
minutes of playing their guitar, the strings start
tarnishing and getting dirty. This is very evident
around the bridge and saddles too. Some things that seem
to help are W.D. 40 (the W.D. stands for water
displacement, orig. designed for the military to keep
their cannons on the navy ships working good.) I make a
secret sauce (not secret anymore) out of this that works
great for these problems. Squirt into a baby food jar
about an inch of W.D. 40 and add to that equal amounts
of rubbing alcohol put the lid on and shake this up real
good. Now take a terry cloth (washcloth) rag and put a
little amount on it (tablespoon). Now wrap this around
your new or slightly new strings, and rub it down the
length of each string (being careful to not get it all
over your finish) the string should be a little wet when
done. Now let this dry and your strings will last twice
as long, due the fact that the alcohol cleans oils and
the W.D. 40 dries on the metal to prevent future
tarnish. Another tip I have is to squirt a little W.D.
40 on a Q-tip and dab it on your saddles and hardware
too (careful with gold, it has a plating on it). do this
every few string changes and you will be in good shape!
Tracy
Question: My guitar
seems to feedback all the time, and I cant play it very
loud. What's up with that?
Answer: There are
two kinds of feedback, resonance and microphonic.
Microphonic is the high pitched style of feedback caused
by loose pickup covers or non-potted (waxed dipped)
coils or just shitty imported low budget pickups. If its
the latter, just buy new ones, and give the old ones to
someone you hate. Microphonic pickups are not something
the do-it-yourselfer should touch ,so take those to your
friendly guitar tech to get fixed : ). Resonant
feedback....this we can try to fix ourselves. First off
realize that a guitar pickup is dumb, it is able to pick
up sound from top and bottom of itself, and has to be
told where to focus its energy. A couple of ways to do
this is to install some closed cell foam (carpet padding
is cool) under the pickup in the cavity it rests in.
This tells it to listen to the string more than the
body. another thing you can do is cut off the bottom of
the screws that stick out on a humbucker pickup.(O.K. do
I need to tell you to only try this on non-vintage
pickups?)
Since the pickup screws are the pole pieces they should
be cut flush with the bottom of the pickup. (you should
remove them after marking them where to cut, and then
put them carefully back in after cutting them to size).
Also some foam in other cavities of the guitar will help
keep it from going into feedback. I'm going to be
incorporating some of these same ideas in John
Jorgenson's custom shop Tele he plays with the
Hellcasters.(he gets a lot of resonant feedback through
his signature matchless amp at high volumes) So I'll
keep you posted on the outcome. Tracy
Question: How high
should I set my pickup height?
Answer: Since the
last column dealt with pickups output and resistance,
and the fact that I have been flooded with pickup
questions lately, I will devote a few more columns
exclusively to tips and tricks for pickups.
How high to adjust your pickups? Well, first off if you
have a Strat you want the bridge pickup as close to the
strings as possible, try sliding a dime between the
strings and the pickup pole pieces (fret the highest
fret with your hand and adjust them with the strings
flush to the fret board) the neck and middle have to be
a little further, with the bass side angled lower than
the treble side to avoid the oscillating effect that
happens when the pole pieces are too close and makes the
string vibrate out of tune. (This is a very common
problem and most people think their intonation is out.
if you have lace sensors or non magnetic poles on your
pickups, you can bring them as close as the bridge
pickup without worry). With humbuckers, I like them both
real close, same as the Strat bridge pickup height. This
gives you what is termed as the "proximity effect", very
sharp attack and percussive and higher output to the
amp. If you ever speak into a microphone from a distance
and then get real close to the mic, the same effect will
happen with your voice. Now to get a different sound,
try lowering your pickups a far as you can (without
making them pop off the screws and springs!) and give a
good listen. You will hear a much weaker sound and a
sweeter tone (this works great for all you closet blues
players with hot pickups). Experiment on your own and
see what fits your tastes. Tracy
Question: I hear a
lot about a pickups resistance. What does that do?
Answer: The
resistance is considered the output of the pickup, by
hooking up the two leads of an ohmmeter to the hot and
minus of the pickup, you can get the reading. When
shopping for new pickups, keep this in mind. For
example, A Gibson style PAF humbucker is usually in the
8.00-9.00 resistance output and typical Strat style are
in the 5.5-6.5 range. The more windings of wire on a
pickups coil the higher the resistance. Now here is the
tricky part, some manufacturers glue magnets to the
bottom of inexpensive pickups to increase the output
without doing the extra winding, so the reading might
show 9.00 but could really be much hotter than that! If
looking for distortion or hot pickups, try getting one
that is in the 13-16.00 resistance output for a
humbucker and 10.00-12.00 for a Strat style. Sometimes
you can find them with higher readings but you lose
high-end frequency response when too many windings are
wrapped. The general rule is the higher the number of
windings, the less high end and more midrange will come
out. (That is a big reason players search for those old
pickups. the magnets get weaker with time and the
resistance is somewhat lower hence they get that "sweet
tone" ) many manufacturers have good descriptive
catalogs, for example, Seymour Duncan has a very good
catalog of his pickups and also offers compact disk
recordings that let you hear all the varieties of
pickups that he offers. Try going to his web site to
order a catalog, or your local music store should have
extras. Tracy
Question: Why does
Fender use 250k pots and Gibson use 500k potentiometers
on their volume controls?
Answer: The ohm
value of a volume pot is defined by the pickup that is
running through it. 250 k pots bleeds off (attenuates)
more of the high frequencies to ground than a 500k pot,
and the result is a slightly warmer sound than with the
500k. This is important to know when installing single
coil or humbucking pickups. The 250 k pot will knock off
some of the highs and match up better to a single coil
(bright) pickup. There are some neat things that you can
try with different value pots. If you have a
"distortion" or high output humbucker (that sounds a
little muddy) , you can try hooking up a 1 meg pot to it
to see if the clarity improves. It is interesting to
note, that some early Gibson Les Pauls used 300 k pots
and some early Fender Telecasters had 1 meg pots in
them! The tone changes are subtle, but worth the try if
your soldering skills are good. Tracy
Question: The repair
tech at my local music store says I need a fret
dressing. What is that?
Answer: Well its not
a secret salad sauce for your frets (sorry) but it does
fix certain problems that cannot be adjusted out by any
other means. it means to level the frets so they are
even. (Some bolt-on necks have an annoying hump at the
12 fret area). This is best done by a qualified tech,
because the process is involved. Ask them if they are
going to put the guitar in a neck jig to simulated
string tension when the strings are off, and that allows
the neck to get very straight or flat so the long file
can level the frets evenly. after the fret relevel they
need to be "crowned". Crowning is rounding the tops of
each fret to remove the "squareness" that the file has
done to it. Then sanding and polishing all the frets.
This is a very basic description of the procedure, (I
could write a whole chapter on it alone). But this
should help it make sense to you. Tracy
Question: John F.
Writes: I put a new pickup in my Les Paul style guitar,
and now the middle position on my switch sounds very
thin. Did I do something wrong?
Answer: Not really
wrong (unless that sound sucks...) what you did was wire
the pickup out of phase with the other one. This is
easily fixable if you have what is called "four
conductor wiring" on your new or other pickup. This will
allow you to reverse the electrical phasing. You will
probably have to look at your schematic with your
pickup, or contact the manufacturer to get the wiring
scheme (most companies have their own color code and
don't follow each other) In essence, you will have to
reverse the hot lead to your pot, or switch, and run
that to ground. Now take the ground wire (not the bare
wire) and run that to the place where the other one was.
This should fix ya up, if you don't have four wires,
then you really need to live with it or take it to a
good tech who can carefully take the pickup apart and
flip the magnets and put it back together. Good luck!
Tracy
Question: Julie G.
writes: When I tune my acoustic guitar I hear clicking
noises and my tuning will slip or jump around, do I need
new gears, or is something else wrong?
Answer: Julie, the
noises you are hearing are actually the strings sticking
at the nut at the headstock. The fix is to either widen
the slots and lube them or just lube them alone. You can
try this yourself by taking a piece of 400 grit
sandpaper (size of a business card) and fold it back on
itself, and then run it lightly through the slots, then
follow it with a #2 pencil and draw the lead into each
slot to lube it (the lead is graphite). That should
really fix the problem. Tracy
7 Things
that make a guitar sound and play better.....
Lower Action
Intonation
Neck Adjustments
Clean & Condition Fretboard
Adjust Nut
Lower High Frets (additional charge)
New Strings
Action.... how far a string is from the frets or
fretboard is crucial to the playability of a guitar.
String height can be lowered at two areas...the bridge
and the nut (up by the gears). Let's say you bring both
areas down so the string is closer to the fretboard, if
all is correct you will have a great playing instrument!
But as things mostly go in life, mostly mine, this does
not seem as easy as just that, frets that are uneven,
worn badly or loose will cause the string to buzz or
even fret-out, and if the bow of the neck is too severe,
that will make things worse! And if you don't follow the
radius of the neck (the curve of the fretboard), some
strings will buzz or when stretched will "fret-out". A
fret dressing will solve most fret buzz problems. Truss
rod adjustments are always important 2-3 times a year.
This long threaded bar inside the neck controls the flex
and bow of the fingerboard and is very important to the
feel of the string action.
Intonation or strobe tuning is the adjustment of the
string length to make chords sound in tune up and down
the fretboard. This is achieved by adjusting the small
bridge saddles forward and back. All these can really
make a guitar feel and sound better. Other things can be
done and we will address those in upcoming newsletters.
Thank you,
Tracy |