Now here is a really interesting bit of guitar technology that is fairly new. Check out www.ntune.com to see the latest in guitar tuning wizardry, a built in guitar tuner on any of your electric guitars without doing any permanent modifications to your guitar. If you purchase this system we can install it for you. (no affiliation with this company otherwise).
N-Tune On Board Guitar Tuning System
September 1st, 2010In Depth Articles on Intonation, Scales and Tuning
August 22nd, 2010Check out this link my luthier buddy Sean emailed me. I too find that intonation is the one issue that I get the most questions about and that people have the least understanding. These articles may be a little more in depth than most people care to read, but hey, you asked the question…well, maybe you didn’t.
This also leads to a discussion about the Buzz Feiten Tuning method, but that is for another day.
The Incredible Folding Guitar Trick
August 16th, 2010(Before we start, do not try this at home with your standard acoustic guitar…just drop the circular saw now, Sir.)
Finally got one of these crazy folding acoustic guitars into the shop for a new bone saddle, setup and strings. There is some great innovation and engineering on this guitar, so I couldnt help but take a few pics and share it with you.
This guitar is made by a company called Voyage Air, I guess to showcase being able to bring this foldable guitar along in a “voyage” while being in an airplane in the “air”. Apparently they are very clever marketers along with being solid design engineers.
The guitar that came into our shop was well built, very solid once the neck was bolted to the body, and came with a neat backpack style case. You have to make sure the strings dont get kinked when the neck is unbolted by tucking them gently into the body of the guitar, but otherwise it seems like a well thought design. No clue what they cost. Here is the company website in case you want more info.
Improving Acoustic Guitar Tone!!
August 8th, 2010Ok, of course starting with the finest materials and having the guitar built by the best luthier would also improve your acoustic guitar tone, but for those more realistic or on a budget check this out.
Replacing your stock guitar’s plastic Saddle and Nut with ones made of harder material and custom fit for your guitar will add volume and clarity to any acoustic guitar you have, even lower priced models. In our shop we use either bone or corian for both saddles and nuts. These are hard materials that can handle guitar string pressure and wear, and will transmit the strings’ energy to the guitar top and body where it belongs.
It is a basic concept but a harder material will transmit energy(in this case vibration) more effectively than a softer material that will dampen and aborb more of the vibrating string’s energy.
For more detailed information check out my article on this topic at our FAQ and Tips section of our website.
Pasadena 2010 Free Summer Concert Series
August 1st, 2010Recently refurbished Levitt Pavilion in Memorial Park is right near Old Town at the corner of Raymond and Walnut. They are again holding their incredible free concert series Music Under the Stars, which will total 50 concerts. Concerts run every Thursday-Sunday around 8pm. Although many of the concerts have already happened, there are still some great acts in the month of August coming up. Check out this link, and I hope to see you there!!!
http://www.levittpavilionpasadena.org/history-and-mission.html
Old Kay Guitar from Pawnshop Dan
July 26th, 2010Pawnshop Dan always brings me the most interesting guitars: old brands nobody has heard of, beat up, no name classical guitars with incredible old wood and fretboards, and this cool Kay guitar that he brought in last week. Something about this guitar I really liked. Yea, the neck was blocky and the pickup output a bit weak, but it just had that “something” from another era, and I could hear it when I played this guitar. This guitar was cool. It needed to have some grounding done on it to get the electronics to work properly, and thankfully there was this little back way into the guitar, something that EVERY hollowbody electric should have to make those repairs just a little easier. I’d never seen that before, but it made the job more managable and with less chance to mess something else up, which is always a possibility when pulling complete electronics out of hollowbody/semi-hollowbody guitars.
Turns out on the original design of this guitar the pickup switch and bridge/strings were never grounded, so when the volume was turned down there was this horrible buzzing sound. We got that fixed up, put on a new set up strings, set the intonation and Pawnshop Dan was on his way.
Les Paul Gets New Lease on Life
July 19th, 2010Bill Hibbets, a great guitar player who also happens to run Inner Knot records, a distribution company for established musicians, dropped this guitar off a few weeks ago and it was in need of some heavy guitar TLC. Not only was alot of the hardware missing or just hagged out, someone had done an amateur broken headstock repair.
I checked out and stabilized the headstock, upgraded the bridge, saddle and tuners, gave the frets a leveling and polishing, full setup, and to top it off refinished the area of the neck where the headstock damage was visible.
Here is Bill in the shop testing the guitar out with a set of 10 guage strings. This guitar has some miles on it, but its a definite player’s guitar; just enough dings, heavy body, and lots of tone.
For more details and pictures on the headstock finish repair, check out the Galleries Section of our website.
Bill Hibbets Lays Down a Funky Groove
Guitar Setups and Setup Course
July 2nd, 2010The professional guitar setup is a much misunderstood thing. I attribute that to the fact that there are alot of folks out there who think they can perform a setup just because they can tighten a truss rod, but they really dont really get it. As long as it doesnt buzz and the action is “low”, they think the job is done.
The difference between a basic setup and a solid professionally done setup can be subtle but at the same time can change completely the way a guitar plays for the better. I’ve had so many customers fall back in love with a guitar after its had a proper setup in our shop.
For more information about guitar setups you can check out our Faq & Tips page
or get the best book I have seen on the topic, Electric Guitar Setups by Hideo Kamimoto
or even better SIGN UP now for my Guitar Setup Course, where you will learn hands on how to do your own setups and maintain your own stable of guitars. More info in the Our Services section, and you can always call me for more information.
Video Series: Guitar Effects and Building a Pedal Board
July 1st, 2010Check out this link for a series of videos dealing with all sort of topics concerning guitar effects pedals and building a pedal board. You know us guitarists just cant stop buying those stomp boxes, and most of us have at least a drawer full of them. Come on admit it… I know I’m not the only one with 8 different distortion pedals, 3 flangers, 2 delays, various chorus pedals, and a few more I’ve probably forgotten.
I always envied bass players. They just plug right into the amp, connect amp to wall socket, hit the power button, and BOOM, ready for the downbeat.
My First Interview!! Finally, A Celebrity of Sorts
June 29th, 2010I was asked a week ago to do a short interview with this guy who is taking a journalism course. He found me on the internet searching Google, he likes guitars, and thought “why not call Maurice and see if I can interview him for this class project I have due next week.” I agreed and we set a date and time for him to come to the shop.
He showed up, notebook in hand, and while I was working on a guitar setup he asked a bunch of questions about me, guitar repair, and guitars in general. It was fun so I wanted to post the article that he submitted for his class, with his permission of course. Here it is in its entirety.
PASADENA, Calif.–“Sometimes I like to go buy a cheap old guitar from a yard sale and just smash it with a hammer to see what repairs I can make,” says Maurice Adams from his garage-turned-workshop.
Adams, 42, created Adams Music Instrument Repair in 2003 out of his Pasadena home, where it’s been a one-man business from the start.
His workspace is woodshop meets Woodstock, toolboxes and tie-dye, and a shrine to hard work and hard rock. Adams appears to fall somewhere between handyman and hippie, with short black hair, and clad in jeans and a blue Memphis Tigers t-shirt on this day.
Adams grew up in a musical household where his “dad was a good clarinet player” he recalls. He began playing the guitar at 14, and the six-string has been his instrument of choice ever since, performing in both original and cover bands starting in his late-teenage years.
He dabbled in basic guitar repair while in college at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, where he received a degree in mechanical engineering. It wasn’t until Adams attended Summit School of Building and Repair in Vancouver in 2003 that he was ready to open his own repair shop. “It was really important for me to have that formal training, and learn from someone more experienced,” Adams says, while fixing the action (the height of the strings above the fret board) on a customer’s acoustic guitar. “There is plenty of lesson-learning material out there, with Internet sites and videos. That’s fine if I’m only fixing my guitars, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable fixing other people’s guitars with just that basic knowledge.”
The guitar repairman, whose full-time gig is selling industrial products, does the repairs as a side job. “I don’t have set hours. Some days I might only work for an hour doing setup work (neck, string height, fret wear) for an acoustic. Some days I might have to put in new pickups (for an electric guitar), which can take five or six hours.”
There is really no such thing as a typical day at Adams Music Instrument Repair, as evidenced by one particular repair request out of left field. “One customer had a car horn button on the body of the guitar to stop the sound. He needed that replaced, so I found something at an auto parts store,” he says.
He doesn’t provide a set price list to his customers and admits that he probably could charge more for his services. “I’m thinking of making $30 the benchmark. Once the guitar comes out of the case, that’s automatically 30, and it can go up from there,” he affirms as he places a $20 invoice on the case of the guitar he’s been working on during the interview.
Adams also admits he needs to advertise his business a bit more. “I’ve started a blog, but I know I need to update it more often. I would like to get the word out even more.” Even without a full-on advertising campaign, Adams Music Instrument Repair comes up first in a Google search for “guitar repair Pasadena.” This is no small feat when competing for business in a city of more than 150,000 people.
For now, Adams is content with the steady flow of business. He enjoys each unique challenge that guitar repair brings, from resetting a vintage Martin acoustic guitar to fixing a broken headstock on a Fender Stratocaster.
And if it’s a slow workday, he can always take a hammer to one of his own guitars.