Guitar Tone

This Tone Tip is about as simple as it gets, but it’s one that—once understood, and mastered―proves a surprising revelation to many players. During what I would reverentially refer to as the Golden Age of Tone, the late 1950s, ’60s, and early ’70s, this tip was second nature to great electric guitarists. It seems to have fallen from the knowledge...

Measuring (above) and adjusting (below) the pickup height on a pair of Jazz Bass® guitars. When you’re having your guitar or bass set up, with the action and intonation adjusted all ship-shape, don’t forget to take a look at pickup height. Like action, pickup height is a personal preference (unlike intonation, which is an exact science), but guitars and basses...

Many players think of a guitar’s finish purely in regards to aesthetic considerations and not as another factor in its tonal makeup, but the types of finishes commonly applied to electric guitar bodies all alter the wood’s resonance in one way or another, and therefore affect the guitar’s tone. In the extreme—for example, in the case of heavy, air-tight finishes—they...

On this jack-tightening device, called a Bullet™, the stopper end can be seen at far right with the handle end at far left. The sleeve surrounding the stopper has a hexagonal socket that fits around the nut that holds the input jack in place. It’s used as seen in the image below. Once in a while, guitarists and bassists are...

Here's a great article with tips on tuning your guitar using harmonics courtesy of the Fender Website. Absent an electronic tuner, you know how you can get your instrument to a point where it’s at least in tune with itself using the harmonics at the fifth and seventh frets? And you know how that works on guitar for every string...