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...
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...
Above, a truss rod seen in cutaway inside a Fender guitar neck, with the headstock end at left and the body end (where adjustments were made on this neck) at right. Below, a Telecaster Deluxe's bullet-type truss rod nut is clearly visible at center. The truss rod. It’s the long metal thing that runs down the length of your guitar...