Dylan McKerchie — Guitar Setup

The quest for the perfect guitar tone is where we as guitarists seem to spend most of our time. With all the social media platforms, forums, and advertising available these days, it seems that we spend more time surfing and less time playing. Usually this is centered around the latest stomp box or some seemingly revolutionary rehashing of some basic component like strings or cables. The new hotness is usually touted to be THE THING that is going to take your playing to the next level. Granted, all this stuff is cool, and the new hotness may be pretty hot…....

How To Keep a Bigsby in tune... A tremolo/Vibrato system is one of those things that many people tend to love, hate, or put up with. Are you one of those people that bought a guitar with a tremolo system and very quickly locked it down because it wouldn't stay in tune? The Bigsby Specifically... The principles in this article apply to all tremolo/Vibrato systems, but the Bigsby seems to get a bad rap a lot more than a Strat style or Floyd style Vibrato. This is probably because once you put a Bigsby on your guitar, you are committed....

Vintage Pickups Vs Modern Pickups.... Many times the word "vintage" shows up in the ever elusive quest for tone. What is it that makes people want old stuff so bad? we will talk about the changes in materials and if they affect tone in another post.... Today, we want to understand what questions we should be asking when purchasing pickups. Many people will call a pickup company and say, "I want a vintage spec pickup". What does that mean? What is a "Vintage" Pickup? It is an old pickup.... plain and simple. Usually what people really are requesting is a...

Neck Angle... Many guitars with bolt on necks have no neck angle. This means that when the neck relief is set to zero, the fretboard surface is parallel to the body. Some guitars have some degree of neck angle, usually 2-6 degrees. Why? The first reason is simply age. Guitars are usually made of different types of wood that were cut and dried at different times. As things age, things move. What was once a perfectly set up instrument may have changed with time. No matter the quality of the original build. Because of the amount of neck relief needed...

Guitar Setup... There are no rules. Over the last week, we discussed the various aspects of guitar setup Truss Rod Adjustment String Height Nuts Intonation Many of the specs mentioned in these articles and videos are middle of the road spec for using average weight strings, and playing in a normal tuning. There are a large number of players that don't use these strings and tunings, Tuning down a whole step, using much heavier strings, and playing with higher action is very common. When people start using these alternate setups, the "textbook" specs go out the window. The Principles Stay...