Dylan McKerchie — Guitar Setup

Tuning Stability.... How? You may wonder.... How can one player bend and stretch and use a tremolo and somehow stay in tune, and I can't keep my guitar in tune for more than a few minutes. You may fight with tuning to the point of cursing tremolos forever and "blocking" them as many people do. You may want to resort to locking nuts and other extreme measures to stay in tune. Even if you don't use a tremolo, you may still fight with tuning.... There IS a way to win the fight. Lets look at two huge factors in tuning...

60Hz Hum Vs EMI/RF Hum in your guitar comes from a few different sources. We discussed how shielding can minimize RF/EMI noise HERE. Electromagnetic interference exists anywhere there is electricity. This is compounded by the fact that anything with a transformer in it, TVs, Fluorescent lights, Power supplies, all emit a lot of EMI because they contain coils. This means that you can have noise from devices that neither share a circuit with your guitar, or are connected in any way. This is because this interference travels through the air. No matter how effectively you have shielded your guitar, you...

Hum is bad.... No matter where we are, Radio Frequency interference is there. In the worst case scenario, It could be severe enough that you could hear voices or music from a radio station. More often, neon and fluorescent lights, dimmer switches, Televisions and all sorts of other devices can cause unwanted hum and crackling. High impedance guitar circuits are susceptible to this. Humbucker Pickups cut down on a lot of this. Learn more about how they do this here. While pickup construction and quality can have a major effect on the amount of RF interference, the rest of the...

String Tension... What affects what? Bonus Footage on the Video!!!!! Les Paul Top wrapping... Yes, No? String tension is something we might take for granted once we have been playing for a while. The string of a particular mass being stretched tightly to a given tension over a calculated distance is what gives us our note. You can see the math to the right.  In real terms, The longer the scale of the guitar, the tighter the string needs to be pulled to get a given note if all other factors are the same. A 25.5" scale requires a higher...

Hard Mounted Pickups Vs Rings.... Hard Mounted Pickups Vs Rings... What does it do to the tone? Lately we have seen a lot of guitars being released with the pickups mounted straight to the body with no pickup rings or pick guards. Some people really like the cleaner look, but wonder if it affects their tone. The first thing to remember is the basic workings of a guitar pickup. We discuss this in detail HERE. The short version is that the string disturbs the magnetic field and causes an excitement of electrons in the coil wire that creates an AC...