Dylan McKerchie

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...

It's  always fun to work on and modify our guitars. The first thing we do is jump online and check out some forums and videos. The resources for learning how to repair your guitar and make additions to it are endless. Then we go and buy a new part or pedal or etc and then we install it. Today we want to share a few things to keep in mind when working on your guitar. Most importantly, some things to avoid. We don't want to do damage to the instrument we are trying to improve. Watch the video below for...

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...

Intonation is Key.... No matter how good your guitar "feels" if it always sound a bit out of tune, it will be very frustrating. Not only will it sound bad, there will be harmonics and overtones the simply will not be possible. The Great Compromise As we discussed in the preceding articles, on the Neck Relief, the String Height, and the Nut, we saw how key each of these adjustments were to your overall playability and to your overall tone. Since there is no right answer for what each of these measurements should be, understanding how they all work together...