In a previous post I said I was taking my guitar into the shop to have the intonation (among other things) set. So what is this thing called intonation?

Intonation refers to the notes on the guitar being in tune all the way from open to the high end of the fretboard. If a guitar’s intonation is set properly every E note played on the fretboard will have the proper pitch. If the intonation is off, usually the notes at the nut end of the fretboard will be correct, but they will slowly become sharp or flat the further you move up the fretboard.

Continue reading What is Intonation on the Guitar?

The very first guitar I had was this small acoustic that was obviously supposed to have nylon strings on it. At first I did not know about nylon strings, but later realized that because of the style of bridge, it should have had them. Anyway, my best friend and I called the guitar “The Killer”. We called it this for two reasons. Reason 1, it was a nylon string guitar that had steel strings on it so the action was really bad and it would kill your fingers if you played for too long. The second reason was because my best friend’s mom bought it from a guy who she later found out from the local newspaper was convicted of murder. The name was suiting. There was an upside to playing it though, I developed some pretty wicked calices.

Continue reading What is Action on the Guitar?

How often you change your stings all depends on how often you play and what type of strings you use. As you play a set of stings they will slowly lose their tone due to stretching and oil and dirt buildup. The sound of the strings may be the deciding factor in changing them.

You can preserve the tone of your strings somewhat if you clean your hands before playing the guitar and clean the strings after you are done. You can buy string cleaning formulas, but wiping them with a clean dry cloth should do. My hands build up a bit of a sweat when I’m playing for long periods of time, so cleaning that off really prolongs the life of my strings.

I have heard you should be able to expect anywhere from 12 hours of play and up depending on what types of strings. Now 12 hours of play isn’t very much. If you play 2 hours a day that’s once a week you would have to change your strings. Basically what that time means is after 12 hours of play the strings will start to lose their initial tone. If you are playing gigs or are a touring musician, that might be required for you, but for the average Joe its overkill.
Continue reading How Often Should You Change Your Guitar Strings?

Serg has posted some great information about fret buzz on his site Guitar Daily. He goes into perfect detail on the causes of fret buzz and how they can be rectified.

To sum up his posts causes could be:

1. Old strings
2. New strings that have not settled
3. Action is too low
4. Bent or warped neck
5. Inconsistent fret heights

If you are experiencing buzzing on your frets I suggest you head over and read his posts.
Top Reasons For Guitar Fret buzz
Fret Buzz - Guitar Action
Fret buzz - low and high frets
and Fret Buzz: Neck Relief, Bow And Back Bow at Guitar Daily.

I found a great post titled Guitar Reading List v3 and Instructional DVDs over at Striking the Right Chord, If You Can Find It.

I haven’t had the chance to read all of the books on his list, but nevertheless, it is a great list. One book I must agree on is his number one pick, The Guitar Handbook by Ralph Denyer.

Bob Sutor, the blog’s author says:

The Guitar Handbook by Ralph Denyer
This is the master bible: a lot of information about guitars and music theory and even information on how to fix things when they break.

I like the book because it has a lot of everything. It has guitar history, construction, and maintenance information as well as chords, scales, and technique lessons ranging from beginner to advanced.

Bob has made a great comprehensive list and I will be checking out a few of his suggestions myself.

As with many things pertaining to guitar, the type and size of strings are all preference. At most guitar stores there will be a selection ranging from $5 strings up to maybe $35 for premium strings. Strings come in all sorts of different thicknesses and are made from different metals, so how do you choose what type is right for you?

Type of Guitar

The type of strings you are going to get first depends on what type of guitar you have. You will need a different type of strings if you have an electric guitar, an acoustic guitar, a classical nylon string guitar, or a 12 string guitar. There is usually a large selection of strings for each type, depending on what store you go to.

String Gauge or Thickness

Strings come in a range of standard and custom gauges (or thicknesses). Usually they range from extra light, to light, to medium, to heavy, and in some cases extra heavy. The gauge of strings you choose depends on a few things.
Continue reading Guitar Strings - How and What to Buy

So when I dropped my guitar off on Tuesday the tech said he would have it for me by the end of the week. I hadn’t heard anything (on my cell) on Friday and I was getting a little upset that I would be guitarless for the weekend. However, when I got home he had left a message on my answering machine. I ate dinner with my girlfriend and then we went to pick it up.

The repairs were $107.99 CAD + %7 taxes. This was a little bit steeper than I had expected. I didn’t think it was going to take him that long to do the repairs. However, it turns out that I really did a bad job installing the EMG pickups that I bought last Christmas (a year ago), so he had to reinstall them as well.

When I got the guitar home and plugged it in it all made sense and it was 200% worth it. I would have paid twice as much. I mean it sounds better than when I bought it new. I looked down the neck, and it’s perfectly straight. Now I can see what he saw when he looked at it for that half second when I took it in.

The strings stay in tune all the way up the fretboard. I checked by plucking each string open, and then plucking them while they were fretted on the 12th fret. The pitches sound the same. I can tell the bridge was adjusted because the high strings are lower and the base strings are a bit higher. Also the saddles have been moved. The pickups are working great as well. The tone is much clearer and I get less noise at high volumes. I think he set the height of the pickups as well because the sustain is about 100 times better.

I’m really happy I took it in. It was totally worth it and I’ll probably have it looked at once a year. The next time it won’t be expensive because my pickups are all setup mint now. It’ll be cheaper to have the bridge/intonation set if needed.

I took my guitar into Guitar Works today for a setup. Here’s what I asked the tech to look at:

The Neck
Bridge height
Intonation
My Pickups

First off, I stared down the neck of my guitar for a good 5 minutes one day trying to tell if it was bowed and I couldn’t tell. I wasn’t really sure what I was looking for though. When I took it into the shop the guy took all of 5 seconds looking at it to tell it was off. My girlfriend thinks he was playing on my ignorance to squeeze some money out of me, but he was obviously not short on business. So I don’t think that was the case.

I have Zakk Wylde EMG pickups in my guitar and I installed them myself. At the time I purchased them I didn’t have the funds to pay for them and have them installed professionally, so I did it myself. Now that I can afford it I have asked him to make sure I installed them properly. I have a feeling I didn’t do a very good job of installing them.

Finally, since I know the bridge adjustment went out when I installed my pickups, I have asked him to check the bridge height and set the intonation.

He told me he should have it done by the end of the week, so we’ll see how it goes.

I have been playing guitar for over 7 years now and I just bought my first guitar book. I have had tab books in the past, but never a book about guitars and how to play them.

The book has a section on guitar maintenance and repair which discusses topics like action and intonation. Although I have heard of these things before, when going through the steps to check them on my guitar I found it was a bit out. The book says some guitar shops will setup a guitar before it is sold, but if it is sold without being setup, the factory doesn’t always do a great job of it.

So I have decided to take my guitar in to have new strings put on, and have the intonation, bridge, and truss rod setup.

I’ll post back with how it goes.