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Category Archives: The Tone Garage
Seymour Duncan’s Prodigal Sons: the SH7 and the SH9
If you were to take a close look at the lineup of pickups from Seymour Duncan, you might notice a numbering system for the humbuckers: SH-1 (’59), SH-2 (Jazz), SH-3 (Stag Mag), all the way up to SH-18. This nice line of sequential pickups gives you an indication how old a specific design is. For example, it’s pretty commonly known that the SH-2 Jazz and SH-4 JB were developed simultaneously. It doesn’t take much imagination to think that those first few pickups were designed and released in the same era, the late 1970s. But look again and you might notice two gaping holes in the lineup. The SH-7 and SH-9 are missing! Continue reading
Posted in The Tone Garage
Tagged custom shop, discontinued, distortion, Scott Miller, SEY sticker, seymourizer, SH-6, SH-6n, SH-7, SH-9, silverbird
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Stack Plus Pickups – Single Coil Tone Without the Hum
When noiseless single-coil pickups are discussed, it won’t be long before someone says that they can never sound exactly like a real single coil. The fact that they’re humbuckers at the core means that some of that high-end sparkle disappears. There are some things to remember at this point. Continue reading
Posted in The Tone Garage
Tagged david gilmour, humbucker, single coil, SSL-1, SSL-5, Stack Plus, STK-S4, STK-S6, stratocaster
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Ola Strandberg, the genius behind the Ergonomic Guitar System
A couple of years ago I was looking for a replacement tremolo system to fit a Floyd Rose route. I stumbled on the tremolo system designed and build by Ola Strandberg. Even though my guitar and the tremolo system weren’t … Continue reading
Posted in The Tone Garage
Tagged 8 string, Al Mu’min, Charvel, EGS, EndurNeck, ergonomy, Grover Jackson, Interview, Misha Mansoor, NAMM, Nazgul, Ola Strandberg, Project Guitar, Sh-1, sh-2, Sh-4, Strictly 7, the HAARP Machine, Tosin Abasi
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Fun with Delay
Delay, or echo (as it should be called) is the repeating of sound. It is the sound when you yell into a canyon and you hear your voice back at you because it reflects off of the rocks. No canyons … Continue reading
How To Solder
In this article I’ll take you through the various things you’ll need to know about soldering to work on your guitar. You’ll need to know how to protect your guitar, how to solder to lugs, how to de-solder wires, how to clean contacts,and how to solder to the back of a pot. But first, lets make sure we’ve got the right equipment.
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Tele Bridge Pickup Options
If you’ve got a Telecaster that you love the feel of but you’re not totally happy with the lead pickup sound, there are lots of options. In this article I’ll take you through some of them, and let you hear what a few of them would sound like too. I’m going to assume that your Tele is a “normal” one – as in, it has the big metal bridge plate with a single coil pickup in it. Where can we go from there? Continue reading
Posted in The Tone Garage
Tagged Broadcaster, Hot for Tele, Hot Lead Stack, JB Jr., Little '59, Quarter Pound For Tele, telecaster
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How I Fixed My Warped Pickguard
While storing ‘loaded up’ pickguards, I noticed that one of them started bowing itself into a bowl shape. When I wanted to use it, there was no way it was going to fit on the guitar. Yes, I could have forced it, but putting slight pressure on the edges caused the middle to bubble up, so more drastic methods were needed. Continue reading
Posted in The Tone Garage
Tagged Alnico II Pro, APH-1, Custom Custom, pickguard, sh-11, warp
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Guitar Synthesizers and the Use of Hex Pickups
Mention the idea of ‘midi guitar’ to most guitarists and the image that springs to mind is most likely an ’80s cover band with skinny ties where the guitarist has to cover the keyboard parts to ‘Jump’ and ‘Safety Dance.’ … Continue reading
Stripping and Screwing (Your Guitar)
Electric guitars are held together with a lot of screws. Some guitars have a glued-in neck, but even those guitars have screws holding almost everything else together. A screw into a properly-sized pilot hole in a piece of solid wood is a very firm fixing, and they’re easy to use, so it makes good sense. Continue reading
The Action of your Neck: Unlocking Its Mysteries!
Every now and then, friends come over with complaints about their guitar: the tone is wrong, the playability is off, tuning stability issues and sometimes even cosmetic issues are brought to my attention. I’m happy to address all issues, but … Continue reading
