Category Archives: News

A multi-meter is a handy tool for guitar players to have on their work bench. They have a myriad of uses when it comes to guitar, effects and amplifiers, and it’s always worthwhile having even a basic multi-meter around to troubleshoot things.

Humbuckers have been immensely popular ever since they hit the market. Their fat, juicy tone allows for easier playing, their higher output makes amps crank out more dirt and with all the various humbuckers around you can easily season your guitar to taste. But some players feel the need to go a bit further.

For many players, a change of pickups is one of the very first steps into modding guitars. It’s reversible, it’s not too hard, and it has an immediate impact on your tone. However, it’s still possible to get yourself into a bit of a mess if you don’t have a basic understanding of why you’re doing what you’re doing.

This article will provide a brief history of ambient guitar music and a rundown of the most common tools to get your space on.

A while ago I was asked about different types of lacquer and how luthiers are able to get their guitars to look as glossy as they do. Sometimes they look as if they’re dipped in glass! In this article we’ll take a close look at how luthiers prepare the guitar for finishing and the final…

It’s a question we get asked a heck of a lot here at SD, and a question that appears all over the internet – how should I wire up a mixture of active and passive pickups in the  same guitar? The answer, either from us or elsewhere on the internet, is always either “It’s very…

Anyone reading through the specs of an effects processor or has ever bought a keyboard has seen the word MIDI. What is this crazy thing, and will it make my guitar sound like an 8-bit Atari game? Am I going to have to dig out my protractor and sextant to understand how MIDI works? This article…

If your guitar’s wiring is set up in a way that our wiring instructions do not address (special coil-splitting, or unique switching, etc…), then you may find this pickup wire color-code chart very helpful.

If you’ve been a guitarist for more than five minutes, you’re pretty familiar with effects. Effects can morph our plain guitar sound into something from outer space or just make it seem a little bigger than it actually is. There are many different kinds of effects out there, and many theories stating the ‘correct’ order of effects in your Chain of Sonic Domination.

Music making has changed a lot over the past few years. No longer is someone chained to their bedroom desk bouncing tracks on a 4-track cassette recorder, or chained to a variety of books, pedals, cables, and other devices for practicing or playing. We sometimes forget that all of this information overload today can be…