This guitar had quite noticeable fret buzz around the 9th fret. The owner thought it might need some fret levelling.
I spotted that the action was very low for an acoustic guitar, but also that there was a marked S shape in the neck, with the dip being between the 5th fret and the neck/body joint. Truss rod adjustments improved the neck relief considerably, but lowered the action even more. I temporarily shimmed the saddle, to raise the action and then confirmed that the fret buzz was fixed. At this point the saddle was sitting on far too many shims, so after consulting with the owner, I ordered a new saddle, which I then shaved to the correct height for a reasonable action with no fret buzz. Problem solved.
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This early 70s P bass was producing a very weak and very noisy signal. The challenges started with simply trying to get the scratchplate off - the screws were choked with rust, both in their threads and heads.
The wiring had been replaced at some point, but had been done by someone without great soldering skills - there were some poor solder joints in there. The pickup also had a problem - one coil showed very high DC resistance when measured on the multi-meter. I don't have the experience or equipment to start digging into a vintage pickup, so after consulting the owner I sent it off to Armstrong pickups in Kent. They rewound the coil and got it back to me in just over a week. I replaced all the wiring again and put the bass back together. All the scratchplate screws had a cleanup, apart from three that I replaced with new, aged screws. This bass had obviously had a life, with quite a bit of natural wear, and also some corrosion to metal parts. It was very satisfying to see it working properly again. A customer brought a Harley Benton acoustic guitar for setup. He hadn't played much for a few years, but his son had just started to learn guitar and he wanted to be able to strum along with the youngster. He wanted a bit of ease-of-use out of the Harley Benton. I gave the truss rod a tweak, shaved down the saddle and took some material out of the nut slots to give a comfortable playing action.
Its been a while since I put anything in this blog. But then it was 2020 and all that entailed. Lets all hope that 2021 brings some improvement.......
If you're looking for something different for a grade 7 exam piece, the RGT includes this tune on its list of suggested alternative pieces. It is published in a book called 'Duck Baker's Fingerstyle Blues 101'. Duck baker is a renowned guitar player and teacher, and this is a great book if you want to get your fingers around some bluesy instrumentals. There are 12 pieces in the book, and the RGT list grades them all; they range from grade 5 to grade 8. As is common with modern music books it comes with access to downloadable recordings of all the pieces.
Here's a demonstration of the arrangement of 'Down by the Sally Gardens' from the RGT acoustic guitar grade 4 handbook. This traditional tune has a simple but strong melody and the sparse arrangement really lets it take centre stage.
Although it is a relatively slow and simple arrangement it is not without its challenges. There are a few quick position changes and a couple of stretchy chords towards the end of the piece, which require some careful practice. Overall, the sparseness of the arrangement means that all of the notes are quite exposed, so it is quite tricky to get a smooth performance that brings out the melody. Thats my excuse anyway! This Tune by Max Milligan appeared on his album 'Homage' in 2005. It was written as a tribute to the acoustic guitar virtuoso Eric Roche, who died that year. It has quite a ragtime-y feel with a strong alternating bass throughout, but the chords that have been used give it a contemporary twist.
I made this video specifically to demonstrate the arrangement used in the RGT acoustic guitar grade 7 handbook. This arrangement has most of the sections of Max Milligan's original composition, but with some section repeats removed, which shortens the piece. The tempo is also a bit gentler than in the original version. My top tip for anyone practicing pieces for an exam is to target accuracy, rather than high tempo. You will get more marks for an accurate and musical performance, even if you are playing a little bit slowly. Enjoy! A customer contacted me, asking if I could cut down the nut slots on his 'Partscaster' Stratocaster. The guitar was made up of a 1980's Squier body to which he had recently added a Fender neck that he bought via eBay. The nut slots on the neck gave the guitar a very high first fret action. On inspecting the guitar, I realised that it really needed a full setup. This involved:
1. Adjusting the truss rod, 2. Shimming the neck/body joint to allow a good action to be obtained within the adjustment range of the bridge saddles, 3. Adjusting the bridge saddles to give a comfortable 12th fret playing action, 4. Cutting down the nut slots to give a comfortable 1st fret playing action, 5. Adjusting the intonation. Additionally, the customer asked for a couple of Tusq string guides to be fitted to the headstock and the earth wire solder joint onto the vibrato claw needed repairing. My first foray into video making.
This tune appeared on Stefan Grossman's album 'Love, Devils and the Blues' in the early 1990s. Sheet music for this and other tunes on the album is available in a book of the same name, published by Mel Bay Publications. The tune was recorded by Grossman on a high strung guitar, on which the usual E, A, D and G strings are replaced by the high octave strings from a 12 string guitar. It works just as well in standard tuning though. I checked my rendition against the sheet music and realised that when I learnt it (some years ago) I must have done so by ear. I'm playing some melody notes on the top E string, that would have been on the high-strung G string, so this isn't exactly as notated. I guess I'll have to call it my own arrangement! I hope you enjoy it! The customer had a Yamaha RBX375 bass, which has active circuitry. The pickup pan control and tone control didn't appear to be working properly. Active circuits can be tricky to work with as there are usually quite a few components, circuit boards and wires crammed into small spaces in the control cavities. The complexity of the circuits also makes them quite difficult to understand and diagnose without a circuit design diagram. Fortunately with this one I was able to find a service manual on the Internet, for a similar Yamaha bass. This helped me to home in on the part of the circuit which might be at fault. By doing some meter tests and physically inspecting the circuit (with a torch and magnifying glass) I found a solder joint which had been badly made in the factory and which had subsequently come apart. This was easily fixed, but is a good example of how this type of problem can take a lot more time to diagnose than to fix.
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