Guitar Workbench 53
Building a Guitar, Part 1: Choosing Hardware
Welcome to Part 1 of how to build a parts guitar! Over the next few months, I will be doing a general walkthrough on how to choose parts, and offer several guides on how to do basic DIY guitar work at home. I certainly know when assembling your own custom guitar, or simply modifying a […]
Polish up on Fret Maintenance
A lot of guitarists are vigilant about changing strings and adjusting their guitar’s truss rod, action and intonation with a good setup, but there’s something to be said about keeping your gear clean. Everyone has that friend who asks to try out your guitar, then hands it back with the fretboard feeling like it was left […]
Go With the (Signal) Flow
Setting up your pedalboard involves a little more thought than just trying to fit everything together like a real-life game of Tetris. When using two or more pedals, experimenting with signal flow often results in significant differences in your tone. In this edition of Guitar Workbench, we’re taking a closer listen to how overdrive pedals […]
Setting Your Pickup Height
Guitar forums are rife with posts about topics like how different woods resonate, what bridge setup gives you the most sustain and what nut material you should go with. Sure, all those factors can affect your tone, but if you break an electric guitar down to its simplest parts, what is really creating the sound […]
Wiring Speaker Cabinets
Whether you’ve blown a speaker, are filling up an empty vintage cab, or are just searching for that elusive “perfect tone,” replacing a speaker in a guitar or bass cabinet is not nearly as daunting of a task as it may seem. A few simple tools and supplies can get even the least-handy of players switching […]
Five Tips to Get More from Your Gear
Most guitarists don’t start out with top-of-the-line professional gear. Pretty much everyone I know had a no-name guitar, a garage sale drum kit, a keyboard from Craigslist or a hand-me-down instrument from a sibling or relative’s attic. Eventually though if they’re serious about playing, musicians slowly upgrade their gear by mowing lawns, saving allowances and […]
Modded: Epiphone Sheraton II
Every now and then, you pick up a guitar and it’s perfect from minute one (or at least, right after a quick setup). Other times, you’ve got to take a perfectly good guitar and completely overhaul it just to make it your own. This is the story of a perfectly good guitar that fell victim […]
A Rough Guide to Setting Up Your Guitar
Few things excite a guitarist as much as a new guitar. As soon as it arrives the first thing you want to do is start tearing out some hot riffs, but before you can even strum a chord, you realize something — the action is way off. You paid good money for this guitar, so you want things right. […]
