# The Great Ongoing Guitar Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** music\ **Created:** [January 31, 2010, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-guitar-thread/527172 "2010-01-31T23:20:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 312
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2023, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-guitar-thread/527172/6226 "2023-12-21T03:45:11Z")
Weird his Tele has TV Jones? pickups, but he sounds great. I’ve never watched the tutorial part, the cover at the beginning is just so “yeah, smoke it!” ---
**Author:** ![ColdBrew50](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@ColdBrew50](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ColdBrew50)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2023, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-guitar-thread/527172/6227 "2023-12-21T06:57:40Z")
Nice! That guy is a trip, man! He’s got the stage performance shtik down cold, even while seated. The other nice thing about open G is I can probably “translate” some of those great Mark Knopfler fingerpicking riffs (like “Money for Nothing”) into the open tuning and just play around with it. Sort of as an exercise, like mental arithmetic or something like that. Especially if I leave the bottom string tuned to “E” concert (and just not play it when pretending to be Keef)…it’s not all that different from standard tuning. You know, just the fifth and top string are tuned down a step when done Keith Richards five-string style. And, I used to fool around with the banjo a tiny bit…decades ago…nothing serious…but anyway, my thinking is Open G permanently on the blackguard butterscotch Squier because (i) Stones (ii) other stuff…likely not be as much of a limitation as one might think. So a one-trick pony with a few other tricks hidden away. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2023, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-guitar-thread/527172/6228 "2023-12-21T14:57:34Z")
If you have a guitar in standard tuning, you can also do “cheaters G”: sound the A and the G string together, then detune the A until it’s in unison with the G. Now you just play only the middle 4 strings and you can do Stones riffs. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2023, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-guitar-thread/527172/6229 "2023-12-21T15:43:42Z")
> [@ColdBrew50](#): > > Word on the street is that the WR humbucker is actually just some generic humbucker with the WR cover put on it, just for looks, I guess. Sounds fine to me through a basic amp, and different enough from the single coil neck pup that I’ll have fun with it. The thing with cheap humbuckers is they may not use an Alnico magnet, so there’s less clarity. If you find yourself setting the tone to 10 constantly with the neck pickup, this is the problem: you’re playing through a pillow. Easy enough to swap for a better humbucker. [GuitarFetish](https://www.guitarfetish.com/GFS-Guitar-Pickups_c_7.html) makes really great, not expensive pickups. I have one of their [Fatbody](https://www.guitarfetish.com/KP--Alnico-Fatbody-Oversized-Polepiece-Neck-Pickup-Fits-Telereg--Kwikplug%E2%84%A2-Ready_p_21973.html) pickups in the neck of my spendy 2008 Tele and it sounds flipping amazing. Hardtail Strat tone, lots of snap. You emphatically do _not_ want anything “overwound” or “hot”: you lose all the clarity. ---
**Author:** ![ColdBrew50](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@ColdBrew50](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ColdBrew50)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2023, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-guitar-thread/527172/6230 "2023-12-22T10:52:27Z")
> [@squeegee](#): > > The thing with cheap humbuckers is they may not use an Alnico magnet, so there’s less clarity. If you find yourself setting the tone to 10 constantly with the neck pickup, this is the problem: you’re playing through a pillow. It may well be a decent-ish humbucker with Alnico magnets. I don’t believe the original CuNiFe Seth Lover WR humbuckers are in _any_ Fenders or Squiers, but I think there are some manufacturers who still manage to make a few, perhaps. I’m pretty sure the volume pots are at 250K, for both bridge and neck pickups. I’m better at music than at soldering, but this is a nice dovetailing of these two interests. Music, of course, which I love, and sometimes can pull it off (?!) even on guitar, and soldering, of necessity, which I’m getting better at. But, for the moment, through my only guitar “amp” at the moment (a TC Bam200 into a TOOB Metro 6.5BG cabinet), I have no complaints yet. The action is just way too low for my tastes, but switching to the 11s will fix that, as well as give me a chance to see if the fret leveling is completely buggered out of the box. And when changing strings, I can give the nut a good close look. I happen to have a pretty good set of metal files, but not designed for filing rounded divots…can improvise in that regard, if needed. Probably not for the 11s but maybe a problem for the flatwound 12/52 set on the blackguard. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2023, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-guitar-thread/527172/6231 "2023-12-22T14:59:23Z")
> [@ColdBrew50](#): > > I don’t believe the original CuNiFe Seth Lover WR humbuckers are in _any_ Fenders or Squiers, but I think there are some manufacturers who still manage to make a few, perhaps. Fender will sell you one - for $250! > **[CuNiFe® Wide Range Humbucker](https://www.fender.com/en-US/parts/pickups-preamps/cunife-wide-range-humbucker/0992297002.html)** > > CuNiFe™ Wide Range Neck Pickup, Chrome I wasn’t aware they stopped putting WRs in guitars in 1979. But I’ve never played a Fender that wasn’t all single coils. ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2023, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-guitar-thread/527172/6232 "2023-12-22T18:30:31Z")
They’ve made a moderately big deal about the return of CuNiFe in some of the emails I get from them. That’s the only reason I knew they left. ---
**Author:** ![ColdBrew50](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@ColdBrew50](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ColdBrew50)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2023, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-guitar-thread/527172/6233 "2023-12-23T23:26:23Z")
New guitar string day! A set of D’Addario Chromes in 12/52 flatwounds and a three-pack of D’Addario rounds in 11/49. The Squier took the 12 fine…the 52…I did file out the nut, because it needed quite a bit…didn’t quite make it! Tuning up very slowly, up to E concert…snap… Well, that makes my backup plan very simple. Take a sixth string 0.049" from one of the roundwound sets, and use it as the bass string…so…that leaves a grand total of two flatwound strings on my fake Keef guitar. A more judicious person would have taken the opportunity to clean throughly the fretboard and so forth…but I’m drinking Macallan 12 and I filed the nut just fine! Trust me, it’s fine! So, for this one, I go 0.012, 0.016, 0.018p, 0.032, 0.042. 0.049p. In open G, of course, but leave the sixth string in E concert because why not. Dammit. If I’d kept the lower string to D concert, she wouldn’t have snapped. Foolish of me. But at least the nut is now cut way too large for anything lesser, so it’s got that going for it, which is nice. [![](https://i.ibb.co/2P5yYDR/20231223-151245.jpg) ](https://i.ibb.co/2P5yYDR/20231223-151245.jpg) ETA and \<\Andy Rooney\> whatever happened to string sets coming with each string in a little envelope? I don’t like the way these are all mixed together with color coding! It’s a string museum at home, where I don’t want it! \ ---
**Author:** ![ColdBrew50](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@ColdBrew50](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ColdBrew50)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2023, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-guitar-thread/527172/6234 "2023-12-24T00:53:15Z")
Fat and ugly. Just the kind of sugar papa likes. That’s a lot of tension even with the 12s swapped with the plain G and the A string that’s way thicker than the low E. Only lost one string in the process, but found out that the tuners on the guitar…the gear ratio was all wrong, or got screwed up, so quick fix with a screwdriver for those limey bollocks. Actually it’s surprisingly difficult to just do like “Honkey Tonk Woman” bends on the G string…checking…no, it’s a plain G…just getting soft, I guess. Rock over London, Rock home Chicago! Pontiac! We build excitement! [![](https://i.ibb.co/Fbz2brf/20231223-164353.jpg) ](https://i.ibb.co/Fbz2brf/20231223-164353.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![ColdBrew50](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@ColdBrew50](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ColdBrew50)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2023, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-guitar-thread/527172/6235 "2023-12-25T05:01:07Z")
Oh, and because I’m sure the tale of a man and his guitar strings is of endless fascination, check this out! After my sloppy, ad hoc string change and Big-n-Slow (new name for the butterscotch Squier)…intonation is 100% spot on perfect at the 12th fret. No, didn’t adjust anything at the saddles. lt’s just miraculously perfect, in Open G. Tuning stability is much improved…probably from tightening the gear ratios on the tuners, as well as maybe the thicker strings, plus my perfect string winding around the tuning posts. Once Xmas is over, I’ll get a single flatwound for the sixth string at a local music shop, assuming they have any in a smaller gauge than 0.052". I should change the CV 70s Custom to 11s tonight, but…I don’t really feel like it. Not expecting real intonation difficulties even with the 3-barrel saddle…which is compensated. There are slots for the strings at each barrel, and there’s enough play in the saddles to move them at angles. No, I’m not going to bother with putting in some brass saddles. If anything, the 250K pot for the \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ humbucker at the neck should probably be dealt with at some point, but not doing that now either. I will take off the neck pickup cover when I have the strings off and see exactly what’s inside beneath the “WR” cover, though…only way to be sure! ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2023, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-guitar-thread/527172/6236 "2023-12-25T05:06:19Z")
> [@ColdBrew50](#): > > After my sloppy, ad hoc string change and Big-n-Slow (new name for the butterscotch Squier)…intonation is 100% spot on perfect at the 12th fret. No, didn’t adjust anything at the saddles. lt’s just miraculously perfect, in Open G. As you were told: change your strings, _then_ measure intonation. This surprises me not at all. > [@ColdBrew50](#): > > the 3-barrel saddle…which is compensated It is!? V surprised. And gratified that Squier added compensated barrels. This is a boon for you. > [@ColdBrew50](#): > > I will take off the neck pickup cover when I have the strings off and see exactly what’s inside beneath the “WR” cover, though…only way to be sure! You’re going to find two black bobbins with a bar magnet underneath. I can’t imagine what you’d learn. ??? ---
**Author:** ![ColdBrew50](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@ColdBrew50](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ColdBrew50)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2023, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-guitar-thread/527172/6237 "2023-12-25T05:10:07Z")
> [@squeegee](#): > > As you were told: change your strings, _then_ measure intonation. This surprises me not at all. Like I do as I’m told! You change _your_ strings! 😆 > [@squeegee](#): > > It is!? V surprised. And gratified that Squier added compensated barrels. This is a boon for you. Yeah, me too! I don’t expect any difficulties with this one. Seems like the thing they probably should have advertised, but it’s a nice surprise. > [@squeegee](#): > > You’re going to find two black bobbins with a bar magnet underneath. I can’t imagine what you’d learn. ??? Well, yeah. But I can flip it over, look at the back…there’s got to be some identifying marks on there. Plus I can see what the shielding is like inside the cavity if I ever want to swap neck pickups, just out of curiosity. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2023, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-guitar-thread/527172/6238 "2023-12-25T05:12:28Z")
> [@ColdBrew50](#): > > Plus I can see what the shielding is like inside the cavity If it’s inadequate, buy [adhesive shielding tape](https://www.amazon.com/Conductive-Shielding-Repellent-Electrical-Grounding/dp/B07N33FPF8?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&smid=A3D53DZ7TUJUM1&th=1) and solder a ground wire to it. Boom, done. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2023, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-guitar-thread/527172/6239 "2023-12-25T05:13:30Z")
> [@ColdBrew50](#): > > You change _your_ strings! I do, all the damn time. Especially if I’m debugging a guitar. ---
**Author:** ![ColdBrew50](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@ColdBrew50](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ColdBrew50)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2023, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-guitar-thread/527172/6240 "2023-12-25T05:16:41Z")
> [@squeegee](#): > > If it’s inadequate, I’m really hoping against hope there is a beautiful pickup cavity lined with foil…but…who knows. I think the routing for the WR “style” humbuckers is a bit larger than what a PAF might take…but I could be misremembering. At any rate, that’s all just for curiosity’s sake…whatever is in the neck is good enough for me just plinking around at home. Plus my HOA fines me a hundo every time a neighbor complains about noise…regardless of independent verification…so I keep it low and pleasing! ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2023, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-guitar-thread/527172/6241 "2023-12-25T05:18:39Z")
> [@ColdBrew50](#): > > I think the routing for the WR “style” humbuckers is a bit larger than what a PAF might take…but I could be misremembering. This is a correct: a route for a WR is slightly bigger than for a humbucker. You can fit any humbucker in the route. Except: your WR isn’t a WR, so already routed for any humbucker. You’re good. You might need a new pickguard, but I’m v skeptical that you would. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2023, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-guitar-thread/527172/6242 "2023-12-25T05:19:26Z")
Now that I’ve mastered\* my scales and since I never bothered to master my triads I’ve decided to try to learn something new. I asked for a slide for Christmas. I haven’t opened my presents yet, but I’m pretty sure it’s in there. So … Open G? Will that be my new friend? \*for various definition of the word ---
**Author:** ![ColdBrew50](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@ColdBrew50](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ColdBrew50)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2023, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-guitar-thread/527172/6243 "2023-12-25T05:23:42Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > since I never bothered to master my triads I’ve decided to try to learn something new. I asked for a slide for Christmas. I haven’t opened my presents yet, but I’m pretty sure it’s in there. So … Open G? Will that be my new friend? It may be. I’m not any kind of expert…more a beginner, going by own standards of knowing every aspect of the fretboard cold, and still working on my RH, and my LH for that matter (although that’s easy enough for a pianist…with a few adjustments), if that, at this point in my life, although I played before. But if you want a workout for triads, I’m loving Garrison Fewell’s book _Jazz Improvisation for Guitar_. It is _all_ triads, but put in musical context. Of course, it’s a jazz method, but if you want to know triads all over the neck, and superimpose triads to make lines, that’s the one. It takes a _lot_ of effort to truly master the material, IMHO. Fewell expects that for every exercise, the reader is going to go above and beyond and work everything out in all keys and all the positions you can. From what I’ve heard, it’s very similar to the method Carol Kaye (famous bassist, guitarist) taught, which was very much not jazz, but not _not_ jazz…just music. Stacked triads, and absolute fretboard knowledge. I believe that Fewell and Kaye’s basic idea is that, when it comes to playing improvised music of many sorts, it’s a lot of time wasted spent on running scales and modes, and that exploiting triads, including how to connect them, is where a good number of the idiomatic playing comes from in regular improvised music. Maybe not technical shredding, but rock, blues, jazz, chicken pickin’, and other mainstream styles of improvising. But, then there’s Randy Vincent’s _Three Note Voicings and Beyond_. Everything triads. Comes in a spiral bound paperback, so you can open it flat on a music stand. It’s jazz oriented, but the meat of the book is really independent of any specific style. Just about knowing the fretboard. Both those books include tab notation as well as standard. This should slow you down for a while! 🤣 [![](https://i.ibb.co/dmcfb7M/Fewell-Triads1-1.jpg) ](https://i.ibb.co/dmcfb7M/Fewell-Triads1-1.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2023, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-guitar-thread/527172/6244 "2023-12-28T01:33:45Z")
> [@Pork\_Rind](#): > > isn’t as good as satin in my mind I’m on holiday vacation and when traveling, I take my small baritone uke ( Kala KA-SA-B) if possible, and on this trip I was able to fit it in. I haven’t played it for awhile and forgot that it has a satin finish on the neck. OK, I will now admit that I love the finish on this neck. Hmm… Now that I’m primarily playing bass, I think I need to get something to travel with. I see Kala makes a “u-bass” in both acoustic and electric version 😉 ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2023, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-guitar-thread/527172/6245 "2023-12-28T03:34:40Z")
> [@wguy123](#): > > I see Kala makes a “u-bass” in both acoustic and electric version My son has the acoustic model, and I’ll warn you that it is useless without amplification. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-guitar-thread/527172.md?page=311) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-guitar-thread/527172.md?page=313)