A guy was playing the other day and his amp was annoyingly buzzing the entire time—just the guitar amp, not the microphone (hooked up to a different amp via XLR). More likely to have been an amp problem or something with the guitar?
Describe his equipment.
1990s Fender amp, acoustic guitar with pickups, simple distortion pedal. Sorry, I was not paying close attention. It was a kind of punk rock where the lo-fi effect was not necessarily undesired, though; he was even a really bad vocalist! 
Ground loop would be my bet, but a performer would usually know about that. Shitty acoustic pickup maybe, but they’re usually either piezo or humbucker, so no buzz there. Or he was just incompetent with amplification.
Ground loop, or as happened to me many years ago, there’s a fluorescent light burning bright on the ceiling of the level directly below your amp.
That, too. Thank god CFLs are declining.
No idea what he does or does not know about amplification, but there were fluorescent lights nearby (which were audibly buzzing), plus, based on the state of the venue, I would bet there were all kinds of stray voltages and improper grounding…
Beautiful axe! Congratulations - New Guitar Day is one of my favourite days!
I just wanted to let everyone know about my most recent single, “Energize” - it was released on Friday, Sept. 22! You can find it wherever you stream your music, or it’s also here on my YouTube ‘topic’ page - https://youtu.be/QRfGQTW8IZg?si=wP1v2d82NY02rXhv .
Sadly, I’m out of money for large scale video projects, so there won’t be an ‘official video’ to this one. 
I’m curious if any of you have ever got your hands on one of these - the microtonal guitar. https://www.microtonalguitar.org/
I’m not jonesing the way I do over certain other instruments, but I’d love to try one, and I sure wouldn’t kvetch if someone got one for me!
I haven’t had my hands on one, and I’m not sure I’m interested in that particular design with adjustable frets, but I am very interested in a microtonal guitar. It seems like a lot of the manufacturers are “contact for price”, so shopping for them is kind of difficult. Here’s one I’ve eyeballed.
https://www.microtonalnecks.com/
Either way, going to the guitar show in Arlington this Sunday. If I see one, I’ll probably plug it in and try it out.
This is the guy (I found this video a while ago)
He says that the the frets are not movable (on the designs demoed in the video), you have to set them up before playing according to the desired mode/tuning/temperament.
No, but that sounds like an idea whose time has come.
Of course, when I tune up, sometimes using the harmonic on the fourth fret, it might be functionally identical to using microtones. Unintentionally!
(I prefer to tune using mostly fretted strings, after establishing a reference tone…seems to me to get better results than tuning to open strings, since I am almost always in the middle of the fretboard, and almost always am playing in “weird” keys like F, Bb, Eb, Ab and such.)
Hijack question: do most people use the open-string tuning “method” probably first learned by anybody with a guitar (you know, tune the fifth fret of the A string to the open D string, etc.), or do you fool around to get a compromise between the perfect fifth, the perfect fourth, and the major third, depending on where on the fretboard one usually ends up spending the most time?
Not talking about using a fancy strobe tuner, just using one’s ear besides the reference note (if needed, which, for me, it is…A=440Hz).
If I don’t have a tuner to hand, I use the harmonics method.
But I’ve had a good chromatic tuner for many years now, and it’s just quicker and easier.
From a reference note of ‘A’, I prefer to tune with the harmonics 5th fret on the sixth to 7th fret on the fifth, 5th fret on the fifth to 7th fret on the fourth, etc., 7th fret on the sixth to open second, 5th fret on the sixth to open first. (7th fret of the sixth to 12th fret of the fifth for drop D.)
I’ve also got a few of those clip-on tuners, and a decent Korg tuner/metronome. I’ve also got a really nice strobe tuner with various ‘sweetenings’.
Doesn’t really matter, though, because the next thing I’ll do if I’ve got the time is to start with open strings and their octaves. Compare the open third string to the third fret G on the first. Then compare the second fret of the fourth string to the open first. Same for the open fourth to the fretted D on the second string and the fretted B on the fifth string to the open second. After you’ve done all that with the octaves, go back and do the fifths plus octaves - open fifth, open fourth, 2nd fret A on the third, third fret D on the second, fifth fret A on the first; then the same for E, G, C, and A. Then do the same thing at/around the fifth fret; then the same thing at the tenth.
Let it settle, then go through and do the same thing over again - large changes of tension, like changing between standard tuning and drop D, or drop F#, or double drop D, or drop D/G, or open tunings - all of those changes need a bit of time for the neck to settle.
It can take me half an hour to get the 12-string really tuned up the way I like it. I don’t use as many non-standard tunings on it because it takes so long to get it ‘perfect’. (That being said, I do have one song that I do on the 12 that’s in what I call ‘Kora’ tuning - bottom to top, it’s D-d, A-a, D-d, G-g, B-C, E-D. It allows me to play a ii-I progression with my right hand while I play recorder one handed with my left.)
And it depends on the strings - nylon strings are much happier if they get to settle, and they don’t respond well to big changes in tuning.
Back in the late 70s, part of my job at a music store was to keep all the guitars in tune. They called me a ‘guitar tech’, but really, if it was much more than changing strings or intonating an electric, it went to somebody else…
If it’s an unknown guitar, rather than one of my own, it is always a good idea to check the intonation: the bridge may be off. You’re probably not going to be able to make adjustments if it’s someone else’s guitar, but one can make small tweaks to achieve the ‘least worst’ out-of-tune-ness… best done by ear.
Doesn’t that cause quite a bit of dissonance on the top strings? Of course, maybe that’s an intentional feature… dissonance on higher notes may sometimes add piquancy where it would just grate on low ones…?
The song is finger-picked. (I almost never use a pick on the 12)
The opening figure is C+E on the 1st upper (ie closer to the ceiling) and 2nd lower (ie, closer to the floor), thumb picks 1st upper, index picks 2nd lower, resolving to B+D 1st lower and 2nd upper, thumb picks 2nd upper, index picks 1st lower. Then the thumb plays the open G, and so on. The whole song is a huge workout for the right hand in terms of accuracy and jumping strings!
You can play an ambiguous scale on open strings - g-a-b-c-d-e (no seventh - is it major or mixolydian?) g.
The whole thing gives a dreamy, languid, harp-like effect, like the beautiful west African instrument, the Kora. The song in question is almost 8 minutes long, in several sections - it starts with me talking about being asleep in the back seat while my dad drove the car, then moves into how different we were, then talks about my experience when I learned to drive, then the tempo doubles and I play in sixteenths while I sing about what it’s like for me to drive with my kids in the back seat. I’m very happy with the first sections, but I want to go back and rewrite the last part - it didn’t make the album, so it’s been on the back burner for a while…
Ah, if I correctly get what you’re saying, you are not always playing the strings in pairs as is more commonly done on a 12. Makes sense. As you say, sounds like a tricky workout!
Do you have a demo that you wouldn’t mind sharing with fellow craftsmen, understanding that it’s a work in progress?
Here’s nostalgia for everyone. I remember the early model Pignose. I’ve owned a couple since high school. Great battery powered amp for playing at parks or practice in a dorm room.
They’re fiftieth anniversary model is out! 50 years!
That would be 1973. I had one in 1975.
These piggies could squeal when driven hard. 