You know, re-reading the first few pages is amazingly educational. I now understand what everyone’s talking about.
Ahhhh - is *that *what you meant, Le Ministre, when you wished “Happy Anniversary”? It hadn’t registered, but I forgot to follow up and ask.
Cool - has it only been a year? I’ve come to depend on this thread as a place to vent my geekiness in a safe environment. The folks at work and home can take only so much guitar 
It’s a slippery slope, my friend. When you find yourself evaluating the degree of brace tapering from the pre-war to the Sitka Martin eras, comparing the round, fingerpicking-ready warmth of the pre-wars, to the tigher, less-middy tones that have a lot more cut with the tapered-brace examples - not to mention the evolution in neck profiles - and realizing that while the acoustic world prizes pre-wars above all others, you are actually a tapered-brace guy…you know your suitcase is a bit too tightly packed.
Holy crap. IS anything not on the internet?
Three reviews of the
That was my always on pedal in my last gigging setup, stereo into two Park combos,
Seems like every piece of kit I ever owned is now a classic/vintage. But most of it I no longer have 
After lunch I’ll see what they go for now.
Oh - and here’s a link to The Onion A.V. Club’s new blog, Loud- which covers punk, metal, hardcore, grindcore, crust (what is this?) and a variety of other high-volume genres (Snowboarder Bo, this sounds like your blog, Poor Impulse Control)
During the seventies, I had an Ampeg VT-22 100 watt combo on top of a V-4 4-12 cabinet that I used for bar gigs. I don’t really remember what is sounded like, but it felt awesome. I’m amazed I can still hear. After a year or two of that, I switched to a Fender Twin with a master volume knob. I wish I still had that one.
Clanger: nice articles! Thanks for digging those up. They give a really nice mapping of design -> tone for a non-EE like myself. Much appreciated.
During the seventies I had an Ampeg VT-22. (Same amp as a V-4 but in a combo form factor.) I played weddings, frat parties, bar gigs, musicals. It was loud as shit. And heavier than it was loud. I was in a vintage gear shop a couple of months ago and found one just like it. It brought back memories–but not enough to buy it 
I have found that
1 hour of playing with other musicians =
4 hours of practicing by yourself, or
16 hours of reading a book
and buying equipment does not really improve your playing at all, unless you have a guitar with playability issues.
So find some guys to jam with and the improvements will come faster.
So, I noticed that my beloved Tele was playing with kinda whacked intonation lately on the low strings. This is no big surprise, things drift, and it’s usually easily corrected – just use a tuner and follow the advice on this page, and viola! my guitar is intonated. Easy peasy. Done it before, no big deal.
Except: I’ve pushed the saddle on the E string all the way to the low end of it’s travel, and the intonation is still sharp! Obviously I need a tech to show me the way. Perhaps bad neck relief (it seems fine, no buzzing, no issues). Perhaps my neck is warped (oh noes!).
So:
-
What is the (list of) likely problems? How serious? (This guitar is my baby!)
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Anybody know a good guitar tech in the south SF Bay Area? Craigslist is not finding squat, and I’m hesitating to take it to Guitar Center (although perhaps that would be fine, no clue, but I have little confidence in GC). I’m 20 miles south of San Jose.
None of this is wrong, but remember, I started out with one of those $99 guitars. I’ve since gotten a decent guitar, and then, quite recently, a thousand dollar guitar for two hunnered bucks. I started out with a cheap old practice amp, and replaced it with a modelling amp. More importantly, I’ve learned about what parts of a guitar and amp chain do what… and I now have what I want to do what I want to do with them. I’ve bought some useless crap and some useful crap. But it’s eventually wound up with me having everything I need.
Now I just need to practice more and more and more. And I’m enjoyin’ myself.
Squeegee? Stupid question time. When was the last time you changed that string?
Just before I intonated. That was my first thought as well when I noticed how whacked the bass strings were behaving: I had a bad/old string or two. So I put on a new set of Markley’s of the same gauge (10s), got the same result, so I hauled out the tuner and screwdriver and got to work and hit this dilemma.
I should mention that the guitar is a recent Tele (American Deluxe '08) with Strat-style individual bridge saddles. The E and A are way out (the E beyond adjustment, I haven’t tried the A), the D and G are very close to dead right, and the B and E are just a little sharp. The neck has a micro-tilt adjustment, maybe that got tweaked? I hesitate to really do anything adjustment-wise to the neck (tilt or truss), but maybe there are conservative things that could be tried?
I don’t think these will have much effect on intonation.
So everything is tending to too sharp? Makes it sound like the whole bridge is in the wrong place!
OK don’t panic. Presuming your bridge looks like the 6-way Tele bridge on the page you linked to - When you say the low E is ‘beyond adjustment’ do you mean that you’ve compressed the saddle spring as far as it will go? If so you could either cut it down a bit, replace it with a shorter spring or remove it. Any of these an option?
Wait. Are the E and A too flat? If it is, then I’d look at the neck, like something got twisted. What’s that micro-tilt adjustment do?
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Wait. Are the E and A too flat? If it is, then I’d look at the neck, like something got twisted.
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A twisted neck would cause all sorts of problems with the action but not intonation so much.
It’s a way to adjust the neck to body angle on a bolt on neck. There’s an extra screw/bolt on the neck plate. It’s an alternative to putting a shim in the neck join.
squeegee; I’m on this. I have an excellent contact in San Mateo; I will ask him for recommendations for a standard tech set up in your area. No promises, but I will keep you posted.
All good stuff in terms of talking things through.
- Your neck could need the relief adjusted
- Your neck could’ve shifted in the bolt-on pocket enough to affect things - which may or may not be adjustable via the micro-tilt.
- Your E string saddle could have something wrong with it
- You could be mis-reading something or otherwise getting a bad read
- The problem may be at the nut, affecting string length somehow; a hang-up pulling you sharp when you depress the string.
When you’ve checked the obvious stuff and are getting no joy, it is probably worth having a pro look at it. It’s a premium instrument and worth it.
Keep noodling with it; that’s how you learn - but don’t do anything to compromise the instrument and don’t tweak the neck relief unless you know exactly why. Best of luck.
ETA: Did you ask your / your son’s guitar teacher for a set up recommendation or maybe even to look at it? btw, email sent…
squeegee - If the whole bridge is out of place, you should be able to verify that with a tape measure. The distance from the nut to the 12th fret is supposed to be half of the distance from the nut to the bridge saddle on the high E. When the high E is intonated properly, its saddle should be closer to the uncompressed spring position than the fully compressed position. If the spring for the high E is close to fully compressed when the intonation is right, the whole bridge may be off.
Assuming the bridge position is OK, the only other thing I can think of that would cause the problem is string height. When you fret a string, you are bending it. If the action is low, the effect is negligible, but if the action is high enough, the string will intonate sharp. See if you can lower the saddle height for the two problem strings, and that might fix the problem.
CB Perkins on Winfield (almaden exit off 85). 4th generation family business of luthiers since 1926. Just walking into their store will make you feel better.
I know exactly what you are talking about.
Everyday I practise and it feels like I am going nowhere. But then I try to play something that I struggled with a year ago and I am surprised how easy it is.
For the last month or so, I have sworn off learning anything new. I just try to perfect songs that I already know well. It’s very satisfying to play through a few songs without making a mistake.
I’ve never heard of 'em - but now I gotta go when I am back that way…
Ignorance fought!