Integrated Pickup: Revisiting Action Setup

Another look at the integrated saddle/piezo pickup. You’ll most often find these in Takamine guitars but there are variants around. Like this Epiphone pickup. The action needed a little finessing here and this version presented it’s own challenges.

Guitar Wiring, SetupGerry Hayes28 June 2019electronics, piezo, takamine, epiphone, guitar, repair, setup, action, acoustic, pickup

Shimming a Low Guitar Nut with Hardwood

A nut with a low slot (or slots) is a pain. It buzzes when you play the open string and sounds generally awful. You could replace it with a nice new nut but, sometimes you’re in a hurry or on a budget.

Enter the shim…

Guitar RepairGerry Hayes28 May 2019nut, repair, shim, guitar, bass, acoustic, electric guitar, diy, bone, hardwood, mahogany, glue, superglue

An Electric Guitar is Not an Acoustic Guitar

Time for a slight rant. I often meet players who insist on treating an electric guitar like an acoustic guitar. And, that’s something that comes with some compromises.

What am I talking about? Read on…

SetupGerry Hayes17 January 2019guitar, bass, archtop, acoustic, electric guitar, player, action, setup, compromise

Should I replace my tuners?

It might be counter-intuitive but replacing your tuners might not actually solve your tuning problems. Here’s the story…

Guitar RepairGerry Hayes2 October 2018tuning, tuner, repair, guitar, bass, acoustic, locking tuners, troubleshooting tuning

Tuning Problems: What do you mean by 'out of tune'?

When you say your guitar goes out of tune, what to you mean? Does the tuning slip over time as you play or does it sound out of tune in different places? How we attempt to solve things means we have to get to the bottom of what’s really wrong.

Guitar RepairGerry Hayes25 September 2018tuning, tuner, intonation, setup, repair, guitar, bass, acoustic, troubleshooting tuning

Piezo Pickups Evolve

Advances in piezo materials paved the way for an evolution in under-saddle transducer pickup design. Let’s see the main types available now…

Guitar WiringGerry Hayes20 August 2018piezo, ust, pickup, wiring, acoustic, electronics, fishman, lr baggs

Meet the Takamine Palathetic Pickup

First time you encounter a Takamine Palathetic pickup, you’re all, like, “Woah! Dude!? What gives?”

Yeah, it’s a bit weird-looking compared to most other under-saddle transducer pickups but there’s method behind Takamine’s madness.

Check it out… (Dude)…

Adjusting Action with a Takamine Integrated Pickup

Lowering the action on an acoustic guitar is generally a (relatively) straightforward task.

Unless, of course, your guitar has a Takamine-style ‘integrated pickup’. Then you need to regroup.

Get the low-down…

Acoustic Power: The magic of piezoelectricity

Electric guitar pickups turn string vibrations into electricity. So do the piezo pickups often used in acoustic. The only difference is the way they do it.

We’ll talk more about the properties and problems of different acoustic pickups over the next few weeks so, for now, a piezo primer…

An Old G and a New G

When it comes to compensation and intonation the change from a wound G string to a plain one caused a lot of hassle in sections of the guitar community. Get the skinny on G-strings…