If you've ever been amp shopping, I'm sure you've heard the term "tube amp" tossed around quite a bit. I remember looking around for a new amp when I was in high school and wondering why some amps were louder than others with the same wattage rating. I was also confused about why some amps had standby switches while others didn't. A salesperson at my local guitar shop let me know that these differences had to do with whether an amp had "tubes" or not. To me, the obvious next question was, well... which is better? The prevailing ideology from most guitarists has always been that tube amps are more desirable than those without tubes (referred to as "solid state amps"),...
Does your guitar make scratchy, static like noises when you're moving the volume or tone knobs around? I can vividly remember my first encounter with this issue and If you're anything like me, you may be thinking that there is a loose wire or a bad connection somewhere inside the instrument, or maybe that something is wrong with your amplifier. If this sounds like something you're dealing with now, or have dealt with in the past, then I've got some good news for you. Not only is this problem a lot more common than you might think, it's also really easy to fix and you might even have the things you need to do it somewhere in your home already.If...
Have you ever had somebody tell you that your intonation needs to be adjusted? Sometimes taking your guitar in can feel just like taking a used car in for an oil change. We all know that feeling (please don't tell me I'm the only one) when your phone rings and you answer only to hear the mechanic on the other end tell you "hey I know you only brought your car in for an oil change, but you also need your filter changed and your alignment is way off". While I can't do much to help you with your car, I'm here to help you take the power back in a similar way when it comes to the care and...
The tone control on your guitar is one of the most versatile mechanisms at your disposal for manipulating your sound. Like the volume control, the tone control is really nothing more than a wiper potentiometer that can send as much or as little of your signal to either the output or to ground. The difference between the volume and the tone control is the inclusion on your tone potentiometer of one small electronic component found in almost all electrical circuits no matter how complex, from everything to cell phones all the way to doorbells. This component is known as a capacitor, and when engaged, it filters out high frequencies sending them to ground, and allows only bass frequencies to go...
Since the invention of the electric guitar there have been countless designs and endless variations on wiring schematics. That said, only a handful have stood the test of time. One such design is the two pickup, two volumes and two tones with a three way selector often associated with guitars like the Gibson Les Paul. This design seems simple on its surface. Each of the two pickups has its own dedicated volume control and its own dedicated tone control, and the pickup selector controls which pickup and therefore which volume and tone knobs are active at any given moment. However, when we dig a little bit deeper some of the less apparent nuances of this wiring schematic reveal tonal...
