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Adjusting your guitar Tuning Heads

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Adjusting your guitar Tuning Heads/machines is another excellent way of keeping your guitar in tune. This is part of my ongoing series of posts that highlight how to troubleshoot what you can do to keep your guitar strings in tune and for good overall guitar maintenance.

Over the lifespan of your guitar, the tuning heads will vibrate and loose that snug fit they once had when they were brand new. This could be caused by many factors. For example putting your guitar into it’s case and carrying it around or accidentally dropping it from time to time could cause the tuning heads to loosen.

Just a side note here, one time I ran over my very old acoustic with my car! When I reluctantly opened it, it was fine and still in tune. Another great reason why you should always purchase a very strong guitar case!

One of the easiest way of rectifying the problem of loose tuning heads is by bringing out a pocket-sized screw driver, either a Flathead or a Philips will do, and tightening the screws that hold the tuning heads to the head stock. Sometimes companies use a hexagonal socket set or wrench. The most common size is 7/16 – 10 mm.

First tighten the Tuning Head mounting screws on the back of the headstock with your screwdriver, this is fairly simple. Remember righty tighty and lefty loosy! Now we can turn our attention to the front of the headstock.

installing guitar tuning heads This is when we bring out our socket or wrench set. By glancing down directly at it, locate the bolt which is on top of the grommet or washer at the base of the peg post on the front of the headstock. Now with either the wrench or socket set, find the right sized one that will fit tightly on the bolt. Here we will turn your tool very carefully to right. DO NOT OVER TIGHTEN. To make things easy for you, remove the string that you are working on first.

You may have completely different tuning heads then the ones that I have just covered. Some tuners may be adjusted by just pushing the grommets back into place. Once again, remove the string that you are working on first. If there is only one loose, then you might as well take the time to check the other ones while your at it.

If you’ve attempted to adjust your tuners and your instrument is still going out of tune too frequently, then maybe you should replace them all together. I have never ventured into doing this before so it maybe wise to contact your local luthier for advice on this one.

If you have a head stock that is made of wood, it sometimes shrinks and cracks due to lack of proper humidity inside the guitar case. This is a fantastic reason to get a acoustic guitar Dampits for your acoustic or classical guitar! It’s also a great gift you someone. I strongly insist that you purchase this product. It helps keep the humidity levels just right so that the wood on your acoustic guitar stays intact.

I hope this post has cleared up any questions that you may have about this very common topic and hope that you find it useful.

Keep on Jammin’





Morpheus Droptune Guitar Pedal

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The guys at Morpheus produce only two guitar pedal products and they are the Droptune and Capo. I am a big lover of those business’s use the motto that if you do something good then stick to it. It’s best to leave all the bells and whistle to somebody else because inevitably they will screw up a some point in time, probably more sooner rather then later. Today’s post will be about the Droptune Pedal.

From most of the reviews that I have been reading about the Droptune, most say that this product is VERY straight forward to use. Since most men are not all that inclined to read manuals, this is a big plus! It also doesn’t alter the quality of your sound that much. Some pedals are just plain brutal in this area.

On the back of this pedal, it comes with a USB port for the latest update patches from Morpheus as well as a trim button for guitar levels.

The Drop Tune pedal allows you to change keys, or shifts the pitch of your guitar on the fly at the touch of a knob. Metal guitarists can get that heavy drop-tuned tone without dealing with that floppy string buzz feel that you can get when you tune down, you guys know what I mean.

This is a relatively cheap way to achieve this kind of effect. I understand that there are other products out there that are much more dedicated like the Robot Guitar, Tronical Powertune, the Line6 Varix or the Transperformance tuning system called the Performer but they cost much more.

I also believe that if your a singer/guitarist and your voice is a little bit raw from last nights’ show, here you can drop your guitar tuning a pitch or two for that song that is played in an higher vocal range without having to physically tune down your guitar. Also if your play in a theatre band that has songs that are constantly changing keys, this would be a very useful tool to have in your belt!

The only thing that I don’t like is that you have to use a power adapter instead of batteries.

So does anyone out there use this pedal? If you do, please drop us a line about the pros and cons of it.

Keep on Jammin’

If your interested in getting one then check out the link below!

The Morpheus Droptune

The Walkup Guitar Stand

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A Walkup Guitar Stand essentially holds your acoustic or electric guitar up in the air allowing the artist to bounce from one instrument to another. Imagine having the ability to play one guitar, your main guitar for a song, then having the option to play another one that is strapped to a Walkup Guitar Stand ready for you to use whenever you want to. This will give the guitarist a richer dept of sound to give any tune a different feel to it.

I think that a Walkup Guitar Stand is something that I could of used back when I was playing all the time. It certainly would have come in handy when I played my classical guitar for the beginning section of La Villa Strangiato from Rush‘s Hemispheres Album.

I LOVED playing the beginning of it with my classical guitar at home alone practicing it over and over again. Unfortunately I never had the chance to use it while playing with a band, it just took too much time to change positions and guitars to make it sound fluid enough. I had never heard of a stand which would hold an acoustic guitar for a few bars then allows you to return back to your electric and finish your song.

The two most popular Walkup Guitar Stands out there in the market are the mbrace and Gracie stands.

mbrace walkup guitar standPersonally never looking at either one of these so let’s check out the mbrace Walkup Guitar Stand first shall we? On their website they provide us with a neat little demo of how it works. The strapping system they use looks like this would do the less damage to the back of your guitar.

Most guitarist are concerned about the look of their guitars. Some go to great lengths to keep their little babies in pristine condition. I think that little dings on a guitar are just character markings.

The part I don’t like that much is the handle lock and that feet of the stand. The handles look like the same ones that are on our home theatre system speaker stands. After some wear and tear they lose their hold so if they are the same type of ones that are on the mbrace. Now for The Gracie Walkup.

Gracie walkup guitar standThe Gracie Walkup Guitar Stand uses a different type of system that holds the guitar to the stand. The guitar sits in a cradle shaped like the bottom of the guitar. When looking closer at a picture on this other site, the base of the stand appears to be rock solid! It reminds me of a symbol stand from a drum hit. If your a drummer or know anything about symbol stands, look at the very top of the stand and you will see that it does look like one!

The only drawback that I have heard was that if you purchase a stand for your electric guitar, it only works for Fender guitars that have a front input jack on the top/front of the guitar. The way to get around this problem is by drilling a hole in cradle part of the stand that your guitar rest on.

So which one would you buy?

Keep on Jammin’

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