LunchReport October 21, 2024

[DanDoulogos]

Today's Lunch: You guessed it - protein powder and water. Not quite a meal, but I'm making up for a lot of belly fat that came on over covid then stuck around


Guitar Stuff
Do you do your own setups, or have someone else do them? I like to do my own setups, unless I need to do some fret dressing or more, but I pretty much do a brand new setup whenever I change a set of strings. I follow the John Suhr methodology - though I've read up on various other ways, I think his way lines up best with what I want from my setup. I don't have the skill or the tools to do fret dressing, but I plan to develop these skills when I retire. I love playing, but I also love guitars in general, so this scratches that other half of my guitar itch. That and doing the electronics. I remember the day that I first learned out to adjust pickup heights. The two important principles being string diameter and position of the PUP. Smaller strings produce weaker signals, so you ought to raise the pickup a little more under the thin strings and the strings above the neck pickup (being closer to the middle than either the neck or middle pickups) will vibrate through a much larger path (think two people turning a skipping rope between them - at each end the rope is only moving through a small circle - but in the middle of the rope, the circle it completes is much, much larger). So your neck pickup has a lot more signal over it than either the middle or neck simply because the strings vibrates in a wider path through the magnetic field - creating more signal. Balancing out the pickups is part science and part feel. And it feels really good when you dial them in like you like them.

G&L Stuff
It is difficult to come up with a G&L topic, given that years have been spent in this same space discussing G&L ad infinitum. So rather than discuss something again, I'll turn this over to a place to praise something I like about the G&L team.

Craig has posted a few Relic'd G&L guitars. I've looked at a lot of relic'd guitars, and I must say, the guys doing the relics at G&L are doing a fan-freaking-tastic job on these relics. I may whine that relic A or relic B doesn't scratch my personal itch - but I cannot deny that these are very well done. Hats off to the guys who do this - you guys rock.

Videos of the day
Joey Landreth - a local favorite of mine, doing a great cover of "I can't win"


And another cover, along with Justine Vandengrift of Dylan's "Oh Sister"

[sam]

Hey Dan!

Thanks for another Lunch Report, maybe I and others need to jump in soon and add to the mayhem. I will do one this week with fun stuff and cool news.

Lunch did NOT follow any healthy guidelines. Went with wife and daughter to pumpkin farm and apple orchards and wound up eating a cream cheese pumpkin roll, bacon cheese popcorn and fried apple pie! Back on the diet tomorrow.

Setups are an area I am truly an amateur. I screw around with intonation, adjust some pickup height and have twisted a truss rod or two but can’t say I would offer setup services to anyone. I will start sending my guitar to Dan for all guitar work!

Joey Landreth is truly talented, thanks for sharing.

[HunGLish]

My English is not too strong, so it takes a long time to write something like this, but I appreciate these reports and want to contribute back. So here it is:

Lunch:

I had lunch in a restaurant with my children in Szentendre (Hungary). It's a rare thing that we are all together as my eldest studies abroad, so we see him rarely. I had chicken filet baked with mushroom and cheese + rice with peas + pickles.

Guitar Stuff:

I like to do the setups myself. I like to DIY since my childhood. I don't have fear to drill, cut or do any kind of mods on guitars. I even do some easy fretwork like lowering some high frets, polishing the frets and also polished guitar body paints, routed pickguards myself from blank material, I solder anything and so on. But I won't risk some serious work like refretting an expensive guitar or repairing a broken acoustic and don't have the requied tools either for such jobs.

Another guitar stuff from the past days is that my daugther turned 18, and she had her family birthday party on the weekend. She loves guitars and guitar playing. My present was a low-budget but very good quality and beautiful Les Paul copy from Thomann's in-house brand Harley Benton. This is her second e-guitar after a lowest tier Yamaha which she plays for years now. When she opened the box she started to cry, and I thought for a second that she doesn't like it as she always wanted a PRS But immediatelly jumped on me like in the kindergarden days and hanged there for a while in tears. I will never forget that.

G&L Stuff:

I don't get time to properly photograph and to post some words here about my very special SC-3 I bought in May. It's a fantastic guitar, literally my best guitar. I will do the job some day.

Video:

Don't want to link it, but I saw a video of a metal remix where the ex-president of the USA "sings" about dogs and cats. But the most interresting part of the video is at the end, where an icecream vendor's singing is mixed in. That melody got stuck in my head. You can find it on YouTube.

[SUaPYG]

Like Dan, I am trying to shrink a belly that was a long time in the making. Probably has more to do with beer than covid

I have messed around, and messed up, doing my own set ups. I limit myself to string changes and working on my lower quality guitars. I found an amazing luthier not too far away. I took my Fullerton G&Ls and my Taylors to him for a Pro setup. They all came back vastly improved. I previously had taken my V12 and Legacy to a tech at a local music store for basic setups and when I got them back it was obvious the guy did not understand how a DFV works as both guitars had the DFV tilted up at the back, seriously raising the action. I tried to level the DFVs myself but could not get them perfect. New luthier straightened the DFV properly. The change in action on the guitars after having the pro work on them is so dramatic that it took me awhile to lighten my touch enough to get sweet notes versus slightly sharp notes. I haven't been playing seriously that long and, to be honest, had never experienced a properly set up guitar before.

[DanDoulogos]

Hey Dan!
...I will do one (Lunch report) this week with fun stuff and cool news.

I will be looking forward to that Sam!

...eating a cream cheese pumpkin roll, bacon cheese popcorn and fried apple pie! Back on the diet tomorrow.

I am salivating just thinking about that, yumm yum!

I plan to pick up a CNC machine when I retire, and start making my own project guitars. It's something I've considered for years now. I know what I like and I have a few ideas about what I will do. So when I was still early in my planning for this, I decided I'd need to know how to do a setup properly. I guess I've been doing my own for the last dozen years or so. I'm to the point where I have friends asking me to do a setup after they have played on one of my guitars. Which is to say, I'm probably as good as a run of the mill "craigslist" guitar setup guy. Still lots to learn.

I agree that Joey Landreth is truly talented. I didn't begin listening to him because he is local. I was listening to a blues channel and a song came up that stuck in my head so hard I had to find out who it was and where I could hear more. I was flabberghasted to discover he was a hometown talent. His solo albums are quite good, but he and his brother form the Bros. Landreth band, and they are so tight, it's just fun to go and see them. Very down to earth, very approachable.

[DanDoulogos]

Hunglish, I felt a warmness in my heart to hear how your daughter appreciated your gift. Family is the joy of my life. I think we share the same spirit there. Thanks for sharing.

I really admire anyone who is confident enough and daring enough to start modding their own gear. It sounds like your ahead of the game to me!

[DanDoulogos]

Like Dan, I am trying to shrink a belly that was a long time in the making. Probably has more to do with beer than covid

Hehe. I hear that. I've been completely dry now for maybe 4 years now - it seems like a much longer time than that, but I guess that is how that goes. Can't look back. It is enough to say that I can't blame covid for all of it. I'm down to 171 lbs this morning. I used to be 5'9" - but I'm down to 5'7" - stupid gravity! So while I look a lot better than I did half a year ago, there is still another ten or twenty pounds to go. We'll see. When the muffin top is gone, that'll be where I stop. I already can't believe how much younger I feel. Not that I am actually feeling younger - but that all the aches and pains and tiredness that I assumed were age related, ended up being all weight related. If someone had suggested that to me I would have punched 'em in the kisser (in my mind at least). But turns out much of my chronic suffering was unwittingly self induced.

Sounds like you have a great set of guitars over there! To echo your experience, I had a pawn/guitar shop across the street from my day job and used to pop in there all the time. It was a great mom and pop outfit, very friendly folks who kept the shop full of all the little tidbits you'd usually have to look far and wide to source. But in the years before they finally retired they hired a "guitar tech" that really didn't know his stuff at all. I hated going into the shop with him there, because he was all bluster and no substance, and I hated that he was representing the owners so poorly. It is enough to say that after my first conversation with him, and seeing some of the work he was doing, I knew I would never entrust this man with any of my guitars.

I think when you find someone who knows what they are doing - you stay with that guy (or gal - I recall there was a female guitar tech who was actually very talented working a shop way back when I first started playing, and I thought it was cool because I'd never seen a girl tech before).

Thanks for sharing!

[Kit]

HunGLish, I am envious of your experience with your daughter loving to play guitar. When my children were young I bought a child-size guitar to try to get them interested in learning guitar; neither of them did. For about 8 months last year I had an eleven-year old beginner guitar student that actually motivated me to discover what was missing in my own understanding and playing. Unfortunately when she turned 12 demands on her time got intense and she did not continue lessons. I was impressed with how fast she was picking up the instrument; I hope she is continuing to play.

I have done a bit of adjustments getting my electric guitars to how I like them to play and sound, although I have never started one out from scratch. I have worked on getting a dual-fulcrum to be level with the body at the proper height, setting the individual saddle string height, adjusting intonation by moving individual saddles. I have shimmed a couple of necks to get the proper neck angle to achieve nice low action. I like a nice low action so I have tweaked many a truss rod to get the neck to almost dead straight with just a smidge of bow. I have adjusted pickup height whenever I hear imbalance in output from neck, middle, or bridge pickups; I have also adjusted pickup height biasing bass or treble side when needed. If the tuners have tension adjustment I have tweaked those so each is not too tight or loose.

And if I try a different set of strings with a different gauge I may have to repeat all of the above.

Kit

[HunGLish]

It's not my merit that the girl loves guitars. I showed them (3 kids) many instruments, guitars, piano, and even bought an electric drumkit. But there was no serious interrest from any of them. They learned music in a state music school, played years on recorder when they were younger, they had a lot of concerts even abroad with the school. They loved that, but high school came, lot of new things, friends and they abandoned music.

So the basics are there, but they were not interrested in more. I tried but nothing. But slowly music came back by itself:

The eldest son started to sing in a choir. For about 6 years now. Not guitar, but that's music too

And once on a excursion in the woods with the high school class my daughter's teacher took out a small Baby Taylor like guitar. And that was it. The campfire She came home and asked me to teach cowboy chords on my acoustic. That was 3 years ago, and she plays nearly every day since then. Pure luck.

[tomanche]

Thanks Dan and all! I tried to reply earlier, then couldn't access the site.

Lunch yesterday was pasta with pesto, tofu ricotta cheese, and sautéed chard, peppers, tomato, with hot Keemun tea.
Lunch today was an egg frittata with potato, leftover roasted Brussels sprouts, and thyme, plus a toasted/buttered gf bagel, with hot Keemun tea.

I do action/height/relief and vibrato setups, intonation, and minor maintenance on my guitars: truss rod adjustments, shaped and replaced a nut on an electric and an acoustic, shaped and replaced a saddle on an acoustic several times til the work was satisfactory (not perfect)... . I learned basic setup and specs from Ritchie Fliegler's 1994 book, "The Complete Guide to Guitar and Amp Maintenance" (I don't work on amps.) My acoustic guitar knowledge comes from Frank Ford's excellent Frets.com website. I've done a few setups for two bandmates, who are quite happy with the results. I like dialing in G&Ls to approach the specs in the manuals. (Three cheers for the micro-tilt neck plate!) Sometimes it involves balancing trade-offs. I enjoy the process.

[john o]

hey, guys, Dan thx for the Monday lunch report.
Monday was too hectic, Tuesday better. mac and cheese with buffalo chicken bites and some broccoli for lunch. made it to a blues jam tonight with a local blues guy (Garry Cogdell, now 76, grew up with and used to play with George Thorogood in the pre-fame days). got to play for 2 hours with a nice and talented group of players at a local blues and cajun food joint called the Country Store at St. Georges. very therapeutic and good fun.

i've been setting up and repairing my own gtrs for the duration. they pretty much come out the way that i want them to. it has been a learning curve but i'm improving. it's fun. i used to really suck at soldering. then i got a better quality soldering gun ( a weller) that gets nice and hot, and it goes a lot better. i've been able to do some simple electrical work, replacing pickups, pots, resoldering a ground, shielding cavities. i'm good with truss rods, saddle heights, intonation is still a work in progress, but also improving. G&L's have superior bridge/tailpieces! I have really helped 3 guitars with neck shims. i don't do much with amps, that terrifies me. i'm trying to locate a good tech now to rebias a tube amp for me, and trouble shoot problems which occured during a power brownout in the house while i was playing.

We just had a flood from broken bathroom pipe on 1st floor that did moderate damage 1st floor and basement. some of the guitars got wet but none were damaged. had to dry out some cases. that could have been alot worse.

nice Joey Landreth vid. he sure has a good voice and is a natural gtr player!