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[quote](I recently picked up a 2007 Martin 000C-16GTE ($1900 msrp) for $600 that still had the film on the pick guard!! ) [/quote]
SOB! How come whenever I find a cheap guitar at a boot sale it’s a no-name or a Woolworths Winfield.
Nice One!
🙂
‘Loosen’ it – if the rod adjustment nut is getting harder to turn you are turning it the wrong way.
BTW this is to create more of an ‘arch’ (sometimes called ‘relief’) in the neck – it will not lower the action.
Lowering the action ‘can’ be achieved by making the truss rod tighter, but may cause fret buzz.
Lowering the action is accomplished by reducing the saddle height or planing the bridge or by having the neck ‘reset’ (expensive), or by a combination of these things.
Lessening the truss-rod tension (thereby increasing neck relief or ‘bow’) will definately NOT lower the action (more likely the opposite in fact), but may enable you to shave a bit more off the saddle without encountering fret buzz.
Any update on this? I’ve been away for a while and just thought there may have been some response, i.e. did you buy what you said you’d decided on and what were the results? It may help others when faced with the same decisions.
Just found this web page with a picture of how to place the second strap button as I’ve described…
http://johndavidcoupland.co.uk/straps.aspx
Hope this helps
On another note – the Kyser capos are great – for the first few months, then the spring weakens and they buzz like hell.
Try this http://www.stringsdirect.co.uk/products/521-shubb_c1_electric_acoustic_capo
No springs or elastic to wear out, compact, lightweight, inexpensive and 100% accurate.
[quote]So what strap button would you recommend? [/quote]
Try here http://www.stringsdirect.co.uk/products/3695-dr_parts_end_pin_chrome
You just screw it in to the neck, at the back where it joins the guitar, preferably as I said pointing a little ‘downwards’ as you stand holding the guitar, then the strap can’t slip out.
Yes, you can go for the expensive alternatives (locking systems and all that stuff), but IMHO it’s totally in-necessary.
Incidentally the thing you’re thinking of buying from MF is just a fancy clip/release for a headstock strap attachment (i.e. neck tethers) and WILL, I GUARANTEE make your guitar sound out of tune as soon as you move, plus, as someone else pointed out, the strap will always be in your way and the guitar tends to slip easily.
[quote]Good point, except that I think it’s the weight of your upper body shifting rather than that of the guitar. Unless you’re about as animated as the keyboard player from Sparks, you’re going to bend the neck as you go stage-prancing.[/quote]
I hadn’t thought of thet – and there was me trying to be all scientific about it. Bugger, shot down in flames again!
😉In truth I think it’s probably a combination of things but the original premise still holds, i.e. it does seem to go out of tune. I used to find this even when not being very animated (although I usually am fairly hyper unless sitting down) using that type of strap attachment. I think its a leverage thing.
Capo : Shubb, everytime. They do one for every neck type and you can get replacement rubbers when they wear out.
Thumb Pick : Ernie Ball Medium – other makes are just too heavy if you want to combine picking and strumming.
Strap : I find suede ones to be the most comfortable and they don’t ‘slip’ round your neck when you take your hands off the guitar, but buy another strap button (they cost pence and just screw in). Fit it to the heel of the neck (where the neck joins the body) pointed away from you (i.e. on the underside of the heel pointed slightly towards the floor as you hold the guitar) rather than at the back of the heel or pointed towards the headstock, that way the strap can’t accidentally pull off. If you do use a strap with neck tethers you will probably find that the guitar goes out of tune a lot as the weight of the guitar, however slight, bends the neck a little tiny fraction every time you move.
Sorry, it’s been a long time since my last post, but I spotted this thread and thought I might be able to add something.
I’ve used Newtone strings for a long time now on virtually all of the steel strung guitars that I own. They take a little getting used to but are well worth the effort in most cases.
When fitting them, you have to (as with any string) stretch them out and keep retuning to pitch before final trimming, but I’ve found that they take less stretching out than hex-core strings. I think (just a personal deduction – could be way off) that this is because the wrapping wire doesn’t bite and bind to the round-core as much as with hex-cores.
On initial fit they sound very bright – some might say too bright, but after a couple of hours playing they seem to settle in to a state where they just sound magnificent – and seem to stay that way for a very long time.
I am fortunate enough to work just a couple of miles away from where Newtone strings are made, and have always found Malcolm Newton (the maker) to be very approachable. He has often made custom sets for me (for little if anything more than the price of his standard guages bought through shops or internet sites), and I know for a fact that if you play in a particular tuning and just let him know what you need he will not only make the strings to your guage (I prefer heavy bottom and mid tops – 12 – 56) he will also tension them specifically for your tuning preference – try asking D’addario or Gore to do that!
I once watched Nick Harper playing at ‘The Flowerpot’ in Derby and he broke a string during his set and claimed that this happened quite often with Newtones, but considering Nicks style (he constantly tunes up and down as part of the tune!) I’m really not surprised. Personally, I think I’ve only had maybe 2 or 3 actual breakages (that I couldn’t attribute to me being over-zealous) in the last 10 years of using Newtones.
I keep trying other strings, but in the end keep going back to Newtones. I have a Martin D16GT which I currently have strung with Elixirs as I had read that the Martin 16 series were specifically braced to sound best with lighter strings and I happened to have a set of 10-47 Elixir Nanowebs that I’d bought for someone else but ended up not using. Guitar sounds great, but I’m going to re-string with Newtone 10-47’s as soon as I get chance – I’ll post a comparison if I have time.
Hope this helps someone.
For me, this one should be a decision arrived at via the best combinaion of ‘what sounds right’ vs ‘what FEELS right’.
Saying that, I’ve never got the hang of playing ‘bare-fingered’ i.e. no nails, no picks, just finger-ends, but I really like the sound for some things.
I tend to use nails-only on a classical/nylon guitar and a thumb-pick and nails on a steel strung. It just ‘feels’ un-natural to play a nylon acoustic with a pick, although you can get some decent tones that way.
When considering thumb-picks, I’ve tried ’em all, but the only one I keep going back to is the ‘Ernie Ball’. It has the right combination of flexibility for the odd strum and firmness for a natural-sounding pick. They tend not to last very long these days though, I think they make them out of different plastic to what they were in the 1980’s when I first started using them.
Hope this helps
It’s a pity that none of the pics show the body shape – a full body and neck pic makes it a lot easier to ID.
One thing I did notice though was the obvious replacement of the original tuning machines with Schallers, that may be a clue for someone.
Googling for Levin Guitars throws up about 910,000 hits, so there must be something useful ‘out there’.
Good Luck.
I’ll try to put something up here ASAP, but I’ll need to borrow a decent mic first as I generally record with undersaddle pickups on all my acoustics (as I’m only usually recording to remember stuff).
It might be a valid thing to post up samples using both mic and pickup to compare.
Watch this space.
For some people, playing and singing at the same time is just as easy as breathing, but for others it takes a little more work.
I had this trouble too when I first started. For me, I found that the easiest thing to do was to listen carefully to the piece I was playing and just sing the lyrics in my head for a few time through, just to make a ‘mental note’ of where the important changes in the vocal happen; then it’s just practice, practice, practice.
After you have one or two songs you feel comfortable with, you should find that others follow fairly easily. Try to start off with songs that you can play almost in your sleep, because you almost have to let that part of your brain that is playing the tune run on auto while you concentrate on putting the emphasis on the vocal.
Good Luck.
