An interesting nugget of information from fabled luthier Ken Parker on wood cuts for necks.

"First of all, the term "quarter sawn" is antiquated. No one saws wood like this anymore, with only one exception, and that is for the purpose of rendering thin sheets of spruce or cedar for the purposes of making acoustic guitar tops. In this case, short billets of very special spruce are radially split with wedges, and then a bandsaw is used to slice thin sheets from the split face.

As someone in the forum correctly points out (along with an excellent illustration), in old-fashioned quarter sawing, boards are sliced alternately from the two straight faces of a quartered log. The only other exception is oak, which is commercially available all three grain orientations, as the look of the board's surface is very different in the 3 styles of lumber due to the gigantic medulary rays in oaks.

There are three styles of lumber.

1) The most common is known as flat sawn, or plain sawn material. This means that the faces of the board are parallel to the tangent of the outside of the tree. This is how you cut lumber in order to maximize yield. When you look at the face of a flat sawn board, you might see undulating lines, sometimes ovals, V, or W shaped grain patterns. Looking at the end grain, you see long arcs of growth lines. There is nothing wrong with flat sawn wood for most purposes. For example, nearly all the Fly guitars were made of flatsawn material with the exception of the softwood guitars made with Spruce or Cedar bodies, which were all vertical grain material. Flat sawn wood has good stiffness, and is mostly a stable configuration, but it does have a tendency to curl, or "cup" with changes in moisture content. When it does "cup" it curls in the opposite direction of the grain lines. In other words, it would cup towards the outside of the tree.

2) Vertical grain material means that the grain lines are perpendicular to the face of the board. When people say, "quarter sawn" they almost certainly mean vertical grain. Vertical grain material has the best stiffness both along and across the grain. it is the only choice for soundboards, whether it is guitar, violin family, piano, harpsichord, etc.

The big advantages of using vertical grain material, aside from its very regular straight grained appearance, are two..........

First, because wood shrinks, mostly in the direction of the grain lines, a vertical grain piece of material will shrink much less across its width than the other two grain orientations. This is important not only to instrument makers, but to furniture makers, and for any wooden product that is precisely made and will be exposed to changing conditions of humidity.

Second, in many species of wood, there are fibers that emanate from the center of the tree, growing horizontally and extending through the wood, weaving between the vertical grain lines. These fibers are called medulary rays, or cross grained fibers, and can materially contribute to the cross-grain stiffness of vertical grain material in which they occur. Because these cross grain fibers constitute a small proportion of the wood, and because they only occur as radii, they do not greatly effect the properties of flat sawn material.

3) if a piece of material falls between 1 and 2, it is said to be rift sawn, or slash grain. Structurally, this is the least wonderful material, as when stressed it tends to bend off to one side. For this reason, avoid a Fender style neck with rift grain. Although vertical grain would be best for a neck, flat sawn material is a close second.

When you look at the end of a rift cut board, the grain lines form an angle with the face. If you look at the quartersawn drawing on the forum, you'll see that most of the material produced by old-fashioned quartersawing is actually rift cut. This is responsible for much of the confusion, as "quartersawn" lumber can be both vertical and rift.

It is worth knowing that the structural benefits contributed by the cross grained fibers in vertical grain material are dramatically reduced by the grain being even 5∞ off vertical. So, when seeking ultimate structural properties, ( like I am, in thin material for acoustic guitar making), material that is not perfectly vertical grain can be considered rift material: that is, less stiff across the grain.

One more thing,..... the material that we used to make the tulip guitars is exactly the same kind of material that was used in the deluxe. That is, it is all tulip poplar, or yellow poplar. The boards that we used for those special guitars were ones that I culled out over a period of years for evenness of color and appearance. Almost all the poplar that we were able to buy was green in the middle ( heartwood ) and a kind of dirty off-white color on the edges ( sapwood ) . No one considers this attractive, so all the deluxe guitars made of Poplar had solid finishes. The poplar boards that I was able to set aside for this small run were very special and unusual boards."

Here's an OLD post I made on one of the forums in the past. It's still one of my favourite posts (a bit narcissistic, I know) but I just had to put this up once again so I could store it somewhere. I'm also particularly proud of those clips I made, because I'm not quite sure I can do those again.

Here I began the stupid thing of trying to analyse my own music, and by doing so, I learnt a lot about my own playing.

Ok... Enough wasting band width. Lets talk music.

Lets begin analysing the clips put up here. I'm not going to talk about scales. Lets talk moods. Not modes. Go into WHY we played what we played. Not what we played dissected to the 100th degree.

Lets look at my clips. I'm commenting these things not as a player, but as a listener. I'll say things based on what I'd like to hear personally, rather than what I should be hearing, since there's no technical basis for that.

Lets talk about the first clip I did:

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7156858

This backing track generally had the same shape throughout. By shape, I mean structure. 4/4 timing, general rock feel. Hardly any shift. Except on one point at 0:41 where things got a bit heated up.

So, with a pretty one dimensional track, what do you do to make things interesting? Take on various scales? Various melodies? Tones? All can be done. But note, the more you choose to do, the more proficient you'd have to be. In my case, since I can't play like ShredCow or like Jonarsh, I chose the simple method. I played with tones primarily. The clip is short, so I have to make this solo count. Also because I did this in one take, I didn't have the luxury of controlling my composition by multi tracking.

Picking dynamics matter a lot here, since you have ONE chance and ONE sound to work with. The changes in note characteristics will be controlled purely by pickup selection, and picking strength.

Something I've realised about humbuckers with 250k pots: You need to really abuse them to get them to open up. So since this is a rocking track, I decided to go in wild, but slow first.

0:00 to 0:16

Here's where I mainly ran through standard minor scale patterns. The key thing is, to let the tones work, so I used the bridge pup and tried to get the guitar to scream a bit.

0:17 to 0:24

Time for a tone change. This, being an HSS guitar, has the nice option of going from a screamy HB tone to a nice bouncy single coil tone. A simple major scale used at this point also changes the mood slightly. But the key mood change here is the pickup switching.

0:25 to 0:40

Repeated the mood change my playing around with scale changes and pickup tone changes. In this early section, I used a lot of hammer ons, bends and slides, and not as much picking, if you'd notice. There's a reason for this. Constant picking is monotonous. It's boring. Imaging listening to "plck plck plck" constantly for the whole song. No dynamics. A guitar solo needs to have life. Character. Bend a note. Slide a note. Legato. Staccato. Vary the styles to create a different feel all the time. This is more exaggerated when you look at my 2nd track, but I'm not done here yet.

Now, I know a shift in energy in the track is coming. Normally, I'd signal that shift by doing something drastic. Like a divebomb, or a slide down or up. Or a screaming bend. But what do I do to lead up to that? Someone mentioned here that I used intervals in that section. I don't know what that's called, but I did it to lead up to the change. That's something you do to prepare your listener and tell him/her "something else is coming... stay tuned".

0:41 to End

Notice up till now, I played at a moderate speed. Not very fast, not very aggressive. If I were to begin ferociously, would I have the energy to continue that attack for the whole track? Nope... Few people I know can do that. Malmsteen, SRV, Michael Romeo, MAB are some of such people. Most others rely on other methods. This also allows me to use the aggression as a mood change too.

So I did. Played my fingers out form this point to the end. I was almost at my own personal physical limits (like I said, I don't play fast much), and I think it came off nicely. ShredCow once told me: if you just go and keep playing till you lose it, you'll end up handling fast playing much better. So I tried this.

At 0:52, I literally pulled the string off the fretboard, resulting in that frenzy-like sound. Could I duplicate this? Probably not. But I know this is at least a testimony to me having tried this attempt. Heh.

Then now lets check out the 2nd clip I did:

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7296495

The tones for this clip were a little harder to control, mainly because I restricted myself to using only ONE pickup. That was my humbucker. But here was a track that wasn't so one dimensional. It's got a bit more texture, and more interesting chord and mood changes. There are 4 key passages in there. So I think one pickup might just do the trick.

0:00 to 0:38

The backing track is a bit funky, and jumpy. So why kill that groove with rhythmic leads? I chose to do a simple solo with long notes as a melody guide to let the drum beat shine through. Only at 0:15 did I just throw in a phrygian ascension (I think that's what it is called) just to make things sound a wee bit more interesting, MAINLY because the drummer was building up to the next passage by thumping a regular beat. I tend to look forward to what's coming next before I decide what to play now. Because mostly, it must be a nice flow, or your listener will feel unsettled.

Actually, this is a long passage, so why not break it into 2 different sections yourself? What I did to do that was to play a similar feel and tone solo in a higher octave. I learnt this little compositional trick from Joe Satriani in a mag long ago.:mrgreen: The SAME melody played in 2 or 3 different octaves can fill up a song quite nicely.

0:39 to 0:57

Here, there's nothing much to do. The drums are going into epileptic fits, and the rhythm guitar was tking a snooze. So I simply filled it up with a cascading 3 guitar harmony with NO fast playing. Something like symphonic strings.

0:57 to 1:13

The same chordal passage as section one, but this time, the drums seems to be playing a slightly more upbeat section. So, this is the time to shred, if you can call what I did that. It's ALSO signalling the end of this first half of the song, and the 2nd half is completely different. So I need to DESCEND here and bring the listener's mood DOWN to earth so I can transition nicely. Usually, a desend is enough. But thing here is, there's a ripping rhythm riff that transitions the moods of the track courtesy of the BT. So I need to build up to that. How? Ascend lor...

There's no point adding anything to that rhythm riff at 1:14 to 1:16. Nothing I can add or play over that will make it sound better than it already does by itself. So, leaving it alone is better.

1:17 to End

Here's the change in mood. Things are still funky, but is a more jumpy manner rather than rocking manner like the beginning of the track. So, using the SAME humbucker, I change the distortion to an overdrive, and brough the gain low. Let the humbucker's own natural tone come through, and I just add to the rhythm feel by what is known as "Tocalling" (I think that's how it's spelled). In addition to this, I did cheat a little by adding a rhythm melody in the background by using the neck pickup. If I had used the bridge for both, the tones would clash, and the track would sound like shit.

You can only tocal for so long unless there's a lead singer. But in an instrumental track, you're IT. So after 8 bars, I had to change to a lead. Still on the same tone settings. I just went for a nice bluesy upbeat melody. Cut short a note here, extend a note there, and you add texture.

Again, staying here would kill the mood. So, to end off the track, I up the OD gain to the max on my guitar's vol knob. Playing generally the same thing, but this time, the gain is much higher, so the tone feels heavier. This, I think it a nice way also to signal that something (probably the end of the track) is coming.

Something I'd like to point out in these 2 clips, and as a guitarist and listener. The person who controls the mood of the music is NOT you. It's your drummer. Believe it or not, a good drummer can make a mediocre solo sound fantastic if you know how to work with him... In a band, the drummer is your best and only friend. Work with him closely, and you'll find your mood changes for the song in there.

Remember, it's not what you play that matters, rather, it's HOW you play that counts.

I think I'm growing old... Neck size preferences...

You guys know how it is... When you first start off, you want the thinnest necks ever so you can fly up and down the fretboard easily...

I began with an Ibanez 440R. not the thinnest of necks, but not the thickest either. In fact, it's more like a Fender 62 neck profile. Ibanez called it the Ultra neck profile as opposed to their other more popular Wizard profile.

I then progressed nicely to Fenders and the like, with the 60s C necks to be my favourite. The 50s V necks were always an ok compromise, but the thickness of my neck preferences always hovered around 20 to 21mm at the first fret.

I had a few Epis and Edwards here and there, but never really liked the thicker necks. They always felt cumbersome to me.

Then came my EBMM fetish. 41.3mm nut widths (which I still like), and 21.5mm necks at the first fret. Many of my EBMMs were Silhouettes, which featured the same dimensions in all their necks. The exception, was the Petrucci, which was paper thin at 20mm at the first fret.

Then I began playing Les Pauls, and the Slash GT was my first Gibson. it was a C shaped neck, and was really comfortable. Never measured it, but I know it's close to the EBMMs if not just a tad thicker. But the C shaped profile was still my fav.

I stumbled across a beautiful standard after, and while I was worried about the 50s neck profile, I wasn't about to let that stop me from owning one of the nicest lightbursts I had ever seen, played and heard. But oddly, something happened. I grew very quickly to learn to love the 50s neck. So much so, my Slash felt wrong after that, and I sold it.

The 50s neck was just nice for me, and I still play the same way I did on my Petrucci. Same speed, yet probably more stamina, as my hands don't tire out as quickly.

Lastly, comes my R7BB. Baseball sized neck. And guess what? I LOVE it! I wish the frets were a wee bit taller (it IS known as the fretless wonder, after all) but the neck girth was perfect for me now. it doesn't slow me down either. I still like my EBMM Silhouette necks, but my hands do get a bit tired on those too.

I like the R7 neck so much now, and the 50s neck, believe it or not, feels "thin" to me...

Note: I don't have large hands. But they feel very comfortable wrapped round the R7.

I think I'm getting old.

(I say that, after 21 years of fun filled playing... Just thought I'd add...)

A childhood dream come true...

It's been what? 21 years since I first began playing? Ever since I first picked up guitar, I've always drolled over a certain silhouette of a Gibson headstock. And not just any old Gibson Headstock, not even a normal Les Paul headstock at that... But this:



Yes, it was the Les Paul Custom that got me. Clearly visible from album covers such as The Cult's Sonic Temple, that was the quinessential rock guitar look for me.


That iconic Pete Townsend rock guitar pose accentuated with that sleek looking black weapon. That was the one guitar I had always dreamed about, but never really hunted for, because it was always deemed "beyond my reach" price-wise.

Then one day, I got a pleasant surprise walking into a friend's guitar shop. There was this nice ebony custom sitting in the window. I honestly wasn't expecting much, becuase I had tried many customs before this, and all of them dissaponted in one way or another. But here was something different. For some reason, this one spoke. From the first appraising look I knew I had to try it out... And from the first note plucked, I knew this was going to be a good try out. After less than 5 mins of playing, I knew I had to take it home.

This was one guitar where I knew, if I had let it go, I'd take a LONG time before finding a nice one again. Something about Gibsons and Fenders. Some work for you, and others just don't work for you. This one not only worked for me, it washed up the dishes after too!

So here's the pics of the newly acquired Gibson 1957 Reissue Les Paul Custom V.O.S. 2-Pickup Black Beauty. (what a bloody mouthful...)





Someone told me this looked like an evil twin with it's brother...

I had the chance very recently to try out a real 1962 Les Paul (note: SG). It belonged to a friend's shop, and was on sale for a ridiculously good price (5kUSD?) For fellow Singaporeans, the shop is Guitar Connection in Excelsior Shopping Center.

The guitar was a bit beat up, but very playable. Pickguard was gone. Trussrod cover says "Les Paul" rather than the current "SG" bit. Tuners were also replaced with Gotoh stuff, I think.

However, the pickups were still 100% original, but the electronics had been changed. The pots and caps were replaced with some incidental cheap stuff along the way of the lifespan on the guitar. I think this was done before the current enthusiasm of good quality stuff. But the pots were 500k rated. Small tiny green 0.22 caps.

The pickups were quite beat up as well. I should have taken pics. The pups were bulging at the side, and the bobbins were a bit warped already. But the pups did look intact, and no sign of rewinding was visible (though I must stress, I'm not an expert, so I can only judge based on what I see)

Honestly, tonewise, all that had been changed didn't seem to affect what I was hearing, which was REALLY NICE! It was hollow sounding, organic, dynamic, and yet, quite hot. I didn't measure them, but they definately saturated easier than my Skatterbranes. I know PAFs ( or in this case, possible early patent numbers) were subjective, and one set differed from one to the other. But this was definately a nice set indeed.

What did surprise me, was how fat they actually sounded. They did sound like A2s or possibly degaussed A5s (over 40 years?) but had a nice clarity to them. Creamy too! They're like what I'd imagine a set of SD APHs would sound like, if they were not muddy. Mind you, this was in a full mahogany SG, and were already not muddy, just fat. I think in a conventional Les Paul, they could be a bit brighter.

So, this was my first encounter with vintage PAFs. Hope I get to try more someday.

Great post by Jonesy on MLP on Capacitors. Definately worth the read!

Myths about Capacitors

There seems to be a lot of Myths about Capacitors from many of the posts I have read here at MLPF and on other forums. I am going to try and set the record straight from what I know and from what I have experienced over the years...please feel free to correct me if you think I am wrong.

Myth #1 Will Lower value capacitors make my guitar brighter?

No, capacitors only filter highs off when you turn your Tone control. They do not make your guitar brighter when wired up to a Tone pot in standard fashion. (may be some slight bleed if you do not have a no load pot) If a capacitor is wired in series or in a treble bleed circuit (RC circuit) it can act differently and let highs come across, but this is not the case when wired to your Tone controls. With new good quality caps you may here less mud and more clarity once installed, but they are used to filter high frequencies when they are wired up in a Tone circuit.

Even though .022 has been the standard for Gibson .015 and .010 are the choice by many players seeking good Tone and more useful room on their Tone dials.

Myth #2 Do paper in oil capacitors dry out and need to be replaced frequently?

No, when used in a guitar circuit paper in oil capacitors will last a lifetime. There are plenty of 50-60+ year Old Bumble Bees caps that still sound excellent. If they have been used in high voltage applications like amps etc. that may cause them to drift away from the original specs, but when used in a guitar this is not the case.

Myth #3 Do all capacitors sound the same and there is no way that one type can make your guitar Tone sound better?

Many electronic experts will tell you that there is no scientific explanation of why paper in oil capacitors will give you better Tone when used in a guitar circuit. But it is a well known fact in the guitar community that paper in oil will be warmer, smoother and have more "Sparkle" than ceramic disc, mylar or polypropylene capacitors. The original Bumble Bees and Black Beauties were paper in oil and thought of by many to be the "Holy Grail" of Tone as far as capacitors go.

Myth #4 Does it matter which end of my capacitor I wire up to what, is there a polarity?

No, for the most part 99% of the capacitors I have come across are not polarized and it makes no difference in which direction they are wired up in your guitar. There are some caps that do have a + - side and they will usually be marked accordingly or the manufacture will tell you that it matters.

Myth #5 R9's Come with Real Bumble Bee Capacitors so there is no need for me to replace them, so why should I?

No, your R9 came with "Fake" Bumble Bee caps that contain a cheap little poly film capacitor buried on the inside of the pretty little plastic black case with stripes. Gibson does not use Real Bumble Bee caps in their reissues, and they are not even paper in oil capacitors. Luxe Bees are actually Russian K40y-9 paper in oil caps and have a very similar Tone to the Original Bees.

Myth #6 Jonesy's Tonemojo capacitors have some secret "MOJO" in them that is rumored to have been extracted from Robert Johsons sweat and mixed up with some crossroads dirt that will make you sound like Clapton, Hendrix and Jimmy Page all rolled into one.

No, not true. The only thing special about my paper in oil capacitors is that they are good quality paper in oil capacitotrs with metal cases, and glass sealed ends and are either New Old Stock USA or Russian caps or the 50's Bees that are good quality pulls that have been measured on my bench meter.

I hope's this clears up a few things and if anyone has any other Myths or questions I would really like to hear them?

Keep the music flowing...
thanks, jonesy

Once again, great post! Thanks Jonesy!!!

Check out Jonesy's pre-wired kits, Jimmy-Page switching and more on TONEMOJO

Here's the clips for the Skatterbrane Waterbranes unaccompanied... Was having a bit of fun at the end. Don't take it seriously... The Branes are in the same guitar as what the Tom Holmes Japan set was in previously. I swapped the Holmes to the Slash (Swiss Cheese) and the branes are now in the Chambered Standard.

This combo of guitar/pickup seems to work the best in both cases. The Swiss Cheese is condensed, and tight, so the Holmes would be tightened up a bit, since they're so wide open. The chambered standard would add some "space" the to the Skatterbranes since they are tight and bright.

The Branes are so far the clearest set I've used, even though they are A2s. The Holmes were the thickest and most creamy (That bridge pup is really nice!)

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8625160

Here's the Seymour Duncan SH55s and the Tom Holmes Japan sets unacompanied for comparison.

SH55s: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8590971

Tom Holmes Japan: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8590970

Here's the Waterbranes in a song mix. I think they came up from the mix very well.

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8625161

The clips for the Holmes and the Branes are the best comparison so far. Same guitar, same electronics, same pedals, same settings. The BB Pros was also in the same guitar, but it was using stock electronics then. Parts are now RS Guitarworks parts. The SH55s were in a Swiss Cheesed Les Paul, also with RS parts.

Here's the Holmes, SH55s and the BB Pros in song mixes for comparison's sake.

Tom Holmes Japan: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8591570

SH55s: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8353152

BB Pros: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8445167

Special thanks to Mats Nermark for the use of his backing tracks!

Check out http://www.skatterbrane.com/!!!