Natural finish done right: Gretsch Streamliner in Village Amber
Gretsch once again nails it.
As I've said before, I'm not a fan of natural finish electric guitars. The reason for this is because most guitar makers produce natural with the "coffee table" look. Examples of this are easy to find. Take the Fender American Professional Stratocaster in Natural. Yes, natural finish, but it looks like something you'd put a doily on, set a flower pot on top of that and call it a day. Not a good look.
For the Gretsch above however, different story. This is natural done correct.
Take the Gretsch G2655 Streamliner Centerblock Jr. Doublecut in Village Amber. Not a high-cost model and well under $600.
What Gretsch did here is take an acoustic guitar appearance and apply it to an electric, and it works wonderfully well.
Yes, there is grain there. It's subtle, but it's everywhere on the guitar in just the right amount.
The use of black knobs, black switch tip and black pickup rings go well with the amber.
And did you notice? Full binding. Body, neck and headstock.
Gretsch just has a knack for taking a colorway that's ordinarily bland and makes it pop without overdoing it. This Streamliner Jr. is a great example of that. Well done.
Are guitar necks getting worse?
Is there any way to get a guitar that doesn't have neck problems? Let's find out.
A common complaint these days across many new guitars regardless of price or brand is neck problems. Specifically, the nut and the frets.
And when I say "regardless of price or brand", I'm not kidding. Whether you spend $200 or $2,000 on a guitar these days, you're almost guaranteed to find one or more of the following issues:
- High frets (uneven)
- Sharp fret ends
- Improperly cut nut
It's almost required these days to know how to fix high frets, level frets, file sharp fret ends and install a new nut yourself just to have a decent guitar worth playing.
But why?
The answer is the elimination of inspections by both the guitar manufacturers and the guitar retailers.
What is supposed to happen is that every guitar should be inspected three times. First by the factory themselves, second by the warehouse that receives it, and third by the retailer when they get it before it's finally sold to you. Sometimes the second inspection doesn't happen if the factory ships direct to retailers. But at bare minimum, the guitar should be inspected at least twice.
These days, the total amount of inspections that happens for the vast majority of guitars is once. It's done at the factory, only the factory, and done poorly. After that, the guitar is packaged and then shipped to a warehouse where during transit it's jostled around, then placed in storage. After that it's shipped to the retailer where again it's jostled around and placed in storage.
By the time you get the guitar, its box hasn't been opened since it left the factory.
"That's good, right?" No, that's bad.
That guitar has been through hundreds if not thousands of miles of transit, banged around, and subjected to temperature changes both hot and cold. NO WONDER it's screwed up by the time you get it.
You can't treat a mass-produced guitar like an iPhone and expect it to work...
...but that's how most guitar manufacturers treat their guitars.
A new iPhone is never opened after it leaves the factory after it has been sealed until you get it. This is normal.
Treating guitars the same way where there are no quality inspections after it leaves the factory is seriously stupid. But that's the norm.
What can do you to avoid this?
You have options.
Option 1: Buy Schecter.
Every Schecter guitar sold in the USA is inspected by a real live human in the United States for quality issues before being shipped to the retailer. Whether you get a USA or Asian built Schecter, they all get the same proper treatment. Every guitar is inspected at least twice, even for their low-cost models.
Option 2: Get tools and learn how to use them.
Get a fret rocker, notched straight edge, sandpaper, watch a bunch of YouTube videos and learn how to level frets, file sharp edges and so on.
Option 3: Source a professional grade neck
It won't be cheap, and the neck you want will probably cost at least $300. But it will be as perfect as it gets.
"You're saying neck issues are a QA/QC problem?"
Yes.
Quality Control and Quality Assurance are standard procedures in the manufacturing of anything. Lose the QA/QC or cut corners so only the bare minimum of standard is met, and your product suffers for it.
What I personally believe is that necks are good at the factory when they come off the production line, even for the cheap guitars. It's the transit and storage afterward that wrecks them. All that banging around and wild temperature changes make frets and nuts pop and sprout like crazy.
The fix for this issue would be making two inspections mandatory instead of just one. Factory inspection alone obviously isn't cutting it. I'd ask for three inspections but that will never happen, so I'd be happy with two. Someone who knows how a guitar works is supposed to cut that box open and inspect the product before it goes to the retailer.
I don't care whether the second inspection is done by the manufacturer or by the retailer directly. It just needs to happen.
Nobody wants to spend over $500 on a guitar to find high frets, sharp fret ends and bad nut slots. That shouldn't happen. But it is happening and something needs to be done about it.
If you spend over $500 on a guitar and encounter neck issues like this, TELL THE MANUFACTURER
This only way this crapola will ever get fixed is if guitar players start communicating directly with the manufacturers more.
DON'T go on a forum or social media and complain. That obviously doesn't work. Go to the guitar manufacturer's web site and TELL THEM DIRECTLY.
If enough people write in, then better guitars will be delivered to the retailers. These neck issues are on a manufacturer QA/QC level and the problem has to be taken care of there. So if you're going to complain - which you should - do so to the people that matter.
Everything you wanted to know about how to shim a guitar neck
This is scary for those who have never done this before, but it's actually really easy and can help fix your guitar - if you do it correctly.
What is a shim?
Any material added to the neck at the pocket where it attaches to the body. I will explain what kind of shim materials you can use in a moment.
What kind of guitars can use a neck shim?
Any guitar that uses a bolt-on neck where the neck can be removed. You need physical access to the neck pocket in order to install a shim. If you have a guitar that uses set-neck construction (like a Gibson Les Paul), then you can't add a shim at the neck pocket since the neck is glued into place.
What is the purpose of a shim?
To raise the neck angle.
Why would you need to raise the neck angle?
If you "run out of saddle", the neck angle needs to be raised.
When setting up your guitar, if you have lowered the string saddles as low as they can possibly go but the string action is still too high, that is when you raise the neck angle.
Example using a Stratocaster or Telecaster style guitar:
If all the grub screws (the little screws that raise/lower the string saddles) are sticking really high up out of the saddles and the action is still too high, add a neck shim. After you do this and reinstall the strings, you will be able to raise your saddles and get the string height that's comfortable for you without having to "slam" your saddles all the way down to the bridge.
Where should a shim be installed?
If using a full-size wedge shaped shim, all you have to do is lay the shim down in the neck pocket with the thin side facing the headstock and the thicker side facing the body. Done and done.
If installing a shim using another material to save some money, you can basically use anything you want, but some materials work better than others.
Recommended materials for homemade shims and where to place them in the neck pocket
The materials I mention here will be specifically to create a wedge shape similar to the StewMac shims mentioned above.
Wedges are agreed upon by luthiers and techs to be the best way to go about shimming a neck for two reasons. First, to avoid neck damage. Second, to prevent weird noises (as in rattling) from happening during play.
Creating a wedge
The goal here is to make a wedge the same as the StewMac one, meaning the raised end facing the body and the lower end facing the headstock.
The easiest materials to work with for creating a wedge are masking tape or aluminum foil.
Either of these materials are easy to source, easy to cut, easy to shape, and most importantly easy to layer to create that "ramp" you're looking for to get the wedge shape.
Luthiers and techs won't tell you to use tape or foil but rather wood and wood alone. However this is on the assumption you have a belt sander, all the proper sanding paper at the ready, a fully equipped work area, and expert knowledge on even how to use a belt sander properly.
Using foil or tape is more than good enough to create your wedge shim with. No wood required. No belt sander required. No expensive work area required. Use what works and just get on with life.
How much shim do you need to add?
Luthiers have measurement tools and years of experience to determine how much angle a neck needs to be raised to achieve proper string height.
Non-luthiers (which is everyone else, and that most likely includes you) just guess and hope for the best.
If you have absolutely no idea how thick your shim should be, start thinner and then move up to thicker if need be. You don't need much and shouldn't have to go any thicker than a credit card's thickness.
Yes, this may mean you have to take off and on the neck a few times before you get the neck angle you're looking for. You can be comforted by the fact that almost nobody gets it right on the first try. This means you can safely expect to have to take the neck off at least twice or possibly three times to get that shim height just right.
How to deal with factory shims?
This is the last thing I'll mention, and it's important to talk about.
If you've determined that yes, you need a shim, but you've never taken the neck off your guitar before, you may be in for a surprise or two and need to prepare for it.
For any guitar that sold new for under $1,000 USD, take that neck off slowly the first time you do it, because you may find weirdness.
The weirdness I'm referring to is paint chips and possibly a makeshift shim in there "installed" by the factory who made the guitar.
Before I get into that, most guitars with bolt-on necks that sell for over $1,000 USD will have a properly made neck pocket where you won't find any paint chips. And if you do find a shim in there, it will have been made properly.
For the sub-$1,000 stuff however, what may happen when you take off that neck is see a few pieces of very thin wood (similar to balsa wood) fall out of the pocket.
Those pieces you find, if any, were put there by the factory. On the production line, the guy who put together the guitar noticed that the saddles were too low. He then quickly took off the neck, grabbed a few slivers of scrap wood, threw them in the neck pocket, put the neck back on, set up the guitar again, cleaned it up and then sent it on down the line to be shipped.
This happens a lot on sub-$1,000 guitars. And if it's on yours, that's totally normal.
Does this mean the shim put in there by the factory failed? No. The shim was put in there to get the guitar "good enough" for sale. When you bought the guitar later and went to lower the action, the existing shim simply wasn't thick enough.
In the end, if you find what seems like random pieces of wood in the pocket on first neck removal, don't be surprised by this. It's not random. It was just a guy on the production line that put in the absolute least amount of effort to get the guitar ready for sale.
Don't reuse those garbage pieces if you find any, by the way. Create a proper wedge shim either by buying one or making it yourself. Anything is better than what was in that pocket originally.
The Korg GA30 tuner is still useful
Note: Korg has several different modernized versions of guitar/bass tuners. Pick the one that suits you best.
The Korg GA30 tuner I have was acquired at a thrift store for 25 cents. Yes, really. It was stone dead when I got it, but all it needed was a fresh set of two AAA batteries and it was good to go.
Since getting this thing it's actually become surprisingly useful for three main reasons.
First, I can use this without even having to plug the guitar into it. The moment you turn it on, the microphone is active. I just play a single string on my guitar since it's already plugged into my amp anyway, the GA30 hears it and instantly gives me a reading on whether the note is in tune or not.
Second, this is, by far, the absolute easiest tuner to use for flat tuning. You can set from one up to FIVE semitones flat. All from one button, the "FLAT" button. Brilliant. And it even has built-in functionality for 7-string tuning. I don't play 7-string, but hey, nice that it's there if I want to do baritone tuning.
Third is something I didn't even know the GA30 (and GA50) could do. Output a reference tone. That's what the "SOUND" button is for. Press the button and a tone plays, starting with B, then EADGBE when on the guitar setting (which it is by default). I sometimes prefer tuning by reference tone instead of by its internal microphone. Great to have.
I am genuinely impressed by this little thing. If mine breaks at some point, I'm definitely buying the GA50 since it's almost the same thing. In fact, it is the same thing but with one added feature. The 50 has an output jack so it can be used in a pedalboard setup whereas the 30 doesn't.
Installing guitar strings on Fender vintage style slotted tuners properly
This is really easy once you know how to do it.
The one thing about vintage style Fender slotted tuners that a lot of people get flat out wrong - including many presenters in YouTube tutorial videos - is figuring out how much slack you need to get the proper amount of string wraps around the tuner post.
Why do you need to figure out how much slack to use?
The way strings are installed on these type of tuners is that the string is inserted into the center of the post. You can't just insert the string out of the package because you will end up wrapping too much string. This results in overlap and causes tuning problems.
The string must be snipped first, and that's where most guitarists run into the problem of figuring out how much string to snip off first.
Why is it such a problem figuring out how much string to snip off?
Guitar strings don't all come in one universal length. In fact, most string makers use varying lengths. Some ship their sets with really long G strings. Others ship sets with short high-E strings. There's hardly any consistency from string brand to string brand.
The absolute easiest way to determine the correct amount of string to snip every time is to do the following:
- Pull the string through the body so the ball end is as far as it will go.
- Pull the string through the nut
- Pull the string through the tuner post
- Hold the string at the tuner post with the left hand
- Hold the string at the nut with the right hand
- With the right hand, pull the string from the nut to the 2nd fret. The left hand stays where it is and you slide the string through your left hand fingers.
- Snip the string at the tuner post
- Insert string into the tuner post
- Continue to install string normally
When doing this, you will get the correct amount of string to clip off every single time. No more guessing.
Do you absolutely need to go back two frets? No. You can get away with going back one fret for fewer wraps around the post or three frets for more wraps. But generally speaking, going back two frets will get the correct amount of wraps around the post every time.
I made a video on this if you want to see how it's done.