Learning to learn how to play guitar

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Oh, how it pains me to say this: I’ve been playing guitar for over 20 years.  But I can’t call myself a guitarist.

I have a pretty solid background in music theory and harmony.  I minored in music at UC Berkeley.  I can find my way around a piano.   Yet somehow, I never learned how to learn how to play guitar!  I never once took a lesson.

For the first five years or so, I learned just enough to be able to play the songs I was writing, and I even played and sang in a band.  I never learned more than the open chords, the E-form bar chord, and the note names on the first string.   Mostly I wrote songs by noodling on the guitar until something sounded good.  It was “art”.

For the next decade or so, I didn’t really learn much more.  More

bumblebees

Pots and caps

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I’bumblebeesm assuming that the tone caps are more critical to the sound than the pots themselves.  Please leave a comment to share your recommendations or experiences.

Here’s some background reading for the upcoming capacitor and potentiometer mods.

Auditioning Tone Capacitors Part 1 (Premier Guitar)
Auditioning Tone Capacitors Part 2 (Premier Guitar)

Article about pots in general, with good charts about tapers

Treble Bleed Mod for Volume Pots

Pot quality CTS versus Gibson

Resistor-Filter Cutoff Calculator

And here’s some shopping resources:

CTS Pots at Guitar Parts Resource

Sprague Drop caps at Guitar Parts Resource

Pickup experiment- bypassing electronics

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Speaking with Pete Biltoft at Vintage Vibe Guitars about possible dog-eared P-90 pickup replacements for the Riviera P93, Pete recommended I first try bypassing the guitar’s electronics to see if they’re sucking the tone away.   This experiment requires disconnecting the pickup wire from the electronics, and routing it directly to the output jack.  The results are interesting.   Read on for pictures, and audio, video before/after.

Open Heart SurgeryIt felt a bit like open heart surgery!  I held the neck volume pot with locking pliers so I could use a soldering iron to remove the red wire from the pot.  Old baby blankets and polish cloths came in handy here to protect the finish:)

Alligator Clipped Jack

 

Rather than fishing out the output jack through the f-hole, I used alligator clips to attach an extra jack hanging off the side of the guitar.  The green alligator connects the jack ground to the pickup ground.  The red alligator connects to the red signal wire of the pickup.   With this setup, I can easily swap the red alligator between the new output jack and right back to the neck volume pot.

P-90 Pickup Exposed Epiphone Riviera Three P-90's Baby Blankets and Clamps

Audio Examples

Through Electronics Bypassing Electronics
Pattern 1 Pattern 1
Pattern 2 Pattern 2
Pattern 3 Pattern 3

 

So, it’s time to find and order some pots and caps!  I’ll do a post on installation, and the followup for sound comparison.

Prepack Checklist

A Luthier’s Setup

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The factory setup of my Epiphone Riviera P93 was horrible!   I had a luthier to do a full setup on the guitar, and it’s much better now.  Read on for all the measurements before/after the setup.

Prepack ChecklistHere’s the “Pre-Pack Checklist” that came with the guitar.  What a joke! I imagine the inspector works like this:

  • Intonation?  Sucks, check!
  • String height?  Crazy high, check!
  • Buzzing?  Yep, check!
  • Fretboard cleaning? Yuck, check!

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