Just juju? šŸ¤”

Does going fretless solve the issues :imp:

R.

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Hard to say.

I suggest you make a post with more details in the appropriate gear sectionā€¦ideally, with a video that demonstrates the problem.

We can probably help!

I really donā€™t really care how or if people tune their guitars, what picks, strings of whatever else they use. I can throw a rock where I live and hit five really good guitarists in the head. Are you finding your own voice on the instrument? Are you working toward that goal?

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And thatā€™s a subject for a different thread. Nothing wrong with talking about the stuff you donā€™t care about. You can simply choose not to participate in the thread if it doesnā€™t interest you.

Hey JK, that vid you shared is spot on and shows how easy it is to do bends/vibrato/etc., no hassle at all really, just a different way of thinking about tuning.

I was actually debating about putting out a evaluation/explanation video on them to the community to cover how they work and clear up any misconceptions, but I guess thereā€™s heaps of those vids out there already, so probably unnecessary I guess.

Weā€™ve discussed this before and I was a bit confused in the past about the whole bending thing and I will explain why. Iā€™ve always been a rhythm guy, never really been in to solos so bending pretty much didnā€™t concern me, so when I got my Solar guitars, I set them up so they couldnā€™t go out of tune (note, when I say setting them up basically that is turning the tuning peg till it doesnā€™t change pitch any more then using the allen key to make sure that pitch is correct for that string i.e. 6th E, 5th A etc, although it will likely be pretty close or right on straight out of the box anyway).

However, more recently Iā€™ve been trying to do more bends and vibrato for solos and for the blues lead course, so this made me have to figure out what is explained in the video you shared. Itā€™s really simple but my initial mistake was that I over-compensated for my heavy fretting
by staying too deep in ā€œzone 2ā€ (the zone where the pitch stays constant), this meant that I had to bend a string a long way before the pitch went up, also vibrato was virtually impossible. I have since realised that I donā€™t need to go that deep, I can just sit slightly under the cusp of when the string starts to go sharp and therefore get all the benefits of constant tuning plus vibrato and bends. None of this is complex, all I would say is that you just need to watch a video on how they work and it will become clear, itā€™s pretty straightforward.

The big advantages are that you always stay in tune, so you can practice that riff with a bend (or two) over and over without having to worry about retuning. I also found this super useful for when I did the Rebel Yell cover and bent the string behind the nut. When I tried that on one of my other guitars without an Evertune , the string went immediately out of tune, but on the Solar it didnā€™t.

For me, I wouldnā€™t buy another guitar without one, just makes life easier. Along the same lines, I would now never buy a guitar without locking tuners (or would get them installed if it didnā€™t have them) they make changing strings such a breeze, I love them.

Hereā€™s the tradeoffs imo:

  • Evertunes are more expensive
  • They are more intimadiating to a beginner than a straight hard tail (although they shouldnā€™t be and are MILES easier that a Floyd rose, of which I have two and have blocked both so they donā€™t move :laughing:)
  • Itā€™s easier to damage them if you donā€™t take care. When I say easier, itā€™s really about not forcing things. Itā€™s a high quality piece of machinery that is designed for a specific purpose, so just be conscious of that and donā€™t over tighten anything and youā€™ll be fine.
  • You do need to think about what strings you use. If you use super heavy gauge strings for very low tunings (as used in some death metal) then you have to get the correct Evertune to work with that. Although as for myself and, I imagine, most here, this wonā€™t be a problem.
  • Finally it can be a bit of a pain if you want change from say E standard to, say, Eb Standard on a regular basis. Not a big deal but will take a bit longer than on a normal bridge (hence why I bought a drop pedal! :joy:. Also going to say drop D will take bit longer (you have to turn the tuning peg a lot more to get out of Zone 2 and into Zone 1 where it will start to detune). Ola (who owns Solar guitars) has his set in drop D and tunes up to E which is faster, but I play mostly in E so prefer to leave it in that.

Wow this got super long!! Sorry about that! But thought it might be helpful to cover off the main points I have picked up after using them for a year or two now :slightly_smiling_face::+1:

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Arenā€™t forums wonderful. Weā€™ve gone from @brianlarsen turning round in circles, to tuning guitars, to @LunaRocketā€™s fret sprout, back to tuning guitars, then Brian asked if anyone had weird guitar habits, @CT throwing rocks at his neighbours, finishing up with an explanation from @nzmetal about an ever tune bridge.
Marvellous. How can the search button ever hope to cope with all that? :joy:

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I hope youā€™re not telling me Brian that we jammed and you might have been out of tune? :astonished: :stuck_out_tongue:

I am trying to get in to tuning the guitar every time I pick it up but I am surprised how well they stay in tune from week to week.

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And super informative. Thanks for the write up! Iā€™m curious about trying an evertune bridge out one day now!

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:laughing:

Not me not me not meā€¦ :grimacing:

Fortunately Iā€™ve posted so much that itā€™s impossible to find if I accidentally confessed things :sweat_smile:

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Hey, my frets are behaving themselves, AFAIK. It was @Tbushell whose frets were wonky. Good summary though. :smiley:

Iā€™ll have to check out that evertune bridge, too, never heard of it.

I also need to look into changing stuff on my Bullet because the thing has always sounded tinny. I swear the tone controls do practically nothing useful! Another winter project to go along with staining more baseboard and door trim!

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I prefer to view it as being taken out of context.

I really dig Nick Drakeā€™s music A LOT. His guitar tone is really unique but playing odd tunings on corroded nasty dead strings is not my thing. He did it, he rocked it well, I donā€™t need to recreate it. Using new brassy sounding strings in standard tuning (normally) is how I roll (nobody here should care because they are finding what works for them organically).

And I thought I was weird :rofl:

@sclay Interesting that you and @LievenDV do that as well as @mathsjunky.
It makes sense and I might just change my habits :wink:

@nzmetal Iā€™ve heard Evertune being mentioned, but not as often as Floyd rose. Cheers for the intro, although I canā€™t see myself ever going down that path. If Iā€™m not that stressed about tuning, Iā€™m not likely to be buying expensive kit to ā€˜cureā€™ my problem :laughing:

@markr31 play nicely :wink:
@CTā€™s opinion is always welcome on my threads. He reminds me of an Old Testament prophet in the wilderness, preaching his truth to whoever wants to listen. I donā€™t share his views on many ā€˜gearā€™ issues (although I might one day :thinking:), but I agree with- and am grateful for- much of his thinking on the musical side of playing guitar :grinning:

@sairfingers Well what else would you be doing on a Sunny Sunday morning?
Always good to say hello :grinning:

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I suspect almost anyone here could out-weird you in some way Brian! :upside_down_face:

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Haha! Although the Book of Clint has been captured in the ancient Etch A Sketch archives, and not to be taken too seriously, even my own views on gear are subject to change. This is the golden age of affordable gear, so go out and get you some. :slight_smile:

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Only the necessary stuff :wink:
(My friend Chris has a connection to the Private Eye cartoonist who died last week)

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