calling quality control...

To Whom It May Concern: While precise design and branding of a logo is key, common usage words must not go overlooked in your excitement of securing the account.

it's not every day a '58 Les Paul visits...

just sayin'

solid maple vs. stainless steel

Maple wins.

The owner wanted to use Schaller strap locks on his beautiful Gibson ES 355. He couldn't use the stock Gibson strap button screws with the Schaller buttons because the screws are too wide. He replaced the stock screw with a stainless steel #6 screw which, it turns out (and among other things), was too long. As the owner recounts the sad tale, he didn't pre drill a pilot hole in the solid maple block and, of course and in hindsight, the screw snapped off. That's where we come in.

Acts of God and other Mysteries

There are many ways a guitar finds its way to us, and many stories. Stories create their own set of questions, ones that, without the ur-story, would not have been asked in the first place. In this case, one of those questions is certainly: "Is there no other place besides the bathroom to store your guitars?"

Taylor T5, RMC Piezo Pickup install with 13 pin Roland/Axon output for midi conversion.

with this device in my guitar...

...I should be able to see through time.

Guitar Tech-ing for Billy Bragg

The wonderful and outspoken Billy Bragg came to town to play a solo show at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass followed by 2 nights at the Great American Music Hall. While in town I was hired to guitar tech for him. Billy came to town with his stage manager and get it done guy Vaughn and his "able to dial up great sound anywhere" long time engineer Grant. My job was to be sure the guitars were always in tune and ready to go from sound check to pack up. The other job was to be sure they went home with at least as much as they showed up with. Everything went great and I saw some great performances.

The Devo Potato Chip, Cloud electrical problem.

We had fun working on this blast from the future. Devo was in town for 2 days and had a frozen pot issue.
The little circuit in there controls the flashing blast off lights that comes on with the pre-amp. What could go wrong?

Happy Halloween!!!!

A few random shots

we're just going to leave this right here...

two great tastes that don't necessarily taste great together

When it comes to Gibson guitars one may well think of innovation, occasional brilliance, and a remarkable musical longevity. And one may well think of Moog Music as equally brilliant and an organization comprised of fearless risk takers. If we add these two together it stands to reason the results will be orders of magnitude beyond what either entity might accomplish on their own.

Not so. Here Mr. Bill T. has kindly requested that we remove the perfectly enormous motherboard and wire the late 1970's era Gibson RD Artist as a simple two humbucker solid body electric guitar; the kind we are all so familiar with. Mr. T. would like the instrument to be a player. Sometimes the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts.

Halloween 2009 in the Bay Area

The San Francisco/Bay Area comes together for Halloween, and all the freaks come out even more than usual. This year, however, there'll be another opportunity for community for those celebrating in San Francisco but traveling from the East Bay: a BART commute. Our lovely bay bridge, part of which is in the process of being replaced, has developed a potentially dangerous flaw and so must be shut down for a time, and at the height of our traditional revelry. Taking public transportation is good for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is running into people you know. It's community, and that's what we're all about.

(above: the quiet bridge toll booth and repairs, pics coutesy of Caltrans)

to make it your own

Mr. P. Chan preferred his own pickguard design over the stock shape (his design is the lower pickguard in the bottom photograph) originally installed on his new Rickenbacker 620 12 string. He brought the guitar to us, along with a graphic of what he desired us to accomplish and Tim fabricated the custom pickguard using material from the Big Box of Plastic we keep upstairs. Mr. Chan is pleased!

"with rings on her fingers & bells on her toes...

...she shall have music wherever she goes"

Here at the shop we encourage musical development in our country's youth and, to that end, we'll move heaven and earth to make a kid's guitar play correctly. How your child expresses themselves through music is pretty much up to them (see pic) but we'll make sure the tools are working right!

stay!

A technician (in this case, Trevor H.) prefers that a bridge clamped stay put. These particular clamps, manufactured by Stewart-MacDonald www.stewmac.com, perform their task in a special way, making them uniquely suited for this kind of work. Not only are they lightweight and shaped correctly to fit inside a soundhole but they also have adjustment screws on both ends of the clamp to clear internal braces. The right tool for the right job.

a bin of beans

like pushing your hands into a bin of pinto beans...you know you love that feeling.

like brothers...

...but which one is the elder? Working together for decades, the two of them trading insults and stories, and all of those guitars...we're very happy for his band's resurgence.

"it's exactly what I wanted Gary to do - I'm going to go home and play it for hours."

So said Raleigh E. upon receipt of his beautiful Gibson ES355. Gary completely rewired the instrument using volume pots manufactured by Hamer, tone pots manufactured by Mojo and a long-threaded no-load pot (carefully modified by Gary) installed in place of the stock Varitone switch to act as a sweeping master tone pot. Doing delicate work correctly inside of a hollow body guitar is time consuming, painstaking and requires a keen focus.

"put the good stuff on it 'cuz i'm gonna play the shit out of it"

A lot of folks bring their instruments to us for parts upgrades. Their are many levels of build quality in aftermarket products and, while the most expensive is only occasionally our sincere recommendation, sometimes the owner knows what she wants. (pic: three of a perfect pair)

"you have failed me for the last time..."

because it's Fall

Here's three small pumpkins stacked up on the dining room table with a big knob on top.

some of our extended family

Edith isn't semantically articulate or even always phonically comprehensible, but she likes her BC Rich guitar and we keep it running for her. She appreciates being treated like a human being. We thought we might someday ask her what she was up to in the Sixties but well...maybe better not to ask. She's a member of our downtown San Francisco extended family and has the coolest taste in jewelry.

change the tone

Jim B. brought us his 5 string Modulus bass the other day. He wasn't pleased with the overall sound and told us he was looking for more warmth, more clarity and more fullness. As Gary is fond of saying: "You give me adjectives, I'll give you answers." Of course we looked under the hood first and, whaddya know? What the hell is that? Also, it did have a lot of knobs and, while many controls and switches are not necessarily a sign of less than appealing tone, simplicity does have a habit of cleaning things up. We ended up removing the original motherboard and running the perfectly good Bartolini pickups through an Aguilar OPB-3 onboard preamp. We also used one of the existing switches to make it possible for Jim to run in active mode or bypass the preamp altogether. This bass sounds great now.

a straight up mod

Trevor has fabricated an angled block of cocobolo wood to raise the back of the vibrola tailpiece on this Gibson Firebird. Raising the tailpiece up allows for correct downward pressure on the saddles which, in this case, helps the string to ring true by fitting solidly in the saddle slot.

it's not just about the instrument

Gary is conferring with Lucille H. during work on her Fender Stratocaster. She plays music in hospitals, safe houses and prisons, and is active in her community as an advocate of music as a tool of healing. A person (who shall remain nameless) painted Ms. H.'s first name in a naive, spidery and white cursive on top of the body of the instrument using entirely too much acrylic paint. She was not amused and came to us to remove the offending (and uninvited) graphic. Here Ms. H. and Gary find a common language in the repair of her guitar.

what kind of a statement do you want to make?

This guitar strap was handmade using custom parts carefully chosen to establish a unique mood.

that's a lot of guitars!

Since January 1st, 2006, we've performed a minimum of 2599 set-ups on various stringed instruments. That's a lot of set-ups, and doesn't account for the other 6500 or so other guitars that we've adjusted, finished, glued, smoothed, replaced parts on, etc. within that same time period.

We love our work.

(pic: Gary carefully guides the PLEK machine through its paces on a child's beginner Brian May solid body electric)

"it's just what I hoped you would do with it"

Here's Jay D. with his now clean playing Fender Tele Deluxe. We used the computerized fretmill device (PLEK) and followed up the process with a hand set-up, as we will. If you require low action and clean playing there are ways our little shop can help!

"I never thought I'd play this guitar again"

Here's Clark A. with his beloved ES 135 after Tim has completed a neck reset and repaired some cracks. "It's surreal...", he was heard to mutter on his way out.

ship in a bottle

Why does it cost more when working with the electronics on a hollow body guitar as opposed to a solid body guitar? In this photo Trevor has carefully eased the wiring harness out of the body of a Gibson ES 137 prior to replacing the stock pickups with a new Gibson 57 Plus in the bridge and a new Gibson 57 in the neck. The surgical tubing assists him in keeping track. This way he'll be able to gently extract the disparate parts of the wiring harness and then (most importantly) get it all back into its correct location. It takes more time, but time is something else we manipulate.

lined yellow paper and a pen

With these simple implements our Chief Technology Officer, Kirkwood Rough, whips up a twenty minute design for what he terms a "junk amp." An hour or two of retrospection later, he emails us a new design that he thinks may be an improvement. Kirkwood is the de-facto chairman of our brain trust, always at the ready.

Archtop Fever w/ Tim Frick

This image shows Tim testing out his most recent creation, a seventeen inch acoustic archtop guitar. The top is sitka spruce, the back and sides are European maple and the neck is mahogany. Tim's choice for a pickup is a Kent Armstrong humbucker, carefully mounted to the pickguard so that it "floats," and also including a hidden disk on the underside for volume control. We aren't engaging in hyperbolic rhetoric to call this instrument a work of art. To see a detailed explanation of the building process, please visit his photo essay (with handy informational captioning by the builder himself). Note: facebook registration is required to view the photo album.