Cowabunga! A Beginner’s Guide to Surf Guitar - Dec. '18 Ex. 4
Unique, high-end guitar tuners and replacement parts offer new levels of customization for modern players.
In my previous installment of Acoustic Soundboard, I explored the significance of tuners, their replacement options, and the importance of preserving the authenticity of vintage guitars. I also delved into acceptable choices for both new and vintage guitars, as well as the considerations for custom boutique instruments. This time, let’s dig a bit deeper on boutique tuners and how to properly outfit a custom guitar.
When commissioning a custom boutique guitar, it’s crucial to heed the guidance of your luthier. Understanding their preferred building style and the desired tonal characteristics they aim to achieve is paramount. As a responsible builder, my focus lies not in reinventing the wheel, but rather on tone, responsiveness, and providing warranties. For my personal line of guitars, I opt for Waverly tuners due to their lightweight properties and vintage aesthetic. With their small footprint, these tuners align perfectly with the tonal objectives I strive for.
Modern tuners have evolved from the original sealed Grover tuners that entered the market in the mid 1960s. Compared to the bulky and weighty original Grovers, the newer versions are significantly smaller, a design that many players find more desirable. Over the years, I have extensively used two reputable brands: Schaller and Gotoh. Their outstanding quality, desirable weight, and sealed construction make them favorites amongst many manufacturers and musicians. The precise, squared styling of Schaller tuners and the organic, rounded design of Gotoh tuners offer distinct options.
But luxury bespoke tuners have also gained popularity within the custom guitar and boutique instrument communities. These tuners boast unique styles, with each manufacturer offering their own aesthetic. Offerings from Rodgers Tuning Machines, for example, have garnered attention among my contemporaries for their quality construction, distinct styling, and custom engravings. However, these high-end tuners can get quite expensive, with some sets exceeding a thousand dollars. While undeniably excellent in their performance and craftsmanship, one has to weigh the price against the benefits—most other lower-priced tuners can undoubtedly get the job done.
“While undeniably excellent in their performance and craftsmanship, one has to weigh the price against the benefits—most other lower-priced tuners can undoubtedly get the job done.”
In the realm of aftermarket replacement tuners, our industry has made notable strides in providing alternative options. Grover offers a solid choice with the reintroduction of their Sta-Tite tuners, while numerous manufacturers now produce replicas of these sought-after machines, underscoring their timeless design. Plus, guitar supply houses offer a wide range of replacements that accurately mimic the tuners found on vintage instruments throughout the years. Many of these replacements also boast upgraded gear ratios (the ratio of the number of teeth in the gear to the number of teeth in the pinion, the pinion being the smaller of the two gears in mesh), transitioning from traditional vintage ratios to a more favorable 18:1 ratio—a preference shared by many players, including myself. The higher gear ratio proves particularly advantageous for musicians that employ a spread of alternative tunings during performances.
When it comes to repairing tuners, finding suitable options can be quite limited. Often, one finds themselves scouring through boxes of tuner parts in order to find the precise cog, screw, or post necessary for the repair. It can be a challenge to convey to customers that even seemingly small components can be quite costly, given the time and effort required to locate them. On the other hand, tuner buttons present a different story altogether. Suppliers have successfully replicated tuner buttons, catering to the needs of those seeking replacements for damaged or deteriorated buttons resulting from impacts or aging. Thankfully, in today's market, many proficient guitar repair technicians are fully capable of undertaking such tasks.
Attention and effort is warranted when it comes to the maintenance of tuners. It is commonplace for guitar techs to tighten the threaded grommets on closed-back tuners as each season brings changes in temperature and humidity. Open-back tuners necessitate regular scrutiny of the screws securing the cog to prevent tuning issues or potential hardware loss. Mysterious vibrations and rattles experienced while playing specific notes can often be attributed to loose tuner parts, an issue that’s often easily remedied by a simple tightening. So if you want to avoid these annoying hindrances, you should add seasonal tuner maintenance to your comprehensive guitar care routine.
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Streaming platforms each have their own volume standards for uploaded audio, and if you don’t cater your mixes to each, you risk losing some dynamic range.
Here’s the scenario: You’ve finished your latest masterpiece, and now it’s time to start considering how your mixes and their loudness levels will be perceived across all digital platforms (Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon, etc.). In addition, you might also make sure your music adheres to the strict audio broadcast standards used in film, TV, podcasts, video games, and immersive audio formats like Dolby Atmos.
These considerations, among many others, are typically reserved for mastering engineers. However, you may not have the budget for a mastering engineer, so in the meantime I’d like to give you some expert advice on making sure your loudness levels are in check before you release your music into the wild. Tighten up your belts, the Dojo is now open.
Hail LUFS Metering!
LUFS (Loudness Units Full Scale) is unique in that it is attempts to measure how the human brain perceives loudness, which is accomplished by using a K-weighted scale with 400 ms “momentary” measurement windows (each overlapping the other by 75 percent), resulting in super smooth and accurate readings. This momentary method also allows for additional LUFS short-term and long-term readings (Fig.1), and it is this later measurement, LUFS long-term (aka LUFS integrated), that all of the digital music platforms will be placing their utmost attention upon. For those who are curious, the K-weighted audio scale places less emphasis on bass frequencies and more on higher frequencies above 2 kHz—and is a refined emulation of how humans perceive sound. It is not a musical scale like C harmonic minor, but rather a scaled algorithm for measuring frequencies.
The Wild West of dBs
Less than 10 years ago, there was no loudness standard for any of the audio-streaming platforms. In 2021, the Audio Engineering Society (AES) issued their guidelines for loudness of internet audio-streaming and on-demand distribution in a document named AESTD1008.1.21-9, which recommends the following:
News/talk: -18 dB LUFS
Pop music: -16 dB LUFS
Mixed format: -17 dB LUFS
Sports: -17 dB LUFS
Drama: -18 dB LUFS
However, most services have their own loudness standards for music submission.
“We adjust tracks to -14 dB LUFS, according to the ITU 1770 (International Telecommunication Union) standard. We normalize an entire album at the same time, so gain compensation doesn’t change between tracks.” —Spotify
They are not alone; YouTube, Tidal, and Amazon also use this measurement. Deezer uses -15 dB LUFS and Apple Music has chosen -16 dB LUFS, while SoundCloud has no measurement at all.
To make things more confusing, some services automatically normalize songs to match their predefined LUFS target. Think of normalization as a way of dynamically homogenizing all audio on their platform to the same volume level, regardless of genre or decade. This ensures that the listening end-user will never have the need to adjust their volume knob from song to song.
“Think of normalization as a way of dynamically homogenizing all audio on their platform to the same volume level, regardless of genre or decade.”
What does that mean for your music? If you upload a song to Spotify above -14 dB LUFS, they will turn it down and you’ll lose dynamic range. If the song is below -14 dB LUFS, they will normalize it, or in other words, turn it up to match all the songs on the platform—you can turn it off if you choose—but you’ll also still suffer some dynamic-range loss.
However, that same quiet song on YouTube will not be turned up even though they use the same -14 dB LUFS target. Apple Music normalizes, and will turn up quieter songs relative to peak levels and use both track and album normalization. Deezer and Pandora always use normalization, but only on a per-track basis, while Tidal uses album normalization. Confusing, right? So, how can we make our mixes sound their very best and perhaps get an idea of what it will sound like on various platforms?
1. Before you use any type of plugin (compression, limiting, EQ) on your stereo bus, make sure your dynamic range within the song itself is intact, and nothing peaks over 0 dBFS on your meters—no little red lights should be triggered.
2. Use an LUFS metering plugin like Waves’ WLM ($29), FabFilter’s Pro-L 2 ($169), or Izotope’s Insight ($199).
3. Set your true peak limiter to -1 dB and your long-term LUFS to -14 dB, and you’ll be in the sweet spot.
4. Play your song from beginning to end, look at the readings, and adjust gain accordingly.
Next month, I’ll be showing you some creative ways to use reverb! Until then, namaste.