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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On the eclectic instrumental band’s newest, A LA SALA, the bassist pledges to “just play what sounds good and what feels good.”
“Bass playing is like humming to me,” says Khruangbin’s Laura Lee Ochoa. “I hum to myself all the time. It’s very in-your-body. It’s also one note, it can be as melodic as I want it to be, and it’s simple. It was something that just resonated with me.”
Ochoa is describing the epiphany that brought her to the bass back in 2009, when she was working as a third-grade math teacher. First learning piano with help from her pal, guitarist Mark Speer, she recalls, “I was trying to play along to a song and he said to follow the bass. Then I picked one up, and it weirdly made sense to me.” It was a monumental event—the catalyst for just about everything that followed.
Soon, Ochoa quit her teaching job to go on tour with Speer in the shoegaze band Yppah. “It was five people staying in a Motel 6 every night, flipping a quarter for who slept on a bed,” she remembers. “We were in a minivan, I had no amp, I was playing direct every night—it was that kind of tour. Our very last show was in Seattle, and we drove to Houston in one shot and didn’t stop. We were all crooked getting out of the van, and I looked at Mark and was like, ‘I wanna start a band.’”
Khruangbin - "Pon Pón"
Ochoa and Speer’s weekly hangs with Donald “DJ” Johnson Jr., a producer who played with Speer at a regular church gig, made assembling a band easy. “I didn’t know that DJ played drums,” says Ochoa, “because I knew him as an organ or keyboard player. Mark was like, ‘I’ve never heard DJ play drums, but I know he’ll play the way we want.’”
“I didn’t grow up ever thinking I’d play bass.”
Fast forward a few years of jamming, and Khruangbin released their debut, The Universe Smiles Upon You, in 2015. The trio caught the ears of listeners and critics with their unique stew of influences, the most immediate of which was vintage Thai funk, but international sounds from Peru to the Middle East were detectable. Speer played with the reverb-soaked twang of surf rock and the laid-back feel of soul jazz. Ochoa and Johnson served as his rhythmic foils, delivering tight grooves with both bounce and economy that were equal parts reggae, Motown, and lo-fi hip-hop.
Laura Lee Ochoa's Gear
Ochoa uses flats on her original SX J bass and never changes ’em.
Photo by Jordi Vidal
Bass
- SX J bass
Amp
- Acme Audio Motown DI
- Ampeg bass amp
Strings
- Flatwounds
Khruangbin skyrocketed to the tops of taste-making lists, drawing in record collectors and public radio listeners alike. Along the way, the band lived in their sound more deeply with every new project. And there have been many: They’ve now delivered four LPs, plus a pair of EPs with Leon Bridges, and Ali, a collaboration with Malian guitar virtuoso Vieux Farka Touré as a tribute to his legendary father, Ali Farka Touré.
On their newest album, A LA SALA, the band jump-started the writing process by digging into their vault of demos and jams, going as far back as one of Speers’ pre-Khruangbin demos of “May Ninth,” which dates from 2008. Other vault recordings came from throughout their career—“Ada Jean” was demoed around the time of their debut—while some songs are new. The goal, Ochoa says, was “to just be influenced by ourselves.” Like the Rolling Stones’ Tattoo You or Van Halen’s A Different Kind of Truth, both of which were created by archive-diving, there are no discernible differences between the old and new. They all simply sound like Khruangbin. “When I listen to the final product and what they turned into,” says Johnson of their vault recordings, “it’s incredible to me.”
While Ochoa and Johnson call Speer’s guitar the lead singer of the mostly instrumental group—though Ochoa’s voice is featured, it’s mostly as a background element—at the heart of the band’s sound is the deep, sympathetic rhythmic hookup between the three players, and much of that starts with the foundation laid down by Ochoa and Johnson. “A lot of times, it starts with DJ and I playing a bunch to lock in,” says Ochoa. “We’ll start smiling at each other, like, ‘We’re here now.’” Together, they bounce. They’re tight, but airy. The low end pumps enough to keep you moving, even on slower, lighter tunes, but their flow is always dynamic.
A LA SALA features all new recordings, but the songs are a mix of all-new compositions and some that consist of old riffs and parts dating as far back as 2008.
On 2020’s Mordechai, the band tweaked their formula and their feel. The songs leaned more toward poppy, dance grooves, and Ochoa’s breathy background vocals moved into the fore. Her playing changed as well. “I was trying to be complicated,” she explains. “I was trying to play things that were slightly less comfortable for myself because I was trying to go outside the box and play more notes or play faster.” It was an essential step in her internal relationship with the bass. “It’s like being a teenager in the lifespan of playing. I started out naively, and then I was like, ‘I know more, my fingers are more agile, I’m going to make this more complicated.’”
By pushing herself to the limit on Mordechai, Ochoa was able to find more of herself—the kind of stuff that really makes Laura Lee sound like Laura Lee—on A LA SALA. “I feel like with this record, I didn’t have that same need,” she says. Instead, she decided to “just play what sounds good and what feels good.”
“If you lose the fourth-finger thing, it creates a limitation, but for me it’s fun and bouncy.”
Whether on “Juegos y Nubes,” where she plays an on/off counterpoint to Speer’s guitar melody or “Three from Two,” where she injects melody into a mostly root/fifth pattern, her sound is immediately recognizable. Much of that is because of her melody-driven sensibility—her influences are more melodic, and she says she doesn’t really have favorite bassists. “I didn’t grow up ever thinking I’d play bass,” she points out.
Ochoa also credits her sound in part to her technique. “I don’t play with all four of my fingers, because I attach two of my fingers together,” she explains. “I’m not technically trained. Because of that, I think I play differently, and it changes the feel of the whole thing. Like James Jamerson playing with one finger, if you lose the fourth finger thing, it creates a limitation, but for me it’s fun and bouncy.”
And Ochoa’s sense of rhythm is a crucial part of her playing. It’s what helps sell the sound and makes it so infectious. “I play and practice Laura Lee bass lines because they’re fun to play,” says Johnson. “The stuff that you sit down and you play is the stuff that’s good and the stuff that you like. I’m always studying her placement. She has a very keen sense of rhythm that’s on top but doesn’t rush. It’s laid-back but it doesn’t drag. I’d be lying if I told you I’ve figured it out.”
YouTube It
The trio’s effortless mastery of groove and style is evident in this cover-filled set from the 2022 BBC 6 Music Festival.