Premier Guitar features affiliate links to help support our content. We may earn a commission on any affiliated purchases.

Acoustic Soundboard

Whether or not your guitar’s been frozen in its cryosleep case for the winter, you’ll want to take some steps to make sure it experiences a healthy thaw.

Managing your instrument’s humidity and temperature are important pieces of a year-round maintenance regimen.

Here in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, we’re going from the dry, cold conditions of winter to the warmer, humid conditions of spring. As you probably know, these fluctuations can impact the well-being of your beloved instruments. So, here are some tips from our team on how to effectively care for your acoustic guitars during these seasonal shifts.

Before delving into specific tips, it's crucial to understand how seasonal changes affect acoustic guitars. Wood, the primary material in our guitars, is highly responsive to variations in temperature and humidity. When exposed to dry and cold conditions, wood tends to contract, leading to potential issues like cracking and changes in playability. Warm and humid conditions can cause the wood to expand, resulting in swelling, warping, or changes in tone.

Read MoreShow less

Steve Albini in the control room at his Electrical Audio studio in Chicago.

Photo by Kevin Tiongson

Words of wisdom from the legendary engineer, proprietor of Chicago’s Electrical Audio, World Series of Poker champion, and, in the band Shellac, the compass for brutal guitar aesthetics.

“All day every day, we’re grinding it out,” says engineer Steve Albini of his team at Electrical Audio, the Chicago studio he built and has run since 1997. “We’re constantly in session, constantly under fire.”

Read MoreShow less

Putting padding around your guitar’s headstock is the best way to ensure it from being damaged during shipment.

You can reduce your fears about shipping your instrument by taking the right steps to protect it in transit.

Even if you own only one instrument, if you’re an active guitar player, chances are good that sooner or later you’ll have to pack your guitar for shipment. Although it’s hard for some packers to realize, the dangers of shipping your guitar by UPS or FedEx are essentially the same as putting your guitar on an airline’s luggage conveyor belt when you fly.

Read MoreShow less

Not only does striped ebony sound the same, it looks great too.

Chris Martin makes a case for striped ebony.

For many years, guitar manufacturers had the luxury of not using certain woods if they didn’t like the way they looked. It used to be that if a felled ebony tree was striped, it would be left to rot. Today, that is simply not an option, nor should it be. The choice to use striped ebony in making guitars has become an important one for us at Martin. Striped ebony is an ethically sourced tonewood that sounds great, is aesthetically pleasing, and, perhaps most importantly, is an environmentally smart option.

Read MoreShow less

A 1921 A2 Gibson mandolin is reunited with a 1921 L2 Gibson guitar after an entire century.

For archtop lovers, there are few subjects more fascinating than the legacy of Orville Gibson.

One of my greatest inspirations as a guitar maker comes from my hope that the guitars I build will roam the planet long after I’m gone. Sometimes, when I’m on my some-hundredth hour of working on a guitar—sanding lacquer and chasing a flawless mirror finish—a vision of the instrument one hundred years from now will flash before my eyes. It’s a powerful reminder that along with a century of battle scars and music comes a certain beauty that only time will bring. With all the hustle and bustle of building brand-new guitars, sometimes I forget: I want to build guitars now, so that someday they will be old.

Read MoreShow less