Guitar Things Everyone Does Wrong 

The knob clearly doesn't go high enough

@@MaydupNem or low enough! 😂

set it to 7

You've been in Mike's band too, then..?

You're in the wrong band...it's a multiplier!

I just noticed that the pros around me were doing it when I started playing a couple years ago so I started doing it to try and look like I knew what I was doing lol

@@jerryjb That's a good enough reason as any 😅 Still got the job done.

Check out D'addario dual strap locks. They hold the cable tightly and snap onto your strap knob. They're awesome..

SAME! Haven't spoken with the guy in like ten years, but I think about him every time I plug in.

I refuse to believe that there are grown ass adults that don't know about something this common

It’s also how you coil ropes for climbing, and other things.

I use rem-oil on my nut and saddles, which is gun oil with Teflon in it. Done it for decades, works great. I did the graphite treatment previously and my bone nut would turn grey.

Yup yup yup

And you can use Grolsch Beer rubber gaskets as strap locks!

@@247snowflakeyou can actually buy the gaskets in bulk from home brew supply shops, or probably off Amazon. I got a pack of 100 for like $5 about 15 years ago and still have half of them, so I’m probably set for life.

spring method doesn't work for mexican strats, the hole goes all the way through the guitar and the spring just falls out :(

@@gamekyuubi42069 hmm, i guess maybe if you could find a small short bolt with the same thread as the hole in the block, you could thread it in from underneat and have a surface for the spring to sit on... Depends on the clearence between the block and the back cover to acommodate the bolt's head, and the height of the bolt so theres room inside the hole for the trem bar's thread and the spring. I think it's worth a try, if it doesn't work it's only a couple of cents anyway

@@joaopedrosobreira929 Good idea. To fix another issue. When you put the guitar in your case should you leave the bar attached. Close the case and the bar is depressed putting tension on the strings and the tremolo springs. I don't think that's a really good idea. If you remove the trem bar guess what? In Fender's great wisdom there is absolutely NO retainer on that spring. After all these years. If your case or guitar gets turned upside down the little spring falls out and usually gets lost. Ok, I keep a bag of those springs around but you can go through a dozen of those darn things pretty fast. So I found a short bolt with the correct threads. Remove the bar and insert bolt. Next time open the case, remove bolt and screw in the bar. Oh yeah make sure you put the bolt in the small compartment in the case. When you're done put the guitar back in the case, remove bar, insert bolt. Easy, kinda. Now here's the rub. How do you know what the correct thread is? To those of you who already know this, sorry and bear with me. Whatever you do you DO NOT want to strip the threads on your bar or tailpiece. First it helps to know where the guitar is made. American, easy. Standard American thread. Better be, but then this is Fender after all. Mexican, I don't know for sure. Probably American but could be Metric, depends on where the parts come from. Someone who knows more about that can chime in. Asian for sure Metric. Either way grab yourself a couple of inexpensive thread gauges at a hardware store. One American and one Metric. Don't forget to take your trem bar along. Thread gauges can be a bit tricky to use if you're not used to dealing with them. A lot of the thread sizes are very close. But only one will be correct. Once you've figured out the thread then match the bar diameter to a bolt size. To be sure find a nut same size and thread and try to screw it onto the trem bar. Gently. There may be a little bit of resistance but if the nut seems to bind you've got the wrong thing. Start over. Go back to the thread gauges. Try similar sizes. Metric's trickier than American. They have a lot more pitches and particularly fine threads than American. Harder to eyeball. Some American pitches are very close to a few of the Metric ones. Just make sure you've got the correct bolt diameter and thread pitch. Now buy the shortest bolt with the same diameter and thread. Maybe get a couple just in case. Follow the procedure and that stupid spring will never get lost in the first place.

So I never do that but I kinda "roll" the cable in my hand. I guess it's the same effect?

​@@blueleaftuberdepends on what you mean by roll? If you're doing it properly, your cables won't come out twisted and unruly, they'll be nice and neat and compliant with however you try to set them. The thing is that, no matter how you do it, wrapping a cable introduces some amount of twist into the cable, but the "over-under" technique Sammy teaches in this video constantly reverses the direction of the twist, so every new wrap is undoing the twist introduced by the previous wrap, so by the end of the cable, there's ultimately little or no twist in the cable. Here's a test to see if a cable is wrapped correctly: Set yourself up somewhere where you have a clear floor space long enough for the entire length of your cable, and somewhere where there isn't anything fragile in the area. Then, take your cable, hold onto one end, and throw the other end. If the cable was wrapped correctly (and if you managed to avoid pulling one end through and creating a knot like Sammy demonstrated), it will unwrap and come out straight and neat. If it comes out twisted or bunched up, that means it wasn't wrapped correctly.

People clutch their pearls when they see me do it, but I use the method where you repeatedly fold the cable in half until it's about 18 to 24 inches long and then tie the whole thing in a loose overhand knot. No tangles, no knots, have cables that are 20 years old that I've been doing this to the whole time. You can throw them in a bag like that and they won't tangle with each other like they would using any other method. People tell me that I'll ruin the cables that way, but I've yet to ruin one that way, been doing it for 30 years.

​@@waltjames407that seems cromulent enough for certain situations, so I'm not going to try telling you you're wrong. However, I can think of a few reasons why I personally still prefer over-under; these reasons may not be of any significant importance to everyone, so I'll try to explain my reasoning for the benefit of anyone who may read this. My first thought is that your folding method is probably quite a bit slower than wrapping; you need to first go through the cable to remove any existing twist before you can begin folding, which is something you can do as you go along while wrapping. Plus, with Velcro or twist-tie cable wraps, you don't need to take the time to tie a knot (although that does reveal an advantage to your method: it doesn't require a strip of Velcro or a twist tie). I often have lots of cables to wrap all at once, as I'm often working in the context of providing the rehearsal PA for my band or providing sound company services, so I typically have two or three dozen cables to wrap at a time, so it behooves me to be quick. Your folding method also sounds like it probably takes up a lot of space, depending on the lengths of your cables. I have cables up to 50ft in length, and those cables would take quite a bit of floor space to straighten out before folding, a luxury I do not always have when I'm tearing down a stage in a small impromptu venue. There are some very cool things you can do with over-under wrapping to manage cables and keep them neat even while they're in use. For example, when I plug a cable into the input of my pedalboard, I have it wrapped over-under in a pile next to the pedalboard so that any length that I do need from the cable comes loose neatly, but any excess length stays in that nice little pile and doesn't risk tangling up with anything else on the stage. Or when I'm running a cable to a microphone, I wrap the excess length into an over-under pile underneath or next to the mic stand, for the same reason. When I'm running a stage with two to three dozen cables in active use, that makes a huge difference when I need to tear down, troubleshoot, or rearrange the stage. Lastly, it can be immensely helpful (and can be a useful job skill for anyone looking to work for a sound co or for a local stagehand union) to know the industry convention for how to wrap a cable if you find yourself working with other people's equipment. I would absolutely not employ someone for my sound company who couldn't over-under wrap my cables. So if the folding method works for you for your own personal gear, great! I clutch no pearls, and your method sounds vastly preferable to wrapping over-over. But I hope I've made clear my reasons for why I still recommend most people learn to wrap over-under.

Oh also, over-under can be useful for things other than cables. My brother works in maintenance at a golf course, and he uses over-under wrapping for things like hoses.

I was messing around with the lock on my case the other day and realized that not only was it a dumb key, I could effectively lock and unlock the case with my nail.

Lol police cars at least the crown Vic and before all have the same 3 options in la county. The newer suvs have key fobs so they’re all different now but definitely was a thing for a while to have the same keys assigned to every recruit and they just made copies as a class

I'm a trapeze flyer. When we break down the rig in the fall, the over-under prevents hours of frustration when setting back up in the spring.

I'm a computer network guy. That is how I wind network cables.

The half twist thing is the only relevant part about over under wrapping. Everything else that people claim about it is objective BS. Claiming that cables will never get tangle or knotted just isn't true. It can and will still happen from time to time under any method but the part about twisting and therefor hurting the cable over a VERY long period is true. I'm just not sure how much that even matters.

Seems like a great way to learn. Freakishly hard at first. Easier to use the first click as the downbeat so it takes you out of your comfort zone. Hey, I might learn something new!

not to mention there are tube amps with no standby switch

The guy that made my amp was an electrician his entire working life (now retired), is a collector/repairer/restorer of old valve radios, and has designed and made countless guitar amps. Basically, a bona fide expert, and what he doesn't know about tubes isn't worth knowing. He uses the standby switch for muting amps during breaks. That's been all the proof I need to follow suit. He also confirmed for me that there's no reason to use the standby switch when first turning the amp on. His words - "What a load of nonsense!" Lol.

I'm not really an expert when it comes to vacuum tubes, but as far as I know what tends to kill tubes (and most "old" electronics for that matter) is the constant on-off switching, as when switched the cathode goes through a heat cycle (ie. it heats up to several degrees and then cools off) which it can whitstand a finite amount of. I have heard that during WWII they were hesitant to build tube computers, as that was a relatively new idea at the time and the few that have been tried went through tubes at a very fast rate. Apparently the solution was to never turn the computer fully off, but to reduce the cathode heating current, which prolonged the life of the tubes. As for the stanyby switch on the amp: Given my knowledge of electronics I don't see how it harms the tubes. It is built in for the same reason as mentioned above so that you don't subject the cathode to more heat cycles that needed. The "cathode poisoning" argument franky sounds like audiophile BS to me. Also I've seen a video some bloke made a few years ago on the topic of having your amp on standby when you are turning it on. Sadly I can't find the video but he actually took measurements and the conclusion was, that it only makes a difference if your rectifier circuit is also tube based. So for amps that use a solid state rectifier (ie. all amps that were built from the 70's 80's onwards) it doesn't matter if you have the switch on standby or not, the transient curve on the supply rails looks the same.

Well, it surely improved the smell of the strings.

Nev'r Dull also works wonders! Also leaves the tiniest bit of "lube" too. Just be sure to mask each side. I use blue painting tape.

Exactly how I've always wrapped my cables. Goes very quickly for me.

This. It's how sailors wrap rope, so that it can be thrown without tangling. Twisting with the coil follows the coil of the rope or cable.

I wasn't quite sure what he was demonstrating in the video with the over/under motion. I figured out the twisting-as-you-wrap method on my own when I started playing at my church as a teen and having to do setup and tear-down every week. It's easy to feel how much to twist. Too much or too little of a twist and the cable won't hang flat from the other hand that is holding the wrapped cable.

Yeah but the real question is what is everybody doing with the ends if the cables once they are wrapped up? Just leave it like that?

@@NealFosterHD Little Velcro loops are great, but if I don't have those then I kind of "wrap" both ends around the whole coil a couple times. (Like stripes on a barbershop pole) Pull that a little snug and it kind of stays.

I always thought- still do- that the pairs of inputs were to allow channel mixing, & that the attenuation on the second socket of each channel's pair was to give you some flexibility in mixing them. everyone I knew with a plexi knew that trick. you can also use it to hang a tuner off of it, if you didn't have a floor-based tuner, & these weren't at all common back in the day- people had these big peterson strobe tuners sitting on their amps- so, you're playing through channel one mostly, say, but you link the second jack across the front of the amp to channel two, & the second jack of channel two goes up to the peterson, & now your channel switch mutes you & lets you tune silently. the tuner's connected all the time, of course, but when you want to tune up you can do it quietly.

oh my god.... you just made me realize that I've been playing for 21 years. I don't think I've thought about it at all for well over 5 years.

Same here, been playing since 1976, something I saw recently that was a big help is learning the caged system. Pretty sure Sammy has one on this channel but this video was really a major help in actually understanding what was going on with something I had figured out on my own: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0Qp26KcDrGw.html

My man!!!! This makes me very happy

This made me check out what he actually offers. Seems like crazy value, tbh.

I am thinking about taking a course now, after watching for 3-4 years on off and being a beginner for the last 30+ years (I'm 52), back then I thought I'd join my brothers band as the bassist. Still struggling with discipline though and I know I won't have a proper future in music - except for peace for my soul. With all the troubles in the world and the ups and downs in family life, music is the thing that always puts a smile on my face, be it classic, punk, a capella, jazz.... I do cringe at some too heavy metal or some too folky (eastern Europe) but I have friends who love it so I guess I will have a listen or two; knowing about theory definitely will help digesting more of it.

You may need to add a little of the weaker threadlocker on some guitars when adding straplocks. My Epiphone Les Paul screws were juuuuust a bit bigger than the straplock ones... otherwise a small hit of plumbing tape around the straplock screw

Should you also do Standby -> Off when you turn off or can you directly switch it off..?

@@telecasper I do so that the amp is always in standby when you go to power it up, but it is not necessary.

Thank you for mentioning this, I had heard the history of the standby switch at some point online and yeah it basically a mute switch, good for keeping your tubes warm, doesn't cause any harm except putting hours on your tube. This is also the only one he didn't seem to explain at all which left me further sceptical.

Yes, the standby switch thing was not true at all.

My guitar teacher is an old rock n roller. First day lesson: How to dial in amp. Set to 75%ish, then set amp up to lightly distort, then slightly back it off. Now your volume is more of an distortion control than volume.

Tip to capos... put the top don all the way and release the back... stays in tune better.

@@davidgooley1544 Thank u man

Not according to the Fender manual. But perhaps in other manufacturers’.

@@SMart7751 Idk why it won't let me link rob Robinette, if you Google fender amp input impedance the rob Robinette page explains the whole thing It works the same with 2 input fender amps as it does with the 4 input ones it's just that the 2 input amps run a Brite switch instead of a whole Brite channel or a deep switch in the case of at least one of the bassman models also you can run one as an out if you're plugged into the other which is handy if you wanna run stereo 🙃

Man, I could very well get into a situation in the next few years where I share this tip to a bunch of kids like the knowledgeable uncle I'm supposed to be (but am not, I only dabble in music and gear) - it's probably something one can find out with time but it's nice when you get an ever so slight push in the right direction from strangers who mean well.

Yep, 72 and still learning

a 12 pack of the fender springs are under $10. I'd rather do that than screw around taking apart pens hoping to find the right one...

The Fender springs are really tough and apply just the right amount of resistance though.

@@seancollins3106 must be nice, I have to work in the sun for an hour to make $10

I use that trick (?) with my Les Paul, setting up my neck pickup as a built-in clean switch, while leaving the bridge pickup ready to melt some faces.

@@BooleanCorporation With a Les Paul, or any other guitar that has separate knobs for each pick up, you can also use the middle position then set the 2 volumes independently to get completely different sounds. Like, 50% on neck and 100% on bridge sounds radically different than the other way around, and you can get every nuance in between. I think that's the thing I miss the most from my old Les Paul (it burned in a house fire) now that I only have one volume knob.

Yeah, I was a ‘tone and volume on 10’ guy for years because I couldn’t the stand the treble loss. I always wanted to be able to use the guitar volume to go from clean to driven, so eventually I figured out two ways I like. I did the vintage Gibson wiring mod on a couple of my guitars. When I roll down the volume with that, you don’t lose treble, and you actually lose a bit of bottom end, so it’s perfect for going from a bright acoustic-like clean on 6 or 7, to full thick fuzz on 10. For guitars that have standard modern wiring, I learned a trick. Instead of setting my amp controls to sound perfect with the guitar on 10 and 10, I turn the guitar volume down to 5 or 6 and the tone to 10, then dial in a nice, clear, bright, clean tone at the amp. The only thing about this method is, when you roll the volume up to 10 for your driven tone, you have to roll back the tone about half way to compensate for how much treble you dialed in at the amp for your bright clean tone. This is how I dealt with treble loss with my Telecaster before I ended up doing the 50s Gibson mod to it. I like having guitars with both wiring methods though, because as I said, the 50s mod drops some lows when you roll down, which is great for cleaning up, but sometimes you might want to just lower the volume but keep the thickness in the sound.

I'm a fan of the Kinman-style treble bleed, and I've been meaning to try the modern Fender's series+parallel take on the concept. I keep it on a push-pull pot for the few instances where a traditional volume control is more appropriate (like with vintage fuzzes). So much of the electric guitar's dynamics come from adjusting its controls. Nice rabbit hole to fall into.

Treble-bleeds are a must have on all my guitars, always add it as part of my set up now on new guitars. The four mods I always add: - master volume and tone - treble-bleed - blender knob - phase swap switch With those mods and through exploring the full range of the volume and tone control, it provides an unbelievably range of guitar tones. Honestly, most gigs nowadays I go through just a tuner into the amp, and set-and-forget the amp settings. Clean through to dirty, I can usually get just about any tone or effect I need throughout a gig directly from the guitar controls.

You are so right about trying to find the right tone. I will try the turning the guitar volume control down. My biggest challenge is getting the treble just right especially playing the open D chord. Thanks

How is it valuable? If l wrap my two cables a different way than someone l don't see how it affects anything.

I never ever ever wrap my cables. I just leave it on the floor.

@@MrChopsticktech I deal with cables every day. If you wrap cables with your elbow every day, you will damage the cables internally as you're putting pressure on specific points of the cable repeatedly. If you wrap your cables the spiral way, the cable will "learn" the spiral and won't lie flat, as well as continue to get twisted in one direction, also damaging the cable internally. If you wrap them over-under, you're following the natural coil of the cable, not twisting the cable more in one direction than another. Also, you can throw one end of the cable and have it all come out straight. If you put it on the ground, you can grab one end and pull in the direction you're going, and the spool will naturally unfurl with you and not get twisted. Over-under cables are less damaged and you can use their full length.

@@captainchaos3053 "Captain Chaos" is a fitting name.

@@santiagoramones I aim to please.

This must have been during his younger years or maybe he must have really been "rocking" that night to get that cable caught under the leg of his stool..😁

I’ve wrapped my cables over my strap for years, but I have had one pull out of a pedal during a gig. Singer kicked it out by accident, the bastard.

Know what you mean, also when top artists hit the wrong note every now and again, i like that, it keeps it "real"

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capo_(musical_device)

In Italian, the plural of capo is capi.

I hate restringing. I would rather pay someone to do it for me. Or my cousin does iu free and l let him keep the guitar for several months.

@@MrChopsticktech understandable, i do that when it comes to wiring, i do not trust myself with a soldering iron!

@@MrChopsticktech What a shame - restringing for me is like a nice quiet moment of bonding with my guitar.

@TelllgramSamuraiGutarist sounds good. Interested in courses for a classroom. I've been using Paul David's materials, which sometimes fly over the heads of some students and I have to develope my own lessons for them, which I prefer to farm that out :P How do I find your course content?

Same here. Except I use plumber tape for the tremolo bar, it works well enough.

I did the control plate reversal on my tele, but for a completely different reason. I often inadvertently moved the pickup selector switch while strumming. Reversing the plate got the switch out of the way, so I could stay on the pickup I wanted. The pinky volume thing was a nice side effect, though.

Not in the U.S. It is a carry-on in addition to any other carry-on you may have and/or paid for. They cannot charge you for it, either. They'll try (out of ignorance, not malice), but they can't legally force you to. 49 U.S. Code § 41724 - Musical instruments uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid%3AUSC-prelim-title49-chapter417&edition=prelim