Tyril

By onezero on March 29, 2026 8:12 pm

Going back to the well with the Kalamazoo. For this week, I really wanted a little more range under my hands, so I dropped the low string of last week's E F# C# E F# A tuning to this week's D F# C# E F# A. Does this one work? It flows, at least.

Under use, the pickguard has gotten a bit more rattly, so you hear it more here. My todo list now includes fret leveling/crowning/dressing, re-shimming the neck, a bridge replacement (including radiusing), and finally doing something about the pickguard rattle. The previous owner fashioned a pickguard out of a stop sign, which is part of this guitar's story, so it has to stay. But I'll gradually get it in shape. For now, though, it's rattling all over the place when I play more aggressively.

Once again, I have the JHS Colourbox 10 in the signal chain, along with some overdrive in the UA Volt. There's the usual send to a convolution reverb, and the usual compression/eq/limiter preset for the stereo mix.

The title comes from the elevation of Mount Tyril in the Faroe Islands--639m.

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Tags: 72bpm, ableton, guitar, week 13 2026, View by:onezero

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March 30, 2026 1:08 am

emily

i like this tuning - it has a nice feel

how do you stop the pick guard rattle? very very thin cork? felt? glue?
would watch a video of you doing these adjustments - i think you might have some music for a soundtrack

please give my to the fam

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March 30, 2026 1:40 am

onezero

emily wrote:

i like this tuning - it has a nice feel
how do you stop the pick guard rattle? very very thin cork? felt? glue?
would watch a video of you doing these adjustments - i think you might have some music for a soundtrack

please give my to the fam

Thank you, emily! I've been thinking of how best to do this. With the home-made pickguard, not all holes match with the holes in the body, so I can't batten down the whole thing by tightening all the screws. I don't want to glue, because the wiring is under the guard, and (annoyingly) the bridge and bridge studs need to be removed to get to the wiring. So I've been thinking about rubber or felt in the rattly bits, though cork would be good, too.

The fact that this guitar's so comfortable has overturned something I was very sure of until these last couple weeks. I'd noticed that the guitars I find most comfortable have necks that are 1.75" wide at the nut. One guitar is more difficult to play for a couple reasons, but notably it's a little narrower than that, so I'd thought that was why it was difficult to play cleanly. It turns out, though, that the Kalamazoo is even narrower. So the key is not (or not just) neck width, but something more specific: the spacing between the strings. So on this other guitar, if I replace the nut and place the slots to have the same spread as the Kalamazoo (or a little wider), I should find it much better to play.

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