Guitar Therapy

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Corydon, IN
Guitar Therapy

Guitar Therapy: Lessons, Stringed Instrument Repair, Guitar Sales and Service. Street parking @ 220 N. Elm
Studio: (812)738-6093; SHOP: (812) 572-1564

This is a two-tiered business, meaning I split my time between doing stringed instrument repair during the day and guitar & bass instruction by night. While stringed instrument repairs, mods, relicing, and upgrades are what I'm on about, I also sell "one-of-a-kind" vintage instruments and modern preowned ones. In either case, you can give me a call. I'm happy to help you. Check out my website at http://guitartherapy.com. At this site you'll find practical playing tips, and portals to some really great resources for helping you grow as a guitarist and/or bassist. You can also check my facebook group by the same name here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/guitartherapy.

12/30/2024

You might find this personal project interesting. The slab for this guitar is a piece of 150 year old emerald poplar. I'm lucky in my friends. I "know a guy." He has acres of air and kiln dried wood, some of it you can't get anywhere else, because it simply no longer grows anywhere on this planet. Anyway, the slab sat in a corner of my workshop on the floor for years. I started working on it, but didn't get any further than cutting it and adding the contours, neck route and tummy cut. Then it sat...and sat....AND sat some more. I was just too busy at the time working on other peoples' projects. After a few years of this I was so busy doing repairs, I didn't even have time to build anymore. Additionally, I developed severe arthritis in both thumbs. My wood working days were over...or so I thought. Then my oldest boy asked if I'd do a Tele for him. I happened to have a slab of swamp ash lying around the shop, so I said sure. Completing his project really put a fire in the ol' belly. I had forgotten how much I love wood working. And I figured out some work-arounds in the process, so I can (you know) do the thing. Next that ol' timer sitting on the shop floor started calling my name. I decided to finish it. Purists will balk and say it's not a Tele. Perhaps they're right. But I can tell you one thing for sure: This thing is the balls lol. To tell you a little bit about the build. I started by finishing the routing for the pickups and control array. Next, I torched the slab black, and then aggressively removed the char with a wire brush (a technique I learned from my father who also loved wood working). After this, I treated the slab with Tru-oil. The neck is Wenge with abalone fret dots and super jumbo EVO fret wire. This isn't the Stew Mac gold fret wire, which I'm told is comparable. It's the original super durable alloy that Jescar sourced for many years to make this incredibly durable wire. Why am I making a thing of this? Because you'll likely not need a fret job with this guitar. That's how durable this stuff is. And it feels like butter to play on. Plus I just think it's kind of cool that you can't get this wire anymore. But this guitar has it. (I digress) The radius on the neck is 16/20. Outfitted with thumbwheel locking tuning machines, string changes are a snap and it's ultra stable. The pickups are Seymour Duncan 59 in the neck and JB in the bridge with a push/pull coil split on the tone control. A standard master volume, 3-way toggle, and trifecta bridge round out the gold hardware. If you're wondering what a trifecta bridge is, it's just a bridge that allows you to string your guitar in one of three configurations: thru-body, top-loaded, or hybrid. Lastly the neck joint is sort of an all-access neck design, but not really. Bolt in construction, offset mounting, and an aggressive bevel with an extremely thin heel, make reaching the upper registers on the neck a breeze. Definitely the neck joint is experimental, owing to how thin it is. But don't be fooled; it's rock solid with incredible sonic transfer. The whole thing vibrates like a tuning fork. In short, it's an incredibly unique Tele style guitar. Come get some lol.

04/22/2023

G.O.A.T.

09/30/2020

This bass came to me in 3 pieces and was missing all the important "bits." So no tail piece, no nut, no bridge, no tuning machines, no endpin, etc. Just an empty, broken shell. Since I do a lot of road crew and guitar tech work for the band Grandaddy Short Leg, the bassist for that band (Smoke-Eye Kielbasa) wanted a "throw-away" upright to possibly work into the act. This one fit the bill, so he commissioned me to put Humpty back together again. Pictures tell the rest of the story.

07/16/2020

Nothing stock on this guitar. Roland has been a long time friend and customer of mine. He came to me with a particularly challenging upgrade project.

He purchased a new Ibanez 7 string. The guitar sported a beautiful Maple burl top and a figured mahogany slab. Just a few things weren't quite up to Roland's wish list.

For starters, he wanted gold hardware. So all the shiny parts were replaced with gold. The locking tuning machines however were special. Manufactured by Sperzel, the gear housings and posts were all gold, while the tuning keys themselves were matched to the color of the deep blue in the stained top.

Not satisfied with the stock laminate on the peghead, Roland hand painted the fascia to match the stained blue-burst burled top of the slab.

The control k***s were replaced with heavy gold knurled dome tops, as were the bridge, saddles, pickups, and controls.

Replacing the stock pickups presented a problem as the guitar was routed for standard 7 string pups and Roland wanted Fishman Fluence Tosin Abasi signature pups...which were longer, wider and thicker. Another complication was that the Fluence pups were/are active. That meant installing a battery box at a minimum. More on that in a bit.

So...the existing pickup routs were retooled to fit the new larger pickups. Along the way, Roland decided to forego the battery box and have me install a Fishman powerpack and charging unit. This would allow him to charge the onboard powperpack via a small mini usb port which would be located on the control cover. So no more 9 volt batteries to deal with.

However, this presented, yet another problem, as the existing control compartment wasn't big enough to accommodate the new electronics. On top of that, the control compartment was already crowded because in order to wire the beast (so it performed the way Roland wanted it to), I had to replace the existing switch with a superswitch and the standard tone pot with a push pull pot.

There was literally no room for error. As with the pickup routs, the existing control cavity rout had to be retooled to accommodate not only larger basic controls (like pots and switches), but the addition of a powerpack and charging unit.

Next the guitar was rewired and all the new goodies were installed.

Lastly, the guitar was set up. Pictures tell the rest of the story.

07/01/2020

Relicing a guitar is a tricky business and, believe it or not, among guitar players it's controversial. But it shouldn't be. I have reliced many guitars over the years, including my own. It's a cosmetic thing and there's an art to it. There's the right way and then not so much. Compounding the difficulty of relicing a modern player is that today's guitars are "indestructible." Most have a thick layer of sealer, followed by paint, followed by a thick layer of polyester. That's a lot of finish to get through, which can mean quite a raised surface on your coast lines and lots (and lots) of um...shall we say, post production to remove unwanted tool marks from your work. So this is very different from relicing a guitar from a raw slab. In that case, sealing is not heavy and you paint the guitar and then relic it. It's a thin skin, so it's much easier to deal with and you can get some really amazing, authentic looking effects. But modern players are a completely different ball-o-wax. The main thing is getting it to have the spirit of authenticity while meeting the customer's wants in terms of the look of the beast. In my case, I work closely with the customer to ensure that the final product is exactly what they want. I ask the customer to let me watch them play the guitar, which gives me some good indications of wear mark locations. Additionally, I rely heavily on reference photos chosen by the customer and then I create a rough mock-up for the customer's approval. Next the process of aging the guitar begins. Every customer is different. Some people want a heavy relic. Other's want only very light subtle aging. And still others want something somewhere between those two extremes. For this project, my customer, Rich, wanted something more middle of the road. The guitar was completely stripped of all hardware and disassembled. All the hardware was aged to Rich's specifications. The scratch plate, control k***s, pickup bobbins, nut, and even the fret dots were aged. Rich also had me do a fret job, and lastly, the guitar was set up. Photos tell the rest of the story.

06/15/2020

Brian Marks' Rolling Rock Tele, which he recently acquired and brought in for service. The nut got a make-over, electronics were cleaned. The rout for the controls was out of spec, so the mtg screw for the control plate was hitting mostly air. This happens far more than you'd think. One quick repair you can do is, simply put a bevel in where the screw is blowing out the side of the rout and then glue a hardwood dowel piece into the void left from beveling. Once that's done, you can drill it and then secure the control plate. Lastly, a fret job and set up was completed.

06/05/2020

Yes...I service autoharps too. Autoharps, Harps, Dulcimers, Ukes, Banjos, Mandos, Guitars, Basses, Sitars,Gitjos, you name it. Does it have strings? Er....is it supposed to? Then I repair 'em. That is all.

05/29/2020

This guitar used to be broken, now it's not! For guitar work go see Chad @ Guitar Therapy. That is all

Address

220 N Elm Street Ste 8
Corydon, IN
47112

Telephone

(812) 572-1564

Website

http://guitartherapy.com/

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Our Story

This is a two-tiered business, meaning I split my time between doing stringed instrument repair during the day and guitar & bass instruction by night. If you're looking for something special, as in a "one-of-a-kind" vintage instrument, custom built solid body electric, or other stringed instruments and accessories, give me a call. I'm happy to help you. Check out my website at http://guitartherapy.com. At this site you'll find practical playing tips, and portals to some really great resources for helping you grow as a guitarist and/or bassist.