Get to Know Us! Part 1: Chris Mulder on Albums

Chris and his Ibanez Artcore were featured in a post a while back

This is the first installment of a new series of posts where we get to know the folks that work at Leading Tone. We’ll ask them a series of questions on a particular topic with some random ones thrown in just for fun. First up is Chris:

Chris is the shipping/receiving, amp/pedal modding, anything-else-around-the-shop-that-needs-to-get-done guy here at Leading Tone. He’s also the shop rockabilly and country fan (as well as a closet metal-head). He got his first guitar when he was twelve or thirteen and after not being interested in it for a time in junior high and high school, he’s been keeping up his chops for the last eight or nine years. He’s done Bob Dylan covers and rockabilly church music as well as playing rhythm guitar for a short time in the local hillbilly rock and roll band The Hilltones.

Let’s begin with the interview!

What was your first musical instrument?

My first guitar was given to me by my dad when I was twelve or thirteen. It was an all laminate 3/4 size classical style guitar. I took that thing to high school nearly everyday for a while. I put steel strings on it at one point, which caused it to start falling apart. The back was lifting near the heel, so I taped it together with masking tape. I also put a giant American flag sticker on the back at one point and later decided I didn’t want it on there anymore and tried to peel it off. Now there is just a bunch of sticker residue and half an American flag left.

Eventually, I stopped playing it and brought it to my first gig playing Bob Dylan covers at a cafe. I had everyone who was there, whether I knew them or not, sign it. It’s now a piece of my history that I can look back on and the musical journey I’ve taken in my life.

Tell us about an album that has influenced you a lot.

The album that influenced me the most was probably Bringing it All Back Home by Bob Dylan. That was the first Bob Dylan album I got and it was the beginning of a long obsession. From that moment, I went more than six months listening to nothing but Bob Dylan. I now own nearly every album Bob Dylan has ever put out. I think my obsession came from a mixture of Bob Dylan’s music being relatively simple to learn on a guitar as well as the so-specific-it’s-ambiguous nature of his lyrics.

I don’t think I could pick a favorite song, but I love the beginning of “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream,” when the band missed it’s cue and Bob Dylan breaks into laughter. But as soon as he starts again the band is on top of it and come in swinging. You can just hear Bob Dylan having a good time with a bunch of friends in the studio, but when it’s go time they can bring all the skill needed.

Of course, I can’t talk about influential albums without mentioning The Amazing Crowns’ (Formerly The Amazing Royal Crowns) self titled debut album, which was the first rockabilly album I got.

What album are you listening to on repeat these days?

The album I have on repeat right now is With Oden On Our Side by Amon Amarth. Amon Amarth is a Swedish death metal band that gets their name from J.R.R. Tolkien lore and writes songs about viking legends. I love the guitar parts (tuned down to B standard, of course) and the overall heavyness of the music. The thing I like about this album in particular is that there are no moments of finger-tapping wankiness. The guitar parts are played extremely skillfully but they are kept relatively simple, which I appreciate.

What album do you think more people should listen to?

The Trials of Van Occupanther by Midlake. So few people know about this band, which is a shame. They are amazing and deserve as much recognition as they can get.

What is your preferred format (vinyl, CD, mp3, etc.)?

I tend to listen to music almost exclusively in my iPhone these days, but I do appreciate the way vinyl sounds. I have a small collection of vinyl that I break out when I want to have a music listening experience.

How do you discover new albums?

Often times through friends’ recommendations. I try to stay away from services like Pandora even though I have found some good stuff there. I sometimes do research online on types of music, and I found a lot of my rockabilly music collection that way.

What’s the best flavor of ice cream?

Extreme Moose Tracks. Mmmm…. chocolate.

Finally, give us your top ten albums of all time.

In no particular order:

  1. Elvis Presley, Elvis Presley
  2. Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan
  3. At Folsom Prison, Johnny Cash
  4. Small Change, Tom Waits
  5. The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me, Brand New
  6. Dictionary of Soul, Otis Redding
  7. The Eddie Cochran Memorial Album, Eddie Cochran
  8. 5th Gear, Brad Paisley
  9. The Blue Album, Weezer
  10. Smoke ‘em If You Got ‘em, Reverend Horton Heat

1982 Gibson Victory MVX

Greeting! Every once and a while an unusual guitar comes in for repair and we all gather round to ooh and ahh. This 1982 Gibson Victory MVX in twilight blue is no exception. These were built by Gibson, in both the Kalamazoo and Nashville factories, from 1981-1984. The guitars were constructed with solid maple body and necks, so there’s quite a bit of heft to this axe. The MVX stands for “Multi-Voice 10″ which refers to to it’s electronics layout. This guitar was fitted with 3 humbucker pickups (the center pickup is stacked), a 5 way switch, master volume and tone, and a master coil tap for all 3 pickups. Basically, this guitar is capable of 5 humbucker positions and 5 single coil positions, thus the X in the name.

One of the best features of the Victory is the body and headstock shape. This guitar was definitely a stretch for the Gibson company as they were trying to appeal to the early 80′s shredder craze. So very cool.

New Hours

We have new hours at Leading Tone. We are moving our by appointment day from Thursday to Tuesday. Meaning we will be open regular hours on Thursday and if you want to stop by on Tuesday just give a call to the shop 206-523-8663 and make sure someone is here.

1973 Telecaster Refret

Greetings from the Leading Tone repair bench! We’ve been continuing our run of cool Telecasters coming in the shop for setup and repair. This 1973 butterscotch example is no exception. This is certainly a players instrument with all the wear and mojo any Tele lover would kill for. In addition, this instrument is in completely original condition, literally down to the fretwire, which is fairly rare for this vintage of an electric guitar. This instrument came into the shop for an evaluation and seeing how worn the frets were, we decided to go forward and install a new set of frets. So with out further ado…let’s jump in.

Introducing Naughty Little Monkey Guitars & Ukuleles

Leading Tone is pleased to announce the arrival of Naughty Little Monkey guitars and ukuleles. Naughty Little Monkey instruments are handcrafted in Olympia, WA by luthier Will Eikleberry. Will is a graduate of the Summit School of Lutherie in British Columbia and honed his skills at the Santa Cruz Guitar Company before setting up his own shop. Will builds a wide variety of stringed instruments including professional quality flattop guitars and ukuleles in addition to his line of cigar box instruments.

Don’t let the 3/4 size of this L-0 style guitar fool you. This instrument sings with a full and well balanced voice. This guitar boasts solid mahogany top, back, sides, and neck, rosewood fingerboard and bridge, and is adorned with tortoise binding. The scale length is a modest 23″ which still allows for comfortable playing.

This cigar box concert ukulele is a truly unique instrument and they have been gaining quite a bit of popularity recently. This instrument sports a handcarved maple neck, rosewood fingerboard, quality geared tuners, and…grommets! The best feature of this ukulele is the handmade piezo pickup system which allows the player to experiment with plugging in. Will builds a full line of these cigar box instruments including tin can resonator guitars to fretless 3 string ukuleles. This certainly is an instrument for the musician who has everything!

This tenor Ukulele is a beautiful piece. This ukulele was built with very nice solid mahogany for the top, back, sides, and neck. The headstock overlay and fingerboard on this example are made from maple and it has a 17″ scale length. This instrument has a full and robust sound and is a pleasure to play.

If you’re in the neighborhood, stop by the shop and try out a Naughty Little Monkey instrument. You won’t be disappointed!

 

 

Making a compensated bone saddle

Greetings from the Leading Tone repair bench. We get lots of requests for installing compensated bone saddles in steel string acoustic guitars. The bone saddles sound much more articulate than the plastic material commonly used on today’s guitars, not to mention they also play in tune. In this blog post we’ll go over the basic steps of shaping and fitting a compensated bone saddle. So let’s get started.

Step 1: The first step is pull a bone saddle blank and cut it to length so that it will match the saddle slot of the bridge in question.

Step 2: Once the saddle blank has been cut to length, the saddle blank is carefully sanded to match the width of the saddle slot using a flat sanding stone. It is extremely important that the saddle when fit is a slip fit which eliminates issues with leaning, compensation, and under saddle pickup systems.

Step 3: Now that the saddle is ready to shape, the radius is first sanded into the blank followed by carving the rough compensation into the saddle. The compensation is determined by several factors including bridge location, saddle slot angle, and string gauge. The basic formula for locating the strings in regards to the saddle is to add 1/16″ to the scale length under the high E string and then pivot the saddle from that point back towards the low E at a ratio of 1/8″ for every 3″ of saddle length.

Step 4: The roughed out saddle is ready to install and to set the final action. In this photo you can see the compensation carved into the saddle. When setting up the guitar and adjusting the saddle height, the excess material is removed from the bottom of the saddle. Once the saddle is completed it is buffed and polished in preparation for the final installation.

Step 5: The completed compensated saddle!

Leading Tone Custom 5E3 Amp Build

Greetings! We recently completed a custom 5E3 amplifier for a customer and we couldn’t have been happier with the results. The Fender 5E3 amp, commonly referred to as a Fender Deluxe is a very simple and common amp know for it’s simple design, ease of use, and superb tone. This customized version of the 5E3 amp was built with the finest components available including Mercury Magnetics ‘Tone Clone’ transformers, oil filled Mod capacitors (labelled with the Leading Tone V05 Hot Oil labels) , and robust turret board construction. Here’s a shot of the installed turret board:

Here’s a shot of the completed chassis before installing in the cabinet:

Once completed the amp came to rest is a custom made narrow face pine cabinet with a 12″ C12N Jensen speaker. The results were amazing. A lightweight amp with a classic look and incredible tone.

Telecaster Partial Refret

Greetings everyone! Matthew here reporting from the repair bench. Here at Leading Tone we’ve had a good run of Telecaster repairs and mods of late. One highlight from this batch of repairs was the partial re-fret on a 80′s era Telecaster. The fret wear on this instrument was nothing short of amazing. As you can see, the divots in the frets are just shy of cutting into the rosewood fingerboard. Needless to say the customer was reporting buzzing on the lower frets so we decided to replace frets 1-7.

A partial re-fret is a repair that is used when the fret wear is only on the lower frets. The basic steps of the partial re-fret follow that of a standard fret job. The frets are heated with a soldering iron and carefully pulled from the rosewood fingerboard. New frets are pressed or hammered into the slots and they are roughly beveled and shaped to match the existing fretwork. Once the frets are in the new frets are leveled and dressed to the original frets.

The completed fretwork. As you can see in the photo the new jumbo frets are much more inviting that the old worn 20 year old frets. Not to mention they play great and string bending is a breeze!

Introducing Tolley Stringed Instruments

Greeting everyone! Leading Tone is pleased to introduce archtop guitars and mandolins by Tolley Stringed Instruments.  Tolley Stringed Instruments are handcrafted locally in Seattle by Leading Tone’s house luthier, Matthew Tolley.

Tolley Stringed Instruments

The instruments pictured (left to right) include:

-A 17″ Standard in a sunburst finish. This guitar features an aged hand carved Italian spruce soundboard, bigleaf maple back sides and neck, and ebony fittings.

-An oval hole A model mandolin with a blacktop finish. This mandolin has features an Englemann spruce top, bigleaf maple back, sides, neck, and ebony fittings.

-An A model mandolin in a 3 color sunburst finish. This mandolin features a select hand carved Adirondack spruce top, eastern maple back, sides, and one piece neck, with ebony fittings.

-A 16″ Classic in a natural finish. This guitar sports a Sitka spruce soundboard, Olympic Peninsula bigleaf maple back, sides, neck, african bloodwood purfling, and ebony fittings and bindings.

We invite you to come into the shop and try out these beauties. Please visit the Tolley Stringed Instruments website and Facebook blog for more more information.

Fixing the slots of a bone nut

Matthew here and greetings from the repair bench! I’d like to take the opportunity to share a luthiers trade secret on how to repair over cut slots on a bone nut. This fix is extremely useful and fast to perform and has helped me out on countless occasions over the years. The causes for an overly deep nut slot can come from a myriad of factors including: truss rod adjustment, accidental damage or chipping of the nut, or just plain old wear and tear. I DO NOT recommend this repair to be done on any material other than bone and should only be performed by a capable tech. So let’s dig in…

Step 1: First thing to do is to mask off the areas around the nut. The preparation is critical as it will prevent the glue from wicking onto the finish possibly causing permanent damage. Once the area is masked off, loosen the strings, pop them off the nut, and pull them aside get them out of the way.

Step 2: Now that the area is masked and the strings are pulled aside, the next step is to pack the nut slots with baking soda (Sodium Bicarbonate). It is important to pack the slots tightly so I often use the back edge of an X-Acto knife to force the baking soda into the slots.

Step 3: Once the slots are packed full of baking soda the next step is to CAREFULLY wick thin superglue into the filled slots. I use Teflon micro pipettes for this operation as they allow complete fingertip control to applying the glue. Once the glue is applied to the slots allow the glue to set for approximately 10-15 minutes.

Step 4: Once the superglue has set, you’ll notice that the baking soda has become as hard as the bone nut. At this point, I file the nut slots as per the standard method and continue with the set up.

Step 5: The completed nut!