The IV BENCH is the second RhPf Nerd Lab resource I cover after the super handy Pedal Tone Maps. Diodes play such an important part in shaping the output of gain pedals in particular. They are of course also used for power management and various other electronic purposes - but our main interest in these is in Clipping Profiles - Vf Forward Voltages and Current Rise. There is another side to these Diodes which is more esoteric - while the Germanium Diodes are typically much better behaved than ...

So this story starts back in September of 2024 - where I was one of the first to receive the new Universal Series Fuzzer and Purrer pedals - with those Raw Aluminium Enclosures.

Just a few weeks later, Neil developed a new polishing / buffing technique that brought a satin sheen to those pedals and made then look even more striking - and better matches to those knob insert discs - which carry the labels. The Polisedh Pedals glowed almost with an internal luminescence - and they looked so ...

So, like most everyone - I started off with Standard 10 Set Strings - as are default fitted on most new guitars.

Early on I was mostly PRS-based and favoured PRS’s own strings - starting off with several sets of 10 Standard : 10 | 13 | 17 | 26 | 36 | 46, before I then decided to go to the slightly skinnier route - PRS 9.5’s : 9.5 | 11.5 | 16 | 24 | 34 | 44.

I then tried 9’s from both Elixir, and D’Addario - where I settled on the Skinny Top Heavy Bottom NYXL 9s : 09 | 11 | 16 | 26 | 36 ...

So I’ve pretty much covered every aesthetic and mechanically functional part of the guitar - starting with the headstock, then tremolo-bridges, pickups, body-shapes and fret markers. I’n not sure guitar electronic harnesses is sufficiently an interesting enough topic - so this Locking Tuning Peg feature may well be the last category - while I’ve still got at least 2 guitar body shape features to go! If there are other parts of aspects of a guitar that you want me to feature here - do let me ...

So this is a follow up to my recent Guitar Headstock and Guitar Body Shape posts. You have no idea how long these kinds of articles take to compile. And even though there are just 9 Guitar Bridges featured here it took an age to do the due diligence and find appropriate imagery and pertinent details - as these tend to be fairly poorly documented in the public domain.

I thought I might put in a date marker as to when those bridges first materialised - but had to throw in the towel on that in...

With now around 900 pedals in the reference collection I thought it about time to share my various peeves and petty annoyances with certain aspects / flaws regarding the pedals in the collection. Each Pedal obviously has sufficient merit to keep its place in the collection - but I often need to bring into effect other pedals in the chain to compensate for their inadequacies.

These are arranged roughly in the order that said ’feature’ annoys me the most - where it’s the lack of sufficient ...

These are all tools, utilities and gadgets that I have and love and use all the time, or are on my wishlist for imminent acquisition. I’ve chosen to stick to the more casual side of guitar maintenance - and have thus excluded things such as fret-rockers and the like. If you want to do full setup, intonation and nuanced maintenance of your guitar you will need some more serious tools than these - these are really just for everyday maintenance, string changes, quick restore, buff and polish...

This article was inspired by a number of things really, but most recently triggered by a few YouTube videos - by Louis The Tone King and Darrell Braun. I’ve been an avid follower of Louis, Darrell and one Ben Crowe over at Crimson Guitars for a few years now. I have watched all of Ben’s crazy guitar builds and have for a long time been tempted to go on one of the Crimson Guitar Building Courses and make my own axe as it were.

In my recent feature about Guitar Tuning ...

The last time I covered this subject - ’The Shape of a Guitar’s Headstock has a significant impact on Tuning Stability’ I focused more on what the issues were rather than the solutions. Here I will go into slightly more detail about the science of guitar tuning fidelity and all the little gains that can be made by doing things properly! This article was sparked in part by my recent article on 9 ’SG’-style guitars, where I really decided for once and for all that I would never buy a guitar with ...