Hot answers tagged repair
9
Will approach this from the standpoint of drums, but the same advice applies to amps and other backline equipment.
Communication
The best way to handle this would be for the stage manager to get in touch with the owner of the drum kit and clear adjustments ahead of time. If you know who these people are ahead of time, some emails and phone calls can go a ...
8
Your guitar looks pristine for being 20 years old compared to my dinged up 1970 Gibson J45.
Personally all the dings in the picture seem somewhat less likely to be a problem than ding #1 which makes me wonder how far that crack goes and if it extends unseen to under the bridge.
The first question I think that you should ask is, "does this instrument have ...
6
A number of standard woodworking fixes...
1. Go to Sears and buy a set of "back-out" screw removers. These require drilling a small hole in the offending screw and inserting the device which grips the remains of the screw.
With a Dremel or similar tool use a cutting wheel to cut a straight slot in the remains of the screw head and then use a ...
6
Hum is produced in a couple of ways, and can indeed be related to a cold solder joint. If the hum goes away when you touch the grounding jacket of your guitar cable or a pickup case, then a cold solder joint or incomplete grounding is likely the problem.
To fix this, you are going to need to localize the issue by identifying the cold joint. One way you can ...
6
Yes, drilling the end of each crack will stop it from spreading.
As far as bent cymbals go, simply hammering it back will cause additional tonal change (an possibly cause a crack, or section to chip off). It is possible to repair the shape, but the sound will never be the same.
If you have access to vice-grip or a table vice, I would recommend the ...
5
Is this a school band? As a band director, you should feel comfortable triaging each instrument yourself. Were I in this situation, I would go fetch my own soprano sax mouthpiece, take the instrument, and either verify it is working correctly or demonstrate the correct embouchure.
Those are really the only two possibilities: either there's a major ...
5
I would suggest music.stackexchange.com
Fitting machine heads is actually incredibly easy - if you buy ones of the same type as those you already have, you will only need a screwdriver and a pair of pliers.
Before going down the route of fitting new machine heads, there are two things you can look at though:
Pre-stretch your strings
Check your nut is ...
5
My experience in the UK and europe is that it is fairly standard for bands to share a backline, in terms of a drum kit the term "breakables" gets used quite frequently, this refers to
snare
bass pedal
cymbals
As in each band brings their own breakables and there will be a basic drum kit (bass drum, at least one rack tom, one floor tom, hi hat and 2-3 ...
5
I've done this repair several times to the pieces in my maraca collection. I collect the gourd maracas, but gig with synthetic or rawhide.
You have two dissimilar surfaces. Close, but not the same. Regular white glue has a lot of water, and the gourd surface of the maraca will want to soak up the water in the glue. I like the yellow carpenters glue.
Here ...
5
Pulling out the pickups, and using plastic tubing to hold onto the volume/tone pots as they slide in to the guitar.
For one example, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p29QN4ycHMU (Putting new pickups in a Gretsch Electromatic)
5
This is a really subjective question, so you aren't going to get any straight answers--it will all be opinion. What you should do is Google "Telecaster Pickups" and find some sound clips to listen to. It's what I did when I needed some new pickups for my Telecaster. Some decent companies to consider:
Loller Guitars: My favorite--I have two sets of ...
4
An alternative to @MWerner's option is if you can't get a screw remover to work, all you need to do is take off enough of the screw head that the strap pin can be pulled off over it. A drill or router type bit will do it.
Then you just need a good pair of pliers and some brute force to unscrew the remains of the screw.
4
Through the pickup cavities and the f-hole. I've used a mirror probe and long, skinny tools to install a pickup inside of a parlor guitar; it must be hard as hell to do this work without a full-sized soundhole.
You'd need tools like an inspection mirror, tweezers or skinny pliers, long screwdrivers, and skinny flashlights.
3
The sound will absolutely be affected; how much is hard to say. You should definitely play it and see how it sounds.
The soundboard of an acoustic guitar is designed to amplify the vibration of the strings, and if it's not one piece the pieces are laid together carefully to help prevent dampening of the vibration. It's generally best if the grain of the ...
3
You can normally use silver solder on brass instruments. It may take a propane torch instead of a soldering iron. A lot of instruments are silver-plated brass.
Check for and seal leaks in the joints and around the valves and spit valves. They can cause resonance problems that make it hard to hit certain notes.
3
Great answers so far! I want to add something in regards to bigger cymbal set-up: bring your own stands.
It is a great deal faster to swap the stands with cymbals on them, than to swap cymbals and carefully readjusting, possibly every repositioning, everything. With 3-5 cymbals it's still doable, but not with 10+ cymbals. There might not even be enough ...
2
Yup, it sounds like you didn't get your grounding correct. When you touch metal on the pickups or the jack and hum goes away that's a pretty good confirmation.
I'd recommend letting a repairman look at it and fix things. You don't want to run risk of shocking yourself because of a badly grounded guitar. People have died from it.
2
@neilfein's answer is excellent. I've got something I'd like to add, because you specifically asked about how to tactfully approach the kit owner about changing the tuning or making other tweaks to their kit.
I think the most important thing is to establish that you understand and respect the fact that it is their kit, not yours, and that you're grateful ...
2
It's likely that the valves are worn and the lubrication you are using is too thin. Just like STP for car motors using thicker oil (like rotor oil) will help the problem. When the piston can no longer drag on the way up it will return smoothly to the proper "up" position. Do not consider this a "fix". The only lasting repair is to have the casing and pistons ...
2
What you're looking for is something like this:
It is simply a socket of the appropriate size with a lever arm on it, designed to fit into a tight space like this. They're common if not universal in the stringed instrument world; Allen hex keys are most popular; most newer Peaveys actually use a wheel contraption that you can just stick any stiff pick or ...
2
If it sounds OK and the instrument seems in otherwise good shape, it MAY be worth reconditioning.
The first thing to try is to grab a real trombone snake; the bore of a trombone is a bit wider than most of a trumpet, and you want a brush that's wider than that bore in order to make a dent on any oxidation build-up in the slide. Follow these instructions: ...
2
A dented or bashed cybal is repairable - just get it hammered out.
Cracks are permanent, though, altering the sound. If you want your original sound back you will need to buy new ones.
Cracks can give you an interesting sound though, so don't throw them away - your idea to prevent the cracks spreading is good though, remove the point of stress by drilling ...
2
Here's the trick I learned from an excellent violin maker many years ago.
If you are not comfortable changing strings, take your instrument to a violin shop and ask them to show you. They won't charge you and you'll save yourself the trouble of breaking stuff. If the pegs are too small for the holes, take it to the shop and get new pegs. There's an art ...
2
Did one key always sound louder than the others, or did the problem develop recently?
When did you purchase the keyboard? Is it under warranty?
Have you checked with Kurzweil to find out where you can take it in your area for Kurzweil-authorized repair work? Where do you live?
It is doubtful that there is anything you can do to repair it on your own; you ...
2
You don't mention what model you have, but if I read your question correctly, the volume of the sound on a specific key is louder than the sound from other keys. Often in digital midi equipment, one can manually adjust midi triggers such as minimum velocity and gain. If you increase the min velocity on a specific trigger, the device might see a "soft press" ...
1
I see three possibilities, some of which have been mentioned here before:
Some of the pads leak air - bring it to a professional to have it checked - pads don't last forever, so that's an explanation why it used to work and then started going bad. It's also possible that different pitches produce a problem if a rarely used pad is leaking that is used for ...
1
Actually, Unless the horn has specific markings on it that explicitly says that it's a Bb sax, my suspicion is that the horn is an Eb Soprano or Sopranino sax.
You should run the make/model and into a search engine for the model's details. (The serial number will give you at least an indication of the model year, but sometimes they can act like a car's VIN ...
1
Make sure you put the string on the machine correctly. It's best to wind the string under tension. Use one hand to keep the string stretched and the other to turn the machine head.
Put at least two full windings (under tension, see #1) on the head
If you have a tremolo, remove it or bolt it down. Cheap tremolos go always out of tune
If the higher frets are ...
1
Take it to a professional. Or leave it alone. I don't think it's a good idea to tackle it on your own, both due to the difficulty of the repair and the possibility that there is other damage that you may not know about.
That being said, here are some detailed examples of what a repair might entail
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