News

In this post, you'll learn what to do if your preamp-powered cigar box guitar sounds muddy or distorted. Hi all! It's Shane Speal. Two weeks ago, I started having trouble with my main 3-stringer. It's a rod piezo-electrified build with a pre-amp that allows me to sculpt the CBG tones beautifully.But what I was experiencing were distorted tones and an overall crappy sound. I thought the problem was that the rod piezo lost contact with the box top.To improve contact with the …

Hi all, it's Shane Speal.  Gitty recently sent me their 3-string test guitar loaded with a brand new Hobo Pickup  to take it for a test drive.  I'm very impressed by the absolute clarity of the scatter-wound pickup design, especially when plugged into his 15 watt all-tube amplifier.  The pickup stays clean, even when the amp is cranked!  It's crystalline with beautiful highs and still has some floor shaking lows. STUDIO TEST:  I took the 3-string ciga …

Reduced feedback. Deeper bass response. And no more "quack," now in an even smaller package! Hi all, it's Shane Speal. A couple years ago, I created a simple hack that allowed you to turn a C. B. Gitty pre-amp into a standalone unit. These plans became so popular, they were included in my upcoming book,  Making a Poor Man's Guitars (Fox Chapel Publishing, October 2018). Just recently, I was perusing an craft store when I discovered some cute, little wooden …

Have you cut a scarf joint for your cigar box guitar neck by hand?  Was the cut frustrating and did the result require a lot of sanding to make the joint glue-ready? What if you could have a simple scarf joint miter box to assemble, then flawlessly cut scarf joints to your heart's content? With our new scarf joint miter box kit that's exactly what you'll get. We Heard Your Frustrations... Hearing the frustrations voiced by builders who don't have the tools and resources …

Try this alternate Kalimba tuning for an authentic world music sound. Last week, I bought the  C. B. Gitty Kalimba/Thumb Piano Kit as a way to break-out from building stringed instruments for a while. I was looking for an instrument that I've never made before and something that I could add to my collection.  The kalimba (also known as a mbira or thumb piano) is an African idiophone that has its roots in the Congo and Zimbabwe. I like them because they deliver serious w …