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April 2008
Posts: 2336
Location: Brighty in Blighty | Firstly let me say that I'm not against the idea of changing tuner buttons but wondering why people really feel the need to do it.
I appreciate it's just an asthetic thing but I've always found that the buttons the Mothership decided to use on a particular guitar just seemed to be always the right choice. Perhaps I just see the original tuner buttons and think that they look right and if I changed them would then think hmm maybe the originals looked better.
I'm not saying that modifying the guitar is wrong, hell I just swapped out the VIP for a PRO STUDIO in my 07 and will use it in the 06 and 1680 when I record / play live. |
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September 2003
Posts: 9301
Location: south east Michigan | One of mine cracked & broke.
Some folks do it because is looks good.
Have you seen Temp's koa buttons? |
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May 2008
Posts: 4996
Location: Phoenix AZ | I think it's just personal preference. The factory specs out a guitar with what they think would look best, but what looks good to one person doesn't look good to another. The nice thing is that's you can always swap them back. |
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November 2002
Posts: 3603
Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | I had to replace all the tuner buttons on an old Pacemaker, cuz they were dried-out, and cracked. They just crumbled when the strings were brought up to tension. So, my story is one of necessity & function. I managed to find a full set of minis, in chrome.
"Button failure" will, obviously, never happen again. |
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April 2008
Posts: 2336
Location: Brighty in Blighty | I think glass (or perspex) buttons would look great. Or even slightly coloured perspex, 6 different shades matching the D'Addario ball ends, now that would be COOOOOOOOOOOOL! |
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June 2006
Posts: 7307
Location: South of most, North of few | I've got a set of Koa's on my Koa Tacoma. Jack (Kdog) put them on when he had it. It think they're from Temp. Beautiful! |
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December 2006
Posts: 6268
Location: Florida Central Gulf Coast | Originally posted by Trader Jim:
on my Koa Tacoma That is one gorgeous guitar! |
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December 2001
Posts: 7210
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | "Why do people change tuner buttons?"
- Because they can. :) (sorry someone had to) |
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March 2005
Posts: 2791
Location: Atlanta, GA. | Who wants a guitar (or anything else) that looks "just like" all the rest?
Call it Personalized ! |
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May 2008
Posts: 1553
Location: Indiana | I'm one of those unfortunate souls with funky fingers. I can tarnish metals almost on sight... so I've been in the habit of changing out gold buttons for pearloid for nearly 30 years.
Only in the past few years have I been aware of the various wooden options.
I put a set of ebony buttons on a Viper project and they looked awesome.
I plan on adding some walnut keys to my chocolate Legend before long.
For me, it's born out of necessity... but they look cool too. |
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September 2005
Posts: 3618
Location: GATLINBURG TENNESSEE :) | I agree with the "personal preference thing" and what Galler-ski said about always being able to change them back (unless you weren't thinking and trashed the old ones). If I have an instrument that has beautiful woods on it, I think bright shiney tuner buttons take away from that, so I like to use ebony or wood. I think Tortise buttons would really look nice with the binding on the Koa Topped collectors, or wood ones on the 1537. One of my pet peaves is the overly-used white binding on many of todays wood topped guitars. I think that big white band really cheapens the look of a good top. If anything, you would think someone would get the idea of using brown or black if they are set on saving money or time with the plastic. |
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May 2008
Posts: 4996
Location: Phoenix AZ | Originally posted by bvince:
I think that big white band really cheapens the look of a good top. If anything, you would think someone would get the idea of using brown or black if they are set on saving money or time with the plastic. A lot of higher end guitars use GRAINED ivoriod which looks beautiful. Also polished ebony is quote nice. And tortie.
On many Takamine guitars they use a cheezy white binding (just like Ovation) and believe it or not it's called CAB. Look it up on their website, CAB. I can not get the product manager to admit that it stands for "Cheap Ass Binding" but I KNOW that's what it's got to be.
Toby |
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March 2002
Posts: 15654
Location: SoCal | One of the things I like about the 1537 is the wood binding around the top..... |
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December 2003
Posts: 13984
Location: Upper Left USA | Miles beat me to it, so +1 on the btc!
Mother should be using anything BUT White plastic binding. For a few cents more and the same labor you can add some major finesse with bindings.
Also, if you change tuner knobs you are not really messing with the "stock" value because you can easily go back.
I also find that I dislike seeing my fingerprints on the Gold knobs. |
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Joined:
November 2007
Posts: 1486
Location: Cincinnati | Originally posted by Trader Jim:
I've got a set of Koa's on my Koa Tacoma. Jack (Kdog) put them on when he had it. It think they're from Temp. Beautiful! They are from Temp. |
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December 2006
Posts: 6268
Location: Florida Central Gulf Coast | Both times I've changed original buttons, they've been placed in a small zip-lok and tossed in the case compartment. |
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November 2006
Posts: 3969
| Aesthetics for me. The dark rosewood buttons I put on my 1537 look so darn good I'm having Temp bring along a set of minis for my 1538. Mind you, these are on sunburst finishes, so the peghead's dark. I'd choose a different color and/or material if they were -4's.
What's the wood used on the 1537/1538/1547 binding? That would be cool to have buttons from that same wood on -4's. |
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Joined:
August 2004
Posts: 709
Location: Germany | The 1537/1538/1547 binding consists of two pieces of walnut, two pieces of maple and one layer of padauk. The outer layer is a walnut piece. You can get walnut buttons from Paul.
Karl |
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Joined:
November 2006
Posts: 3969
| Thanks, Karl. Walnut would look good, matching the fretboard/peghead face. Padauk's dark like RW, so it probably wouldn't look much different. Not sure if maple would add anything, but that's just me. Of course, ebony would look great on a -5. |
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December 2001
Posts: 10581
Location: NJ | if you have a 12 string pearloid or wood buttons will give the headstock less weight |
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February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | Al makes a good point. Apart from the aesthetic considerations weight reduction by switching to say walnut instead of stock gold on an Adamas 12-string is over 50%. A 6 set of my minis weigh 20 to 35 grams depending on material as opposed to around 50 grams for metal buttons. It's not much, but you can feel the difference. |
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January 2002
Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | Switching to different ones personalizes the instrument to you and usually you change it to something that costs more than the factory would use, so you're upgrading.
When I switch it usually works out that way.
Sometimes on the old Nationals you have to do it because the old ones have crumbled off so there's no choice. |
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Joined:
September 2005
Posts: 3618
Location: GATLINBURG TENNESSEE :) | One of the things I like about the 1537 is the wood binding around the top..... A BIG ditto on that!
"Once you start cutting corners on quality, someone cuts in on your corner spot" |
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April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | I switched them out on my 12s so that the regular strings are all walnut and the octaves are ivory. I think it looks cool and it also makes it easier to always tune the right string. |
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January 2007
Posts: 672
Location: New South Wales, Australia | I know nothing about tuners so this has been an educational thread for me. Do wooden tuners last as long as their metallic cousins and do they have any influence on the guitar's tone? |
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Why do people change tuner buttons?
