Top 100 Instrument Hacks, Tips and Tricks

We asked you for your handy instrument hacks, as well as our expert staff at Andertons and some of our pro musician friends. Look out for a name or two you might recognise.

Whether or not you use any of these wacky hacks is another matter. We just hope you’re inspired to make some changes to your musical career for the better!

Guitar Hacks

1. Use a hairband to mute unwanted noise when tapping. – Guy Porter
2. Put Rizla paper under the strings to raise the action for slide playing.
3. Cut out a small cube of sponge and put it inside the cavity behind the humbuckers; it stops them from rattling if the springs aren’t the right size and keeps them level. – Billy Richards
4. Drag your plastic pick by dragging it at an angle across your carpet. – Nick Williams
5. Fix locking tuners onto everything you own. – Jak Harrington
6. Put foam under strings to transform your bass into a fretless.
7. Take your finger off the machine head every time you pluck the string to tune.

Take note of room humidity. Long term exposure to damp or dry rooms can damage a guitar. Leave a small humidifier on to maintain 45% room humidity. – ‘Captain’ Lee Anderton

8. Loosen one screw to keep your picks in place under the scratchplate.
9. Vary your playing quickly by using a drop tuning. – Adam Watts
10. Warm up your fingers by picking chromatic notes from lowest to highest note on the fretboard and a series of hammer-ons/pull-offs involving all fingers.
11. Grolsch Beer rubber seals/washers from the ceramic tops make good guitar strap locks. – Alun Thomas
12. Replace the input cover on your Les Paul with an ice cream lid when it inevitably cracks. – Mike Dawes
13. Take note of room humidity. Long term exposure to damp or dry rooms can damage a guitar. Leave a small humidifier on set to 45% – ‘Captain’ Lee Anderton
14. A quick solution to dull-sounding strings: detune them until slack, then twang them super hard a few times. When you tune them back up, the dirt and dust will have fallen away, resulting in some partially-restored brightness. – ‘Danish’ Pete Honore

Pedalboard Hacks

15. Adapt thin storage boxes for a cheap pedalboard and hard case. – Simon Jeffries
16. Get a looper to create your own backing tracks, Ed Sheeran style.
17. Use strips of Velcro and cable ties to secure everything.
18. Tighten your distortion with an overdrive pedal gain set to zero or one.
19. Velcro your Ebow so it stays with your board.
20. Experiment with placing a compressor further down the signal chain for brighter single-coil sound. – Alan Gorham
21. Use a chorus pedal on a low setting to beef up rhythm or solos. – Adam Watts
22. Buy a pedalboard bigger than you need currently so you always have room to expand.
23. Add a bit of chorus to a high-gain tone to thicken it up.
24. Work from right to left when building your pedalboard.
25. Carry a couple of spare patch cables with you. They can break quite easily.
26. Use the foam-filled lid of your pedalboard as a panel behind your amp to dampen reflected sound off pub venue walls. – Joe Green

Drum hacks

27. Keep wallet on your snare drum for MoonGel damper-esque sound.
28. Keep spare drumsticks round the kit so you can grab one whenever you need, wherever you are. – Phillip King
29. Stuff a duvet in the bass drum to tighten the sound.
30. Use your hi-hat clutch to clamp all your cymbals together for easy rattle-free transport.
31. Put a hi-hat on a snare drum for ‘drum & bass’ style sound.
32. Don’t bother waxing drumsticks, just use grip tape. – Phillip King
33. Use a drum mat as a car boot liner, it doubles up on uses. – Paul Shrimpton
34. Use tape to mark out the positions of your hardware on your drum rug and on the stands to make setup quicker.
35. A radiator bleed key can double for a drum key in a pinch, and vice versa. – Kim Davies
36. For solo musicians: tape a tambourine onto a Logjam Logarhythm to add a chimey dimension to your tone. – John McKechnie

Recording Hacks

37. Record guitar chords one note at a time for smooth transition.
38. Put cymbals in vocal booth for natural reverb sound.
39. Gaffer tape ideal mic position on your amp so you don’t forget the perfect setup.
40. Tights over a coat hanger for a makeshift pop shield.
41. Canvases work as a home acoustic treatment.
42. Use a bandana to dampen guitar strings. – Max Thackray
43. Make a vocal booth out of stands, clothes and blankets. -Gary Childress
44. Record your guitar signal or vocals completely clean/dry and run back through software or hardware later.A
    

    Quick solution to dull-sounding strings: detune them until slack, then twang them super hard a few times. When you tune them back up, the dirt and dust will have fallen away, resulting in some partially-restored brightness. – ‘Danish’ Pete Honore

45. Clothes drying on racks in your room can double up as acoustic baffling to reduce echo. – Adam Goodall
46. Raise your amp off the floor and direct it diagonally into the room to reduce natural reverb effect.
47. Always go into a recording session being able to play what you’ve written.
48. Take note of every piece of equipment and combination you use to achieve a certain sound so you can always go back and recreate it if needs be.
49. Take advantage of microphone polar patterns.
50. Create your own custom DAW or plug-in templates and presets to save time when setting up new projects. Don’t dial everything in from scratch every time you work.
51. Put a 2k dip in a bus EQ on all other tracks to allow the vocal track to sit in the mix better.

Live Hacks

52. Keep your pedalboard leads plugged in at all times to make setup quicker.
53. Colour code your cables for non-English speaking crew. – Mike Dawes
54. Write the date on every battery you ever use so you know when it’s time for a replacement.
55. Use a DI box as a ground lift to reduce hum and provide a personal out for self-monitoring.
56. Use an ABY box to send your signal to two amps.
57. Gaffer tape makes an excellent guitar strap under desperate measures. – Justin Robson
58. Always carry a spare lead and set of strings. Wire cutters or a pro winder if you have space – Lee Voss
59. Keep a small pillow next to your pedalboard so you can drop your slide when you’re done with it. – Chris Wozniak
60. Colour coding all your nuts and jacks can save time setting up complex live rigs. – Luke McFarlane
61. Loop your guitar cable through the amp handle so it doesn’t come out the amp when someone steps on it. – Chris Tian
62. Get a heads up on what PA setup the venue has before you get there.
63. Keep in contact with the manager right up to the night so he doesn’t magically disappear when you get there.

Maintenance Hacks

64. Learn maintenance techniques. Regularly adjust and care for your instrument e.g changing strings.
65. Try re-seating the valves in your amp if it sounds off. Very simple to do – ensure the amp is unplugged from the mains & the valves are cold enough to touch. Carefully remove the valves from the valve sockets one at a time, and gently but firmly put them back in place. – ‘Captain’ Lee Anderton
66. Buy a complete set of screwdrivers. You never know when they might come handy.
67. Use a capo to take the neck off your Strat/Tele to work on the electronics. No need to change your strings every time you want to tweak.
68. Restring a Bigsby one string at the time to prevent it falling off. – ‘Danish’ Peter Honore
69. Remove volume and tone control knobs without leaving marks by slipping a piece of fabric underneath and wrapping around. – Frédéric Déglise
70. Learn how to solder. Amazing how useful this is for repairing or even making your own leads or swapping pickups. – Anthony Craig
71. Wind guitar strings around the peg and break them off rather than cutting them so they’re not sharp. – Jake Willson
72. If you’re in a hurry to restring a guitar, replace the strings with the same brand and gauge to minimise the chances of altering intonation string height. – ‘Captain’ Lee Anderton
73. Stretch out strings with a microfibre cloth before restringing a guitar.
74. Make sure you put an acute bend in the section of the string at which it meets the tuning peg. It means that the string won’t slip back through the tuning post when tension is applied. – Luke McFarlan

Andertons Expert Advice

75. Sidechain compression to make a 4 to the floor kick cut through in a mix. Great for EDM, in particular.
76. Insert sponge around straplocks to stop the strap squeaking and leaving marks.
77. Use MIDI packs/loops to inspire creativity. If you’re not a keys player and you want some convincing piano, search online for free/cheap MIDI samples and tweak until you find your sound.
78. Put tin foil under scratchplate to stop hum.
79. Put graphite in the guitar nut to improve tuning stability.
80. Stitch 2 threads over and under your strap buckle so it stays in exactly the same position.
81. Loop your guitar lead through the strap to stop it getting pulled out unexpectedly.
82. Always tune up into a note for better tuning stability.
83. Coil guitar leads properly! Follow the natural bend of the lead to prevent damage.
84. Avoiding buzz – use an extension lead to avoid earth loops from multiple power points.
85. Hang a microphone through the amp handle to spare yourself buying a mic stand.
86. Raise your amp on stage using a box or flight case and tip back to be more audible.
87. Tune your guitar at the 12^th fret and then open strings to test intonation.

Life Hacks

88. Buy the air stewardess chocolates to increase your chances of an upgrade. – Mike Dawes
89. Practice! – Everyone
90. Get yourself a roll of non-slip mat. It keeps amps secure, especially if the feet are old. – Chris Tian
91. ALWAYS travel with tape, you never know when you’ll need it. – Mike Dawes
92. Get two smaller guitar cabs instead of one big one. You can leave one at home depending on the size of the venue. – Tim Verheyden
93. Never drink alcohol before a show. Alternatively, drink alcohol to make you think you’re playing better.
94. A 2p coin is the exact right size for removing locked in mic stand thread adapters. – Kevin Elliot

Buy the air stewardess chocolates to increase your chances of an upgrade. – Mike Dawes

95. Silica packets in the back of amps stop the speaker going flabby with condensation when moving from cold to warm rooms. – Simon Ives
96. Instead of buying an amp/cab cover, get a big stretchy t-shirt to go over the top instead. The handy neck hole at the top means you can still grab your amp handle. – Richard Bennett
97. Buy a drum machine. Cheaper than a drummer in the long run. Don’t have to pay it, feed it, water it and it actually keeps time. – Will Dyer
98. Buy guitars in the same colour so your better half doesn’t realise you bought a new one. – Jouni Sillanpää
99. Claim you have a sore back while loading gear in and out of a venue to get the bass player and drummer to do it. – Justin Ross
100. If you’ve got writer’s block, look elsewhere for inspiration – rather than listen to music, try using images or video to trigger musical ideas in a different way.

If you enjoyed reading all of our serious (and not-so-serious) hacks, check out more of our Learn articles. Take a look at kit put to the test in our Labs section.

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