Doing Things Wrong

Snark Tuner

You can't beat the convenience of a clip-on tuner. This is a very good one, sensitive, with a very fine readout, good enough even to set intonation. However, it has one very bad feature. It devours batteries. A device like this with no mechanical on/off switch is always on, waiting to sense you press the button. It seems like every few weeks this thing wants another 2032, regardless of whether it was even used. The solution to that is to pull the battery whenever you are not using it, but I forget, and the next time I pick it up, it wants a new one.

I think my old Korg tuner is still running on the AAA batteries it came with.

The key is the shallow angle between the saddle and the string. A proper guitar bridge has a sharp break between the saddle and the string. This shallow angle causes the classic sitar buzz. This is a very easy part to make from any decently hard wood. A scrap of fretboard blank is ideal. A little experimenting, and you will get it. Then you can convert any guitar into a "sitar".