Capo

[dpm99]

This seems like a stupid question I should know the answer to, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. Why does a capo work well on my acoustic guitar, but not on my electric guitar? Is it the strings, or is there something I haven't discovered about the shape of the neck or what? Anybody know?

Thanks,

Dave

[borge]

define 'works well'?

As electric necks are often thinner maybe the capo cant clamp tight enough so fretbuzz occurs on the new 'zero fret'.

of course this only applies to spring/elastic based designs, the shubb (?) type adjustable roller have no such problem.

It could also be the capo is designed for flatter radii and doesn't work well on 7.5, 9, fender radii.

IME the spring loaded ones are crap, the thicker the neck (either from guitar to guitar, or along the neck) the tighter the spring clamps and the sharper your tuning becomes, of course, only really a problem when playing with others.

[dpm99]

I didn't think about the radius. I bet that's it. I know what you mean about the spring loaded capos, but that's what I use anyway. I have to get it on and off in a hurry most of the time.

Thanks borge!

[j. pierce]

The spring loaded capos are often designed to put enough tension to handle the often higher string gauges and possibly higher action of an acoustic - I find they clamp too tight on my electrics, making everything go sharp.

My favorite capo is now this one:

http://store.daddario.com/category/146490/Dual_Action_Capo

It goes on and off with a squeeze of the handle, like the Kyser ones, but you can dial in the tension so things don't go sharp or get buzzy by not being tight enough. Since switching to that one, I don't have to deal with re-tuning everytime I capo.

This works quite well too:

http://store.daddario.com/category/146486/NS_Capos

And is so small it never gets in the way, weighs nothing (helpful if your guitar is already neck-dive prone) and has a similar adjustable tension setup. But it's not as quick to go on and off. I do like that I can put this one on upside down, and slide it to the side a bit, and not capo my low E, if I want that low note for drone tones. (I have a notched Kyser capo for that purpose on acoustic, one of these days I'll mod one of the dual action ones to do that on my electric.)

[dpm99]

The dual action one is interesting. I never thought about dialing in tension, but it makes sense. I've used a bunch of different capos over the years, but I keep coming back to the plain old Kyser I've had since the early nineties.

[Daniel Sorbera]

Or if you already have some kysers or the like sitting around (like me) you can just put enough rubber bands around the handle to lessen the force of the spring so it doesn't pull it out of tune.

[dpm99]

I have one, but it's almost twenty years old, so the spring is probably not as strong as a new one. That might be why I hate all the other capos I've tried too. They were knew.