Looking at the tuners contained in my guitar kit, it’s easy to see how it could be so cheap. They are totally wobbly and, with a (hand-determined) 14:1 ratio rather crude. Tuning is presumably not very easy with these … a replacement is needed. But what should I use?
In principle, what I want are locking tuners, since they make stringing up a guitar much easier. But – they are also much heavier than normal tuners. That isn’t really important on a normal, 6-string guitar – on a 12-string guitar, it is. If the head becomes too heavy, it pulls the guitar down, making playing uncomfortable.
In search for a solution that locks and is also light-weight, I came across the Wilkinson E-Z-LOK system. These tuners have a second hole for the strings and obviously need a special way to string up the guitar, but are supposed to work quite well.
For my 12-string, I bought two Stratocaster sets on Ebay – one for a right-hand and one for a left-hand guitar. They have already arrived; by hand, I can’t tell a weight difference between them and the ones that came with my guitar kit, which is good.
On this picture, it’s easy to see the E-Z-LOK system. In theory, you need to pull the string through one of the holes as far as possible, pull it tight, then bend it in a 90° angle, wrap it once around the post, pull it through the other hole, cut the rest and tune it. I’m really curious whether this works as well in reality as it does on paper 😉
Anyway – nothing wobbles, and with a 19:1 ration they should make tuning much easier. At least until I really mount them, I’m happy.
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