Jeff has been performing his own instrument repairs and modifications for many decades. His first opportunity to do repairs professionally was at Bloomington, Indiana’s go-to guitar shop back in the 70s and 80s, the Guitar Gallery on East Kirkwood Avenue. Long on reputation and short on glitz, the GG was known as that funky concrete block shop with the threadbare carpeting where all of Bloomington’s musical illuminati and outlaws would congregate. When manager John Lau decided to move on, he tapped Jeff (who was teaching there at the time) to take over the repair bench and act as assistant manager, with local guitarist extraordinaire PK Lavengood as manager. Lau brought Jeff up to speed on various guitar repair procedures, and for several years Jeff dealt with a constant flow of instruments across his bench. He has occasionally plied the repair trade at various other stores in Indiana and California since then.
Repair services offered for guitar, bass, banjo, mandolin and viol:
✓ All basic set-ups, including neck, bridge and nut adjustments, intonations, whammy configurations, etc.
✓ Neck and fingerboard maintenance, including cleaning and conditioning, fret leveling and dressing, refrets, etc.
✓ Structural repairs, including cracks, fractures, loose braces or bindings, new nuts or saddles, tuner installations, etc.
✓ Basic electronic repairs or modifications, including resoldering broken connections, pickup, switch and jack replacements, acoustic under-saddle transducer installations, etc.
✓ Complete banjo services, including plastic or skin head replacement, tension adjustments, structural adjustments, cleaning, pickup installations, etc.
✓ Viol-family repairs and services, including structural repairs, sound-post sets, intonations, hardware replacements, bow rehairing, pickup installations, etc.
Jeff has also designed and built several custom pedalboard/rack units over the years, both for his own use and others. A good example is the 4-level PedalRack he designed to transport the extended MIDI guitar rig he used during his California days. Top to bottom, it housed a Furman line conditioner with lighting; two slant-mounted synthesizer modules, sequence player, multi-effects guitar processor and line mixer; foot controls for patch changing and controlling an external Alesis drum machine; the primary Roland guitar synth, and three volume pedals. A self-powered personal monitor rested on top. The unit rolled into the room, laid down, the lid removed, and by only connecting the guitar, the stereo audio outputs and the power cord, he was ready to gig. Setting up the entire system with a vocal mic and PA took about 5 minutes.
