Ground Floor Guitar Newsletter, Vol. 3

Big Announcement

The time has come for a big announcement from your friends at Ground Floor Guitar. Starting November 1, 2024, we will begin the transition to our new location at 1715 Cuming St. We will be joining spaces with Forged Woodworks inside the historic Automatic Printing Co. building. Our new space will have a beautiful showroom with new and used guitars, amplifiers, and accessories, but our workspace will grow tremendously and will allow Johnny to do more of the high-quality repair work that he is known for.

Along with Forged Woodworks and John Pitts, we intend to collaborate on our own line of products to sell and customize at our new location. Peyton Maas has become known as a master at building eye-catching furniture that is timeless with modern functionality. John Pitts has had his hands all over Ground Floor Guitar since the beginning, completing the buildout of both shop locations on Farnam, repairing amps, and building pedals to sell. It is our intention to bring you a line of reliable products crafted here in Omaha. Our four brains are cooking up a trove of ideas that we want to bring you, and we couldn’t be more excited about it.

On November 1, we will close the retail portion of our Blackstone location. We will not be taking in new repair jobs between October 29 and November 6. Please plan accordingly if you have a repair that needs to be addressed. The shop will otherwise remain open for drop off and pick up for all of Johnny’s luthier services starting November 7. If you’re still in the market for GFG wares, our webstore and Reverb shop will remain active and local customers will be able to pick up orders placed online. Once the new retail space is ready, the repair shop will begin its move to continue servicing your instruments.

Since Ground Floor Guitar opened our doors in 2016, we have made many friends in the Blackstone District. To all our neighboring businesses, we thank you for your friendship and support over the years. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the shop to help it become what it is today. To all our customers, your support has gotten us through the last several years of ups and downs and we can’t wait to see you at our new location.

Johnny, Joe, and Hank

Schedule repair work on our website

You can now set up a time to drop your guitar off for repair on our website. With scheduling, you will have the opportunity to set aside time to have a consultation or get yourself ahead in the queue by letting us know you’re coming in. This will be highly recommended as we transition to our new shop. Links are available in the About section of our website as well as our Instagram account.

Ground Floor Guitar Newsletter, vol. 2

Ground Floor Guitar Newsletter, vol. 2

Welcome to our second newsletter. This has been a busy summer for us at the shop. You may have heard that we had an unfortunate incident in late June. A group of people came in with the intent to steal from our shop and did just that. Two shop favorite guitars, owned by longtime customers, were taken along with some personal effects that made life a little more difficult. We are working with the Omaha Police Department to apprehend the thieves and find the instruments. The support we received from the community has kept us going while we revitalize the shop and catch up on repair work as we were closed for several days to work with authorities and evaluate the next steps for GFG. Other than that setback, we’ve been keeping busy with repairs and events in and around our home in the Blackstone District. Read on to see what else we have been up to.

Two guitars that were stolen from Ground Floor Guitar. 1979 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe Goldtop (left) and 1972 Fender Telecaster Thinline (left).

Punk Rock Music Market is a Huge Success!

On July 13th we partnered with the Omaha Punk Rock Flea Market to host our first ever Punk Rock Music Market. The event was held just across the street from the shop at Scriptown Brewing Company. While Scriptown poured their delightful brews, our good friends at Lazy Buffalo BBQ served up some delicious food for our excited crowd.

We brought plenty of goodies from the shop, including a new batch of t-shirts, pedals, accessories, and hardware. Aside from our booth, patrons were able to visit Vexed Brain, who brought a full demo pedalboard to hear firsthand his extreme effects pedals. Our buddy Adam Roberts had a great assortment of studio gear and goodies, in/ex Audio showed big up with their high quality handmade cables, and Sean Cox had plenty of Nomoonlaser guitar bodies ready for a build. Several other booths sold effects pedals, handmade microphones, and the entire second room housed hundreds of vinyl records for all the nerds (guilty) to flip through.

The event was capped off with performances from two of our favorite Omaha bands. The Wagon Blasters started off with their high energy Tractor Punk that made us ready to jump and sing along with legendary frontman, Gary Dean Davis. The event ended with Lightning Stills and his band of country misfits. It isn’t a GFG event if Lightning Stills isn’t there to sing his songs.

Overall, this event was a great success. We received nothing but positive feedback and cannot wait to host another one. If you’re interested in being a vendor, send us a message and we will keep you in mind for our next Music Market.

Lightning Stills at Scriptown Brewing, July 13.

A Few of our Favorite Things: Fuzz

Fuzz pedals emerged in the late 1960s as a groundbreaking innovation in the world of electric guitar effects. The roots of fuzz can be traced back to the accidental distortion produced by faulty amplifiers and tape machines, which caught the attention of musicians looking to explore new sonic textures. One of the earliest and most iconic fuzz pedals, the Maestro Fuzz-Tone, was introduced in 1962, gaining significant popularity after being featured on the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction." The distinct, gritty sound provided by these pedals quickly became synonymous with the rock music of the era, and numerous brands began developing their own versions. Over the years, fuzz pedals have evolved through various designs and circuits, but their fundamental purpose remains the same: to create a rich, saturated distortion that has become an essential element of modern guitar music.

Your friends at Ground Floor Guitar absolutely love collecting fuzz pedals and want to share a few of our favorites with you.

1. Electro Harmonix Green Russian Big Muff (Tall Font) - In the 1990s, this pedal brought EHX back into prominence. Built in Russia, possibly using metal from Soviet-era tanks, the Green Russian brings that high-gain fuzz tone with a noticeable low end. The vintage versions can be found at a premium, but there are many boutique builders like Wren and Cuff, that make a near identical clone that is more affordable.

2. Behringer SF300 Super Fuzz - Why are we including a $25 fuzz pedal on this list? Because it rules! This is a total sleeper pedal that is spot on if you’re looking for that Electric Wizard tone. This pedal has three distinct tones that you can switch between: Fuzz 1 is a classic 60s/70s fuzz, Fuzz 2 is dubbed a Grunge Fuzz, and Boost is great for dialing up a killer fuzz solo.

3. JPTR FX Warlow - This Fuzz Monstrosity from Germany captures the raw, wild sound of the Seattle music scene. The JPTR FX Warlow is a premium-quality OP Amp Big Muff pedal that has been painstakingly rebuilt to deliver an even bigger, wider sound with more gain and volume.

   What sets the Warlow apart from other Big Muff pedals is its unique filter section, which combines both classic and Proco Rat filters for a truly versatile and dynamic sound.
   

Services

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Be sure to stop into the shop to take advantage of our repair services. While summer is a busy time of year, we are still available to restring a guitar on the spot, do a full setup, install pickups, or build a guitar if you source the parts. We hope to see you at the shop soon!

Welcome to the first Ground Floor Guitar Newsletter

Welcome!

Greetings from your friends at Ground Floor Guitar. If you are new to the shop, we are a full service guitar shop located at 4009 Farnam Street in Omaha’s historic Blackstone District. The shop first opened in 2016 and has been in its current location, sandwiched between Cheese Burgers and Super Groovy’s, since February 2018.

We pride ourselves in our knowledge of guitars, amplifiers, and effects pedals, and strive to serve everyone who walks through our door. If we don’t have what you’re looking for, we are always happy to point you in the right direction. Our shop offers new and used instruments at various price categories to cater to the new player or the veteran collector. Every musician deserves help on their quest to find the gear that best suits their needs and we hope to be a part of the journey for all musicians that venture into the shop.

All guitars need special attention to keep them playing at their best. Our repair and restoration shop can replace a broken string from rocking too hard, help fix a cracked neck from rocking too hard, and just about anything in between. John Svatos, owner of GFG, is a graduate of Atlanta Guitar Works School of Lutherie and has been a traveling guitar tech for Bright Eyes, Cursive, and the Good Life. Aside from being a traveling tech, Johnny has worked on and repaired guitars for artists that have come through the Omaha area like B.B. King, Phoebe Bridgers, the Lemonheads, Dr. Dog, the Wailers, Deer Tick, Sleigh Bells, and many more. Johnny stands by his work and always takes the time to address any issue a guitar may have. We would love to help get your guitar playing better than it ever has.

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Why a guitar needs to be properly set up.

Just as you need to do routine maintenance to a car, you should do routine maintenance to your guitar.

If you start to notice a buzzing when you press down on certain frets, the weather changes, or your guitar just isn’t easy to play, you may need a luthier to give your guitar a proper setup.

Even brand new guitars should be given a setup. After being built, a guitar could sit in a factory for an unknown amount of time before it is shipped (often times internationally), unboxed, and then put up on the wall of your favorite guitar shop to played by any number of aspiring rockers. The varying conditions can affect the guitar’s playability and if not addressed, can leave that brand new guitar unplayed due to it not “feeling right.”

Having a guitar setup should end with the guitar feeling right. If you play in an alternate tuning, your guitar may need the action addressed to account for a heavier gauge set of strings. If your guitar isn’t staying in tune, the intonation might be off. These adjustments are often simple, depending on the condition of the instrument, and can bring the right feel to your guitar or bass.

At Ground Floor Guitar, our setups include the following steps:

1. Removing the strings, tightening tuners and screws, and an initial polish.

2. Mirror polishing the frets with very fine steel wool, degriming the fretboard (if needed), and properly hydrating the wood. Different woods, like maple or rosewood, require a different amounts or types of oil to hydrate the neck of the guitar.

3. Restringing the guitar with brand new strings according to the customer’s preference.

4. Adjusting the relief in the neck. All guitar necks have a natural bow to them and should be adjusted to fit the needs of the player. In order to do this, the truss rod will be adjusted to either add relief to straighten the neck or tighten the rod to create more bow. Careful measurements are taken while doing this and only little movements are made at a time because if a truss rod can snap if it is overtightened, causing a very expensive repair.

5. Checking the intonation of the guitar. With a chromatic tuner, the intonation is checked by playing the open string and 12th fret of the same string. Depending on whether the 12th fret is sharp or flat, the saddle is adjusted to create perfect octaves across the board.

6. Playing the guitar to ensure no fret buzz remains and it is starting to have that right feel.

7. A final polish before placed safely in its case, ready to return to its owner.

8. When the guitar is picked up, we always encourage the owner to sit down and play it to make sure it is to their liking. If no final adjustments are needed, it’s time to go home!

A setup is a process and truly a labor of love. If you’d like your guitar to be given this amount of care, stop in and leave it in our capable hands. We hope to return it to you better than it has ever played before.

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Meet the team: Hank

If you’ve ever walked into the shop, chances are you’ve seen Handsome Hank, the shop dog. Hank is a 6-year-old American Bully that Johnny and Jeanette adopted from the Humane Society. Peek in our window if you’re in Blackstone before we open and you’ll most likely find Hank chilling on the couch watching the neighborhood go by.

Hank’s likes: his trusty red Kong, chasing squirrels, eating anything he can get his hands on, taking naps

Hank’s dislikes: squirrels, Journey, baths, delivery guys that walk in too fast

Hank is a retired dog model for a CBD company whose work helped sell a multitude of dog treats.

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Thanks for your support!

We would like to thank all of our customers for their continued support. If you are satisfied with your purchase and/or service, tag us on Instagram - @groundfloorguitars - and tell your friends to come in and see us. We are open Tuesday - Saturday from 11 - 6 and Sunday from 12 - 5.

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