An App to Fix a Guitar

My wife Katie‘s acoustic guitars both had active pickups installed. We weren’t completely happy with how they sounded, so I swapped them out for passive pickups from K&K Sound.

K&K Sound Pure Mini passive pickup

They don’t require 9V batteries, which is a major plus, and sound very natural. I typically scoop out a bit of the mid-range (around 400 Hz) to clean up the sound, but otherwise leave the signal mostly untouched.

The hard part about installing new pickups in an acoustic guitar is trying to perform the whole operation through the sound hole. Tried-and-true luthier methods involve lights, mirrors, and special tools to see and reach into the inside of the guitar. I’m definitely not set up for the real way of doing it. My hands are big and my forearm gets stuck easily.

[Cue improvisation]

In the past I’ve used video apps before for more traditional streaming solutions. Here, though, I simply wanted a camera inside the guitar (my iPhone running FiLMiC Pro) and a monitor on my desk (my iPad running Filmic Remote) to see what was happening.

Here’s what it looked like on my iPad…

This is a screenshot of the video my phone was streaming to my iPad.

There was a bit of delay in the video (a half a second maybe), but not enough to make it impossible. As with all guitar surgery going slow is best anyway. Using the FiLMiC apps on my iOS devices I was able to super glue the pickups in the correct spots under the bridge with confidence. Installation was quick and the pickups sound great.

This trick would probably work similarly in other scenarios too—auto mechanics, contruction & remodeling, exploration, etc. Hope this helps someone out there. Comment below if something like this has helped you with a difficult problem.

DISCLAIMER: I’m not affiliated with K&K Sound nor FiLMiC Inc. I’m just a satisfied customer happily using the great products these companies have made.

iPad Lock Button Not Working (FIX)

I broke the front glass on my iPad mini 2. Things like that happen. Instead of slowly bleeding to death from the micro cuts the broken glass was giving me, I ordered a replacement screen from iFixit.com and followed the replacement guide as best as I could. When everything was put back together the lock button didn’t work. 

The problem was likely due to the mysterious loss of one of the magnets that triggers the Smart Cover lock. When I opened the iPad, it simply wasn’t there. I don’t know how that happened, but the fact that it was missing caused a problem. Pressing the lock would not make the iPad sleep and because a magnet was missing, closing the Smart Cover didn’t work either. So unless I turned on some of the accessibility features, my iPad would be stuck on all the time. That was less than ideal.

Here’s a work around I discovered. In System Settings under Display & Brightness there’s a Lock/Unlock switch. When I turned that off, the Smart Cover would no longer lock the iPad, which wasn’t a problem because it wasn’t working anyway. But once I turned that switch off, the lock button suddenly started working again. I don’t know why. I only know that it works. Maybe this will be helpful for you too.

Bluetooth Pairing Unsuccessful

Can’t get your Apple Bluetooth keyboard to pair with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch? I couldn’t either. My A1255 keyboard wouldn’t connect at all. The iPhone would find the keyboard, but wouldn’t update the name of it, nor ever present the four digit code for pairing. I could only get this error:

Pairing Unsuccessful
Make sure “Keyboard” is turned on, in range, and is ready to pair.

I tried a bunch of fixes I read about online and none of these worked in any combination nor configuration:

1. turning Bluetooth off and on
2. rebooting the iPhone
3. holding the power button on the keyboard
4. deleting other Bluetooth device pairing from the iPhone
5. clicking ‘Forget This Device’
6. connecting to another device and then my iPhone
7. replacing the batteries
8. holding the V, A, and R keys while powering on the keyboard
9. turning off Bluetooth on any other nearby devices

It seems Bluetooth under iOS 7 is broken. Lots of people are having issues with Bluetooth on iOS 7 that weren’t there in older iOS versions. Unfortunately, Apple is apparently ignoring this problem.

The Fix

Here’s how I finally connected my keyboard to my iPhone.

1. Switch off Bluetooth on iOS device under Settings > Bluetooth.
2. Shut off the keyboard by pressing and holding the power button for 3 seconds.
3. Switch on Bluetooth on iOS device.
4. Turn on the keyboard by pressing and holding the power button until it green light blinks.
5. The keyboard should appear listed under the DEVICES heading in the iPhone Bluetooth settings screen with “Not Paired” in gray next to it.
6. Now at this point you’re supposed to just tap on the listed device on the iPhone to begin the pairing process, but when I would do that it would time out with the “Pairing Unsuccessful” alert. Here’s the trick: repeatedly tap on the listing (maybe 5-6 times) and hopefully the “Bluetooth Pairing Request” alert will appear with the four digit code you’ll need to enter.
7. The pairing may fail the first time. Try again.
8. I also found that subsequent attempts to connect after forgetting the device worked much better after that initial connection.

I hope this fix works for you. Let me know if it does.