Customer Reviews

Creative Tunings Spider Capo

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is an interesting concept, but after purchasing one, reading the instructions very carefully, then trying it out on a high-quality steel string acoustic guitar...

Take it from a performing singer/songwriter/guitarist, this capo is unusable in the extreme for live performance. The hassle of placement/removal makes it unusable right out of the package. Then the dreadful intonation it brings to the strings requires very time consuming adjustment for each fret position; actually, I've yet to get good intonation at all on the lower frets. Finally, add the fact that a guitar's string spacing gets wider as you move up the neck and the Spider Capo has to have each peg adjusted for each individual string. Ouch!

In my 35 years of live performance experience, the best quick-change capo is still the old faithful Kyser, and the best intonation capo is the Shubb. Put those two together, and you've got a very workable and versatile live performance setup for alternate and "third-hand" tunings. If you're a lightning fast finger-picking madman virtuoso (I'm not), just go for a set of standard and variously shortened capos and use as needed. But in all honesty, retuning every string on the guitar between songs is faster than placing/removing and adjusting the Spider Capo.

Blowing $29.00 on something you'll experiment once and then put on a shelf is, IMHO, a waste of $29.00. In theory, the Spider Capo seems like a great idea. In practice, it just doesn't work.

The spider capo is exceptionally versatile for those who love to experiment with their tunings without having to constantly readjust strings. It opens up a whole new world of sounds. Originally I was looking for just a 3-string "half" capo, but why go for the 3 string capo when you can use the spider to capo 1 string, 6 strings or anything in between? It's well built too. One word of warning - read the instructions! To enhance stability, the spider capo uses small tabs that rest just on top of the fretboard, but if you tighten the capo and don't pay attention to what you're doing, those tabs can dig into the side of your neck. So pay attention!

I was disappointed with this product. I have two guitars, a Gibson Les Paul and a Martin acoustic, and I could not get this to work on either of them. First of all, I have marks on the neck of my brand new Martin from using this. It's not *bad*, but it's noticeable to me. I could not get the capo close enough to the fret to actually have it press the string down and completely eliminate a sawbuzzing effect in the top E and B strings. I had this problem on both guitars. There is a metal lip that sticks out from the capo, which is designed to stop it from going down any further. I considered using a dremel to remove this, but ultimately I just returned the product to Amazon. It's a shame, because the idea is pretty neat but the execution is rather poor.

While there's some other string-by-string capos out there, this one is very simple to set up and use and extremely well-built (I should know, I'm a massive klutz). Plus it only occupies one fret, like most capos, and you can finger either above or below it. So basically, it's like owning every cut and or modified capo, ever, at once.

I actually bought this for my roommate as a birthday gift. He is an avid guitar player, and he is also a person of few words. When I asked him what he thought, he said it was great overall. He did not have any disappointments. And he said it was very sturdy. A novice guitar player myself, and an engineering major, I found this device to be very well built and well designed. I would definitely recommend this without any hesitation.

It's worth the price. I think there could be some improvements, but overall loving it. What's cool is the hours of experimenting and just messing around with it for anyone (beginner to expert) as well as being able to play some legit music. Some improvements would be making it a bit easier to take off the neck. You'll need to use some force taking it off, and sometimes the moveable tabs that hold the strings down need some adjustment after some heavy playing.
My advice is to make the purchase if you've been playing for a little while but not at a high level and want some different sounds.

Also known as a cutaway capo this "spider" capo is great for those who want to expirement with alternate tunings. My son loves this capo as it allows him to continue to imitate Phil Keaggy. :-)

This is an interesting capo. It is very versatile in creating different tunes without having to adjust your guitar. It is durable and will last unlike other capos I have tried.

When I first bought this product I was quite taken with it. My creativity took different routes than it would have with standard or various open tunings due to different string lengths.. As a pro player of 40 plus years, I have a fairly nice collection of 20+ guitars. I began to use this on my favorite acoustic, a very old Taylor worth several thousand dollars, I do some light guitar restoration, use my guitars with caution and take very good care of my instruments. Imagine my shock and disappointment when I took this device off my guitar after playing with it one day to find several deep gouges in the neck. The padding at each side of the capo had either slipped out of place or compressed over use enough to allow some metal parts of the capo to dig into the wood. A nice idea that needs work - enough so as to not damage fine, valuable vintage instruments. From now on I will stay with Kyser capos and trim the rubber in them to achieve the same result without permanently damaging my guitars. I would not recommend this unless you want to use it on a beater guitar that you don't care about.

i bought two spider capos for my boyfriend for his birthday. he wanted these specific one and he seems to really like them. he doesn't gig much so he said just for practicing at home they are great.