Spider Capo - how good is this?

[odibrom]

Hey fellows! I'm not sure where to put this, thought this corner of the forum might be the most appropriate. Mods, if not, feel free to move it.

Long story short, I was testing some new ideas on achieving a sitar sound from FXs with a guitar and came across a few videos on the net and suddenly I'm open to a whole new world of sounds and tones... and tunings? But then, this is only acceptable with my fixed bridge guitars and I like to play whatever in whatever guitar I have so I don't have to lug too much stuff around for rehearsals (although last one was 6 months ago already). So the gears in my head started spinning around and the Spider Capo came to memory. Searched it for a bit and the reviews are quite disappointing, like "bad quality build", "falls apart on 1st use" or "not worth the money"... Why Spider Capo? So I can capo specific strings and have them "openly" ringing while doing other stuff along the fretboard...

The Spider Capo is this thing, for all of you who don't know what it is:

... and this is available in 6, 7 and 8 string guitar size...

So, those who have used this or tested it, how good, useful, strong, clumsy, etc. is it?

 

[tedtan]

No first hand experience, but the acoustic players I’ve talked to about it have had the same complaints as the reviews you’ve read.

Maybe look into partial capoes. You’d probably need to buy a few, but they be significantly more durable.

 

[rokket2005]

I've had one for maybe 10 years or so and never use it. You need to clamp it on super tight so that the individual capos actually work vs. just making the string buzz, and on some of my more expensive guitars I didn't want to do that cause the felt isn't protective on finishes at all. It's gimmick that is a cool 5 minute party trick at best, and a piece of shit that will sit in your guitar junk drawer at worst.

 

[odibrom]

No first hand experience, but the acoustic players I’ve talked to about it have had the same complaints as the reviews you’ve read.

Maybe look into partial capoes. You’d probably need to buy a few, but they be significantly more durable.

Partial capos wouldn't work for the middle strings only, but thanks for the suggestion.

I've had one for maybe 10 years or so and never use it. You need to clamp it on super tight so that the individual capos actually work vs. just making the string buzz, and on some of my more expensive guitars I didn't want to do that cause the felt isn't protective on finishes at all. It's gimmick that is a cool 5 minute party trick at best, and a piece of shit that will sit in your guitar junk drawer at worst.

Thanks for the replies guys... I guess it's alternate tunings and fixed bridge guitars for now then. Too bad when a product has a great concept but a bad build... I was really looking into this for some sitar/Indian-ish tunes so to keep the same vertical fingering shape on the the board and have some individually clamped down strings to work as open notes/drones when needed...

 

[Crungy]

There's another capo device out there that has long "fingers" but I cannot remember what it's called. I think you'd use it similarly to the spider, but maybe it's not as big of a piece of crap?

 

[Crungy]

Found it.

I can't make out the name of the capo but this is what I was thinking of:

 

[wheresthefbomb]

I haven't tried spider capo but I do similar things and the most elegant solution I have found is to use moveable chord shapes that leave room for open strings to drone between them. It doesn't get me all the fun options open tunings could but it gets me where I'm going without having to use weird gadgets, bring more than one guitar, or change tunings all the time.

Also if you don't have an ebow, get an ebow.

 

[Demiurge]

I have one. It's fine. It keeps my eBow, slide, and regular capo company in the "shit I rarely use" drawer and everybody seems to get along.

 

[tedtan]

Partial capos wouldn't work for the middle strings only, but thanks for the suggestion.

I’ve seen people using them in that way, but they may have cut down a full size capo. Maybe just the rubber contact pad can be cut leaving enough clearance for the other strings to ring clearly. I don’t know, I’m just thinking out loud, so to speak. I would have to get one to experiment with to have a useful comment on this.

 

[odibrom]

I’ve seen people using them in that way, but they may have cut down a full size capo. Maybe just the rubber contact pad can be cut leaving enough clearance for the other strings to ring clearly. I don’t know, I’m just thinking out loud, so to speak. I would have to get one to experiment with to have a useful comment on this.

Those are some engineeous tips, thanks.