Jaen Siracusa 15E User manual

MAN.SE.V1.1 - Feb. 2022

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CONTENTS
CARE 3 ⚠
MAINTENANCE 5
Changing Strings 5
Adjusting the Bridge Height 6
Adjusting the Compensation 7
Adjusting the Truss Rod Tension 9
Adjusting the Pickup-String Clearance 11
USE 13
Electric Controls 13
Anti-Feedback Plug 15
Specifications 17

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3
CARE
The Siracusa family has a very light construction, with very thin plates
that can be easily damaged. This is not a conventional archtop with plates
that triple the thickness, virtually indestructible. In fact, you could open a
hole on some places of the top by simply pressing hard with your finger.
⚠Read and observe what follows ⚠
⚠Do not allow the guitar to stay in places where humidity,
temperature or light conditions are extreme. These can affect very
seriously the stability of wood and adhesives. Relative Humidity must
be kept around 50% at all times!
Try not to press excessively on the sides of your instrument. For
example, trying to reach for something on the floor ahead of you
while playing seated.
Protect your instrument from accidents:
Try to keep it in its case, always with the drawbolts closed, when
you are not using it. Do not trust too much in the stability of guitar
stands.
Try not to wear buckles, key holders or zippers that may cause
damage to the instrument while playing.
Clean your instrument with well proven products designed
specifically for this job. Avoid abrasive cleaners or those containing
silicone or solvents such as alcohol or acetone.
Do not try to lubricate the machine heads.

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Try to clean the strings after use with a dry clean cloth.
Avoid the contact with alcoholic beverages. If it happens sometime,
absorb them with a dry cloth without rubbing.
Connect your instrument only to reliable equipment that have a
ground connection. The power line must have a ground-fault
interrupter. If you do not follow these recommendations, you can
cause damage to the instrument as well as to yourself.
If you are going to modify your instrument, ask advice from the
maker.
Even if you are careful with your instrument, some wear will take
place in normal use:
Frets must be redressed or changed after some time.
The finish and the wood below it can suffer color changes,
usually to a more yellow/orange hue. The high gloss will not last
a lifetime.
The gold or chrome plated pieces may lose their plating.

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MAINTENANCE
Changing Strings
You should do this…
Whenever the strings don’t sound bright, are worn or dirty or have
tuning problems in certain areas of the fretboard.
Necessary tools and materials: Pliers and strings.
Method:
Loosen one string. To untie it from the machines and the tailpiece,
cut it with the pliers. This is the best way to avoid damaging the
string anchors at the tailpiece, your fingers or the finish.
Place the new string in the tailpiece.
Insert the string into the hole in the post and pull until it is around
50 mm high above the fretboard.
Bend the end slightly, just at the exit from the tuner post.
Turn the tuner until the string feels tight, then tune it.
Cut the remaining, leaving about 1 cm out of the post.
Repeat for each string.

6
Adjusting the Bridge Height
You should do this…
Whenever there are buzzes in wide areas of the fretboard. The height
may be lowered if the action is too high and there are no buzzes.
Necessary tools: Small Hex (Allen) key, supplied with the guitar.
Method:
Depending on the problem affecting
more the bass strings than the treble
strings, you will have to turn the
corresponding adjustment screw to
each side of the bridge saddle.
Clockwise to lower it, and
counterclockwise to raise it. The
adjustment will be finished when the
strings are high enough so that, in
your playing style, there are no
buzzes.
Notes:
I usually set the action very low before delivering my instruments.
You can always raise it if you like it better.
If you use thin plain strings, it is possible to have buzzes because
they don’t have enough tension for straightening out the small
irregularities in the steel caused by playing. Use new strings before
performing any adjustment.
After this adjustment, you should also check the truss rod tension
and compensation adjustments, as explained later.

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Adjusting the Compensation
This procedure must be performed so that all the notes and their octaves
sound reasonably in unison, independent from their position on the
fretboard. A guitar that is not well compensated can be especially
unpleasant when playing chords that mix notes fingered in high frets with
open strings.
You should do this…
When your new strings are a different gauge, or you plan to use an
alternate tuning permanently.
When the bridge has been moved, usually as a consequence of
removing all the strings (which I don’t recommend).
When the height of the bridge has been modified substantially.
However...
Don’t do this every time that you change the strings, it’s not
necessary.
Don’t do this if you find that your worn strings don’t intonate well.
Instead, change them and check if the new ones are OK.
Necessary tools: Electronic tuner or a good ear.
Method:
Start with new strings, already tuned in the guitar for at least a few
hours.
Check if the natural harmonic for the second string in fret 12 is the
same as the fingered note in that same fret. If the tuner (or your
ear) finds that the fingered note is higher than the harmonic, the

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bridge will have to be moved closer to the
tailpiece. Otherwise, move it further
away from the tailpiece (see drawing).
Check the same for the fifth string, but
this time try to move only the bass
side of the bridge, as you should not
modify its position for the string
that you adjusted first.
Notes:
Some bridges may be hard to move.
Don’t force anything, you can damage the
top if you press hard on it. Better loosen the strings.
Worn strings, deformed from playing or dirty can be impossible to
play in tune—never try to adjust the compensation for old strings,
it’s wasted time.
Some wound strings have defects in the uniformity of their
windings that make them useless. Plain strings have their problems
too: some show a kind of coiling right out of the package that
doesn’t correspond to the curvature that they assumed while in
the package—don’t use these, especially if they are in a low
tension set.
The fixed bridges found in archtop guitars don’t allow a perfect
adjustment for every string, but the discrepancy is usually quite
small.
The saddle in your guitar has been adjusted for string sets that
have a wound third string. If you use a plain third, you may need a
different saddle. Inquire.

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Adjusting the Truss Rod Tension
You should do this…
When there are buzzes but the action is high. This has three main
probable causes:
- Change of the tension exerted on the neck, usually following the
change of the string gauge or alternate tunings.
- Wood adaptation to the strings/truss rod tension and compression
forces. This is especially important during the first year of life of the
instrument.
- Changes in relative humidity.
Necessary tools: There are two different methods, depending on your
playing style. To perform the “A” method you will need a thin guitar string
(0.010”) and, perhaps, some assistance. For the “B” method, you won’t
need the string. If, after the check, you must make the adjustment, you will
need both the small and the large Hex (Allen) keys supplied with the guitar.
Method A.- This is the way to adjust your guitar if your style is more limited
to the first frets, including lots of open strings.
Press a string (preferably, the third or fourth) simultaneously on
frets 1 and 15. Check if the 0.010” string, working as a gauge, fits
between the top of the seventh fret and the bottom of the chosen
string. If it fits snugly, then stop here: you won’t need any
adjustments.
Remove the magnetic truss rod access cover: insert the small Allen
key into its hole until you find some resistance, then pull.
If the gauge (the 0.010” string) fits loose (so there is still some
clearance), turn the adjustment nut with the large Allen key,
clockwise as seen from the peghead end, an eighth of a turn or less
(see drawing).

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If the gauge doesn’t fit, turn the adjustment nut with the large
Allen key, counter-clockwise as seen from the peghead end, an
eighth of a turn or less (see drawing).
Wait until the following day, then adjust the
height of the bridge (Page 6) and repeat the
process.
Put in place the magnetic truss rod access
cover again.
Method B.- This is the way to adjust your guitar if
your style involves all the fretboard.
Press a string (preferably, the third or fourth) simultaneously on
frets 1 and 15. Press it lightly on the seventh fret and check if there
is a gap between the fret and the string. If there is one, but it is
extremely small, close to nothing, then stop here: you won’t need
any adjustments.
Remove the magnetic truss rod access cover: insert the small Allen
key into its hole until you find some resistance, then pull.
If there is a noticeable gap between the fret and the string at fret
#7, then turn the adjustment nut with the large Allen key,
clockwise as seen from the peghead end, an eighth of a turn or less
(see drawing).
If the string is making contact with the seventh fret, turn the
adjustment nut with the large Allen key, counter-clockwise as seen
from the peghead end, an eighth of a turn or less (see drawing).
Wait until the following day, then adjust the height of the bridge
(Page 6) and repeat the process.
Put in place the magnetic truss rod access cover again.
CCW
CW

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Adjusting the Pickup-String Clearance
You should do this…
When you notice that the amplified sound of a string or group of strings
is louder or weaker than the others, or when the output of a pickup is
too high or too low.
Necessary tools: You will need a small Hex (Allen) key, supplied with the
guitar.
Method:
The neck pickup is set at a fixed height, so all the adjustments will be
only on the individual polepieces, two per string. Turn them clockwise to
reduce the output of a string, and counterclockwise to increase it.
The height of the bridge pickup can indeed be modified. This is useful if,
for example, you are trying to balance it with the neck pickup so that
both have a similar maximum output. To do it, loosen the screws S (see
drawing) enough so that you
can raise or lower the
pickguard bracket, and then
tighten them again. After
this coarse adjustment you
can proceed to make fine
adjustments to the
polepieces, the same as you
did for the neck pickup.
Note:
The pickups in your guitar have two rows of polepieces. I favor this
design because it makes possible to use bronze wound strings instead of
the usual steel or nickel wound strings that are used for electric guitars.
Let me explain this.
S

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Bronze wound strings have a fantastic acoustic tone, but their volume is
quite low when used with magnetic pickups. The plain strings in the set
(usually the first and second) will have a much higher volume, resulting
in a very strong imbalance. The logical way to correct this problem is to
raise the polepieces of the wound strings and lower the polepieces of
the plain strings, trying to equalize their output. However, in my
experience, achieving an acceptable balance is impossible for pickups
that feature adjustable polepieces just for one of their coils, no matter
how extreme the adjustment (even removing the polepieces for the
plain strings). However, it can be done if both coils have them, which is
the way my pickups are made.

13
USE
Electric Controls
All the controls are located at the pickguard:
Neck Pickup Volume Pot
Mid Pickup Volume Pot
Bridge Pickup Volume Pot
Tone Pot
Pickup Switch

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This guitar is different to most others two-pickup guitars in the market,
perhaps unique as far as I know. The similarities are many when you select
the neck or bridge pickup with the pickup switch, except that you only have
a common tone knob for those. The main differences are at the mid
position of the switch, for which conventional guitars connect the neck and
bridge pickups in parallel, just as the volume and tone pots of both pickups.
This is a simple wiring arrangement, but it causes unwanted interactions
between volume and tone pots, known to every guitarist who has played
these guitars. In this mid position of the pickup switch, the Siracusa “E”
behaves differently:
A new pickup is formed by taking a coil from the neck pickup and
another from the bridge pickup. These coils are the one closer to the
neck and the one closer to the bridge, so this new pickup is also a
humbucker.
Note: to improve the humbucking characteristics of this new pickup, the bridge and neck
pickups are more similar between them than the pickups in the conventional two-pickup
Siracusa models.
It is a series humbucker also, the same kind as the other two, not a
different thing as the parallel humbucker in the conventional wiring,
which is more treble and less powerful.
It has its own volume control, independent from the other two (see
the drawing above).
The tone pot is common to all three pickups. I did this to simplify
controls, as I prefer to leave that on to the amplifier.
I would like to mention that I am aware that the conventional mid position
is used by many players, albeit mostly from other styles different from
mainstream jazz and acoustic music. It is an easy way to switch instantly to
a different amount of cream or punch, which are terms that you hear
usually when defining amp+guitar settings that are around or above the
breakup level. While it is true that you don’t have this control here, I must
say that the acoustic response of the Siracusa guitars makes it very difficult
to play in the high volume settings where this is needed.

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Anti-Feedback Plug
All Siracusa guitars have a very responsive soundbox, prone to feedback
easily in high volume situations. The anti-feedback plug is a device,
included with all Siracusa guitars since 01/2022, that can be pressed gently
into the soundhole, closing the soundbox and raising the feedback
threshold.

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17
Specifications
Variable Materials:
Wood: Usually Maple and Spruce for the soundbox and Maple for the
neck. The fretboard, peghead face, bridge and tailpiece are usually
made of Ebony. The pickguard skin is made of Ziricote most times (its
core is always carbon), and the pickups are usually made of Ziricote
or Ebony.
The bindings are usually Maple or Ovangkol, and the purfling is
usually fiber.
Most metal parts are gold plated.
The finish since 01/2022 is epoxy+Tru-oil (Birchwood-Casey). In some
cases it can be nitrocellulose (Votteler).
Fixed Materials:
Carbon: The truss rod access cover, tuning machines cover, pickguard
bracket and tailpiece bracket are all carbon with a glued lamination of
wood, usually Ebony. The peghead has two internal carbon
reinforcements where the tuners are attached. There is also a carbon
skeleton inside the saddle that stiffens it. The bridge feet are hollow,
made of carbon fiber and ebony and joined by a carbon fiber rod. The
pickguard has a carbon core hidden below its wooden skin.
The frets are Jescar FW47104SS, Stainless Steel.
The nut is made of cow bone.
The tuning machines are Schertlers, modified so that their
mechanisms are hidden inside the peghead, usually with Ebony knobs.
Potentiometers: long rotational life (100.000 cycles), conductive
polymer.
Measurements:
Neck: The scale is usually 25.5” (648 mm), while the nut width is
usually 1 11/16” (43 mm). The scale can also be 25” or even 24 3/4”.
The nut width may be 1 3/4” (44.5 mm).
Soundbox depth: usually around 65-70 mm.
Siracusa 15R: 15 inches at lower bout.
Siracusa 16R: 16 inches at lower bout.

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Ctra. De Pozorrubio, 92
16410 Horcajo de Santiago (Cuenca)
SPAIN
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