If you’re a guitar player who lives in a dry climate, chances are you’ll need a guitar humidifier. Like regular humidifiers, an instrument-specific model works to provide moisture to the air inside your guitar. Guitar humidifiers prevent cracking or shrinkage in the wood that could damage your guitar.
Along with a humidity gauge, this is a product that you need to maintain a long life for your guitar.
What Do Guitar Humidifiers Do?
Before purchasing a humidifier for guitars, you should know a little bit about why one is necessary. Because most guitars are made of wood, they require special care and climate control.
If a wooden guitar is stored in an environment with too little moisture in the air, the wood is at risk of cracking or even bursting at the seams. Too much dryness can also affect the bridge of your guitar, causing the bridge to detach from the neck.
The good news is, the problems can be alleviated and often remedied by using a guitar humidifier. And, if you use a humidifier during dry seasons, your guitar will stay properly humidified.
Buying a digital hygrometer is a smart way to test the area around where your guitar is stored. Under perfect conditions, you want the humidity gauge to read a constant 40% or better. That’s the perfect condition to store your guitar without risk of damage.
It would be best if you also were mindful of the temperature. Avoid storing your guitar in an area where the temperature could reach an excess of 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
If you find that there isn’t enough moisture in the area your guitar is usually stored, an acoustic guitar humidifier or an electric guitar should be your next purchase.
Another practice you should be mindful of is storing your guitar in the case when not in use. The guitar case will cut down on moisture loss and also provide a more controlled environment for your guitar humidifier to work.
Do you need a humidifier for your guitar?
You may need a guitar humidifier if:
- You have an acoustic guitar made of solid wood. Laminate-top guitars do not require humidifiers.
- You live in a dry, desert area.
- You have cold winters and heat your home with dry-air heating.
How can you tell if your guitar may be dried out? You’ll need a guitar humidifier if your guitar has these symptoms:
- The fingerboard shrinks, causing the sharp ends of the frets to extend beyond the edge of the neck.
- The arch in the top sinks, and so does the bridge.
- The neck bows forward, requiring a truss rod adjustment.
- There’s a hump around the 14th fret.
- Strings buzz at high notes
If your guitar shows any of these symptoms, get a sound hole humidifier into your guitar and put your guitar back in its case. It may take a few days, but the symptoms will likely go away.
The Best Guitar Humidifiers
To help you choose the best guitar humidifier, we’ve compiled a list of the best available in the market so that you can shop as per your specific requirements.
Dampit Guitar Humidifier Super
The Dampit guitar humidifier provides long-term humidity protection for acoustic guitars. Used properly, Dampit will keep your guitar properly humidified. This will keep it from cracking and warping due to a dried-out guitar.
This guitar humidifier brand has been around for ages. This is absolutely the Best Sound Hole Humidifier on the market.
Dampit Guitar Humidifier Features:
- A supersize guitar humidifier
- Plastic soundhole cover included
- Humidity check “meter” included
Oasis OH-1 Guitar Humidifier
Oasis OH-1 HumidifierThe Blue Oasis Guitar Humidifier is made from a specially designed fabric that allows water vapor (but not water) to pass through it. As water evaporates, the Oasis shrinks to compensate for the loss of water. By monitoring the shrinkage, you will know when it’s time to refill.
Refilling is easy. Unscrew the cap, fill with tap water to the top of the container and replace the cap. The watertight container combined with the superabsorbent polymer crystals inside the Oasis Humidifier makes the OH-1 leakproof.
Oasis fits between the guitar strings. The materials that touch your strings are soft and will not scratch your strings. A polyurethane stabilizing bar fits over the neck of the guitar humidifier. Once positioned in the soundhole, the bar ensures even weight distribution. Oasis never touches the body of your guitar.
The Oasis provides humidification for 7-10 days before needing a refill.
Oasis OH-1 Guitar Humidifier Features:
- You can see when Oasis is ready for a refill.
- Long-lasting humidification.
- It won’t leak due to overfilling.
- Two levels of leak protection.
- Stabilized to never touch the guitar’s body.
MusicNomad Humitar Acoustic Guitar Humidifier
Your acoustic instrument always needs special care. As the wood of the device can often suffer from various environmental conditions while varying humidity conditions can damage the wood of the device in various different ways. To troubleshoot your woes, Music Nomad has developed a very low-maintenance humidifier, known as the Humitar.
The Humitar is a very potent piece of equipment that slowly releases moisture inside your device to keep it free from any humidity-related problems.
Furthermore, the Humid-I-Bar sponge incorporated with the package is the best available in its segment and is able to hold a great amount of water as compared to its counterparts in the market. This means you wouldn’t have to be worried about frequent refilling or soaking the sponge.
Even though when you would need to moisten the sponge, the great ease while doing it is icing on the cake! As you just need to open the top of the Humitar and touch to feel if the sponge is moist enough or not. If it is dry, you can easily take out the sponge and soak it for a while in distilled water, and put it back again.
The product is reusable; it can be used for a longer period of time. Such flexibility and performance by the Humitar help you to take good care of your guitar without any hectic process.
Kyser Lifeguard Humidifier for Acoustic Guitars
Kyser Lifeguard Humidifier is one of the best available devices for steel-string guitars. It is smart, inexpensive, and very potent equipment that saves your guitar from all the humidity-related side effects. Further, it performs effortlessly by regulating the optimum level of humidity inside your guitar.
Additionally, the handling and maintenance of this humidifier are very easy for all. You just need to soak it a little in water for a while, get rid of the extra water by shaking it, and fit it inside your musical instrument while storing it in dry conditions. After that, you would only need to check the humidifier at times and make sure that its sponge is moist enough.
The compact design and size of this humidifier allow it to easily slide even into the 3 3/4 holes without any hassle. And it is made up of very soft rubber-like plastic that fits very comfortably inside your guitar without causing any kinds of scratches or harm to your instrument’s surface.
Regarding its performance, it efficiently absorbs extra moisture present in the air during damp conditions. On the other hand, it supplies the optimum level of humidity in dry conditions as well. Apart from this, the humidifier also provides a uniform distribution of humidity all across the body of your guitar.
Humidipak Automatic Humidity Control System
This unique piece of equipment is totally maintenance-free and a very potent solution as a humidifier for your guitar.
Unlike other humidifiers for guitars available in the market, this device allows you to add and remove moisture on demand. Besides that, you wouldn’t need to set any manual adjustments in accordance with the changing weather and geographical conditions as well, and this system would constantly keep your instrument at a humidity level of 40-50%. This ensures that no cracking, swelling, or shrinking of the wood can occur.
Regarding the package – when you purchase a kit of Humidipak Automatic Humidity Control System, you would get – 3 Humidipak units, along with a soft mesh pouch that saves your device from any scratches.
Further talking about its usage and effectiveness, the 3 packets can easily last for at least 3 months. Though, it highly depends upon the environmental conditions, such as geography, temperature, etc., to which your instrument is exposed. Hence, at times the packets may last even longer, up to a year as well.
As in dry conditions, the Humidipak system would dispense at a faster rate, while on the other hand, during highly humid conditions, the packs would last for drastically longer times.
What to look for when buying a guitar humidifier?
Beware, some humidifiers are bad for your guitar. Any humidifier that seals the soundhole of your guitar to work tends to do more harm than good.
Usually, those types of humidifiers will add too much moisture to the air. Too much moisture can cause the wood of your guitar to swell. That impairs sound and can damage the guitar’s body beyond repair.
Try to only use a guitar humidifier with a humidity level of 40% or lower to prevent the possibility of too much moisture.
Please stick to the bigger brands, as they’ve got the process down to a science. Dampit and Oasis are the most reputable and known for making the best guitar humidifier products and are also the most likely to work positively for your guitar. The average guitar humidifier will cost you around $14 – $24.
You can find most of these brands at almost any music store, as they’re widely available. But remember, these humidifiers aren’t meant to be used over long periods. If you regularly store your guitar in a dry room, a room guitar humidifier is your best bet.
