Capo recommendation

SPECTRUM001

And the winner is - Planet Waves NS !!!

Looks to be decent and straightforward, and pretty good value.

Thanks for all the steering - as mentioned above, I guess I will not know until I try...

usedtobe

I have an old Shubb that I still use, in the house, mostly. 

I treated myself to a Thalia B-stock one last Christmas. It’s a lovely thing, and you get all the different inserts, for the different radius boards. Not cheap, by any means, but it’s a nice thing, easy to use, and it does what it’s made to do.

McSwaggerty

I have had loads of different makes over the years. Keep going back to my trusty Shubb

bobblehat

Shubb for me. It doesn't get in the way and its really not that hard to move about when you get used to it. I started using it because I found most of the others would allow the strings to slip when doing bends.

Epsilon

I have used pretty much everything mentioned (I almost always play with a capo acoustically), and honestly I always find myself going back to the Shubb. G7 Performance is good but since I actually prefer the Shubb I'm not going to spend more money on a G7. 

I have a Thalia and while it looks great, I find it to be quite bulky and difficult to move around. There is also something quite unpleasant about doing bends or vibrato with it, causing a nasty scraping sound as the strings move. This is because they use a very hard material for their fret pads, whereas other capos on the market tend to use a softer rubbery material which allows the string to glide more easily. I only use it if I know I'm not going to be moving it around very much and if I'm not planning on bending. IMO it is a lot of money for something that doesn't perform as well as the others - a little bit of style over substance. Worth mentioning though that I have a very early one and they may have improved the design since then.

JMS96

+1 on the Schubb. It just works. Personally, I would avoid anything that clamps on under spring load (eg Kyser). I find they clamp too heavily and cause tuning problems, specially past the 5th fret.

usedtobe

The Thalia comes with two types (harder and softer) of insert, in each radius, now. So maybe that’s an improvement from the earlier ones.. I don't bend strings, so I don’t know..

ICBM

JMS96 said:

+1 on the Schubb. It just works. Personally, I would avoid anything that clamps on under spring load (eg Kyser). I find they clamp too heavily and cause tuning problems, specially past the 5th fret.

I've never found that at all, although to be fair I rarely capo above the 5th. (I do play one song with it at 6, but I can't think of any at 7 or higher.) If anything I found the Shubb worse, as well as being a faff. I never have any tuning issues with the Kyser at all.

Sassafras

None of you have mentioned the extra mass capos add to the guitar and the severely detrimental effect this has on tone.
Personally, I wouldn't stay at a gig if the capo used was anything other than a Shubb.

SteveRobinson

What would Doris use? The absolute idiot.

ICBM

Sassafras said:

None of you have mentioned the extra mass capos add to the guitar and the severely detrimental effect this has on tone.

The nice thing about a spring-type one is that you can clip it to the end of the headstock when you're not using it, so maintaining consistent tone suck.

Stuckfast

I used to find the Shubb annoying because you'd have to adjust the little thumbscrew every time you moved it up and down the neck to compensate for the change in neck depth.

SPECTRUM001

Finally received my Planet Waves NS - and yes it is just what I wanted.

Slim and light, and easy to move around. I also like being able to determine the tension.

Thanks for the guidance.