D'Addario Humidipak Guitar Humidity Control Kit, Maintain Case System

No matter where you live, your guitar(s) need to be treated with respect. You shouldn’t leave them exposed to significant changes in temperature and humidity. Don’t leave your guitar in your car/truck/van unless you’re headed to a gig, jam session, or lesson! Don’t leave your guitar leaning against a wall or furniture when you’re not holding it - use a proper guitar stand for TEMPORARY breaks in the music. Storing your guitar in its case, when not practicing/performing, will help protect your beloved axe. (NOTE: Keep your guitar’s hard case closed all the time, except when removing the guitar or storing it after practice, etc.) Controlling the environment in your guitar’s case is IMPORTANT, too! A hard case is best because it can also be easier to control the atmosphere your guitar lives in. I use these humidity (restoration or maintenance) packs all the time in my guitar hard cases. I live in the subtropical Gulf Coast region of SE Texas. You might ask, “Why do you put humidification products in your guitar cases when you live in a humid environment? That doesn’t make sense and it sounds like a waste of money.” It DOES sound squirrelly, doesn’t it? Well, this product works TWO (2) WAYS to maintain the correct humidity level for your guitar! It can release OR absorb moisture inside your guitar hard case, keeping the headstock, neck, fretboard, top, bottom, and sides at optimal humidification. How often you have to replace the packs depends upon the climate and weather your guitar lives/works in and how you store it. Taking care of all that wood (and don’t forget the electrical components if your axe has ‘em) by preventing or mitigating cracks, swelling, joints and glued parts separating, etc., will help extend the life of your guitar and keep the coveted sustain and resonance going. Great product! I will continue using this company’s humidification products, for as long as I have guitars to take care of, so I can enjoy fingerpicking, strumming, and shredding.

I decided to buy this guitar humidifier system as I recently purchased a new Taylor Acoustic guitar. I wanted my investment to be protected from warping, cracking, and all the other dangers of a guitar being exposed to the rapid changing climate of Texas. I know I want my Taylor to last a life time so I knew that meant taking time to ensure the proper humidification of my guitar. The only problem was I had no idea how to achieve this. In steps the D’Addario Two-Way Humidification System. I originally found it’s recommendation on the Taylor website but since I am a prime member, I went to find it on amazon as I do most everything I purchase. The beauty of this system is it takes all off the guess work out of the process. You no longer have to buy humidifiers and dehumidifiers and a device to read the humidity level. You no longer have to be an expert in humidification (is that a thing?) You receive a nicely designed box that contains 2 specially designed, reusable, cloth like pouches and 3 disposable combo humidifying/dehumidifying packets. Place 1 of the 3 in a cloth pouch under the headstock in the case and place the other 2 in a cloth pouch that rests over your 3rd and 4th strings they they hang suspended in the sound hole of your guitar. Shut the case and you are done. Out of site and peace of mind. The pouches do their job and keep your guitar at just the right level of humidity and all you have to do is order a new set of the 3 disposable pouches when they old ones start to get hard. It really is that simple. D’Addario has taken all the work out of the process and has given me peace of mind to know my guitar is well taken care of so it will last a lifetime. I highly recommend this system to anyone. It is priced just right and in my book is a no brainer.

This is a GREAT product (that could just benefit from somewhat better directions)! I use them with both guitars (essentially as intended) and my solid wood tenor ukulele. For the uke, with its smaller soundhole, I slip one of the cloth bags that holds a single Humidipak (designed to lay in a case under an instument's neck) between the 4 strings and the soundhole. I don't actually try to cram the guitar-hole-sized Humidipak into the uke's little soundhole, as that's neither necessary nor prudent, given that Humidipaks harden as their moisture becomes depleted --which might make it difficult to get a dried out Humidipak out. I love that these things are fairly foolproof, as I didn't like the idea of potentially damaging my solid wood Martin guitar by water dripped from a competing product. The main criticisms I've seen of these are (1) price and (2) length of use before disposal. But the online pricing is quite good, especially factoring in the fact that these are RECHARGEABLE not just disposeable. They balance humidity, right? So when they dry out, simply temporarily store them in a humid environment and... voila, good as new! My first attempt at this worked wonderfully: (1) partly fill the bottom of a relatively large, air-tight food storage container with tap water; (2) place a relatively heavy but smaller container such as a stoneware bowl that won't float in the water; (3) place some (I did 3 at a time) dried out Humidipaks in the stoneware bowl (rather than throwing them away and buying new ones); (4) close the air-tight lid on the large food storage container; and (5) wait until the Humidipaks become soft and fluid (like new) again! So perhaps buy some replacement Humidipaks so that you can be recharging some old dry ones while other moist ones are slowly discharging in your instrument case(s). That's what I'm doing, and thus far I'm 100% satisfied with the ONE-TIME up-front purchase costs (assuming I can recharge these indefinitely?). Furthermore, for the rare few who live in overly humid environments, you could use these as DE-humidifiers. Just don't make the mistake some have made in thinking that you can benefit from placing a fully moist new Humidipak in your instrument case to absorb excess moisture. First somehow DRY OUT some Humidipaks and then place the hard, dry Humidipaks (that many would throw away as trash) in your instrument case to absorb the excess moisture. Repeat as necessary...

They work!

This Humidification System is effective. However, I should give this NO stars for goofing around too much: this is the sixth revision of the Humipak, according to my luthier. The previous revision was total disaster. I bought one, and could not reinstall the bag of humidifying resin on the spine (like a report cover spine.) And I was not alone in this, even the luthier said he couldn't and he's a strong guy and I'm a senior citizen woman. So it wasn't just me. So IF YOU HAD the previous rev with the spine you slid (maybe, maybe not) across the bag, this is NOT like that anymore. The new revision has saddlebags attached by a ribbon handle. You slip the humipak inside the bags, no closure and stuff it inside your soundhole. (It barely fits in mine, I have a classical guitar. (An acoustic steel guitar will fit it better, they tend to have larger soundholes.) There is a third bag for the headstock area of your guitar case. Does it work? Yeah it works.I know it works because I ran a test to see if it works (once an engineer, always an engineer.) And it works better than the sponge-type containers that you moisten (daily) and put in the soundhole. Those do not diffuse the water evenly into the guitar body. I know this because my guitar got overly dry EVEN WITH constant use of that device. I ended up taking it in for repair and rehumidification and meanwhile, the second guitar at home was given this new humidifier (because you need a spare, you can see why: the one is at the shop and you're playing the other.) I ran an experiment on the humidification. I purchased a D'Addario Humiditrak - Bluetooth Humidity and Temperature Sensor to track the rehumification and steamed up my office at home with a cool mist humidifier going 24/7. While the Humiditrak is not a super sensitive device, I'm told it's within 3% and it tracked an immediate increase in humidity. The sponge device stayed at a much lower level of humidification. The guitar got up to 45% humidity and then started to drop again when I turned off the humidifier in the room, so now I know: 1. Use the Humidipak 2. Humidify the room you keep the guitar in, and play in constantly. I use a cool mist humidifer. Distilled water will keep the white dust down, or use the kind that has a filter to remove salts in water. 3. keep case closed and keep guitar in case UNLESS playing it. 4. track humidity and temperature 5. check packs for "crunchiness." Crunchy means it's dehydrated. You need to buy Planet Waves Humidipak replacements. Not cheap (there is some lore about rehydrating in a wet sponge equipped sealed plasticware tub with the old packs on the side not touching the sponge, but I have not tried this. You can find this method here and there on the internet. A pro guitarist friend of mine does it. If I were to try it, I'd run my humidification level check again because even though it might feel soft again (swollen with water) the humidification might not be effective. Stay tuned. One star off for bad designers who thought that last version was usable. Wow. Just wow. But this version is good and it is effective. I have proof.

I'm writing this on July 17th, 2014, just for a timeframe. These are great and work really well! I have read through almost all of the review on Amazon, and the negative reviews really worried me. I decided I really needed a humidity control system, so I decided to give the product a chance. Since there are already many positive reviews about the product, I am mainly going to try and address all the negative reviews. First, let's talk about receiving the "right" product. Many people claimed to receive an older stock of this product. I was worried about that, so I will let you know of the newer stock. NONE OF THE PICTURES ON AMAZON IS THE NEW STOCK, but if you order from Amazon, you WILL (hopefully. I did.) receive the new stock. There have been many versions of this because of past gimmicks, but they have seriously improved and fixed those mistakes well over the years. I contacted D'Addario and they have confirmed that the MOST RECENT AND NEW packages are the ones that come in the signature D'Addario black and red packaging. It should read "D'Addario Two-Way Humidification System" and NOT Humidipak. Humidipak is the old name. Here's also some tips from D'Addario when I contacted them. "The tab pouch is also dated . The leakage issues for the most part stemmed from batches made back in 2009. The new packs are brown and the older ones were white. They were white up until about 6 months ago." The tab pouch is referring to the little tab handles on the black pouches that you can see in the pictures. The new ones no longer have that and actually looks like they went backwards in design, but there probably was a reason that they decided to take it out. And, ah, the leakage issue. I personally haven't had any trouble with it. There have been many complaints about that, and I was worried because living in the Northwest, the humidity packs sometimes suck more moisture. I thought that the bag might be more bloated due to more moisture and be prone to leaking more, but none of that happened. The new stock products no longer seem to have any leakage issues. As a precaution, do make sure there aren't any holes, cutes, and scratches on the humidity packs, though. Overall, this product is fantastic. If you're on the fence about this because of past reviews, just go for it! -edit- Looks like Amazon updated the product picture after my review was posted after some lengthy approval period. That is the correct product picture, but the pictures with the black tabbed pouches are still outdated! Don't panic if you receive pouches without tabs.

If you play a nice guitar and you like/love it then you know that humidity, or lack of it, can destroy your instrument. I’ve been a woodworker since 1958 and I know what humidity can do. Too little and your beautiful masterpiece shrinks and cracks, too much of it your masterpiece expands and breaks. Well, can you imagine what can happen to your lovely guitar under the same circumstances? These humidifier packets will keep the inside of your guitar case right around 50% humid, winter and summer, which is just right. Between 40% and 6O% is what any guitar wants and the inside of my case stays right about 50% humid…as long as I keep the case closed and as long as my guitar is in that case when I’m not using it! My classical guitar is worth more than any piece of furniture that I have so why would I not want to protect it as long as I can. Just follow the simple, and I mean simple, instructions and replace the packets when they feel hard or stiff….which is not often. A little insurance like this can stop a lot of tears and heartache. Just do it and do it every day of the year…unless you don’t like your guitar! How do I know what the humidity level is in my guitar case? My case has a humidity gauge inside but they are so inexpensive that any case can have the same thing. Do it before it’s too late.

I purchase several things on Amazon and was giving pretty in-depth reviews. From this point on, here's the new agenda…. if it works as advertised, is well made, meets or exceeds the description, is a value, and arrives in a fair amount of time, it will get a "star rating" equal to what my expectations were/are. If it doesn't meet these criteria, then I will most definitely and descriptively tell the short comings of the products and you as a consumer will not have to go through the trouble of buying the product without some background knowledge. If the sell pulls that item and relists under another description, I will put the exact same review on the seller's feedback page. Sellers have done this a couple of times in the past, and I was true to my word then as well as now. DR