Set-Ups, answering some questions

[Craig]

Set-Ups, answering some questions

Admin note: Because specifications can and have changed over time, you should refer to the factory setup information we have on this site first.

(Posted by rcbmusic@sunflower.com on November 14, 2005 at 03:48:48 on the G&LDP)

A number of people have been e-mailing asking me lately about set-ups, and rather than write this more than once I figured I’d put together a general guide.
A few words of caution: This is how I do it, these are my recommendations. I set up a lot of guitars and I’ve never had anyone tell me they weren’t very satisfied with the results and that they didn’t think the guitar played better than it ever had when I was done with it. There are other ways to get this done. These are instructions on how to do a setup yourself. They assume that the frets and nut are correct, and that there are no neck issues like twisting. If those things aren’t true, get them fixed first. I’ll tell you how to check for them.

DEFINITION: This is super important, if you get nothing else out of what I say here, remember this. A SET-UP is NOT just putting strings on your guitar and adjusting it the way some tech (or worse) thinks it should be adjusted. It IS getting the guitar adjusted so it plays the way YOU want it to, not the way someone else tells you it should. This is the #1 stupid mistake I see by people that do guitar set ups, i.e. not talking to the customer to find out what the customer wants and doing the set-up accordingly. STRING HEIGHT is a matter of personal preference. That’s it. There is NO right or wrong. I’ve seen exceptional players that play on 8s with super high action, I’ve seen exceptional players play on heavy strings with low action, and many other combinations in between. DON’T let anyone tell you that you should set your string height some way you don’t like. I personally like very low action, as low as possible within the limits of the physics of string vibration. I also like very heavy strings; I use 12-56 or 13-62 and I do NOT detune. Others like very light strings, others like very high action. You may like yours at either extreme or somewhere in between. That’s your call, not someone else’s. If you are first starting out and aren’t sure what you like, get a very low setup with medium to light strings. These things are hard enough to learn to play without fighting the instrument. As you get some experience and develop your own preferences, things can be adjusted accordingly. MYTH: You should learn on a guitar that is hard to play because it develops your fingers. That’s BS. Learn on a guitar that is as easy to play as possible, get your basic technique down without developing tendonitis in the process, then adjust if you need to.

BEWARE: If you take your guitar to someone to get it set up, don’t assume the person is qualified to do it. A lot of music stores have music store sales people do this. The vast majority of them have no idea what they are doing and have no business charging people money to do a setup, or even attempting one for free. Unfortunately, most people that call themselves ‘techs’ and ‘luthiers’ also have very minimal knowledge and skills and have no business charging people money to work on their guitars. Its very important to find a high quality, reputable luthier in your area who is easy to work with and who stands behind their work. There may be none available in your area; competent luthiers are quite rare. Be prepared to do some driving. Ask around, ask to see results. TALK to the person. Don’t take your guitar anywhere someone you never talk to or see comes in once in a while and picks it up then brings it back weeks later. Ask questions. If the answers sound like BS, they probably are. Anyone that knows what they are doing should be able to explain the process to an intelligent non-expert. If they cant, they probably don’t know. If you hear the word “cant” a lot, the context can vary but what it means is that the person you are talking to “cant” get the job done. Look elsewhere.


The first thing to check is general fret work and fret condition. There are two things I check before doing anything else. The first is that the frets are seated properly. If you look down the neck and look at the point where the frets meet the fret board, there should be no gaps between the bottom of the fret and the fret board. If the frets are not seated properly, sometimes they can be tapped back in, sometimes they will never be stable and doing a level/crown job wont do any good because the frets will move around after the fact. If there are a lot of frets not seated right, you may need a total re-fret. That’s a major undertaking, see a pro.

The other thing that is a very common problem to check for is tongue rise. This occurs when the end of the neck slopes up, making the upper frets higher as you go up the neck, which will make the whole guitar buzz and will often cause fretting out on bends on the upper frets. If you hold the string down at the 12th fret and the last fret, it becomes a straight edge. Look at the distance between the bottom of the string and the top of the frets. There shouldn’t be ANY. The truss rod does not function on the upper part of the neck. You want the 12th fret to the end of the neck to be either perfectly straight, OR, ideally, have a slight bit of drop off. If you see space between the top of the fret and the bottom of the string, you are not going to get the best action and purest tone you can. If there is significant space, you are going to have severe buzzing/fretting out issues.

If you see that the frets aren’t seated properly or that there is significant tongue rise, get the fret problems corrected. If you aren’t VERY competent at doing that, take it to a real pro.

Assuming your frets are in decent shape, the next step is to adjust the neck relief. Neck relief refers to the amount of bow in the guitar neck. String tension pulls the neck forward (forward bow); tightening the truss rod works against string pull and can back-bow the neck. Most guitars are pretty happy with only a very slight amount of relief in the neck. The easiest way to check relief is to hold the E strings down at the 1st and 12th frets so they function like straight edges, and look at the space between the bottom of the string and the fret. You’ll see the most space somewhere between the 3rd and 7th frets usually. You don’t want to see much space here at all, just a sliver of light. If the neck has too much forward bow, the upper frets will buzz more than necessary. If the neck doesn’t have enough relief or is back bowed, the open strings and lower frets will buzz or fret out. What I generally do to dial in the least amount of relief a guitar will tolerate is, tighten the truss rod to where the neck just starts to back-bow enough to make the lower frets start to buzz, then very slowly back it off until that buzzing stops. This will allow the least buzz and purest tone on the upper frets no matter how high or low you set your string height.

Some people will say to set relief to a certain measurement in thousandths of an inch. That’s a decent starting point, but all guitars are different. I measure a lot of things very precisely when setting up a guitar, but I set relief specific to what that particular instrument will take by pushing it a bit too far then backing off til its right. Most guitars set up best with less relief than manufacturers recommend.

Also, when adjusting the truss rod, be careful. Turn it a 1/8th to ¼ turn at a time and check the results. You DON’T have to turn it a ¼ turn and leave it a day like some would have you believe, just don’t crank on it all at once. If it gets to where it feels tight or stuck and there is still too much relief, you may have a truss rod issue. Take it to a *qualified* luthier if you suspect you do. A proper truss rod should take the relief out of a neck easily without maxing out. My G&LS have no problem setting a neck flat with 13-62 gauge strings without maxing out the truss rod.

After the truss rod is adjusted, check that the nut is cut properly for the gauge of strings you are using. Most nuts I see are not cut properly. Hold down each string at the 2nd fret and check the distance between the bottom of the string and the 1st fret. You want a small amount of space, so that if you tap the string you can hear it impact on the 1st fret, but not much. A hundredth or slightly less is plenty. Also, if you hear the string bind in the nut and cause things like a pinging sound when you tune, or if the string cannot be lifted out of the nut easily, then the nut slot is too narrow for the string and will cause tuning problems. If you have these issues and you aren’t sure how to fix it yourself, take it to someone who knows how do it. Adjusting nut slots shouldn’t cost you more than $5-$10.

If the relief is set right and the nut is cut right, the next step is to adjust string height.

If you have a tremolo bridge, adjust the angle and height of the bridge first. I like my trem bridges to angle backward slightly from the studs. If they angle forward an odd tension can result where the strings feel very stiff and wear ridges in your pick very quickly, making picking difficult and not smooth. The angle of the bridge can be adjusted by tightening or loosening the spring claw in the back of the guitar. If you are tightening, loosen the strings a bit first as the pitch will go up as you tighten. Either way, tune the guitar up to pitch and recheck often as you go to dial it in exactly where you want it. The treble side of the bridge should not be much different than the bass side in terms of height over the body. Its ok to have it slightly lower on the treble side, but if its much more than a slight difference between the bass and treble sides, change it and re-adjust the bridge saddles to compensate.

What I’ll usually do is start with my high E string and adjust from there. I use a metal ruler with 1/100” scale and I check the distance between the top of the fret and bottom of the string. I measure action at the 14th fret. It’s a good compromise across a lot of different guitars. Some people measure at the last fret, but I find that can create problems when making comparisons as some guitars have drop off after the 12th, some do not. The 14th is pretty consistent. Whether you like your action high or low, the basic concept is the same. My personal preference is heavy strings (12s, 13s) and set the action as low as I can. On a properly set up guitar with good fretwork, the high E at the 14th is around .04” to .045”. If the fretwork isn’t quite right, it will have to go higher. On very round radius guitars (7.5”), this will have to be increased because the strings will fret out as you bend across the neck. No matter what your personal preference is, get the bridge right then adjust the saddle on the high E so its where you want it, as you go across the strings, you want a very slight increase in height as you move from string to string. If I set my high E at .04” for instance, I might set the B at .043, the G at .048, D at .05, A .052. The low E tends to want to have a significant increase over the others, so if you set your others as above, the low E would be in the .055 to .06 range. If you look at the string tension across the strings on most string sets, the low E is MUCH lower tension than the rest, and its going to have a larger vibration pattern and buzz more, so there can be a significant rise in height between the A and low E and it will feel just fine. I like string sets with even tension across the 3 wound and 3 unwound strings, but I have to special order sets to get that. You’d think some string manufacturer would get a clue and sell them that way, but they don’t; standard sets have wildly varying string tension as you go across the neck. Check out a balanced custom set sometime, you can really feel the difference.

The slight increase in height as you go from high E across the fretboard is VERY important. You can really feel the difference between a guitar that is set up this way and one that is not. Even slight ‘bumps’ in string height can cause a guitar to feel much less comfortable than it is capable of feeling.

As you adjust the saddle screws, keep the saddle parallel to the base plate of the bridge. You don’t want to end up with the saddles at odd angles as the string may slide to one side, there may be tuning issues, etc.

If you do all that, your guitar will play great with minimal buzz and no fretting out. The last step is to set the intonation by moving the bridge saddles forward or backward so that the guitar will be in tune anywhere on the neck. Most people check this at the 12th fret, I use the 19th fret as it’s a bit more picky and accurate. First, back those single coil pickups way off! The tight magnetic field can really pull on the string, and it will greatly affect your results on setting intonation. Use a good electronic tuner that can show resolution of at least a cent. Tune the guitar using the harmonic at the 12th fret of each string. Then, check the fretted note at the 19th fret (don’t press too hard or bend the string) vs the natural harmonic at that fret. If the harmonic is lower than the fretted note, the saddle needs to move back; if the harmonic is higher than the fretted note, the saddle needs to come forward. Use the screws connected to the saddle and running through the back of the bass plate to adjust saddles on most trem bridges. Floyds and similar bridges will require loosening the string, loosening the hex nut that holds the saddle in place, adjusting, then tightening the saddle locking nut back in place and testing. They can take a few iterations to get right. Once you are used to it, they don’t take much more time than a normal trem bridge. Keep adjusting and checking until that 19th fret harmonic and the fretted note are the same.

If your frets, nut and neck are in good shape and you go through this process, your guitar will feel great to play and be in tune everywhere.

KEEPING IT IN TUNE:

A note on LOCKING TUNERS: Most people don’t set them up right and as a result lose a lot of the advantages of using locking tuners. First, use a graphtech nut. If you really have an issue with them, use bone, but keep in mind bone will not get the same results in terms of tuning stability, though it can be pretty good. The stock plastic nut most guitars come with is horrible, replace it if you want to be able to use the bar and stay in tune. The trick with locking tuners is you don’t want much winding on the peg at all, typically none to no more than about 1/3 of a turn. If you have more winding than that, you will introduce a lot of friction into the system, and the guitar will not stay in tune. To get this, you’ll have to do a few things.

First, get the bridge as far forward as you can, in the ‘dive bomb’ position. What I do is cut up wine cork, because it wont scratch or hurt the finish, and wedge it between the base plate of the trem and the body while pushing the bar down so that the bridge is as far forward as I can get it. Next, align the tuner holes so they are in line with the nut slots. As you put each string on, bring it over the nut and straight through the tuner hole. Then, for added measure, I lock a leg over the guitar and pull the string as tight as I can with a pair of needle nose pliers while I’m locking the string in the tuner. Use the pliers away from the tuner; you don’t want to scratch anything and you don’t want to crimp part of the string you may end up using. Lock the string in TIGHT. Continue to check and tighten the tuner lock as you tune the guitar up and stretch the strings out. They can slip, and if they do, you are back to square one. Once all the strings are on, remove the cork and let the bridge come back up. Check tuning. Ideally, all the strings should be pretty close to pitch or even sharp; they will come down as you stretch them out. Tune up any strings that are flat. Any that are sharp, stretch out (see below). If they are still sharp, carefully and SLOWLY unlock the tuner while checking tuning. The string will slip a bit if you do it slowly, and you can let it slip until its about ½ step below pitch, then relock the tuner tight. Once its all in tune and stretched out you should have very little winding on the tuners. Cut off the ends of the strings that stick past the tuners so you don’t poke yourself or put an eye out!

STRETCH THE STRINGS: This is super important. 90% of tuning issues I see are just failure to properly stretch the strings. Tune the guitar up to pitch. Then grab each string at the 12th fret and tug it good side to side, up and down, not so much you think its going to break but significantly. Retune. Repeat. When you can do that and the string no longer goes out of tune, its stretched. Repeat for all strings. The thicker the string, the more stretching it will need. After this, give the guitar a final tuning. Now it will stay in tune really well and you wont have to tune it all the time with new strings.

If you do everything above, you’ll have a guitar that stays in tune amazingly well. When I play 4 set nights on my G&Ls, I check tuning once at the beginning of the night and once each set, and I almost never have to adjust tuning, if anything I’m a couple cents out on a couple strings. I use the bar a lot, chord shakes, dive bombs, etc, and the tuning is incredibly stable.

Good luck and have fun! Like anything else, being able to do a proper set up takes some practice. Be prepared to spend some time the first few times you do it. A good setup can really make a difference in the way a guitar plays and in how you respond to the guitar, and its well worth it.