Setting Up Your Guitar
I have a whole selection of guitars, some costing thousands of dollars, but I also have a cheap fender squier Stratocaster that I have often used for recording. It produces some fantastic sounds purely because it has been professionally set up .(ok so maybe I was very lucky with my purchase)
A set up doesn’t cost too much and is well worth while, but you can do a number of things yourself. So lets take a look at what you can do to an electric guitar to improve it, without messing around with the circuit.
You will need:
A capo, feeler gauges/metal ruler, correct size screw drivers, allen keys supplied with guitar, and digital tuner. small file
NECK
The neck can be affected by the tension of the strings as well as atmosphere and temperature changes. Your neck will have a slight bow, but if it is too much, or not enough you will get string buzz. It will have a truss rod running through the centre from the head to the body, there will probably be a cover on the headstock (often a bell shape) removing this will enable you to tighten or loosen the adjusting bolt/screw. this will enable you to ensure the neck stays true.
Place a capo on (or barre the 7th fret and barre the 12th fret If you have a large gap between neck and strings your neck is bowed out. This will make playing very difficult in this area. You will need to tighten the truss rod by turning it a ¼ turn clockwise Looking at the guitar .If the opposite is happening and the frets are buzzing you will need to turn the adjuster anti clockwise. Let the neck settle before making any more adjustment, if you cant cure it after a couple of turns, leave well alone and visit your local guitar shop
NUT
The nut is usually made of plastic or bone, and is the part where the strings go through the grooves at the head before being wound around the tuners.
Occasionally you will find that when you are tuning your instrument, turning the tuners makes no difference to the sound, this will be because the wound string has caught in the groove of the nut.
First of all try slackening the string and use a small amount of graphite (from a pencil) as a lubricant in the grooves. If this doesn’t work again slacken the string and
using a nail file or similar,(ask you wife or mum first) Very,very gently file the sides of the groove to allow the string to move freely.
Make sure you do not make the groove any deeper as this will lower the string height and undo all the other work you have done. When tuning the guitar it’s a good idea to push the string towards the fret board to ensure that the string is not caught.
Setting Up Bridge & Guitar Action
The action is the distance between string and fret board, the lower the action the easier it will be to play notes or chords as you are not using as much energy, and of course it is also quicker. A high action is ok for rhythm where you are only playing chords or if you use a bottle neck slide, otherwise I would advise having the action as low as possible without creating fret buzz.
You can adjust the height of the strings by adjusting the saddle screws on the bridge. This will probably require the correct size allen key. Each will need to be a different height as each of the strings are different thickness. For a low action I would suggest a gap of 1.2mm for the 1st or high e string and 1.6mm for the 6th or low e string.
Medium should be 1.6mm high e and 2mm low e
High should be around 2mm high e and 2.4mm low e
Each of theses measurements are the gap taken from the top of the 12th fret, to under the string.
Setting Guitar Intonation
Altering the height of the strings will alter the intonation of the instrument, so next you should correct this. As we all know, the notes at the 12th fret are the same as that string played open, except it is an octave higher, however, when using a digital tuner you will probably find that the note is a little sharp or flat, and this will be easily corrected by lengthening or shortening the string.
If you take another look at the bridge saddles you will see that they have adjusting screws horizontal to the guitar. If your string stopped at the 12th fret is sharp the string is too short so the saddle must be moved back by adjusting the screw.
Remember to loosen the string slightly so that you don’t cause damage or put too much strain on the guitar.
If the stopped note is flat you must shorten the string by moving the saddle forward.
This operation really is trial and error as you are adjusting, tuning, detuning adjusting, tuning, etc but is well worth the effort, and will make your music sound so much better.
Teejay O'Neill
