When to do guitar setup
The Complete DIY Guitar Setup Tutorial
the local guitar setup person hates him
for this one simple trick well it's
actually a bunch of simple tricks that's
right I'm gonna show you a variety of
different ways to adjust and maintain
your guitar so it plays better than it
ever has before
all these adjustments and maintenance
tips can be done by you at your house
with some basic tools and products I'll
link everything I use in the description
of this video in case you're interested
in buying it and supporting the channel
I encourage you to ask questions or
share your own maintenance tips in the
comments section down below in case
there's anything that I missed in this
video this video is gonna have it all
how to clean your guitar properly how to
adjust your truss rod your action your
pickup height why would you ought to do
that and what would it do if you did do
it the intonation of your guitar none of
these things are scary I promise they're
all very simple and easy to do once you
just learn how the first thing you want
to think about on your guitar is is
anything loose does it need tightening
this knob is a little loose it's been
bothering me this is a neat little tool
designed specifically to remove guitar
knobs just click it in under the knob so
it's actually this little washer that
needs tightening you can do it with your
finger puppet and you also may need to
tighten things like your tuning pegs
with a string peg nuts
okay so chances are you've never done
what I'm about to show you to your
guitar this is a probe pick it's kind of
like a dental tool I guess if you've
never done this to your guitar which
chances are you haven't it may be a
little disturbing let's go right up
against your fret
and pull out many many hours of grime Oh
oh my goodness now that that's over we
can actually polish the fret these are
Stu Mac fret erasers you would start the
bead lowest grit 180 grit and then move
up to the finest grit which is a
thousand this is a little brush to brush
off the particles that you will be
polishing out and these go over the
frets depending on what size fret you're
mainly going to be using this one
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after your frets are all polish you can
shine them up with this from music
nomads and it just puts the little
cherry on top this is the fretboard
conditioner that I like these days but
hold on before you go crazy if you have
a maple neck that's finished don't do
that these sorts of necks do not need
that sort of treatment
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of course don't forget to lubricate your
nut with some slick nuts
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this is great for if your neck gets a
little cloudy maybe you're in a humid
environment this is awesome to keep that
neck nice and smooth
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this is some great stuff to use if
you're noticing any crackling in your
volume or tone pots or your pickup
selector is crackling this is the
instrument polish that I like
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now it comes to changing strings most of
my guitars have locking tuners we can
simply feed the string through the
tuning peg and you are good to go when
you lock it up but if your guitar has
standard tuning pegs this is how I like
to wrap the strings I'll just put the
string through and make sure to wrap
over top of the string first as it comes
back around we will wrap under creating
this little string sandwich that keeps
the string
perfectly in place as you tighten it
these next few adjustments are going to
be made in playing position so put the
guitar on your lap how you would when
you're playing it and we are gonna start
with adjusting the truss rod now I know
what you're thinking truss rod my necks
gonna snap this is too dangerous trust
me it is not scary whatsoever
the truss rod adjustment is actually one
of the easiest and most effective
adjustments to make when you're setting
up your guitar here's how we do it so
you want your guitar neck to be
completely straight as an arrow
completely flat so you check if you need
to adjust your truss rod you'll fret
this first fret and then you'll come
down here and fret the last fret and
then we do this little move here which
is checking how much space is in between
the fretboard and the string you'll want
this little bounce on your pinky first
finger on the first fret of the e-string
finger on the very last fret of that
same thick east ring and then use your
pinky to check the bounce and too much
bounce means an adjustment of the truss
rod to tighten it not enough bounce
means to give it some relief you don't
see any space whatsoever and the string
is kind of against the fret board then
you have back bow which means the truss
rod is pulling the headstock backwards
and needs relief if you see a pretty big
space in between the string and the fret
board then you have front bow which
means you need to tighten the truss rod
I would say this guitar is pretty good
but I actually adjusted the truss rod
just to demonstrate this so we actually
have a little bit of front bow going
I'm going to show you how to make this
adjustment very simply most guitars come
with a truss rod adjustment tool to add
relief or loosen the truss rod you'll
push the tool forward to tighten the
truss rod pull the tool toward you looks
perfect to me and it should bring true
now we're gonna take a look at the
action we are going to need a machinist
ruler which uses 32nd of an inch
measurements and for the high e-string
you'll want about 2 30 seconds for the
low e-string we wanted to be about two
and a half thirty seconds which if I
check here it looks to be about three so
this is high I want to pull this action
down a little bit you'll do that by
actually loosening the respective screws
on the saddle and you'll see that it
starts to bring the action of the string
down perfect now we come to adjusting
your pickup height chances are you don't
really have to do this it's more of a
tinkering thing than anything else the
pickup height is going to affect tone
and overall output so pickups are little
microphones the further away your pickup
is from the string the less output
you're going to receive but also a
little bit warmer tone may be the result
if the pickups are higher or closer to
the strings you're gonna have a louder
output but you're going to also have
maybe have a little bit of an abrasive
sound especially in each pickups
frequency range so like if your treble
pickup was really close to your strings
then you're gonna have a really biting
edgy sound which some people like
contrast that with the bass pickup with
the bass pickups real close to the
strings you're gonna have a big boomy
sound which can be good but I generally
like to be straight down the middle when
it comes to pickup height I generally
leave it with the manufacturer and don't
really have to push it too far out of
the way just depending on if you had to
adjust your action and maybe your
pickups are getting in the way you can
push them down a little bit but
generally the rule of thumb is between
two and three thirty seconds on your
machinist ruler between all the pickups
just set them there and then
adjust accordingly based on your ear so
here's the final tip I have for you in
this video and this is the last thing
you want to do when you are adjusting
your guitar setup and that is the
intonation so what we're gonna do is
first a little trick that I picked up
somewhere along the way I think I
actually picked this up when I was
touring the PRS Factory we're gonna turn
our tone knob down to about halfway and
we're gonna put our pickup selection on
the neck pickup and what this does is
essentially dole the overtones in your
guitar signal so if you've ever had a
tuner that kind of like bounces around
then this is gonna take care of that
problem you're getting rid of all those
juicy saturated overtones and
frequencies and pulling them out of the
signal just for a moment while we get
the intonation the tuning correct and by
the way we are gonna want to plug into
an actual physical tuner you don't want
to be using one of the headstock tuners
those just aren't quite as accurate
especially when we're doing something as
delicate as an intonation set so what
we're gonna do is play an a string for
example and we're gonna get that
perfectly in tune first and then with
our playing grip meaning you want to
actually fret the note how you would
play it because that's how you want it
to be in tune you don't want to press
too hard or not hard enough and then
when you actually play the guitar like
you would naturally won't be properly in
turn ated so with our playing grip we're
gonna fret the 12th fret of the a and
well looks like we're perfectly
intimated let's find one that's not
intimated how about the E string cut the
e perfectly in fret the 12th fret and
well maybe this guitar is a bad example
let's try the D string
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twelve fret
there we go all right so this is a
little bit sharp so what we want to do
is take our screwdriver and loosen that
saddle and just a small turns all we
need for that amount so as we can see
went a little too far
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perfect
and we're gonna want to tune that back
up a little bit now this should be
perfectly in tune make that adjustment
to all six strings whichever ones need
it and you are intimated well there you
have it my friends a bunch of
adjustments in maintenance tips from me
to you it's like you have a brand new
instrument isn't that nice until next
time keep shred
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