Guitar Set-Ups & Fine Tunings

[Tennroots]

When you folks replace your nuts, saddles and bridge pins with a better quality than came from the factory, do you do it yourself or have the work done by a qualified luthier?

 

I have an 2007 J45 TV that came with bone everything from Bozeman, I had some fret buzz going on so I took it to my favorite luthier, ended up having a complete fret level job, the saddle height was off Gibson specs and the bone nut was slotted at an incorrect angle. Now nothing had been done to since it's left Montana, have any of you had your guitar fine tuned after receiving it new from your local dealer?

 

I didn't know any of this and it has really improved the tone and playability of my J45. The sustain of notes has greatly improved, there's a bell tone clarity that I'd never heard this guitar produce. I didn't realize there was really anything going on but some fret noise and thought the guitar sounded fine - but it reality it didn't, wasn't at it's potential level at all.

 

Just thought I'd share.

[BT Bob]

About a year after buying my '09 Songwriter Deluxe Standard I took it to my local luthier for a set-up - expecting him just to lower the action.

 

He did just that, but also cut some compensation into the saddle on the B & high E strings. In addition he cut the nut slots a bit deeper because he wasn't happy with the action at the 1st fret!

 

The nut & Saddle are both bone (from the factory). The bridge-pins are, I think, tusq (or whatever they came with from the factory)..

[rar]

Now nothing had been done to since it's left Montana, have any of you had your guitar fine tuned after receiving it new from your local dealer?

 

There are at least three good reasons to always have a setup done -- or doing it yourself, if you know-how and the want-to -- on a new factory-built guitar.

 

(1) The factory setup is what might be called a "generic conservative" setup. It's generic in that the optimal setup for you depends on your tastes and playing style. Obviously, the best the factory can even do, even in theory, is to provide an optimal setup for a purely hypothetical typical player. But this is where conservative part comes in: in practice, it's a lot easier to lower a saddle or nut slot than it is to raise it, so the factory leaves the nut slots and saddle high enough so that very few would want them higher on a guitar ideally set up for them. If it weren't for the fact that many potential buyers would reject guitars as being too hard to play that merely needed to be setup for them, it would make sense to leave the nut slots and saddles even higher (c.f. the super-long sleeves and pant legs on mass-produced suits) -- except that big changes in these can affect tone and potential buyers do need to be able to make their best guess at the guitar's post-setup tone. (Unfortunately, there's no analogue of pinning up the sleeves and cuffs when trying out guitars.)

 

(2) The "quality" of the setup at the factory may need to be improved. (This isn't a good way of saying it, but I couldn't think of a better one.) I'm talking about things like the fret leveling you found necessary. The frets are never absolutely, perfectly, mathematically level -- and, if, per impossible, they were, they wouldn't be after the first time you fretted a string. So the question is never "Are the frets level?", it's "Are they level enough?" This depends on the rest of the setup and how you play. Your guitar almost certainly left the factory with the frets "level enough" given its nut slot depths, saddle height, neck relief, neck angle, ... for an average player, as QA checks this right before it goes into the case and gets shipped off to the dealer. But after your setup guy lowers the nut slots, lowers the saddle, and straightens the neck, the frets may no longer be level enough for your playing style. Now, in an ideal world, the frets could be leveled at the factory to the point where they'd rarely if ever require leveling as part of the initial setup, no matter how low the action. (That's why people often think the necessity of a fret leveling in a typical "as low as possible without buzzing"-type setup as a quality issue, although it really isn't.) But that would cost more money -- say, for enough Plek machines to do the job. I suspect the idea is that it's better to make appropriate fret leveling an expected part of the standard personalized setup, for people who bother with one (a minority, unfortunately), rather than charging everyone for something that doesn't benefit most people.

 

(3) Even if a guitar were set up perfectly for you at the factory, it won't be perfectly setup for you when you buy it weeks (or months or even years) later. Both internal factors (the pieces of wood figuring out that they're now part guitar parts and adjusting themselves to the stresses they're experiencing accordingly) and external factors (humidity is the biggie) change the setup as time goes by, even if nothing is "done" to the guitar. That's why getting a guitar set up every once in awhile should be considered standard maintenance, like changing the strings, if you're the least bit fussy.

 

-- Bob R

[suburude63]

I think it is wise to take it to a good set up guy who knows what he is doing. I take all mine to one guy! Hes a great player for about 40 years. He has a great ear and knows what they are supposed to get out of that box. Its worth every penny paid !

[Danner]

When you folks replace your nuts, saddles and bridge pins with a better quality than came from the factory, do you do it yourself or have the work done by a qualified luthier?

 

I have an 2007 J45 TV that came with bone everything from Bozeman, I had some fret buzz going on so I took it to my favorite luthier, ended up having a complete fret level job, the saddle height was off Gibson specs and the bone nut was slotted at an incorrect angle. Now nothing had been done to since it's left Montana, have any of you had your guitar fine tuned after receiving it new from your local dealer?

 

I didn't know any of this and it has really improved the tone and playability of my J45. The sustain of notes has greatly improved, there's a bell tone clarity that I'd never heard this guitar produce. I didn't realize there was really anything going on but some fret noise and thought the guitar sounded fine - but it reality it didn't, wasn't at it's potential level at all.

 

Just thought I'd share.

 

 

Hmm, sounds like you went in for an oil change, and they sold you a full engine rebuild. Probably just needed the truss rod adjusted a quarter turn or so.

[Tennroots]

Hmm, sounds like you went in for an oil change, and they sold you a full engine rebuild. Probably just needed the truss rod adjusted a quarter turn or so.

No the luthier explained everything they were doing and why, it ties in with what "rar" so articulately explained and it makes perfect sense to me now.

[nodehopper]

No the luthier explained everything they were doing and why, it ties in with what "rar" so articulately explained and it makes perfect sense to me now.

 

 

I also heard this guitar before and after. There is a VERY noticeable different in the sound quality after the set up. I have also taken guitars to this particular shop. They are not a guitar shop or music store, they are Luthiers who opened a store front and do custom set-ups, beautiful custom inlays, repair work ....etc. They make wonderful guitars too. I highly recommend them to anyone in the Sacramento Area.

 

Sonfather_Guitars

[BigKahune]

Saddle/pin change - I bought Colosi preset bone and adjusted the height myself.

 

Minor nut changes like a tight slot, slot too shallow or deep I handle.

 

Minor truss tweaks I handle.

 

Minor action adjustments I handle.

 

Replacing the nut, fret level/dress, neck adjustment, full setup goes to my shop guys - Elderly Instruments.

[Hall]

Maybe, just don't let the big boys set the action too low!

[RASHARU]

I've bought several "Colosi" ivory saddles in the past for various guitars that I've owned. No doubt that they were all of the highest quality.

 

With that being said, I'd like to mention that I eventually ran across the "vintage" (dyed & slightly softer) BONE saddle blanks from StewMac. I'd never been a big fan of bone but after I hand-shaped a custom saddle for my Breedlove Pro, I fell in love with the "boomy", slightly dimenished tone. I always thought that the trebs sounded harsh & shrill with ivory. Just too dagg-on much good resonance I suppose. I actually found this to be true on several different guitars with many different brands of strings. The softer vintage bone just seems to fit my ear better. The bass still booms & the trebs are tamed a tad.

 

I'm always looking for that perfect set-up to help bridge the gap between fingerstyle play & flatpickin'. I began as a Classical style player & I just can't seem to give it up.