If you think about the physics of a guitar and how it works, you might realize that how things are attached and where they sit relative to the other parts is all important to having a musical instrument and not just a bunch of wood, wires and magnets.
A “Setup” is how you make sure all of these parts in their correct place for optimal sound and playability. Think of a setup as a tuneup for your guitar. You always need to tuneit, like keeping gas in a car. But you don’t always need to do a setup, like changing the spark plugs in the car.
A basic setup can be broken down into 5 or 6 steps (the 6th step involves floating a tremolo, so not applicable to every guitar.) But, for the most parts the other 5 steps are used on nearly any electric guitar1 you might have. Let’s enumerate:
Many of these setup steps can, and should, be tailored to the player. Some, like really low action, some like it higher. It’s a personal thing and that is why you need to learn to do this yourself. It needs to feel right to you, not a guitar tech. Now, I’m not bashing guitar techs.. They will do orders of magnitude better setups than I will and they are great for that initial store setup so you can play the guitar and decide if it’s good for you or not. But, once you have it and you’ve changed strings, or just carried it around through changing temperatures and humidity, things will move and you need to learn to get it all back in spec.
If you get to know a guitar tech and they can learn what you want, they will do a fantastic job… for a price. For about what one setup costs, you can get the few tools needed and do it your self, whenever you want, for free. I spot check, and adjust the setup, where needed, every time I change strings.
So, what are these steps? Let’s take a closer look.
Let’s go back to physics for a moment. Take a beam, fix it at one end and then pull on the other end back towards the fixed end with strong wire. If you put enough tension on the wire and leave it, over time, you will eventually warp the stick. The same thing will happen to your guitar neck. To limit any problems, usually, there is a metal rod, a “truss rod”, embedded in the neck. The truss rod’s purpose is to counter-balance the tension on the guitar strings and keep the neck from warping.
It also adds “relief”. If a neck were totally flat, or had a convex bend to it, the guitar won’t play as the string will hit frets along the neck and buzz, or just play the wrong note. If the neck has too concave, the string will be so high above the fret board the guitar will be uncomfortable to play.
There will be a place to attach a tool; a hex key, or a screwdriver, depending on your model. The is used to tighten or loosen the truss rod. Every new guitar I’ve purchased came with a set of hex keys, one for the truss rod and another, smaller key for the bridge adjustments.
Turn clockwise to tighten the rod and thus relax the relief (increase back-bow), turn counter clockwise to increase the relief.
Back-bow isn’t good as the upper frets will buzz. To much relief isn’t good either as the strings will be too far above the fretboard making the guitar difficult to play.
Adjusting the bridge height will affect how far the strings are from the fretboard during normal playing. This done at the bridge and there are many types of bridges. Fender, for the most part, uses a bridge made up of individual, adjustable saddles, allowing for raising and lowering each string individually to get the action height right where you want it. Gibson and Gretch use a Tune-o-Matic type bridge that can only be adjust at either end of the bridge, so one for the bass side and another for the treble side.
The Nut is the more difficult part of the setup, at least in my opinion. Mainly because you have to cut, sand, shape the nut itself and file the slots for each string. This is simplified with some string size specific files. If you don’t get the slots right you might end up with the string having a kind of sitar sound. Not buzzing, but also not clean.
The other problem with this step is if you go too far with the cutting, you may end up with the action too low on the first fret. To some extent you can shim the nut, but realistically you will need to get another nut and start over. Given how difficult it’s been to find the correct nut for my old Strat, when I found one that worked, I bought 4 of them.
This step is how you make the neck in tune with itself. An open “E” and an “E” at the 12th fret should both register as an “E” on a tuner. If the 12th fret is sharp or flat, you need to adjust the bridge saddles froward or backward, effectively making the string shorter or longer, thus moving the “octave” point to the 12th fret.
If the 12th fret is sharp, then the string is “not long enough” for tension it takes to put the string in tune. So it is sharp. The solution is to make the string longer. (the distance between the nut and the 12th fret never changes, it’s the length from the 12th fret to the bridge that needs to be longer. By turning the screw such that the saddle moves backwards (making the string effectively longer) you can bring the octave into tune with itself.
The distance between the top of the pickup magnet and the string greatly effects how the guitar sounds. Again, a personal taste thing. Usually there are screws on or near the pickup that allow you to move them up or down.
This step is a little more complex because you have to mess with the trem in parallel with the above steps. The purpose is to set the bridge where we want it when the guitar is tuned up. In this picture, the back of the trem is “floating” above the guitar deck, allowing for it to move with the trem arm.
There are other types of Tremolo systems, like Floyd Rose, Bigsby. These are beyond the scope, for now.
There’s more like fret leveling and polishing.. There’s always more.
Back in the 70’s there were no easy resources for learning how to do this. But, today, YouTube is flush with How-To videos on the Setup Process (it’s where I learned). You might even find a guide specific for your guitar make and model.
Next, I’ll be setting up my Telecaster and get into the various steps in more detail.