Your first gift to yourself for 2021

Basic Setup Tools. Image courtesy Stewart-MacDonald

If you are even marginally like me, you get pleasure from playing your guitar, regardless of where you fall in the continuum of skill. Sometimes however, a much loved instrument just isn't doing what you want, or feels "not quite right" to quote my English friends.

A new pedal, or new amp, or even a new guitar may take your mind off things for a bit but all are expensive to some degree or another, so consider a low cost investment in making that guitar great again.

How?

Get the guitar professionally set up.

I've been playing for over 45 years now and while I have built some skill in doing setups on all manner of guitars, it's safe to say that in that time, I have probably done over 200. Given the time required to become good at this skill, I would conservatively say that 50 have been decent jobs and still none as good as one done professionally.

A proper set up is a series of steps that go in a particular order and some of those steps involve tools that in the hands of an amateur can do more harm than good. Let me take you through the basic steps of a proper setup.

Get the old strings off and polish the frets. This is much more than using a rubbing stick from Amazon although at the minimum it doesn't hurt.

Check the frets themselves for flat spots and ensure that every fret has a proper crown that delivers minimal string contact. The more surface area of the fret that touches the string, the poorer the tone. That's why so many people struggle with the old Gibson "fretless wonders". If the frets are misshapen, or loose in the slot, STOP here and get your guitar to a trained and proven technician. If not, cover your pickups with masking tape and get yourself a set of fingerboard protectors. These come in different widths for different width frets. If you have a maple fingerboard mask off the fingerboard areas with low tack masking tape (like the blue painters masking tape - regular tape could lift the lacquer finish). Now GENTLY polish the frets with #0000 steel wool. This is going to leave detritus everywhere so put something that you can toss away under the neck first. When you do each fret one at a time, check it not only for lack of crown but for nicks and divots. After polishing and wiping, run your finger over the fret. If it does not feel perfectly smooth, STOP here and get your guitar to a trained and proven technician. You can play a guitar with damaged frets, but you may not like it, especially once you know you have damaged frets.

Side view of fretwire. Image courtesy Premier Guitar

The material used in fretwire varies. Stainless steel is most expensive and hardest to work. So called Nickel Silver has no silver at all and is typically 18% nickel and 82% copper and other metals. Popular fretwire suppliers are Dunlop, Jescar (not to be confused with Mandalorian Bescar armour - as far as we know) and Stewart-MacDonald. Stew-Mac is the best place to buy luthier's tools when you really want to learn and or make a mess of things.

If you do find flattened or damaged frets, your technician will be able to advise whether he or she can recover the frets using proper fret finishing tools or if it is time to have the neck refretted. Some people lose their sh*t when they think about refretting as if it will diminish the guitar. Does your car perform better with good brakes or bad brakes? A well played vintage guitar has likely already been refretted at least once. A refret job is not cheap, so think about the value of the instrument to you first. Also note that the type of fretwire used is one of the places where you find lower quality softer fretwire found on instruments made in the far east. Some builders are very specific about the fretwire that they use, but don't expect Dunlop or Jescar fretwire in a guitar built to sell under $500. I will talk about refret work in a different article.

A precision straight edge to determine if you have frets that are high or low. Image courtesy Stewart-MacDonald

Take a proper straight edge and measure the neck relief (amount of bow or lack thereof) with the strings off. If the neck has a lot of forward bow with no string tension, it's going to have more with strings on it. It takes time and experience to set the neck relief without strings and on many Fender guitars, you can only adjust the truss rod with the neck off. If when you check the truss rod, it is already tight and the neck is still forward bowed, STOP here and get your guitar to a trained and proven technician. The amount of bow that will work is going to be impacted by the strings that you use. Assume that if you are changing string gauges that some level of neck relief adjustment will be needed. If you are going from 0.010s to 0.009s there is adjustment required. If you are going from 0.008s to 0.011s more adjustment is required because you are increasing tension significantly.

Unbleached natural bone nuts. Image courtesy Stewart-MacDonald

The nut should then be examined for cracking and wear. A nut slot needs to allow the string to move without binding. If your guitar came with a plastic nut (many so called "bone" nuts are actually bone coloured plastic, yes F company I am looking at you) and you are sending the guitar in, you might consider having the nut changed to real bone (many players prefer the tone of bone although if you live in heavy distortion world, you probably won't notice a difference). Other options such as graphite or so called Tusq Ivory (a marketing name) exist. You want the strings to slide in the nut smoothly and ride in the slots enough so they don't pop out easily. Some guitars come from the factory with the string riding the top of the nut slot. This is a choice of course, but in my opinion, sub-optimal as I prefer the string to sit in the slot and do not care if the top if the nut is higher than the string in the nut. Your choice.

Next you want to measure the distance between the string and the first fret. Your technician can recommend the proper distance for you and to measure this you need a proper technician's ruler to measure from the top of the fret to the bottom of the string. You may need a magnifier to see the measurement. A nut slot that is not deep enough makes fretting at the first harder and one that is too low needs replacing. If the slot is too high, you can try a nut file. If you do, I recommend budgeting for the file, and a nut replacement by a competent technician since your odds of messing this up the first several attempts are high.

Before you restring, clean the fretboard. If the fretboard is not maple or lacquered maple, you can use one of the popular fretboard cleaner oils. There are a zillion of them. I have found that my preference is the Taylor branded fretboard oil. Apply gently and rub it into the wood a bit with your fingertip then wipe off. If the fretboard is untreated maple, a damp cloth followed by a dry cloth is ok. Lacquered maple can handle a gentle damp slightly soaped cloth, followed by a clean damp cloth and then a dry cloth. You don't want a lot of water because it can cause the wood to expand and also contribute to corrosion in the frets due to the high copper content.

Graph Tech String Saver Classic Saddles for Stratocaster bridge. Lined with teflon - no binding! Image courtesy Stewart-MacDonald

Examine the bridge saddles for burrs and sharp edges. If they exist, they are going to contribute to string binding and increased risk of breakage. Cheap bridges have cheap saddles. You can use a needle file and and then a cream polish to try to smooth them out but if the saddles are chromed, the chrome is going to come off.

My personal custom set of Extra Light Balanced Tension strings used on my Explorer, Flying V, Moderne and some Les Pauls made by Curt Mangan.

Put new strings on. Strings are relatively cheap, so don't try to reuse old strings. Use whatever strings that you like, but if you want maximum life before you have to change strings, consider one of the coated strings from D'Addario or Ernie Ball, or if you like, custom strings from a dedicated supplier such as Curt Mangan or StringJoy. There are many fine string brands, but not all brands actually make their own strings. Choosing strings is the subject of a different article.

Bring the strings up to tune whilst stretching them many times. Stretch now and enjoy stable tuning or don't stretch now and spend the next two weeks constantly retuning. Your choice. If you do not know how to stretch strings, a quick way is to bring the string to tune, then pull up on it. Then fret every other fret and keep pulling up. Once all the strings are done, tune to pitch and stretch the strings again. As an aside, I've noticed over the years that PRS guitars come with properly stretched strings and are typically in tune right out of the box. I have not found that with any other maker.

Now check the action of the strings. This is commonly done at the 12th fret using your luthier's ruler. A common setting is .4 for the high E and .7 for the low E. The higher the action the greater room the string has to move because a struck string vibrates in a mostly round pattern with anchor points at the saddle and the nut. Too low an action is going to create fret buzz. If you play through a bunch of Metal Zones all the time, you won't care probably, but if you don't there you go. Most acoustic guitars do not have adjustable saddles, so if the action is still too high or low after setting the neck and nut, STOP and get your guitar to a proven and experienced guitar technician. On electrics, there are a variety of ways to adjust the action from single string saddle adjustments such as found on Stratocaster style saddles (note that Mexican and Japanese made guitars have saddles that usually need metric Allen wrenches whereas American made guitars typically have saddles requiring Imperial Allen wrenches), or dual string saddles such as on most Telecasters, or a single height adjustable bridge such as Gibson style Tuneomatic bridges. Loosen off the strings a bit before changing the action, down a few full tones, and then retune up after adjusting. Check and refine until you are happy and the guitar "feels good" to you.

You won't find these fellows to set your action or intonation, but this is where the work gets done.

Finally set the intonation by comparing the tune state of the string fretted at the 12th against the harmonic at the twelfth. Remember "flat forward sharp back" If the fretted note is flat compared to the harmonic, you shorten the length of the string between nut and saddle by adjusting the saddle towards the neck. If the fretted note is sharp, you need to lengthen the string to move it backward. Use a proper tipped screwdriver and do adjustments no more than ¼ turn at a time. Once you have the harmonic and the fretted note within a few cents, you are good.

I say this because it is not possible to get a guitar in tune at all places on the fretboard. It just doesn't work. You can get close and this is where intonation lives. If you have an acoustic guitar, you probably have no intonation capability natively. If your bridge floats as on many arch top guitars, use blue painters tape to hold it to the body when the strings come off otherwise you will be in intonation hell after restringing.

This has been a long article defining a BASIC setup. You can do most of it yourself with time and practice. If it sounds like a pain or too much work, that is ok. That's where you work with a professional.

I am very fortunate to be able to do so. My local guitar store The ArtsMusic Store has a pair of great techs in Kevin and Braeden. They are trained pros with many years of experience and thousands of guitars worked on. I trust them with working on my guitars as I have worked with Kevin specifically for years. He not only knows guitars but he knows me and what I look for in a set up. For the cost of a proper setup (about $75 or so, not including strings or any custom work), I get back a guitar that I can play right away.

COVID-19 has increased demands on techs as more and more people are playing now. Also many guitar stores offer a free setup on the purchase of some guitars and with the exception of PRS Maryland built guitars, I have never had a factory guitar regardless of purchase price that did not need some work done on it to make it ideal. COVID requires that instruments be in quarantine for a bit to protect the technicians and many are booked solid weeks out. If you only have a single guitar, that can be discouraging.

While you can buy instruments on line and often not from proper guitar stores, bear in mind that all guitars need maintenance just like your car does. Finding a good tech to work with is an investment that you make for yourself. It will save you time, money and frustration. There has only ever been one time where Kevin could not fix an issue, but he alerted me to a defect in the manufacture of the instrument and to their complete credit, Gibson gave me a full refund for the defective instrument which I applied immediately to a guitar that ultimately has made me much happier. That particular 1960 Reissue ES-355 has gotten even better with a set of Stormy Monday pickups from Tim Mills and his team at Bare Knuckle Pickups. Kevin installed those pickups and did the setup that the factory new guitar still needed to be awesome.

A good setup can make that old instrument feel new again. I own a 1993 PRS Custom 22 that had fallen out of favour with me. The original owner had changed the HFS pickups for PRS Dragon I pickups which I found to be muddy. I hired Kevin to install the Bare Knuckle PG Blues pickups in the guitar, and he called me to note that over the years, this guitar was in desperate need of a full setup. I told him to go ahead, and I can say with enthusiasm that the PRS that had fallen from favour plays better than it ever has since I bought it used in 1995.

Invest in a proper setup and enjoy your guitar more. If you are in the area of Newmarket Ontario, I highly recommend the team at The Arts Music Store.