Basic Guitar Setup

The first step in setting up your guitar is to tune it to pitch, then it is time to :

1.   SET THE NECK RELIEF

First job is to clean the guitar, if the neck is very dirty use lighter fluid to clean it (never directly onto the guitar

always apply to a cloth), if the neck wood is very dry after this apply very sparingly linseed oil and wipe off any surplus

and allow to dry then polish the finger board and frets with a guitar polish.

Dirty guitars kill tone so this is a really important job.

Place a capo on the first fret, then hold down the A string at the last fret and

measure the distance between the top of the 8th fret and the bottom of the A string.

Fender standard is 12 thousandths of an inch or half a millimeter.

To adjust the neck relief turn the truss rod adjuster anti clockwise for more clearance

or clockwise for less, turn the nut one 1/8 th of a turn at a time, re tune and recheck.

Allow time for the truss rod to work.

Some players prefer a straighter neck with less clearance,  there is sometimes a compromise between

the amount of clearance and string height and clearance will also depend on how hard you play.

If the neck is very straight with little or no twist, I like to try for 8 thousandths of an inch or slightly less than

half a millimeter.

2.    SET THE STRING HEIGHT

Measure the 6th string from the top of the 12th fret to the bottom of the string, a basic set tup

would be 4/64ths of an inch or 1.5 millimeters,  set the 1st string at 3/64ths or just over one millimeter at the 12th fret,

then graduate the remaining strings using the same measuring method.

3.    SET PICKUP HEIGHT

Measure the height from the top of the pole piece to the bottom of the string, with the string

pushed down at the last fret.

Single coil pickups like Fenders 1/8th of an inch or 3 millimeters Bass side and

3/32nds of an inch or  2.5 millimeters treble side.

Humbucker pickups like Gibsons     neck pickup both treble and bass side   3/32nds or 2.5 millimeters

bridge pickup  both treble and bass side 1/16th of an inch or  2 millimeters.

EMG pickups,  adjust as close to the string as possible without the string hitting it

when playing.

This is a basic starting point, use your ears to fine tune the heights so that you get an even

sound from all six strings.

4.     SET THE INTONATION

Tune the string to pitch taking care to make very fine adjustments and to be very accurate.

Hold the string down at the 12th fret using normal playing pressure and play the string,

if the string is sharp move the bridge saddle back away from the neck, if it is flat move it

forward towards the neck until it tunes perfectly.

Never use harmonics to intonate the guitar as this will be highly inaccurate.

To aid tuning lubricate the nut slots and bridge saddles with silicone or graphite grease,

or an HB pencil will do.  This helps to equalize the string tension overall and aid tuning stability.

I recommend Peterson tuners as the are 10 times more accurate than the next best tuner and also

have sweetened tuning programs that will make your guitar sound great.