Dylan McKerchie

Neck Angle... Many guitars with bolt on necks have no neck angle. This means that when the neck relief is set to zero, the fretboard surface is parallel to the body. Some guitars have some degree of neck angle, usually 2-6 degrees. Why? The first reason is simply age. Guitars are usually made of different types of wood that were cut and dried at different times. As things age, things move. What was once a perfectly set up instrument may have changed with time. No matter the quality of the original build. Because of the amount of neck relief needed...

Guitar Setup... There are no rules. Over the last week, we discussed the various aspects of guitar setup Truss Rod Adjustment String Height Nuts Intonation Many of the specs mentioned in these articles and videos are middle of the road spec for using average weight strings, and playing in a normal tuning. There are a large number of players that don't use these strings and tunings, Tuning down a whole step, using much heavier strings, and playing with higher action is very common. When people start using these alternate setups, the "textbook" specs go out the window. The Principles Stay...

Intonation is Key.... No matter how good your guitar "feels" if it always sound a bit out of tune, it will be very frustrating. Not only will it sound bad, there will be harmonics and overtones the simply will not be possible. The Great Compromise As we discussed in the preceding articles, on the Neck Relief, the String Height, and the Nut, we saw how key each of these adjustments were to your overall playability and to your overall tone. Since there is no right answer for what each of these measurements should be, understanding how they all work together...

Keys to Tone part 3... Nuts After talking about Neck relief HERE, and string height HERE, the next section of our series on guitar setup is the nut. This may be the most important thing. The Nut When we discussed the role of sound waves in an electric guitar, we determined that the nut was a key factor in our tone. How the nut is cut and the material  that is is made of can have a HUGE effect on the tone. Less expensive plastic nuts can sound dull and wear quickly. Tusq and other synthetics are more "slick" and...

Keys to Tone Part 2... String Height In part one of our series on Setup found HERE, we talked about setting neck relief. The next step especially on a guitar that just needs a little tweaking, is string height. There are few different methods and tools that are used to do this, but the basic idea is to adjust the saddle height at the bridge to be as low as reasonably possible to give you the desired playing feel. One important factor in this is matching the string height of each string to the radius of the fret board. This...