Setup/Adjustments
This page contains enough information for intermediate setup tweaks to your guitar. Any advanced setup alluded to here should be more thoroughly researched before being attempted.
Contents
Strings and String Gauge
See Strings.
Action
Action can generally be described as the distance between your strings and your frets when you are not fretting them, usually measured as the distance between any string and the top of the 12th (or sometimes 24th) fret. This depends on your nut height, your bridge height, and your truss rod tension (balanced against your string tension, which depends on string gauge and tuning). Properly setting up your action is way beyond the scope of this guide; we are only focusing on how action affects your tone, assuming whether you can set up your guitar correctly for your desired action.
High action is often regarded to have "better" tone (see below), but can be more difficult to play. I disagree - I think this is mainly due to poor setup in other areas, which causes a lower action to have too much fret buzz. It can also be more difficult to get a good intonation (making you sound out of tune). Low action runs the risk of fret buzz, especially when other aspects of your setup are bad or you pick aggressively and use a thick pick. For metal, fret buzz is a no-no (too noisy). I like a medium to low action across the board - high enough so that I don't get a strong buzz when I pick the strings at a low to medium stength.
A lot of people think action has little impact on tone, other than the amount of fret buzz. That might be true on a low-quality instrument or one that hasn't been set up properly because by the time you get the action low enough so that it affects tone, it's already getting quite a bit of sustaining buzz. With a great instrument well set up to allow a really low action with virtually no sustaining fret buzz, action has an impact on tone. At higher action, the strings don't have as much twang or pop to their attack and sustain a strong bass response. As you lower the action, the strings will occasionally hit the frets. This pop during attack can be regarded as good or bad. It tends to add a little brightness to the tone, and emphasizes pick attack strength.
My advice here is not to try to basically EQ your guitar tone through the action. And if you have a strong bass response, you can always EQ it out later, whereas you can't EQ it in if it wasn't there to begin with. A boost pedal does a much better job of filtering out too much mud than a low action.
For reference, Petrucci's tech said in some forum that he runs a super-low action: ~1mm at 12th fret for all strings (~1.2 - 1.3mm @24th fret). You can hear how much pop and how little bass (and how much buzz) this gives the tone in the intro solo to Hollow Years on the Live at Bukokan DVD. Petrucci's setup has been said to be absurdly low. Most low action shred setups are around 1.5 - 2mm on the high E string at the 24th fret. For more on this, see Ibanez Rules action setup page.
Fret Buzz
Fret buzz is the bane of most guitarists' existence. As such, there is so much stigma and strong language around it, that more novice players can be misled about what to expect from their instrument. This section is simply designed to clarify a few things.
Fret buzz is not the same thing as fretting out or choking. Fretting out is completely unacceptable - it means the string doesn't even have enough clearance above one or more frets higher than the one you're fretting to make a sustainable vibration. This can be caused by having your action too low, too much truss rod tension (making the fretboard side of the neck convex), or unlevel frets. A bit of fret buzz, on the other hand, is acceptable; as long as it isn't having a strong impact on your tone.
You should gauge the amount of fret buzz you are getting by playing through an amp using a clean tone, not simply listening to the guitar when it's not plugged in. All electric guitars tend to have a little buzz, but that won't necessarily be heard by the pickups. Some people may try to completely eliminate all acoustic buzzing, making their instrument near unplayable for absolutely no tonal benefit.
Eliminating (reducing) fret buzz uses multiple points of attack. First, I want to make sure I'm using thick-enough string gauges for the tuning I'm using (and the playability I desire). See above. The more tension on the strings, the smaller their vibrational amplitude for a given volume, and the less fret buzz they'll produce. If I can accept a little more buzz for ease of play, I use a guitar with lighter strings. And when I say a desirable amount of buzz, I mean just a touch of it on the very initial part of my attack. I don't want it to occur through (and kill) my attack, and I definitely don't want it continue as I sustain. And again, I don't use that guitar for metal.
Next, make sure your neck is virtually flat. You need to adjust your truss rod to counter-balance the tension the strings exert on one side of the neck, but you still want the neck to have a little bow to it for the frets closest to the nut to avoid fret buzz. Again, Ibanez Rules action setup page is a good reference. Be careful when doing a truss rod adjustment - you don't want to turn more than a quarter turn without giving the neck time to adjust to the new tension. Make sure you're turning the right direction too. If this is your first time, have an experienced friend or commercial technician demonstrate the process for you. Or do lots of internet research. Also, be sure to re-tune to ensure the neck is receiving the right amount of tension after adjustments.
Finally, I want to raise my bridge (either adjusting the saddles or the entire bridge depending on the type of bridge). I'll raise it a bit at a time, retune at least one string to test, and see how much buzz I get playing a medium amount of pick strength across at a couple frets from 1-12. Make sure you retune after any bridge adjustment. If you raise the bridge, you may be tightening the string(s), resulting in less buzz...until you actually tune to the proper note. Or vice versa. If you are adjusting via individual saddles, be sure to keep the saddles at the same relative heights as the fretboard radius. If you already have the saddles fit to the fretboard radius, it's usually best to adjust the two bridge posts when possible. Also, watch out for how floating trem bridges make contact with the posts. You generally want the knife edges to hit at a perfect 90 degrees. This will vary with the bear claw tension in the back cavity of the guitar as well as the string gauge, tuning, bridge height, saddle heights. You basically have to adjust everything at once, slowly moving closer and closer to the ideal setup.
Beyond those adjustments, the only way to get your action lower with the same amount of buzz is to have the frets re-leveled or the nut filed down. I would get a professional to do such modifications, although there are plenty of tutorials on the web that can help you. I'd try to find several of them, as some may make them sound way easier than they are. Filing and/or replacing your nut is the far simpler of the two, but you'll need precise tools to do it at a professional level.
Intonation
Intonation is basically how in tune the guitar is at different frets and strings. If a guitar is intonated poorly, it will sound out of tune when playing notes higher on the fretboard. Chords will be notably dissonant when they shouldn't be.
Most people don't pay much attention to intonation, yet it is absolutely crucial to sound good, especially in a band or recording environment. It's also a fairly simple and risk-free adjustment, although it may take a little time.
The easiest way to intonate the guitar is by comparing the pitch of the 12th fret harmonic vs. the fretted note. If the fretted note is sharper than the harmonic, the string must be lengthened, which usually involves moving the individual bridge saddle away from the nut. If it is flatter, then the string must be shortened by moving the saddle closer to the nut. Be sure to re-tune the guitar after each adjustment - this is especially important with a floating bridge, where string tension affects action. Once all your strings are intonated, you'll notice it will sound much better across the fretboard, especially for chords.
Note that intonation is also dependent on the rest of your setup, particularly your action. If you have a high action, you have to press the string down a significant distance to fret it, which is adding tension (and possibly length) to the string. This is why it is difficult to intonate a guitar with high action. You can match the 12th harmonic to the 12th fretted note, but other spots on the fretboard may not be consistently in tune. The same principle applies to a guitar with a high nut height. You have to exert more tension on the frets close to the nut to properly fret them, causing them to be sharper than other areas of the neck.
Thus, I like to intonate using at least 2-3 comparisons. I'll start with the 12th harmonic vs 12th fret, then I'll try the 7th fret vs. 19th fret. If that's off, maybe I need to lower my action a little. Then I'll try the 2nd fret vs. 14th. If there's a discrepancy there, it tells me how much impact my nut height is having on getting a proper intonation. If I can't get all of these 3 tests perfect, I'll compromise and get all 3 as close as possible rather than have one perfect and the other 2 way off.
Keep in mind that lower quality instruments might have issues with the nut or possibly even with the fret spacing. Unlevel frets can also throw off intonation, making it impossible to intonate. Technically, perfect intonation is impossible - the best you can do is a compromise to get all the notes as close to in-tune as possible.
Pickup Height
Passives
Too low and you lose SNR and your dynamic response gets messed up, too high and you get input clipping on your device, as well as "pole pull", which can screw up your intonation and kill sustain. I recommend allowing them to have a safe distance. Also, don't confuse output level with SNR. Raising your pickups will increase their output level, but it is probably not improving their SNR unless they were very low (or extremely weak) to start.
Actives
This depends on the type of active pickup. Some have weaker magnets and need to be placed closer to the strings. Others will suffer similar problems as above, or introduce new issues.
EMG recommends you to put them as close as possible. I followed this advice when I had these pickups and never noticed any problems with doing so. Of course, don't put them so close the string ever hits the pickup or it interferes with your picking stroke.
For SD Blackouts, this is where things get a little interesting. The pickups seem to have some kind of buffer, so they will not output above a certain level. So it's like a limiter effect. If you raise them close, you will actually reduce the dynamics to your attack. I prefer to keep a medium distance on these pickups. They work pretty well at a distance. I actually have them as low as possible on my custom Jem (which actually isn’t THAT low). Even with some distance, they still have a higher-than-normal output. But if you go too low, you’ll notice you can’t get good artificial harmonics or softer notes to sound good.
Bridge
I can't tell you much about how this type of bridge material will affect your tone, but I do know that a fixed bridge will best maximize your frequency response and sustain. If you have a floating bridge, you may lose a little brightness (or some thickness) - something to keep in mind for pickup selection and tone editing. You can use a Tremel-no or put a block of wood under the bridge to keep it from floating. I recommend the Tremel-no – it allows you to switch on the fly by turning a thumb-screw.
Also, if you have a Stat type bridge (whammy dives only) or floating bridge, I recommend stuffing the bear claw cavity in the back of the guitar with Kleenex or cotton balls or gauze. This will keep the springs from making any noise, so that they do not ring after you play a note. This is essential for hard rock and metal, where you use lots of compression/distortion and have to play punchy rhythm or lead sections that require you to quickly mute all the strings. This is a common technique, not some ill-thought-out hack. Similarly, mute the strings between the nut and tuners to prevent them from ringing. I like to use sticky-tack (earthquake putty), but you can also use foam or a wristband.
Nut
The nut is an often overlooked area of the guitar. It needs to be positioned properly for the guitar to intonate correctly. It has a strong affect on the action. An improperly filed nut can cause tuning and sustain issues or cause buzzing/ringing on open strings. I recommend having a professional adjust your nut. To file it correctly it is best done with specialized filing tools, which are too costly to justify a one-time use. I like my nut to be like the 0th fret - providing a similar clearance over the 1st fret for open strings as they have over the 2nd fret when fretting the 1st fret. Any lower and they'll buzz. Any higher and intonation is off and action is unnecessarily high. The strings should make firm contact with the nut right where they leave the nut and travel over the fretboard. The grooves should point directly towards the tuning pegs. They should be wide enough to fit the string in easily and so that it doesn't pinch when tuning or bending. It also has to be smooth so the string slides easily over it and doesn't break. But it can't be so wide as to allow the string to rattle in the groove. They have to be deep enough so the strings don't pop out, but shallow enough so the strings can easily fit into and out of the nut.
The simplest and easiest tweak to help fix a nut is to draw in the grooves with a pencil. The graphite will lubricate the string's movement in the groove, so it doesn't pinch. This helps keep your strings in tune better.
Body/Fretboard/Tuners/Neck-through
Some people claim all the "tone" is in other parts of the guitar. I've had people tell me I gotta get such-and-such tuners, or this kind of fretboard, or a neck-through design, or a body made of this kind of wood, or this kind of paint job, etc. etc. While all these things certainly will affect the tone, I don't think they have nearly as much impact as the things I mentioned above. Very popular artists that have all achieved highly desirable tones throughout the ages have used a very wide variety of such things. Most fretboards are rosewood, but EVH played a maple one mostly. Jimmy Page used a 10+ lb. Les Paul, yet Steve Vai's Jem's are like 4 lbs.
Get tuners that help best tune your guitar. Set the guitar up properly. Worry about body weight and your bridge setting for sustain rather than tone. Paint the guitar the color you want. If any of these things really adversely affect the tone, you can generally use pickups that help counter these affects. For example, if they make your tone bright and thin, use pickups that are a bit darker. If your tone is dull, get bright pickups. Yes, you may lose a bit of potential tone; theoretically, you should maximize the richness of the tone towards your desired tone for every component. But you're not a rocket scientist, nor are you likely going to be able to build your guitar component by component.
Of course, this has limitations. If you're thinking about buying a guitar that sounds really dull, you won't achieve great results by getting really bright pickups. You can't EQ in frequencies that never existed to begin with. My main point here is don't sweat the small stuff. You'll likely get relatively larger tonal improvements by properly setting up your guitar and using good pickups than by spending a fortune building a 100% custom guitar. And your guitar will only get you so far. Even a great guitar still sounds like crap going straight to the board. You need the compression, EQ, and distortion that only post-guitar processing/amplifiers can give you.
My Advice on DIY vs. Pay a Pro
DIY
- Raise or Lower Bridge Posts
- Raise or Lower Bridge Saddles
- Adjust Truss Rod
- Tighten the Bear Claw Springs
- Change to Different String Gauges/Tuning
- Raise/Lower Pickups
- Move the bridge saddles towards/away from the nut - for intonation
Call the Guy
- Level and Crown the Frets
- File the Nut
- Anything I Don't Feel I Fully Understand
- Anything that Requires a Tool I Don't Have to be Done Correctly
Special Considerations
- If you have a floating bridge, changing string gauges or tunings can be a pain to do all the adjustments - if you are impatient, pay a pro
- Some bridges have a 3rd or more screws/posts connecting the bridge to the guitar body. Make sure you know how these operate before adjusting. Raising or lowering the main posts may put extreme tension on these, causing them to rip out of the body or break the bridge, etc.
- If you have a floating bridge, you may also have a double-locking metal nut, which cannot be filed down like a normal nut. You actually have to remove the nut and sand down the part of the neck it connects to. Definitely call the guy.
- If your instrument is old and valuable, you may want to leave it to the pros - Simply slipping with a screwdriver and scratching the guitar could be a costly error.
- If you live in the middle of nowhere, and there is no guy; you can look to ship it to notable luthiers or you will have to buy tools and do things yourself.