Changes

Setup/Adjustments

2,081 bytes added, 15:29, 8 April 2014
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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.