JMick Posted January 11, 2015 Posted January 11, 2015 Curious to learn everyone's thoughts on the idea of a setup for a brand new electric guitar. My new guitar in this case will be a brand new Heritage H157. Do new electric guitars, mine specifically, require a setup upon factory build? I have to betray my ignorance here. I don't even know what actually goes into a "setup," whether such a process is essentially standardized or highly variable depending on wants and needs. (for example, could one simply take an electric guitar into a shop and say "give her a setup please, john!" and that would be that?) I know there are different schools of thought on fret work (PLEK machine vs. by hand / file), but would a brand new guitar need fretwork? And if so, why? Is intonation part of a standard setup? And again, does a brand new guitar require intonation work? I realize this is a lot of questions in one post... Thanks in advance to all the resident experts!
PaGator Posted January 11, 2015 Posted January 11, 2015 Really depends on the guitar and the situation. The guitar will ship with a set from the factory, however, weather change, travel etc. can affect the guitar in transport. The dealer should do a local set up based on your personal preferences for high or low action. Intonation should be part of a set up. On a new guitar, if there are issues with the frets (not level, end not filed correctly, etc.) the shop should correct this for you, however, the shop may go back to the manufacturer for reimbursement for this. Plekking is a whole other matter, if a manufacturer doesn't offer this and you want this as a customer, I believe this would be at your own cost. Hope that helps.
mars_hall Posted January 11, 2015 Posted January 11, 2015 I have not received a guitar from anyone that I have not adjusted to my own personal tastes. The degree of adjustment depends on how far the tastes of the guy that touched it before you differ from your idea of what is good.
FredZepp Posted January 11, 2015 Posted January 11, 2015 The Prospect that I recently picked up is a 2013, but obviously had not had a set-up after leaving the plant. The first tell-tale sign was that the saddles in the bridge were perfectly straight across, so no way it had had the intonation done. I slightly tightened the truss rod and a bit of adjustment on the bridge. Nothing major and I'm used to doing these kind of tune ups. I'm currently working on getting the pickups ( height and polepieces ) set where I want, but that is something you pretty much have to do yourself based on what you want to hear... if you like it now, then it's fine. If it looks like someone has done the intonation on yours, they may have already done these steps before you received it.
Kuz Posted January 11, 2015 Posted January 11, 2015 I have not received a guitar from anyone that I have not adjusted to my own personal tastes. The degree of adjustment depends on how far the tastes of the guy that touched it before you differ from your idea of what is good. +10000000000000000000 I take guitars to be serviced occasionally, frets, electronics, PLEK'd, cut the nut, ect..... But when it comes to action, intonation, truss rod relief, ect., I do this all myself. Nobody can adjust the guitar (or take the proper time to) adjust it to my specs. SO I have the luthier or tech do the other stuff and I tell them I will do my own set up. I never pay for a setup that I can do to my specs. My specs, on all my guitars, are 4/64 on the low E, 3.5/64 on the high E, just a touch of relief (except the archtops- no relief dead straight neck), ect.....
DetroitBlues Posted January 11, 2015 Posted January 11, 2015 For as little as setups usually cost, just pay for a setup. Unless of course it feels great to you right out of the box.
buzzy Posted January 11, 2015 Posted January 11, 2015 My answer is: yes AND it depends. Yes, I like to at least tweak every guitar that I bring home, new or used. I've gone so far as taking a radius block to the frets of a brand new PRS; but in my opinion, that's what it needed to feel right to me. AND, it depends on how the instrument feels in my hands and how it sounds amplified. I've received new and used guitars that needed next to nothing. I put few hours on the guitar first: fix the obvious early; do one thing at a time to evaluate the change; play the guitar +20 hours before I do anything invasive - well, I did decide to rip the pickups out of an Epi Joe Pass within less than a minute after hearing them amplified. I'm not afraid of a guitar that needs a setup; I'm afraid to expect too much from wood & metal before it knows its a guitar.
JMick Posted January 11, 2015 Author Posted January 11, 2015 Thank you all for the great feedback. I don't have the benefit of years of electric playing under my belt, so I don't even know how to tell what I'd want changed. Apart from the action and maybe the intonation, I wouldn't even begin to know how to assess all the other variables everyone has mentioned. That being said, I'll probably postpone much of that work until I have the first clue about what's going on with the guitar. This is definitely making me wish I had stuck with the electric 10 years ago... this would be much easier. Hopefully the new guitar won't need much in order to sound and feel right to me but I guess if something is off, I'll ask for help again here.
Kuz Posted January 12, 2015 Posted January 12, 2015 That sounds like a very good plan. Your new guitar will sound and play well. But it may need some fine adjustments (setting the action) to suit your playing style & taste. Setting the action is not just as simple as it may seem. The action is based off the bridge height, the relief of the neck, and even the height at the nut. So if you have an acoustic that you love the playing action on, measure the low E and high E string heights at the 12th fret (or take the acoustic to your guitar tech) and have them match the action of the electric to the acoustic. I have my acoustics set pretty close to the action of my electrics, but most people adjust their electrics with lower action than their acoustics.
yoslate Posted January 12, 2015 Posted January 12, 2015 I worked for a fabulous tech for a while. Set ups are part luthier, part you. Any luthier worth his salt will ask you about your playing style, string preferences, and then ask you to play a little. For our set ups, we would tighten the tuners (mounting screws, hex nut, screw-set tuning keys), lube the truss rod nut, tweak the rod to get the board level (not everyone agrees on relief, but the customer may throw in his $.02 there), check nut height and slots, check for high frets and fret wear, polish the frets, oil the board, adjust bridge height to get the action to customer spec (Kuz's numbers are pretty popular), radius the saddles if possible, set the intonation (Man are the old Conn Strobotuners wonderful for that!), check pickup height and output balance, clean the pots, and buff the guitar. I love doing set ups, and the cool thing about working with Tom was that we did a lot of them, and he never hurried me. He always thought set ups were the calling card of a good luthier.
High Flying Bird Posted January 12, 2015 Posted January 12, 2015 When I bend strings I want the string next to the one I am bending to to be higher up on my finger tip to help deaden it. So I play with a high action. When I get a new guitar I jack up the action, especially on the high strings. I also turn the nut 1/4 turn on the truss rod in the direction where there is a slight bow between the nut and the bridge - where the space between the fretboard and strings at the 12th fret is larger than the rest of the fretboard. I am sure Kuz is throwing up a little in the back of his throat when he reads this... this in NPR. ;^)
JMick Posted January 12, 2015 Author Posted January 12, 2015 It is a real crime none of you guys are in the northwest Florida area. I'm not sure where to take this thing. I may have to go to New Orleans...
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