Confession

[erogenousjones17]

I have a confession to make: I don't set up my own guitars. Or rather I do, but I don't know what I'm doing. I have Erlewine's book (I've even read it) and still, any success I've had in tinkering with my guitars seems to be the result of pure dumb luck.

Fiddling with the set-up of a guitar I assembled is one thing. Now it's my beloved Gretsch that needs a fine-tuning. The first few frets on the high E side are dead-ish, there's a fair bit of buzz all around and the strings need to be changed. I don't have a case for it, so I can't bring it to a tech. The time, it seems, is ripe for learning.

The thing that has me most firghtened is that it plays like a dream (at the very least, it feels exactly how I want a guitar to feel). How do I fix it without losing that? Where do I start? Relief? Bridge height? Something else I haven't even thought of?

Help me, wise forumites!

 

[mayfly]

The first place to start is to measure! 

Measure the neck relief
Measure the action at the 12th. & at the 1st.
Measure the straightness of the neck. 

Once you have that, then you'll know what to do next.

 

[rapfohl09]

I have a confession to make: I don't set up my own guitars. Or rather I do, but I don't know what I'm doing. I have Erlewine's book (I've even read it) and still, any success I've had in tinkering with my guitars seems to be the result of pure dumb luck.

Fiddling with the set-up of a guitar I assembled is one thing. Now it's my beloved Gretsch that needs a fine-tuning. The first few frets on the high E side are dead-ish, there's a fair bit of buzz all around and the strings need to be changed. I don't have a case for it, so I can't bring it to a tech. The time, it seems, is ripe for learning.

The thing that has me most firghtened is that it plays like a dream (at the very least, it feels exactly how I want a guitar to feel). How do I fix it without losing that? Where do I start? Relief? Bridge height? Something else I haven't even thought of?

Help me, wise forumites!

I am in the same exact boat man. I have tried a few times to get really technical and follow instructions the best I can, but have sort of given up on it. I can get it to a good point, but I take it to someone else if I want it to be great.

It also might be that we are our own worst critic, little things that won't normally bother you bother you to no end simply because you did it yourself and "could have done it better".

 

[BigSteve22]

I had a real bitch of a time until I realized it was the nut that was causing my problems. A quick trip to a local tech to properly cut the nut and all is well. The tech set it up to his specs, but I was able to tweak it to my liking. Thanks to Cagey for posting some great suggestions.