What s a "Set-up"  ?

Setting up a guitar or a bass for the 1 st time is always a challenge."Setting up" means to correct or to adjust the settings of an instruments to the hand of it s owner. No matter if your instrument is a vintage, a high end or a cheap one, they all need to have a correct set up to sound and play nice. It s not always easy to understand and put to practice what a musician wants. In my opinion, there is no such thing as an" absolute way " to setup a guitar. There are rules and methods of course to setup the intonation or the action but they must be adapted to the specific needs and desires of the player. Extremly low action might be great for some, it might be hell for others who would play with a bottleneck or even just hit the strings harder and therefore would turn that poor old Tele into a fret buzzing machine. What is the best for one may be the worst for another. Some would prefer very heavy strings when others will prefer lighter ones, some like to have their tremolo "floating" some like it all the way down against the body etc etc etc  ...

The instruments itself tho has it s limits and sometimes it wouldn t be wise to go against them. It may result in permanent damage to your instrument. If i feel that the customer s request is simply beyond his instrument s limits, I would simply politely refuse to do the job and advice you to reconsider your options before you get your guitar slaughtered !

Basic steps of  typical Set-up :

(Click on the link for details and pictures)

	General check up of the instrument to make sure nothing is severely damaged or missing
	Control of the pots, jack outputs, pick ups and wiring
	General cleaning of the body and parts
	Cleaning of the fingerboard and polishing of the frets
	Restringing
	Control of the frets and nut
	Neck adjustment
	Tremolo Set up
	Action and intonation
	Final tuning control

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Last modified: 08/26/06