Learn How to Set 'Em Up Or Pay a Good Techie

The best guitar in the world will sound like drek if it is not properly setup.

Setup refers to:

Action - Height of the strings above the fretboard

Relief - The bow in the neck

Intonation - the open string and the twelfth fret notes match, an octave apart

Pickup Height - This is crucial...and how you arrive at it can vary wildly


I was playing with my PRS and I rotated the pickup selector switch as it had been at an "angle" to my mind. I always expected it one place and found it somewhere else.

Later while talking about this with a friend who had asked, "Which guitar?" I realized I fall into ruts and become a one trick pony. Each guitar has a unique voice.

I have the PRS for humbucker sound  , the Tele for single coil and the Vox for P-90s/humbuckers.
But I seem to prefer the PRS or the Tele...so what's wrong with the Vox?

Unlike more modern incarnations (which use a screw and a spring) the Vox uses rubber tubing to provide the spring force to push and maintain the pickup height.
So when you back the height screws out and would like to see the pickup rise...it just sits there with the screw backing out, aimlessly.
So Gracie sat for a week or three with the screw head looming large but the pickups just as flat as ever.
And because of that, I could not get much more than muddy sound from her.
She sat.

Grrrrrr...

After futzing with a thin icing spatula and getting nowhere I decided to just pull the outer pickup rings themselves.
Voila...They may appear to be separate rings, but infact it is a one piece assembly much like a real P-90.

That is a Gibson P-90

And for comparison, the Vox version

You can see what appears to be a separate ring surrounding the pickup when, it is all one piece. It is more like a top cover affixed to it than a surrounding ring.I went through the rest of the setup procedure and all of a sudden I have the guitar I was looking for.

If you don't know how to do a setup, there are many books on the subject, Dan Erlewine's comes quickly to mind.

Dan's Page

If you'd rather not apply a hex wrench or screwdriver to your guitar, by all means go out and find a reputable technician and pay to have it done. (Reputable does not include any chain operation)

Her knobs are now black aluminum with purple abalone and her fretboard is ebony; she is my Gracie and sounds like a dream.

I Am Not Abe Lincoln

I try to please all the people all the time, and then wonder why it failed.
If failed is the right word? Two people out of a room of thirty five does not constitute 'fail.'

I've thought and spoken of embracing yourself. How one must be happy with themselves before tackling the rest of the world. And we reach a point where we think we have indeed, embraced our inner player...I have heard my voice and I like it.
Just not all the time? Why not? Who am I trying to satisfy?

That is a perfectly human reaction. So why fret?

I was playing my guitar with music I have sat "in on" many, many times.
I heard the sound I was after in my head and I pursued it. Nailed it, too.

Let's try this again. Pick another tune.
No rut? I was thinking "outside the box."
Actually I was just taking the time to think and then play, rather than react and play alone.

One of the wisest men I knew was very slow to answer.
To the point that people who were unfamiliar with his style would begin to step in for him, thinking he wasn't going to say anything.
But no, he was thinking. And his replies were the most well thought out replies you could imagine.

Gee, what? It works the way it is supposed to work? I am fast on my feet, glib. But that is a rut...a reaction and then a response - call & answer.

What if you think while playing? Stop reacting to and instead, think and react with what is happening NOW.

Live in the now?
Is that what they meant? Think as you live, not in reaction to what has happened, but with what is happening now...

So I stopped trying to do what would please someone else, and began to play what would please ME!
Selfish is a virtue.
http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/12/please-make-me-be-selfish/?hpt=hp_bn12