Set up help needed for my tele and strat

[Ian Price]

Hello all - just a quick question (that I feel could have some fairly long replies!!)

I need a bit of a hand on how to set up my guitars. I am pretty good at making sure intonation is correct etc but really need some advice on string height and getting rid of buzzing noises from the strings.

I like to have a low action on my guitars as I have a pretty weak left hand (caused by breaking each finger on it at least once whilst being a goalkeeper for my football team). When I set the action low the guitar is nice and easy for me to play but I get a really anoiyng buzzing from the strings around the 5th fret area. What is the best way of resolving this?

As always I look forward to getting some helpful replies!

Cheers,

Ian.
PS I have now given up football as playing guitar is much more fun on a Sunday morning.

[AndyR]

I'm no expert on this, but I've learnt quite a lot recently from a book I got for my birthday - "Guitar Player Repair Guide, 3rd Edition" by Dan Erlewine. It's even got a DVD (which I believe might cover some of this) that I haven't watched yet.

Assuming that all your frets are ok, level, etc, I suspect you might want to be looking into "neck relief", the curve of the neck that you can control with the truss-rod.

I'd always believed that I needed a completely straight neck, and I was suffering from the same sort of thing as you describe on my Baja Telecaster after I straightened the neck a bit when I put heavier strings on.

I like what I believe to be a slightly higher action than some, but to get rid of the fret buzz around the 5th-7th frets (specially on the 3rd string), I had to raise the action higher than I wanted.

Dan Erlewine is a believer in some neck relief - ie, neck shouldn't necessarily be completely straight (and he admits many disagree with this). After some fiddling, I discovered that he seems to be right - a bit of curvature on the neck let me have the action I wanted, intonation ok, with less buzzing. I'm still getting some buzz, but it doesn't come out of the amp and isn't affecting tone as far as I can tell. (I also hit strings quite hard, and I found out that players who do this will get fret buzz that another player won't on a lower action. Obvious really, but I'd never thought about it!)

I'm sure a "proper" set-up by a luthier might get me a better result - but I quite like being able to do it myself. The only thing I won't touch is frets.

I don't feel too confident about suggesting technically what to do though - I'm happy fiddling with my own guitars, if I bust them then I bust them, but I'd hate to think that because I wrote "just yank that bit about a bit" then someone else managed to bust theirs!

For someone prepared to fiddle like I do though, I really would recommend this book - explains the consequences of what you might be about to do, making you confident enough to give it a go or say "leave well alone".

Hope that helps.

[FELINEGUITARS]

Dan Erlewine taught me much of what I know
As well as his great books and DVDs (was videos whenI learnt) I was lucky enough to meet and make friends with him.

I can't recommend his books enough if you want to learn tech stuff

You might want to have about 5-9 thousandths of an inch relief (9 thou is the thickness of a high E string in a 9-42 set). When setting this I put a capo on at the first and hold the string down at the fret over the body join and measure with a feeler gauge or something similar (a business card might work well too as a good size gauge). I test the hight between the top of the 8th fret and the underside of the string that you are holding down.

Once you have done this - keep the capo on and measure the string height at the 12th fret ( I tend to do the 12th fret on the bass side and the 17th on the treble side). Set this anywhere between 40 thou- 50 thou of an inch (use a 42 or 46 gauge string if you want in the same manner as you did for the relief)

[greg]

a fret buzzing over 5th fret means the neck needs more relief. do it in small steps checking in meantime strings action as well.