Any "set up" wizards out there?

  • Thread starter Thread starter getuhgrip
  • Start date Start date
Hi !

You probably end up with the same neck model, so it shouldn`t be to hard to fit.

For adjustments, it depend on your playing style.
High action for heavy picking, low for fingerstyle, with med for a compromise. those are basic line (measured beetween string botton to 12th fret high: 8/64 treb , 10/64 bass
med : 6/64 treb, 8/64 bass
low : 5/64 treb, 7/64 bass

those are just guidelines.
For compensation, use the harmonic at 12th fret AND your ears, in a few minutes, you should be able to have it right.

Hope it helps

Max Freniere
Freniere Guitares eng.
 
Tom, how did you get yourself in so much trouble just explaining how to tune a guitar?

Tuning by ear is a sure way to ruin your tuning on some portion of your guitar, but I applaud your efforts gt. However, in "instrument 2" there are quite a few chords where there are some obvious tuning anomalies... as there are in almost every song. Hell, you will never find a piano that's tuned perfectly... our piano tuner has a whole system where he measures all of these intervals on different notes on the piano, then develops a custom tuning for our piano every time he tunes it. Just a necessary evil of the style of music we like in western culture.

Also, having heard guitars in the Buzz Feiten tuning system (supposedly closer to perfect across the board) it just sounds weird. You get used to the anomalies that make guitar sound the way it does, I think. Anyway, Hendrix's tuning would just disappear as he attacked the tremolo on his strat, even just over the course of a song, and it still sounds like he's a god and i'm not, even though my modern guitars hold their tuning fantastically well.
 
very well put charger!

With my guitar, I had to make compromises up and down the neck, with many different chords.

I tried the 12th fret thing, but found that was only really good for the 12th fret, other frets needed the saddles moved to different positions

This could be varified with a tuner. Check it out for yourself. I'm not sure if tolerances at the factories are as tight as they would have us beleive.

It took a long time, but I finally came to a bridge setting that I could live with, I'm not saying it's perfect, but tolerable. I now have Loctite on each one of the saddle screws.

I am positive that it's better than just the 12th fret setting, as I have tried them both.

Here's a scarry thought what if fret tolerances at the factory are large.

Take one string and check each fret for tuning accuracy, then you may also beleive in Mean Tempered Tuning.

I find this subject facinating!!

GT
 
Thanks guys.
I used feeler guages and a straight edge to set the neck. This made the biggest difference across the board. Felt like a new guitar.
Replacing the G string's saddle and setting its height at the nut made it "blend in" with the rest of the strings.

Still playing with innotation. Interesting stuff. Having a little information creates monsters. Makes me want to build something from the ground, up. Finishing would be a real challenge to me, though. :cool:
 
Obviously,there is more to this than meets the ear.In regard to piano tuning (as well as guitars and handbells and other non-wind instruments) a system is used called "streach tuning".The lows gradually get flat and the highs get sharp.
Here's the deal.When you play a harmonic at the 12th fret,it is supposed to exactly twice the freq of the fundamental.But,obviously unless you are halving the volume of a column of air as in a flute,sax, etc.;touching the string does not halve its mass.So the harmonic is actually slightly flat as it "remembers" its true mass.
Using streach tuning makes the harmonics "sit down" in the sound field.Guitar and piano and other stringed instruments follow the same laws of physics,so this can be applied to your ax as well.Steinway pianos on their website has streach tuning charts free for the download.
I tune stuff for a living so I am into the details more than most folks.But most of you probably don't want or need to get into this level of detail.I bet most players use their ear or a $20 hand tuner.

Tom
 
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