I have a very old but solid guitar that I've been playing for nearly many many years. I bought it used, so it's even older than that. Now in all that time, I never really had the guitar set up. Yes, I know, that's bad. However, it played fine, and being my first guitar, I didn't have any problems with it.
A few months back, I brought the guitar in for setup for the first time. The tech adjusted the electronics and the mechanical parts, but didn't do anything radical that I could see, and maintained the feel of the guitar. I was happy with the results.
Just recently, however, one of my frets developed a severe dent that caused one of the notes to just plain not work. I brought it to a different tech, and he said that he could take care of the problem, but he really pushed the fact that it needed a setup. I figured this was a standard part of taking care of the fret, and that the setup would be more simple adjustments.
Well, I was wrong. Everything about the guitar was changed, including the string heights and the feel of the guitar. Most notably, the brass nut on the guitar, whose appearance I had grown used to over nearly two decades of playing, was milled down into a new shape. This specifically was something that really shocked me. The tech explained that this was a fairly standard and necessary part of a setup, and the reasons behind what he did - something about allowing for better intonation and clearance. He even showed me guitars with a similarly-shaped nut. However, the fact remains that I had grown very used to the old nut style, and I was unhappy that such a modification was done without my permission.
I'm not a guitar tech, and have no idea if this is a standard part of a guitar's setup. Is milling down a nut and altering its shape standard, or is a setup usually limited to adjusting the hardware as it is? If it is standard, is it something that a tech would normally just do, or something that they would consult the guitar owner on first? Obviously, there's nothing that can be done at this point - the "damage" is done, and putting a new nut on the guitar really wouldn't solve anything - modified or not, it's still the original hardware, though now of course it's been changed.
The tech has years of experience, but his attitude seemed to be more "I'll set up the guitar the way it should be set up" rather than the other tech's attitude of "I'll keep the guitar the way it is now." I really don't know which, if either, is more valid. I just know that I'm very unhappy that a guitar I've gotten used to over many years has been suddenly, unexpectedly, irrevocably changed without permission. Even if it's "for the best", I think that I would rather have left things the way they were, as it's a very old guitar with, up until this recent setup, all of the hardware as-is from the date of manufacture.
A few months back, I brought the guitar in for setup for the first time. The tech adjusted the electronics and the mechanical parts, but didn't do anything radical that I could see, and maintained the feel of the guitar. I was happy with the results.
Just recently, however, one of my frets developed a severe dent that caused one of the notes to just plain not work. I brought it to a different tech, and he said that he could take care of the problem, but he really pushed the fact that it needed a setup. I figured this was a standard part of taking care of the fret, and that the setup would be more simple adjustments.
Well, I was wrong. Everything about the guitar was changed, including the string heights and the feel of the guitar. Most notably, the brass nut on the guitar, whose appearance I had grown used to over nearly two decades of playing, was milled down into a new shape. This specifically was something that really shocked me. The tech explained that this was a fairly standard and necessary part of a setup, and the reasons behind what he did - something about allowing for better intonation and clearance. He even showed me guitars with a similarly-shaped nut. However, the fact remains that I had grown very used to the old nut style, and I was unhappy that such a modification was done without my permission.
I'm not a guitar tech, and have no idea if this is a standard part of a guitar's setup. Is milling down a nut and altering its shape standard, or is a setup usually limited to adjusting the hardware as it is? If it is standard, is it something that a tech would normally just do, or something that they would consult the guitar owner on first? Obviously, there's nothing that can be done at this point - the "damage" is done, and putting a new nut on the guitar really wouldn't solve anything - modified or not, it's still the original hardware, though now of course it's been changed.
The tech has years of experience, but his attitude seemed to be more "I'll set up the guitar the way it should be set up" rather than the other tech's attitude of "I'll keep the guitar the way it is now." I really don't know which, if either, is more valid. I just know that I'm very unhappy that a guitar I've gotten used to over many years has been suddenly, unexpectedly, irrevocably changed without permission. Even if it's "for the best", I think that I would rather have left things the way they were, as it's a very old guitar with, up until this recent setup, all of the hardware as-is from the date of manufacture.
).
