How are you doing? Justin here again,
and in this lesson I'm just going to be talking about
some really basic things about setting up your guitar.
Common problems that people have, easy fixes
and things that you can and cannot fix by yourself.
And the reason that I've kind of brought this into the beginners lesson
is we're gradually starting to move up the neck a little bit, away from the open position.
And even if you've got a thing called a high action,
which I'm going to explain further in a second,
it doesn't really affect you when you're playing down that end and you're working on the chords.
But it does make a difference, the further up the neck you get.
So, let me first of all explain what the action is and what you can do about it.
So the action of a guitar is the distance between the string and the fingerboard.
So, we're just going to go to a really quick little close-up now for a second
and I'll just show exactly what I mean by the action.
So the distance here, the amount that you can press the string down is referred to as the action.
So exactly, you can get little measuring tools that measure
from the top of the fret to the bottom of the string.
Now, of course, if I just lift the string up a bit like that, you would have -
maybe even higher than that - you might have a guitar that looks like that with a really high action,
which would be too high and probably not very easy to play.
If the action is too low, when you play it tends to buzz against the fret,
so if it looks really low, you end up having a really buzzy sound which is not good either.
So if you've discovered that your acoustic guitar has a really, really high action
and you're having trouble playing further up the neck
when it comes to doing your barre chords and your scales
and stuff later when you're playing up around the fifth fret or higher,
what can you do about it?
Well, on acoustic guitar, unfortunately, not very much.
But it does make a huge difference and I'd really recommend
taking your guitar to a guitar luthier or your local guitar maintenance guy,
most music shops have a guitar kind of guru that works there,
and ask them to give you a guitar set up.
Sometimes it can seem kind of expensive,
but it can make a huge difference to the playability of your guitar.
In fact, one of the nicest guitars that I ever played,
as far as the feeling goes of the guitar,
was a 200 pound Epiphone Hummingbird, acoustic guitar
which was a horrible guitar, it didn't play very well, it didn't seem to stay in tune
and I took to this guitar guru guy for a set up
and when it came back it was really, really nice.
it played really easy, it was just incredibly different.
And only at that point did I realise quite how important a guitar set up can be.
and since then I make sure that all my guitars regularly go
for a proper guitar set up with somebody who knows what they're doing.
So, acoustic guitars, definitely take them off to someone for a guitar set up.
I'm sorry, I know that means forking out a bit more cash,
but it will make a difference, physically how easy it is to play guitar.
So that's important.
However, for electric guitar, they're a little bit more adjustable,
so I want to talk to you a little bit about how you might go about adjusting your electric guitar.
So I'm just going to to chuck my acoustic guitar back down here on the stand
and grab up my trusty Stratocaster.
Now, most electric guitars have a lower action than acoustic guitars, which is fine.
Now, there's a couple of simple adjustments that you can make on electric guitar yourself.
There's a few things going on.
The first thing that you can adjust is these parts here, in the bridge of the guitar,
the bridge saddles they're usually referred to as.
And if you look really closely in the top of this, you will find a little hole that takes an Allen key.
And by putting an Allen key in there, the very small one, and turning it around
it lifts these pieces up and down.
And of course, if you put them up it'll mean
that the string get a little bit further away from the fingerboard
and if you put, screw them back in, which is clockwise,
then the little thing will go down and it'll make the action a little bit lower.
And that's the kind of thing you can have a bit of a play about with yourself,
just trying to make sure that you don't get it,
if you get it too low, it'll buzz to much and sound horrible
and if it gets too high, you won't be able to play it.
So, that's one thing that you can have a go at adjusting yourself on electric guitar.
The other thing that's really important on electric guitar
that you can have a go at if you want, but I don't touch this myself,
even though I'm pretty experienced with guitar maintenance.
I don't like touching the Truss Rod of a guitar.
Now, a Truss Rod on a guitar is two metal poles
that go right down the length of the guitar neck.
and by turning a little Allen key, you can adjust whether the neck,
if I'm looking at you like that,
whether the headstock comes forward or whether it goes back.
Now, on the Stratocaster we've got a Truss Rod adjuster thing
just right in the end of the headstock,
but on different guitars it's in different places.
Usually acoustic guitars have a Truss Rods as well.
I'd definitely not be touching the Truss Rods on acoustic guitar.
Get somebody professional who knows what they're doing to do that.
Sometimes you have the Truss Rod adjuster on electric guitar
in the inside of a neck, just here.
So, what you might find is that you've got a really high action in this part of the guitar
and a really low action here, because the neck is kind of bent a little bit forward like that,
so by adjusting the Truss Rod you can pull it back to the correct position
and then you'll have an even action down the guitar neck.
This is the kind of adjustment that you also need to do if you change string gauge.
So if you go from a very light set of strings to a very heavy set of strings,
it can be really good idea to adjust your Truss Rod to bring your neck back into alignment.
That can make a big difference.
But, again, a really good guitar tech will be able to do probably a far better set up than you.
I've set up hundreds, well set up my same guitars
hundreds of times over the last 20 years
and I still, when I take it to my guitar gurus,
they always set it up loads better that I could have done.
So, I might tweak a little bit myself when I get home,
if I notice that string's buzzing a bit or whatever,
but generally I take it to a guitar guru.
The guy that I use these days is called Charlie Chandler.
And you can find him at Charlie Chandlers Guitar Experience, in Kew.
He is a total guitar genius and does, makes everything about guitars be better.
So definitely look up Charlie, if you need to get some work done on the guitar and you live in London.
The other thing that's really obvious is the tremolo system.
Now, if you've gone against my advice
and bought what's called a locking tremolo system,
a floating tremolo system, on your guitar when you're a beginner;
that's just generally a really, really bad idea, something that you shouldn't be doing.
What I recommend is having a regular tremolo system
and fixing it so it's right down flat on the guitar.
Now, what you'll find is that this bridge part,
can actually lift up, lift forward, which is kinda cool.
if you're playing like Jeff Beck guitar solos you need to have this lifted up,
because when you put the tremolo on, you can pull it up
and make the notes go higher in pitch.
But if you're a beginner guitar player, you're probably never going to be using that.
I only just started mucking around with the tremolo arm a month ago.
And I've been doing this stuff for ages.
So, I would recommend pulling this bridge so it's back flat against the guitar.
That way your guitar will stay more in tune and it'll actually sound a little bit better as well.
And the way that you do that on a Stratocaster guitar,
so like a Gibson Les Paul doesn't have a tremolo system
so you don't have to worry about it,
if I flip this over here you will see that there's a little base plate here
which is the back of the tremolo system and some springs.
So, if you want, I've angled my springs in
which gives them a little bit more tension as well, but you can leave them square.
you can add up to five springs in the back of a Stratocaster type guitar.
And then there's two little screws here at the end
and if you just keep screwing them in and in, and in, and in,
eventually you'll pull that bridge part, this part, so it's flat against the guitar.
And that would be, I would recommend for a beginner guitar player,
really, really important thing to do is to fix your tremolo so you can't use it,
You don't need to use it yet.
Yeah, it's fun to grab it sometimes and go mweee-mweee-mweee,
but it's not, you're not gonna probably use it in a very musical way,
if you're a beginner guitar player.
So, I would recommend bringing that down so it's nice and flat on the guitar.
So, that should tell you a little bit of stuff about guitar set ups.
We've talked a little bit about the tremolo,
we've talked about the action which is the height of the strings.
You can also adjust the nut,
which is the little kind of bone or plastic thing at the top.
Again, I've never done that, I would recommend you getting
a serious luthier to do that for you.
One other very quick little thing for, particularly for electric guitar players:
Often, people's straps fall off their guitars.
This is really, really heinous.
If you can, buy yourself some locking nuts for your strap.
It's very, very cheap to buy, well "very, very cheap",
probably 15 British pounds, so like 25 dollars or something like that.
So, that'll be a good idea.
Failing that, put your regular strap on
and get a bit of plastic that goes over the top of your strap
to lock the strap onto the guitar,
because what you really don't want is the strap falling off
when you go to stand up and guitar smashing on the floor.
Seen that happen to a student before and it's really not a very happy situation.
So, I hope that gives you a bit of a run down on the guitar
and I'll see you for another lesson some time real soon.
Bye, bye!