setup question

clay

howdy

does changing the gauge of your strings from 9s to 10s or 9s to 11s necessitate changing the set up of your guitar?

Karl Hungus

Does your guitar have a fixed bridge or trem?

clay

its a trem

Jayce

Ah Bollox

then you are going to have to set up the springs to balance out with the new tension.

Then by adjusting the saddles on your trem you can get the right inotation.

Not this can be very irritating as you will be repeating processes over anover again to get it right, especially when getting the right tremolo height.

Karl Hungus

Right, well you'll have adjust the tension of the trem accordingly, which is just a matter of tightening or loosening the screws that hold in the trem claw in the back of the guitar. Takes a bit of time and tweaking to get it tuned right, but it's not hard.

clay

well i guess you gotta learn these things some time.

cheers amigos

Johnny Storm

clay wrote:

howdy

does changing the gauge of your strings from 9s to 10s or 9s to 11s necessitate changing the set up of your guitar?

Probably also need some adjustment to the trussrod, surely?
Have a look in the resources sticky to see some good setup guides - eg Mr Gearhead

kennier

Clay,

Do a search in here for 'setup'. I've only recently got into setting up my own guitars and I've got to say it's not overly difficult.

Like the guys have said, you'll need to tune the guitar, then loosen or tighten the screws holding the tremelo claw until the trem is in the required position. On my G&L, the setup guide is that the bottom should float about 3/16 of an inch above the guitar body. When you've got that right, retune which will probably mean your trem position is out again, so redo this. Takes a few goes but it's not hard.

The intonation is like fine tuning and is done by adjusting the saddle positions. Basically you are trying to get, say, your E on the open in tune as well as the E at the 12th fret in tune. It's in the setup guide too.

You might need to adjust the trussrod too. I did. TBH, I was a bit nervous about this but so long as you are careful, it'll be fine. Again, all in the above link.

Anyway, I'm probably wrong and talking complete b*ll*x! Maybe it's not my lack of playing ability that's the problem. Maybe it's my setup

Quattroste

No Way! I didn't know trem's were so much trouble. I hate that fiddly stuff.

Would that explain why my strat seems difficult to get the harmonics on the 5th fret? Do I need to adjust the trem spring tension. I'm such an amateur

feylya

Trem spring tension shouldn't affect harmonics afaik... If your bridge is level and everything is correctly intonated, then the tension is grand. The reason you can't get the harmonics easily could be to do with which pickup you have selected.

-=al=-

from 9's - 10'd i doubt u need much truss rod adjustments if any!

its only the springs and trem that might need adjusting, then after all thast done just needs to be intonated, its not as imtimidating as it sounds

Quattroste

Thanks Feylya. I'll try that later.

clay

that link to mrgearhead in the resources thread seems to be out of date.....
but mrgearhead.com does have links to support sites for various fender companies on its front page.

ferdi

hardtail all the way bloody trems

Paladin

Just in case...

Before you go tightening screws on your tremelo check out what type of tremelo it is. Some recommend placing the springs holding the tremelo rather than (or in conjunction with) screw adjustments. Or even adding a spring. Google your guitar and see what type of tremelo it has and google adjustment instructions. You could end up making life tough on yourself otherwise. I learned the hard way