Comments on: That Is Not My Guitar Until It Is Setup To My Specifications

By: StratCat72

StratCat72 — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 18:44:03 +0000

I am guilty of playing a guitar out of the box with no or little adjustment other than tuning. The truth is, most people do not know how to set up a guitar properly, and some adjustments–such as a truss rod tweak–can ruin a guitar if you don’t know what you’re doing…hence the argument for a professional.

I learned the difference set-up can make by, believe it or not, falling in love with a Daisy Rock Isis–a beautiful guitar with wonderful fretboard inlay. I bought the guitar for the way it looked (I have 12 or 13 guitars hanging on the wall, another four or five on stands a a few in cases) and was amazed at not just the strength of the OEM pick-ups, but with the playability and fell of the the guitar in general.

Come to find out that Daisy Rock ships their units pre- set up. Granted, everyone has different taste and definition of what “set up” means; however, there are recommended standards in this area and I discovered how much a difference set-up can make by playing the Isis.

The problem is locating someone knowledgeable (read, “trustworthy”) enough to work on my guitars. Some of my instruments are very rare; one guitar is one of three made.

The main reason I have not had a tech work on anything is that I do not want to have to learn the hard way if someone knows what they are doing or not. These days, everyone claims to be an “expert” and I have talked with some people who do not seem to know as much as I do.

And I do not claim to be an expert.

By: Instro

Instro — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 16:44:37 +0000

I completely agree with the sentiment that the guitar should be set up! Especially for intonation.

But by the same token, I’m not a guitar tech fan. I’ve had techs do setups that have ended up being redone because they don’t know me, my playing styles and my likes or dislikes in a setup. I’ve encountered a few good techs but there’s far too many hacks out there.

So I spent the money and invested the time to learn how to do a proper setup for myself. If there’s an issue with anything beyond that, I take it to a qualified luthier.

By: David Stuckey

David Stuckey — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 16:26:37 +0000

Although I agree with the main idea of your article, some of us live quite a distance from a major music store and have had to learn set-up techniques on our own.
I often refer to Dan Erlewine’s articles and others and can do a pretty good set-up on my own guitars. I don’t think I would ever try setting up some-one elses axe, but I just don’t feel the need to drive over two hundred miles to get a set-up done.