This is how I set up my Strat - Neck relief, action and intonation.
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- Опубліковано 4 чер 2024
- This is a step by step guide to how I set up my Fender American Standard Stratocaster, 2014.
In this video I talk you through my regular routine of cleaning the fretboard, balancing the tremolo bar, adjusting the neck relief, setting intonation and string action.
I know many players who avoid adjusting their truss rod out of fear of causing damage and instead of setting their guitars up themselves they take it to a luthier for simple adjustments. I really hope this video will inspire you to start experimenting with your own setup.
We all know what it is like to have to wait for a guitar for weeks and then getting very disappointed once it returns from the luthier so I thought I'd share these tips I have learnt over the years and hope you guys find them useful.
00:00 Intro/music.
01:47 Tools & materials.
02:37 Cleaning the fretboard and fresh strings.
03:20 The tremolo bar.
04:57 Adjusting the neck relief/truss rod.
09.23 The importance of tuning between adjustments.
09:45 String height or "action".
12:39 Intonation.
14:37 Outro/music.
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My high e was chocking on bends after changing strings. I think I went from .11 to .10. Your instructions gave me enough confidence to set up my neck myself. It’s perfect now. Thank you!
This video was amazing. Best setup video I've seen. My Jazzmaster setup was giving me so much trouble. Now plays so well.
Very generous of you to share. I’ve sold three strats because of bad setup . Had I been more informed I’d have just set it up myself
I know the feeling, I ended up learning how to do it myself after getting disappointed time and time again after having my guitars set up by someone else.
Hope you found the video helpful ☺️
I hear ya same here!
But I’ve also wasted probably 100+ hours trying to set it up & it just never would be quite right. & STILL here I am looking for whatever I’m missing.. only reason I still bother is because I’ve also wasted
$60 here/$60 there (& sometimes went w/o my guitar for couple days), at different music shops for “professional” setups & have been completely dissatisfied sometimes they’re worse then mine/how I brought it in
Biggest 2 issues I always have is 1 when doing it by myself .010 is so small & my feeler gauges are such a small set that it’s hard to tell when I have the relief correct &
2.) the saddle height & radius problem never seems right, therefore the height from string to string never feels even remotely correct & I have to work so much harder @ single note picking… like especially when you intend on string skipping but instead catch the open string between😒 & strumming becomes something I want to avoid because I may entirely miss a string or 2 or accidentally hit 1 I wouldn’t be if it was set right so chords sound wrong. (It makes playing my guitar & learning new things even more difficult than it would be & it’s discouraging & I spend more time trying to work on/adjust my guitar than actually learning something new (let alone new {entire} songs) & possibly even more than playing the same ole riffs/licks over & over
Very well explained...thank you!
Thanks for watching 🙏
Very helpful! Thank you for taking the time to educate!
Thank you for watching. I’m glad you found the video helpful ☺️
The best I'm upset with all my other inquiries on this this was imo the best how to thank you hopefully no more trying to figure my setup this is it ..
This is so insightful! I really learned a lot from your discussion of the differences in neck relief between Fenders and Gibsons.
Thank you mate! Very glad you enjoyed it. Hope you´re well.
Great video, really helpful!
Takk kærlega 🙏🤟🎸
Thank you dear Kbald.
You are very welcome brother. Thank you for watching 🙏
Great video!! I have 3 strats to work through
Thank You so much...💯 👍👍 🎸 🇺🇸.
Good job thank you!
Thank you for watching ☺️
The wonderful you tube thanks for your upload 👍🙏🐈
Thank you for watching 🙏 Hope you found the video helpful.
Great video
Thank you 🙏
thanks for this! how do you use the radius gauge to fine tune the string height accordingly? i saw you press it against the strings, but do you then look if the strings touch or are depressed by the gauge? or do you also play the string and see/hear/feel if it buzzes against the gauge?
i have a 7.25 radius strat, want to achieve the lowest possible action. would you recomment the same settings in terms of neck relief as you show in this video?
Just hit liked, and subscribed.
Cool
Thanks ✌️😎
Great job but I still have an issue intonating the high E-string.
I have an American Strat. It has two bolts / screws in front securing the bridge.
My strobe shows the high E string slightly flat and I cannot shorten the string anymore because the saddle mechanism is right up against the bridge bolt. Neck relief and string height are set to spec.
Do you have a solution?
Thanks.
Great video but just a note, when measuring the neck relief it is recommended to be measured in the playing position and not resting on a support block.
That is a good point actually, I always set my guitar up in a playing position but decided to do it on the support block as I was demonstrating for the camera.
@@Kbald You just forgot to do it correctly! Lazy bastard, admit it! 😂
Hi. Excellent set up explanation. I have a Squier Infinity HSS Strat. What exact size of Allen keys and Phillips screwdriver do I need to adjust the truss rod, saddle and intonation? I have lots but none seem an exact fit!
Hope you can help. Bob.
Hey Bob! Glad you found the lesson helpful.
Unfortunately I haven’t got the right measures with me but usually the keys for the truss rod and saddles come with all new Fender guitars and some Squiers as well I think.
You can try a 1/8” key on the Truss Rod and a .50” for the saddles.
Not sure about the Phillips.
@@KbaldMany thanks. I’ll give it a try.
You mention that you can fit a pick underneath the bridge but can you please tell me how high do you raise it? Does it cause a full/ half step raise in the pitch when you pull the tremolo bar?
Hello mate, yes absolutely. So it's about 1.2 mm but if I pull it up the pitch just goes up by a micro bend. Maybe a half of a semitone.
The reason for the gap is not so I can pull it up but instead to keep it floating for a smoother tremolo effect.
@@Kbald oh now I get it. Thanks a lot. Been learning a lot from your videos. Thanks for the great content that you have been making!
Thank you for watching 🙏 Really appreciate it man.
Truss rod adjustment. Dave says "Righty tightie, lefty loosie".
What software you use for the tuning?
It’s the Cory Wong plugin from Neural Dsp
...this freaky; i just changed my set up last week and took the springs out. now i have three same place as you and moved to 10's!
...this is really cool. you don't have any tricks for a floyd-rose? LOL
Hey Christopher!
I would go with the 3 springs all day long.
What type of a guitar is it? Is it a Strat?
I don´t play guitars with floyd rose any more unfortunately so I´m not sure if I will do a video on that. The same applies though, you just need to tune it again and again until it settles in the right spot.
@@Kbald three springs: yes! brought back all the low-mids for me. i don't know if anyone would agree... i'm way more connected to it.
with five it bright and very harsh at times. stiff to bend after an hour, too. maybe thats me. LOL!
...it's actually a really cool esp eclipse; i got from a mate years ago. he had set up "hard-tailed". i don't play it much... except i just think it might come alive if i can work out the tremolo.
would be cool to have some fun on it. hahah
Interesting, never thought about the difference in tone between 3 and 5 springs. I used 5 spring on the white Strat that I had last year and never connected with it. The string tension was way too lose but that guitar was a bit strange tbh.
Hey Kbald, I hv lowered my string action but, still the strings are quite high from the fretboard, do I need to adjust the truss rod?
Hello mate, yes you should always adjust the truss rod first. It is very important to do things in the right order. Truss rod - string action - intonation. If you don’t have a feeler gauge you can try to use a business card to messure the neck relief, not as accurate but many players do that.
How did you measure 1.8mm for height? I have a Bullet Mustang which is a 12in radius and only 24in scale. Is it still at the 17th fret for me as well?
I put the feeler gauge under the 17th fret to measure the string height on a Strat but I would measure on the 12th fret for a Gibson.
In the video I set my string height at 1.8mm although Fender recommend 1.6mm.
Maybe you can find some info about the Bullet Mustang on the Fender website but as the scale and radius are a bit closer to a Gibson you should maybe try to set it up like a Gibson.
For a Gibson style guitar I usually go for 0.08” on neck relief and 2mm string height on bass, 1.5mm on treble.
What type of a bridge/saddles have you got on the Mustang?
@@Kbald Standard (almost) Strat style two hex screws per saddle style. The only difference is (and I hate this) is that the strings go through the bridge not through the body (fixed bridge).
@@Kbald Btw, the documentation supplied with the guitar by Fender is generic and really not specific (even covers basses). It says the string height that my tremolo must float (which we do not have on this model) for the action is .098in Treble Sector and .12in for Bass Sector. This is why I ditched it and went looking to find your vid.
I see, yeah it must be a bit tricky to find something specific on that type of guitar. The string height they are recommending is very low.
For a generic strat/tele (9.5” radius) they recommend 0.10 for neck relief and 1.6mm string height.
I’m very glad you found my video and I hope you find a way a way to get the setup right on your guitar.
@@Kbald My other guitar I set up was a Squire Fat Strat from 16 years ago so I may just set this up as I did it and roll with it. Same number of frets between the only difference being 24in/12in radius vs 25.5in/9.5in radius.
Informative vid but - you go from using .010 of an inch relief to 1.8 millimeters doing the intonation at the 17th fret. Can't we show either imperial or metric ? using two different measurement scales just makes things more confused, especially for those just beginning to learn to do their own set ups.
Thanks for the feedback.
You definitely have a point there but the reason for why I measure the neck relief in inches and the string action in mm is mainly because of the tool I’m using, the feeler gauges.
Fender actually recommend a 1,6mm string height which would be 4/64” which I can’t work out with the feelers, I would need a different type of a ruler.
In the video I also mention that all the measures can be found on the Fender website in both metric and imperial.
No idea what 1.8mm is
That would be 5/64
@@Kbald oh great thanks
It would have been quicker to google it than to write this comment and wait for a reply. It's not rocket science, dick move!
You had me until you started to use the metric system. No offence but I do not know silly meters.