General Music Chat

got a brand new firebird , changed the strings to .009-.042,lowered the action,raised the tailpiece,now I cant seem to get my E6 in tune harmonically.The saddle is all the way towards the nut and cant be adjusted any further,and is still flat. the other strings are okay and looking down the neck things look okay.Is there a common setup for firebirds that is kind of ideal?? I realize its about personal taste ,I dont want fret buzz ,just as low as possible. Should I screw my tailpiece down to about 1/8" above the body?I dont use a strobe tuner ,just a cheapy and never encountered this before.Im thinking the neck has to be almost straight to correct this .My E6 is about 1/16" high over the 12 th fret.I Usually do my own setups with no problems and Im a little gun shy of getting out the truss rod cause the guitar is brand new ,but maybe theres no other alternative ,what is Johnny Winters action like!!?? Ha ,Ha!!.... Thats what Im kind of shooting for ; within reason.I would appreciate any tips ,thank you.

got a brand new firebird , changed the strings to .009-.042,lowered the action,raised the tailpiece,now I cant seem to get my E6 in tune harmonically.The saddle is all the way towards the nut and cant be adjusted any further,and is still flat. the other strings are okay and looking down the neck things look okay.Is there a common setup for firebirds that is kind of ideal?? I realize its about personal taste ,I dont want fret buzz ,just as low as possible. Should I screw my tailpiece down to about 1/8" above the body?I dont use a strobe tuner ,just a cheapy and never encountered this before.Im thinking the neck has to be almost straight to correct this .My E6 is about 1/16" high over the 12 th fret.I Usually do my own setups with no problems and Im a little gun shy of getting out the truss rod cause the guitar is brand new ,but maybe theres no other alternative ,what is Johnny Winters action like!!?? Ha ,Ha!!.... Thats what Im kind of shooting for ; within reason.I would appreciate any tips ,thank you.

I've "flipped" the saddle before to get stubborn strings to intonate. I'm not sure if yours can be done, not all saddles will work that way. I don't think that there's anything different from a Firebird than any other similar bridge/saddle setup on any guitar.

I can't tell from what you said about the neck, is it straight, or does it need an adjustment? If it needs an adjustment, don't toil too much about it, just be patient, and do it in very small increments, like 1/4-1/2 turn, wait a few days for it to set, then mark the difference and adjust as necessary.

I've also had limited success with intonation by adjusting the saddle to the opposite end and starting over. Sometimes it just eludes us, for no apparent reason.

Get a different saddle.
Get one that's straight on the 1st 4 strings, and slanted for the "A" and "E" strings.
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The letup in pressure by going to lighter strings could allow the neck to bend a bit - but maybe not . . .
'cause if it did, all 6 strings would have a problem.
All necks are supposed to have a slight bow; if not the buzzing would be terrible.
By the way - if the truss rod snaps - it could be cheaper to buy a new guitar than repair it.
anyway . . . .
I string w/ wrong tone at the 12th fret = wrong saddle.
That one string is probably the wrong length.
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But - first - tune every string perfectly, and check it.
Get all 6 strings in perfect tuning (open).
It don't mean tune it up in really good tune. I mean tune it perfectly, and check it.
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Making a string sharper puts more pressure on the neck, and can shorten the length of all the strings an infinitesimal amount.
So tune perfectly, and go back and check the strings you just tuned.
Thin strings are very responsive to slight changes . . .
Make it perfect.
Then if you still have the problem, buy a new saddle for $5.
I got a replacement nut for free when I bought my last guitar.
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Anytime you do work on the saddle to lower the action or anything, you should first have a replacement on hand, btw . . .

All necks are supposed to have a slight bow; if not the buzzing would be terrible.

Are you sure about that? All the vids I watched on adjusting the truss rod explained you needed a straight neck, and to use a straight edge to aquire it. I'm by no means a guitar repair person, but this sounds contrary to what I have hear.

It also seems that:
a concave (inward) bow would cause 22-24 fret buzz when pressing a 10th fret note.

a convex (outward) bow would cause open string buzz at the 12th fret when hitting notes at either end of the neck.

ST

You need a convex neck.
A straight neck is bad.
There are specific distances which you can measure over each fret, with a feeler guage.
I think the distances were meant to be measured when you are fretting it at the 10th fret.
Yeah, I know an octave is 12 frets.
But - that's what I read, when I was getting ready to change my neck.
I repeat; You should have a concave neck.
I am sure of that.

+1

You need a convex neck.
A straight neck is bad.
There are specific distances which you can measure over each fret, with a feeler guage.
I think the distances were meant to be measured when you are fretting it at the 10th fret.
Yeah, I know an octave is 12 frets.
But - that's what I read, when I was getting ready to change my neck.
I repeat; You should have a concave neck.
I am sure of that.

Cool beans.
I will commence neck stomping post haste!

ST

If you need to put a little bow back into an overly straight neck, you can unscrew the adjustment by 1/4 of a turn.
You will need to give it two days after you do that to see the results. Be patient. If it's not quite enough, then go another 1/4 turn. And wait onther 2 days.
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Note: when tightening, never do more than a half turn at a time. If that truss rod snaps, you won't be playing the gy=uitar any time soon - if ever again.
Truss rod snap = guitar scrap.
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Most people who want to straighten the neck should be lowering the strings instead . . .

Note: when tightening, never do more than a half turn at a time. If that truss rod snaps, you won't be playing the gy=uitar any time soon - if ever again.
Truss rod snap = guitar scrap.

this scares me

I asked about approximate repair costs on a snapped truss rod, and got an answer of 'maybe about $180 or so . . ."
.

Couple of comments...

Rhythm man is right, you should have a slight back bow, which means the neck should bow slightly away from the strings in the middle of the fretboard. I think around .010"-.015" is the usual recommendation, I can look it up if you need the exact specs. To check it, capo the 1st fret and push the top or bottom string at the last one, you should be able to slip a business card or credit card under the 8th fret, that's enough back bow. A perfectly straight neck will usually tend to buzz at really low action.

Johnny Winter plays a lot of slide so he probably sets his action a bit on the high side like I have to. Otherwise the slide bar bangs on the frets and makes a lot of unwanted noise. I keep my action set so it's 1/8" or just a tiny bit more at the octave. That's about the same as Clapton and Jeff Beck setups, which I found in a good article in Guitar Player magazine a few years ago. Someone else liked it better t5han I did so I don't have it any more, but I remember the settings, checked mine and it was already almost exactly the same as theirs. Johnny probably has his set about the same since he also plays a lot of slide, which requires higher action.

He is also dead on about the truss rod, NEVER more than 1/4 turn and let it settle in at least overnight, I too prefer a couple of days. It may also help to give it a drop of oil (ONE drop) and let it soak in overnight before adjusting. I try to give mine a drop of oil about once a year so they don't rust. Regular light oil like 3 in 1 or gun oil will do fine.

Also you might check with a couple of guitar stores, I had the exact same problem with a Les Paul copy years ago and found out a wide travel bridge is made for the Gibson tune-o-matic setups used on your guitar. It gives the saddles more adjustment room for situations just as this. You can also remove the individual saddle and reverse it so the flat is facing the bridge pickup, sometimes that gives you the extra adjustment travel you need. I did one just a few days ago on a guitar someone brought me to fix.

Nut slots should be cut right at the factory on a new guitar, to check it by fretting at the 3rd fret and measure with a feeler gauge. In general you want .005"-.008", higher and it will tend to pull the strings sharp when fretting open chords, lower will tend to produce buzz.

FRETS is my favorite guitar maintenance site, excellent info, their page on nut height is Here

I wish they would change the link color on here, the grey they use doesn't show up well...Anyway FRETS has a lot more info on just about anything you want to do to your guitar, usually with excellent pictures. It's always my first stop for good info.

Always use new strings when setting action and intonation, dead strings will seriously affect intonation.

I feel I need to revisit this topic of slightly bowing guitar necks. I keep reading articles that tell me that bow is bad, and the reason for this is the effect of fretting. If the action of one portion of the string is higher than another, then the act of fretting is going to bend the note sharper at the highest actionpoint between the string and the fret.

I am at this point going to remain skeptical of bowing a fretboard based on the article I am linking here, and I will email this person to get his take on the matter.

http://www.doolinguitars.com/intonation ... tion7.html

I'm not by any means a luthier, but I did the read the article and understand the theory quite well.

regards,
ST.

sarahstear - take a look at the link in my post above to the FRETS website. They have a good article about truss rod adjustment that shows about how much backbow a guitar should have, I'm not going to read through the link you listed right now since I'm on a laptop with limited battery time.

In brief, the strings vibrate in a wider pattern in the middle than at the ends. That means they need a little more clearance in the middle so they won't buzz on the frets when playing open chords or low notes near the nut during leads. We're not talking much here at all, the thickness of a credit card at best. But it does make a difference. A perfectly straight neck will work for someone with a light touch, but for someone like me, I beat the crap out of my guitars onstage, a bit of backbow is needed to eliminate that fret buzz.

Since it's a very slight backbow, it usually has little or no affect on intonation, only in extreme cases like some of my guitars I keep set with a high action for slide work. If I try to play them by fretting instead of slide, I might have some minor intonation issues. Otherwise my guitars are set a bit on the high side because I use all of them for slide a little, and I have no problems.

You can see this effect with a large rubber band stretched between your hands, have someone pluck it like a guitar string and watch. The ends right by your fingers will barely move, if you can see it at all, the middle will show visible movement. Guitar strings do the same thing, but on a smaller scale.

On the other hand I have a friend who has a Martin acoustic with really high action, anything you play on it goes out of tune. He won't let me set the action, which is not hard to do, because it's a vintage guitar worth a couple of thousand bucks. I sure wish he would, I could solve those intonation issues pretty easy, his problem is not backbow, that's set about right, the bridge is way too high. So it pulls the strings sharp no matter where you play it and it's difficult to play at all.

Sarah, I've been playing guitar since about 1972 or so . . .
In those 35 years or so I have played with and talked to countless musicians and music store owners, and worn out several guitars.
I have never heard that a perfectly straight neck is correct.
Never.
Here's a cut & paste of correct adjustment . . . sorry, forgot where I got this from . . .
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With the guitar tuned to pitch, hold the 3rd string down at the first fret and at the 14th. Look closely at the clearance between the bottom of the string and the top of the 6th fret. For a "normal" or "average" setup, you should see about 0.010" clearance. In other words, look to see if you see enough space between the 6th fret and the string to stick the first string or a playing card between them.
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But - form your own opinion . . .

Hey, Pete - between you and me we have 82 years of guitar-playing experience.