Set-Up for Your Style

Musicians playing styles are as varied as the musicians themselves.  String attack, type and guage of string, thickness 
of pick (or no pick), electric or acoustic – all combine to create “your sound”.  All these things will effect the way
 your guitar needs to be set up.  There is no perfect set-up for everyone.

Setting up a guitar involves the adjustment of several things: amount of neck bow, or “relief”; bridge height; string 
height at the nut, and intonation.  The set-up should follow this order.  Adjustment is precinded by having the frets 
true and level (another story).

Lets look first at the movement of the string when struck. The action must be adjusted to allow for how much the 
string travels when set in motion. The greatest movement of the string is near the center of its vibrating length    The
 bass strings vibrate in bigger circles than the treble strings when struck, making higher action on the bass side necessary.  

If the neck is perfectly straight, then a long, low triangle is formed by the string, the frets, and the bridge.    This puts 
the greatest clearance for string travel at the end of the fingerboard.  If the neck has a very slight bow in it however, 
then greater clearance for the string is moved to the point of maximum movement and the bridge height can be lowered. 
 This is the neck relief and measures between .05” and .012” at the seventh fret when the string is depressed on the
 first and fourteenth frets. The variation depends on string type and guage, with lighter strings requiring more relief.

String attack is a crucial issue in any set-up.  Exactly how you strike the string will effect the amount of the strings
 movement.  I like to watch the player run through a tune to see how hard he plays before adjusting the instrument.  
In the end, it is a trial and error process.  Electrified guitars can tolerate a little buzz when played acoustically because 
a light buzz will not come through the amp.		

Next, the bridge height is adjusted until the guitar plays cleanly at a medium hard level of attack.  This allows for a 
little buzz when playing hard which tends to be covered by the volume.  A guitar with an adjustable bridge makes
 this process easy and easily reversable.  A guitar with a saddle requires that the bone or plastic saddle be sanded
 lower, shimmed higher, or replaced.

The height of the string above the fret is controlled by the nut and should be set so that when the string is played
 harder than usual you get a little buzz.  This practical method is more reliable than measurements because it accounts 
for all the factors effecting string movement.  Nut slots should be filed at a downward angle so that the string is
 stopped by the edge of the nut abutting the fingerboard.  Guaged nut files with a round cut are used, and the slot 
must be very smooth to avoid the string sticking in the groove.  A little graphite in the slot sometimes aids slipping.

Intonationis the correction of the mathematical string length by which the frets are set to allow for the sharpening 
that occurs when the string is depressed on the frets.  A thin string changes pitch less than a thick string, and wound 
strings change less than plain strings.  Nylon and silk core strings don't change much at all because their dominant 
overtone range is lower than a steel string (intonation on a classical guitar can be improved, however, with a 
compensating saddle). Electric guitars with very thin strings have to be very accurately adjusted because their 
dominant high overtone balance makes variation more noticable.

The chart below shows a typical intonation adjustment for a set of acoustic light guage strings.  

Note		string guage		compensation
  e		    .012”		     +5/64”
  b		    .016”		     +11/64”
  g		    .024”wound	     +6/64”
  D		    .032”wound	     +9/64”
  A		    .042”wound	     +11/64”
  E		    .053”wound	     +13/64”

The proper intonation is detemined with the use of an electronic guitar tuner by matching the 12th fret harmonic with 
the played note at the 12th fret.  Numerous repititions are necessary to make sure the tuner is reading the dominant
 note and not reading the overtones too much.  A very light touch is necessary when fretting the string to ensure you
 are not unduly stretching the string and making it sharper.