Troubleshooting problems with acoustic guitar saddles can often be problematic. This document is really useful to help one’s understanding and appreciation of just how important it is to set up these pieces of equipment well, and also suggest ways of fixing them.
Have a read, and if you’re not sure about something, please get in touch.
http://www.fishman.com/files/advanced_undersaddle_pickup_installation.pdf
This lovely Washburn acoustic has just had it’s action lowered – down by over 1mm at the 12th fret, so it now has a feel akin to an electric. It’s so easy to play! Lovely! The fretboard has had a new lease of life too, as I’ve got rid of he years of dirt and grime, and it’s as clean as the day it was bought. With a fresh set of Elixir Nanoweb strings, this baby sings!
This was an interesting repair to do. Not only was the fretboard in serious need of a fret stone/re-crown and set-up, but the instrument was also creating a sitar-type buzzing sound which was less than pleasant!
The fret stone was straight forward, taking out some fairly serious pits, then re-profiling and polishing to a crowned, smooth surface.
The next job was to fix the buzz. Typically, these sorts of sounds are generated by problems with either the nut or the bridge, and can be narrowed down by process of elimination.
The sitar sound was continuing to be created when any note was fretted, however it was eradicated when picking between a fretted note and the nut. Therefore, the bridge was the problem.
This was a pretty simple job to ultimately fix, and the guitar is back on the road and ready for action!
Today was a very interesting day – I went on an amp servicing course which was thoroughly revelatory! I highly recommend it to all guitarists and bass players as it can really help you appreciate how to maintain and sustain your kit.
The only slight downside is that an amp I took which I thought was fine and dandy turned out to have a fairly critical problem… It seems a trip to the music shop is in order…!
It’s been another busy week here at Aylesbury Guitar Repair, with an interesting mixture of jobs required to be done.
The first was a rather sorry, 30yr old Tangelwood acoustic, whose frets were in appalling condition littered with dents from strings, bizarre diagonal ‘grazing’ and one or two frets with flattened edges under the high E string. Furthermore, the bridge saddle was so low that the guitar was more or less completely choking out around the 5th fret up, and as such was more or less unplayable!
The owner just wanted a basic setup, so the guitar could be played along the length of the neck – not the most demanding of requests on the face of it, although the work to get it there was fairly substantial!
I started by levelling the neck and fret-stoning and re-crowning the frets, then polished to a high shine.
Next, I set about cutting a new bridge saddle from a bone blank, only this one was about an extra third deeper than the original to get sufficient clearance, but with a friendly action to aid playing.
Once the new strings were added I checked the string spacing, action, the intonation, and once satisfied I polished the guitar to finish the job.
This is a completely different guitar from when it arrived, and was very fun to do. Delivering a like-new instrument is always a buzz for me, and I know there will be many hours of enjoyment as a result of the work that was carried out here.
The next guitar was an Ibanez whose pickup selector switch was malfunctioning – there was a spot between positions 1 & 2 where the guitar cut-out completely, and would often get stuck there mid-performance. This was clearly unideal, so a replacement was required.
The switching for this guitar is quite complex, utilising an OTAX VLX91 switch that has double the number of contacts available to create many interesting pickup combinations when using 4-conductor cable.
A a H-H equipped guitar, the sonic options for this guitar are very varied with the following…
1. Neck wired series
2. Neck wired parallel
3. Neck and bridge together
4. Inner coils
5. Bridge wired series
With this you can get some lovely warm tones, powerful ones (courtesy of the DiMarzio Evolution pickups) and single coil out-of-phase-type scooped ones.
The wiring was a little bit tricky in places – quite precise and fiddly – but the job was done first time and the owner is super happy with a more taut switch, minus the unwanted killswitch bonus!
Another job that took place today was a setup on an incredible Overwater bass. This is a custom-made instrument that needed thicker strings to accommodate the new owner’s preferences in feel. The action needed to go too, and this was helped by the increased gauge, and then the intonation needed some adjustment.
I typically find that 5-string basses are quite challenging to get perfect on the Low B, but the Hipshot bridge on this bass was fantastic and settled really well! Highly recommended.
What was interesting on this instrument was that the fretboard was so flat – there was minimal radius in the fretboard, but it was wonderfully playable!! An all-round beautiful instrument!
So the Martin got finished beautifully – the action was so good that any electric guitar would be proud to bear it, and it really plays effortlessly.
I’ve since received some school basses that have a myriad of different issues, including missing jack sockets, missing pickguards and exposed wiring, and intonation issues. They need some serious love but I’m sure the results will make them a real joy to play in the end!
Next, this Ibanez walked in. It needed a fret stone, re-crown, setup and also needs it’s switch replacing as there’s a spot on it where the signal cuts out completely!
I started with the fret stone and re-crown so that I could batch some soldering together once I get the go-ahead on the basses.
The pits that were present in the frets came out really easily, and they polished up beautifully after lots of elbow grease! Once that was all done I set about lowering the action (came down by a 3rd so is now mega-low!) and now it’s so easy to play. Unreal, and so exciting! It’s a new guitar. One tweak of the intonation on the high E string and it was good to go!
Today is an exciting day at Aylesbury Guitar Repair.
This instruments are fantastic – great build quality and their technical appointments are top notch, too. Real player’s instruments!
This one needed the fretboard to be cleaned, new strings fitted and intonation sorted out, so that’s what I did! It’s come out beautifully!
Next on the list is this Martin acoustic.
This is another very special instrument – sounds incredible plugged in and plays nicely. The action needs to come down on this, and that will take place once I’ve fret-stoned and re-crowned the frets as there’s a bit of wear on them. I can’t wait to see how this one comes up!
This little baby is amazing! It arrived with a reasonable action but it had room to come down and that’s exactly what I did.
The truss rod had room to be tightened to encourage the neck to straighten, and this helped me keep the action down across the length of the neck.
I took about 1.5mm off the base of the bridge saddle, sanded it smooth, replaced it and then checked the resulting action.
It came out wonderfully, measuring 1.5mm at the 12th fret. There’s no buzz whatsoever and it almost plays itself!
Well today has been an interesting day of setter-up-ering!
The Freshman acoustic already had a very low action – almost too low – so alongside cleaning the fretboard of all of the gunky deposits, I raised the treble side of the bridge in order to relieve the buzzing on the neck a fraction.
The truss rod was pretty seized from a setup, so the neck had to stay as straight as it was, but this didn’t prove too problematic, and the guitar plays great – especially for an acoustic!
The Aria guitar was a very different problem, as the jack plate needed bending into shape – for some reason it was very flat in it’s profile from new – so I needed to flex the guns!
First I need to de-solder the Jack socket, and saw through the threaded section of the socket because the nut holding the Jack plate in place wouldn’t come off! Quite extreme measures, but it needed doing.
Once that was done it was a simple job to bend the plate to match the curvature of the body of the guitar, a re-solder of a replacement chassis, then a straightforward set-up from there. This was a really lovely guitar to work on, and the action is much slicker now!
So yesterday a lovely chap dropped over his Yamaha Pacifica 112 guitar which was in need of a setup. In its lifetime it had been strong with 9’s, 8’s, and mostly recently 10’s, leading to a raised tremolo bridge and high action. The bridge saddles were set flat, so they needed attention too.
The client simply wanted the guitar set for the 10’s, with minimal buzz – at a height whereby his fingers didn’t rise on top of his fingers.
In order to achieve this, I fitted an extra spring to the tremolo, which brought the bridge flat to the body (another request of the client), and then set about getting the action just so.
I set it to factory settings (1.9mm and 2.4mm at the top fret respectively for each E string), and this was to the customer’s liking.
After intonating the guitar and a quick polish, this guitar spent a little over 36hrs in my possession all told, and it was great to be able to get it back into the customer’s hands before Christmas!
