PROFESSIONAL GUITAR SETUP COURSE
INTRODUCTION
The Pro Guitar Setup course is designed for up to 6 people and the aim is to
teach the art of setting up both electric and acoustic guitars with confidence.
The course is both theory and practical, we discuss all the setup points and how
to adjust the guitar to get the best setup out of it, we use a Gibson Les Paul
and a Stratocaster to demonstrate all of these points. Not only do we discuss
and show you how to adjust the finer points but we also discuss and show how to
maintain your instrument, covering fretboard treatment and fret polishing.
WHO IS THE COURSE FOR?
The course is designed for all levels from the complete beginner looking to get
the best setup out of their guitar to working techs who want to brush up or who
are broadening their skills. We are confident that you will leave with the
knowledge and awareness to setup your own guitars and having had the practical
application of this new found knowledge, the confidence, which is often lacking
with the majority of people to maintain their instruments.
WHAT WILL YOU LEARN?
THEORY
* Measure & Adjust Neck Relief: Detailed theory & practise.
* Action heights: Correct Height, adjustments & discussion
* Radius the Bridge Saddles
* Floating Bridges: Balancing & Setting up
* Intonation: Adjusting Intonation
* Fretboard cleaning
* Fret Polishing
* Electrics: Maintaining the Pots and checking the electrics
* Schematics
* Pickup Heights
* Re-Stringing: Gauges & how to string correctly
* Cleaning: Different finishes and how best to clean
PRACTICAL
We then move on to putting these points in action starting with;
How to assess the guitar with mind to all of the points, this is so key to
gaining confidence and certainty, knowing the points to start with enables you
to adjust safe in the knowledge that if you go too far with the neck relief you
have a starting point and using certain increments you can be sure of how much
adjustment you are making, it seems to be a common problem with people adjusting
their own neck, not knowing a starting point and it is the very first thing that
we check when setting up guitars..
The most important point is how much Relief is in the neck, this is measured
using a Notched Straight edge for greater accuracy. We will also show you how to
assess the neck relief by eye, this enables you to easily determine the relief
in the neck without the use of any specific tools. Once the relief is measured
we check the Action height at the 12th fret as well as at the 1st fret, this
gives us a good picture of how the guitar is setup currently.
With the Pro Guitar Setup Points that we give you, we are then able to look at
where the guitar needs some work and then put that into action. Getting the
balance between the neck relief and action heights is key to a good setup, with
the guitar adjusted to where we want it we then go onto the maintenance part of
the setting up.
PERSONAL ATTENTION
The course does have a set agenda but we often meander around topics and are
happy to do so, most of us have had many different guitars and they nearly
always have some curious tales and they are always good to discuss as they will
bring up certain points about setup which will add to the discussion and
possibly unraveling the complexity that is often misunderstood in getting your
guitar setup right.