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 Parker fly is a real beauty. A problem with it however, was that the nut slot for the G string was a bit tight. This resulted in an accurate tuning stability when using the tremolo system, and when returning to pitch after use, the string would be sharp, leaving an undesirable sound.
In order to remedy this, I widened the slot slightly so that the string could pass freely after lubrication. I then attended all of the other slots in the same way as well, and then the guitar began to behave in the intended way.
This is a stunning instrument and a really interesting axe to work on!
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!
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!
This was a set-up that had three saddles in a vintage configuration. The action was able to come down significantly and the relief in the neck was already sufficient for a decent feel, so no need to touch the truss rod on this occasion. Getting the intonation balanced was certainly time-consuming, but the end result was lovely!
