Novice - should I upgrade?

Doctor J

adox wrote: »

I don't know if the action is too low but there fret buzz on the open a d g and maybe b string.

Just check to see if there is any relief in the neck. Hold down the low E string at the first fret and the last fret. You should hope to see about a 1mm gap or so between the top of the 8th fret and the bottom of the string. If there is no gap at all it would mean the neck is bowin back slightly and that might explain the nut being too low. As Voodoo_child says, try to get a grip on the entire setup of the guitar, set it up to your taste rather than just accomdating it as it is

adox

adox wrote: »

Thanks guys. Its a gorgeous isnt it? I`m more than like going to hang onto it. I`ll wait and see what gak say, see if they`ll offer me anything in the way of compensation.:D

Got an e-mail from gak this morning offering to either pick the guitar up and send a new one out(galaxy white which they have in stock) or if I hang onto it, they will send me 10 sets of D'Addario EXL120 strings and a Venom Cobra 20 foot cable.

I`m keeping it and taking the strings and the lead.:)

Doctor J

Score!

And fair play to gak for some pretty decent customer service too.

Alanstrainor

Wow, great stuff! Fair play to GAK! Tbh, i think the colour you got looks savage! win win!

adox

Yeah I have to say their communication has been second to none. The guy even apologised for not getting back to me sooner as he was only back in today.

Gave me both options straight away(replace the guitar or freebies), Would have taken anything they were offering tbh as the black has really grown on me and I love it now.

I use 9`s usually anyway so the strings will be very welcome. I usually use Ernie Balls but I have 6 or 7 sets of them lying around here already so the D'Addarios will make a bit of a change.( They come as stock on the guitar as far as I know).

Big thumbs up for GAk.:)

Kenny_D

Haha that worked out well. Cracking guitar. Enjoy it man

adox

Tried to set this up today myself primarily to get rid of the bloody fret buzz.

I`m admitting defeat already. I`ve spent a few hours at it and I`m just afraid I`ll make it worse!

I think I`ll swallow my pride and look for someone with more experince than me to give it the once over.:o

adox

Well I left it in with someone in Dublin to do a general set up and got it back today. I have to say it seems like it was a waste of money. That action is now stupidly low, no relief at all. I,m going to give the truss rod a little tweak to raise it slightly. Also on the first fret of the high e string the note doesn't to g out properly. I'm presuming this is to so with the action being too low?

Anyway I won't name the guy but suffice to say I won't be visiting him again.

In happier news my free strings and cable arrived from gak!

Quattroste

I'd only adjust the truss rod as a last resort adox. Can you not raise the action at the bridge?

Voodu Child

Well I left it in with someone in Dublin to do a general set up and got it back today. I have to say it seems like it was a waste of money. That action is now stupidly low,

Thats the problem with relying on someone else to do your setups, everybody has their own personal taste. Whoever set it up probably thought it was perfect setup for him.

I,m going to give the truss rod a little tweak to raise it slightly.

Dont use the truss rod to adjust action, thats not what it's for.

Use the trem posts to adjust action, the truss rod is to adjust the bow of the neck.

And take caution with truss rod adjustments if you've never done it, or never read up on it. (ie if you've never read up on it, do so)

A rough guideline (for an Ibanez RG) is:
-Action 2mm (low-E 24th fret) high-E can be a touch lower
-Relief 0.5mm
-Trem level (important!)

If you get it there, youre 90% of the way, and its just a case of tweaking yourself depending on preference, string guage, fret quality, etc.

Also, if you paid money to get a setup and arent satisfied, I would take it back to whoever did it and get them to make the adjustments.

adox

Quick update. After some really sound advice on this thread and through pm:

I`ve adjusted the action at the bridge and am much happier. I cant begin to explain how low it was. Anyway its much better now and that first note on the high e now rings true, instead of being strangled.

There was no relief at all so I`ve just loosened the truss rod slightly( a couple of quarter turns at most) and am going to let it settle overnight and see how it is tomorrow.

The thing is, after being so intimidated by it all, it took me less than 5 minutes last night to adjust the action and get it set to my preference and measurements, and the truss rod adjustment and retune took around 5 - 10 minutes max.


I`m getting there, slowly but surely.

Again thanks to everyone for the advice and interest up until now.:)

Voodu Child

You will get the feel of it quicker than you expect.

When you're feeling confident, I would
-Remove the ZPS (zero point system) bar from the back of the trem. They are no good, it reduces tuning stability rather than increase

-Install the locking screws in the trem posts. I havent seen these yet; they bundle them in the case apparently, but they should be easy enough to install.

adox

voodoo_child wrote: »

You will get the feel of it quicker than you expect.

When you're feeling confident, I would
-Remove the ZPS (zero point system) bar from the back of the trem. They are no good, it reduces tuning stability rather than increase

Thats good to know, something for me to look at a little further down the line.

voodoo_child wrote: »

-Install the locking screws in the trem posts. I havent seen these yet; they bundle them in the case apparently, but they should be easy enough to install.

Yeah they are in the little bag with the allen keys. I`ve read up on these and you have to remove the whole trem system to gain access to the posts as they are at the back! A little daunting for me at the moment but again, maybe further down the line.:)

fasty

adox wrote: »

Quick update. After some really sound advice on this thread and through pm:

I`ve adjusted the action at the bridge and am much happier. I cant begin to explain how low it was. Anyway its much better now and that first note on the high e now rings true, instead of being strangled.

There was no relief at all so I`ve just loosened the truss rod slightly( a couple of quarter turns at most) and am going to let it settle overnight and see how it is tomorrow.

The thing is, after being so intimidated by it all, it took me less than 5 minutes last night to adjust the action and get it set to my preference and measurements, and the truss rod adjustment and retune took around 5 - 10 minutes max.


I`m getting there, slowly but surely.

Again thanks to everyone for the advice and interest up until now.:)

Glad to hear it's working out for you!

Did you set the intonation on each string after you raised the height of the strings at the bridge?

adox

fasty wrote: »

Glad to hear it's working out for you!

Did you set the intonation on each string after you raised the height of the strings at the bridge?

Thanks fasty. I havent set the intonation yet. I checked it when I was retuning and there are some strings that are sharp on the 12th fret. I did try setting the intonation when I got the guitar originally but I seemed to be going back and forward without getting it right. I was correcting the sharpness on the 12th fret, re-tuning the open string back up and by the time I did that the 12th fret was sharp again.:rolleyes: I need to look at it again.

Anyway I just checked the relief now and its much better after the little tweak on the truss rod last night. Theres defintely some clearance now as opposed to yesterday when it was completely flat so a definite result.

I am still getting some rattling/fret buzz? while playing sometimes but I`m beginning to think its more to do with bad technique from me with my strumming hand than anything else. I am quite heavy handed on the strings. I still have a bit of the drummers mentality, the harder you hit them the better they sound.