Quote:
Originally Posted by Duffy49  I just bought some Ernie Ball 45 to 100 flats for my Ibanez SR500 and I'm about to put them on to replace the stock factory strings.
Can I expect these to have similar tension to the factory 45 to 105 round wounds? Should I expect to have to adjust the truss rod? If so, which way do I turn the rod to tighten it, so as to make the neck profile less concave and lower the action if the tension of the flats is greater to the point of raising the action?
Should I turn the hex wrench toward the E string or the G string?
How have the EB flats been found to perform on basses like mine?
Feedback appreciated. |
If the tension of the flats is greater and you want to adjust the neck to have less relief...
Let's assume you are right handed... place your bass in between your knees so that the strings face your right knee and the bottom of your bass held in place by your right ankle. You will be using your left knee as a pivot point, and you will be (slightly) pulling your bass' headstock with your left hand... towards your left. What you are doing is minimizing the stress on the truss rod so that you can adjust it easier.
Now, in this position, tightening means turning the hex wrench towards the E string, increasing the truss rod pressure on the neck, and decreasing the neck relief (making it less "concave"). DO NOT adjust the truss rod more than 1/4 of a turn a day! And give it a day or two to let the neck stabilize.
My motto when doing truss rod adjustments, like when I change string brands/gauges that increase/decrease string tension is: "small moves". I find that after letting the neck stabilize after a few days intonation holds and I hardly have to do any more neck adjustments after that (I keep my basses in about 35-45% humidity).
I'm not sure about this, but I believe truss rod adjustments only affect about the first 5-7 frets on your bass. Adjusting the action more than what you can get by a truss rod adjustments may involve lowering the bridge saddles and/or shimming the neck. Be prepared to have a fret dressing job done on your bass if you like the action really low.
There's a book by Gary Willis that is a good resource on performing basic setup adjustments. Then there's also the Ultimate Bass Setup Guide which you can download for free (it's a pdf).
I'm not a luthier, but what I described is exactly what I do with my two basses, both of which have great playability and both my luthier and my (ex) instructor are (were) really impressed with the way I have them set up. But maybe I'm saying something wrong so those that know better please correct me.
I hope this helps.
