Measuring neck relief: 1st & 12th frets or 1st & last frets?

[Chrisk-K]

A conventional way is to measure neck relief while pressing the string at the 1st and last frets. However, some manufacturers recommend measuring it while pressing the sting at the 1st and 12th frets (e.g., Lakland, Warwick) because the truss rod has little effect on neck curvature beyond the 12th.

Which one is more accurate? Using the conventional method, I see neck relief of about 0.3 mm on my basses. However, there is almost zero relief between the 1st and 12th fret.

[ajmee]

I go by the 1st fret and the 1st fret where the fretboard meets the body. Do your relief measurement 1/2-way between those two frets.

I wouldn't suspect that you'd see relief between 1 and 12 on a standard long-scale bass.

[narud]

1st fret and the fret where the neck meets the body. that way youre not incorporating any tongue rise the neck might have. info given to me from my repair man.

[SnakeKappele]

I have always done 1st and last fret and check at 8th.

http://www.garywillis.com/pages/bass...tupmanual.html

[Joshua]

Originally Posted by SnakeKappele

I have always done 1st and last fret and check at 8th.

http://www.garywillis.com/pages/bass...tupmanual.html

For what its worth, more than a few repairfolks here don't subscribe to Gary's setup tips (myself included). We've since removed that guide from the forum setup sticky. Note that he is a ridonkulously talented bassist...

Personally, I use first fret and the fret where the neck meets the body...

[GregDunn]

First fret and "last" fret, measure around the 7th. Seems to work on both my long and short scale basses pretty consistently.

[dave_bass5]

I always use the straight edge/feeler gauge at the 6th fret method like in the Lakalnd set up video.
Since i found this video my set ups have been spot on and very playable.

[JLS]

Personally, I use first fret and the fret where the neck meets the body...

Otherwise, you can be adding ski jump into the equation, which isn't a trussrod issue.