whoopss

[Der Bluten Kat]

i did something so stupid last nite and whats stupid is i knew that i shouldn't have done it and i went ahead and did it anyway..

i was adjusting the truss rod on my carvin fretless 6 (neck through) to lower the strings since they were kinda high and my bridge was already pretty low.. to make a long story short, i made like 4 or 5 half turns either loosing it or tightening it, and now my strings are kinda at the right height but every note buzzes.

i havent messed with it since. will the wood settle in or is it screwed forever? or is there anything i can do? suggestions are very openly welcome.. i gotta fix this thing for my gig on friday.

[Lowtonejoe]

Originally Posted by Der Bluten Kat

i did something so stupid last nite and whats stupid is i knew that i shouldn't have done it and i went ahead and did it anyway..

i was adjusting the truss rod on my carvin fretless 6 (neck through) to lower the strings since they were kinda high and my bridge was already pretty low.. to make a long story short, i made like 4 or 5 half turns either loosing it or tightening it, and now my strings are kinda at the right height but every note buzzes.

i havent messed with it since. will the wood settle in or is it screwed forever? or is there anything i can do? suggestions are very openly welcome.. i gotta fix this thing for my gig on friday.

Just start screwing it back the other direction untill the buzzing goes away or until you are back to your original position.

Pay very close attention to what you are doing. If it starts to get very tight before you get back to your original position stop screwing and wait a while, then see if it has relaxed enough to continue. If it does not relax, stop and take it in to a pro before any damage occurs.

If you get it to the point where most of the buzzing stops but it is still not low enough, look at making adjustments at the bridge.



Joe.

[pkr2]

Originally Posted by Der Bluten Kat

i did something so stupid last nite and whats stupid is i knew that i shouldn't have done it and i went ahead and did it anyway..

i was adjusting the truss rod on my carvin fretless 6 (neck through) to lower the strings since they were kinda high and my bridge was already pretty low.. to make a long story short, i made like 4 or 5 half turns either loosing it or tightening it, and now my strings are kinda at the right height but every note buzzes.

i havent messed with it since. will the wood settle in or is it screwed forever? or is there anything i can do? suggestions are very openly welcome.. i gotta fix this thing for my gig on friday.

Don't adjust the Truss rod any more untill you check and adjust the saddle heigths.

The curvature of the neck (relief) and the saddle heigth adjustments have to be tweaked together for the final adjustments. Keep in mind that the saddles on the bridge adjust the action at the bridge end of the neck while the truss rod adjusts the action at the nut (tuning key) end.

The truss rod is adjusted very nearly perfectly when ALL the frets have about an equal amount of buzz. At that point, raise the saddles to clear up the buzz at the bridge end of the fingerboard. If you still have buzz at the nut (tuning key) end of the fingerboard, very slowly increase the relief by loosening the truss rod nut.

Recheck for buzz on the bridge end of the neck by slowly lowering the bridge saddles untill the highest frets buzz and then slowly raise the saddles just untill the buzz clears up.

The trick is to keep going back and forth between saddle and TR adjustments untill no further improvement can be made. Remember that the truss rod adjustments require some settling in time to take effect. After adjusting the TR nut, tune the instrument with your electronic tuner and check the tuning every few hours. When the tuning stops drifting the adjustment has settled in and you can proceed with the setup.

At this point you can adjust the bridge saddles for your preferred action heigth.

If I'm not clear with what I'm saying, ask questions.

The very worst mistake that one can make in setup is to start making adjustments just to see what will happen. Every one of the adjustments has a very specific role in the setup procedure. You will quickly find yourself out in left field when you make arbitrary adjustments.

Good luck and go slowly. It ain't rocket science but the adjustments MUST be made precisely and in the correct order.

[Der Bluten Kat]

thanks dude that was some good info.. im prolly gonna leave it alone for another couple hours until it recovers a lil bit from last nite

right now when i press on down on any string its mainly pressing down behind where my finger is on the nut side.. so does that means i should loosen the truss rod a tiny bit then raise the bridge a lil bit right?

[pkr2]

Originally Posted by Der Bluten Kat

thanks dude that was some good info.. im prolly gonna leave it alone for another couple hours until it recovers a lil bit from last nite

right now when i press on down on any string its mainly pressing down behind where my finger is on the nut side.. so does that means i should loosen the truss rod a tiny bit then raise the bridge a lil bit right?

No. Don't do anything to the bridge yet.First you need to get the TR adjusted properly.

To adjust the truss rod initially:

You may need someone to help you with this. Fret one of the center strings, D or A at the #1 fret. Also fret the same string at the#14 fret. While the string is fretted at both ends, use a couple or three business cards as a guage to measure the distance between the bottom of the string and the top of the fret at the #5 or 6 fret. If the spacing is more than about 2 or 3 Business cards the truss rod needs to be tightened to make the neck straighter. If the space is less than one card, the TR needs to be loosened to add a bit of curve (relief) to the neck. Once the relief is within tolerance you can (if needed) adjust the bridge saddles to fine tune the action to your preference.

Be VERY careful to make sure that the instrument is tuned accurately when checking the relief because the tuning has a big bearing on the relief. If it's tuned too high the relief increases (wider spacing). If tuned too low the relief decreases accordingly.

You will probably need to turn the TR nut counterclockwise to increase the relief. Once you get the TR in the ballpark, You can start tweaking the bridge and TR adjustments to get it just right.

Describing it step by step makes it sound more complicated than it really is.

Again, ask ?s about any part that isn't clear to you.

If you would feel more comfortable, set a time, we'll go to PM and I'll walk you through it as you go along.

[JustOpenYourMind]

you know that adjusting the truss rod has very little to do with action, unless it's already not adjusted properly. you should adjust your relief to barely being able to slide a credit card between the string and the frets when you press down the string at the firs and last fret. THEN you adjust your action with the bridge saddle and that's the only way to do it properly.

of course all of this is writen in the sticky at the top of the forum.

[Der Bluten Kat]

thanks a lot for your words and wisdom.. but im about 85% sure my bass is ****ed for good. im taking it to the guy who owned it for the 10 years before i bought it from him to see if he can fix it, but im not getting my hopes up.

[pkr2]

Originally Posted by JustOpenYourMind

you know that adjusting the truss rod has very little to do with action, unless it's already not adjusted properly. you should adjust your relief to barely being able to slide a credit card between the string and the frets when you press down the string at the firs and last fret. THEN you adjust your action with the bridge saddle and that's the only way to do it properly.

of course all of this is writen in the sticky at the top of the forum.

Actually, the problem that's being addressed is not an action problem problem per se. It's a buzzing problem and the relief certainly does have an effect on it.

Just fot the sake of discussion, there is more than one way to adjust the relief.

Another way is to reduce the relief untill the strings just start to buzz on the 2nd or 3rd fret, then reduce the saddle heigth untill the strings just begin to buzz near the bridge end of the neck. At that point check for buzzing near the middle of the neck. If the strings are touching the frets in the middle, increase the relief untill they clear the fret but buzz. If they dont buzz or touch the frets in the middle, reduce the relief untill they do. Repeat untill the strings buzz slightly in every fret position. You may have to repeat this sequence of adjustments two or three times to reach the point of equal buzz on all frets. The tuning must be kept adjusted to standard pitch at all times. At this point the neck is straight.

Now raise the action at the bridge saddles untill the buzz clears up on the high notes. At this point adjust the TR untill the buzz just clears up at the fifth fret.

The action is now set to the lowest possible heigth, which may be too low for your particular playing style. If this is the case, simply adjust the bridge saddles to raise the action to suit.

The method of using an arbitrary measurement is the way that most production basses are set up at the factory. It is a compromise method that works for the average player. I'm not saying that one method works but the other doesn't. I am, however, saying that setting relief to a discrete measurement is not going to address individual preferences. Actually measuring the relief is fine for a starting point but it's not the best way to reach the final adjustment.

The beauty of UNDERSTANDING setup is that you can set your instrument up to your own preferences.

There is no such thing as "one size fits all" in setup. Every player has his/her own unique preferences. I seriously doubt that many pros play instruments that are just "OK" as they come out of the box.

[Der Bluten Kat]

i got the dude to "fix" the buzzing and everything was fine until today when the wood settled in.. now it buzzes on every string below where the second fret would be.. how would i fix this?