Zero tension?

[selowitch]

I repair guy at a local music shop once told me he had set up my Jazz Bass for "zero tension," by which I assume he meant no tension exerted by the truss rod and that the strings were still pulling on the neck and providing the necessary relief.

Is this really possible or desirable? Or was he pulling my leg?

[T-Bird]

Hi.

Possible, yes (and way too common IMLE).

Desirable, well no if You ask me, even if the rattle doesn't bother You much.

Regards
Sam

[selowitch]

Originally Posted by T-Bird

Hi.

Possible, yes (and way too common IMLE).

Desirable, well no if You ask me, even if the rattle doesn't bother You much.

Regards
Sam

Well, I care about keeping my neck trouble-free for as long as possible, and I like low action that doesn't buzz with a light touch. Does zero tension serve either of those goals?

[mech]

Originally Posted by selowitch

Well, I care about keeping my neck trouble-free for as long as possible, and I like low action that doesn't buzz with a light touch. Does zero tension serve either of those goals?

Not really. It means the stiffness of the neck is just right to balance the tension of the strings without the truss rod being used to get proper relief.

I've had one neck like that when used with light gauge strings.

mech

[iiipopes]

It's all relative. So long as the bass is stable with the preferred strings, it doesn't matter so much to the structure. However, zero-tension, some tension, a lot of tension, no tension: all will change the mechanical impedance of the neck, meaning the resonant frequency. The trick is to choose a resonant frequency that affects the playability as little as possible, i.e. to minimize, especially on Fender basses, the dead C#, D, or Eb that occurs frequently on the G string.

Some do this by the design of the truss rod, or the addition of additional fixed rods, others by a laminate in the neck of a different wood, others by sawing the neck blank in two longways and regluing it, others by using a different material (i.e. graphite) for the neck altogether.

[PrietoBass]

Use low-tension Dunlop strings.

[walterw]

Originally Posted by selowitch

...repair guy at a local music shop once told me he had set up my Jazz Bass for "zero tension," by which I assume he meant no tension exerted by the truss rod...

i doubt he "set it up for zero tension" as much as he just adjusted it to where he thought the relief was right, and for that bass it happened to be with no tension on the rod.

in general it's not a good thing, because what happens when the weather or the string gauge or the tuning changes and the neck goes into a slight backbow? with no tension on the rod, there's no place to go, as most jazz basses i've seen don't have "two-way" rods that can force upbow as well as backbow.

if it's working OK now then fine, but you may have an issue down the road; the fix would involve more drastic measures, like heat-treating the neck or pulling the frets and planing the fretboard.

again, this is an issue with the neck itself, not with the way it was set up.

[T-Bird]

Hi.

Originally Posted by selowitch

Does zero tension serve either of those goals?

No.

Zero tension on the truss rod means that the neck is too stiff for some reason, to work properly.

If the TR is completely free, it'll rattle or buzz at certain frequencies.

Like said previously, if the weather change requires more relief, that can't be done.

If You want to change the strings to some other strings that have less tension, the neck can't be adjusted to accomodate them.

This all is assuming that zero tension on the TR is what the tech meaned, obviously.
Since having the TR completely loose when the relief is correct is a flaw, I seriusly doubt that it's the case here.

Regards
Sam

[apa]

If he set the correct tension in the truss rod to counter act the tension in the strings the neck itself would have zero tension. Perhaps thats what he meant!! This isnt technically true, just translating what he meant.

A