1st time Setup on my Fernandes bass

I tried setting my own bass up for the first time.

I tried my best to follow what I can remember from my friend helping me set up another bass of mine. I thought I did pretty good for my first time. It felt great, sounded great. Another fellow bass player at my church tried out my bass and was very impressed.

Honestly, I think it was beginner's luck...

I first loosened the strings and gave my neck some relief with a 1/8" turn and checked for enough space at the 7th fret with a feeler gauge. Then I removed and replaced my strings with Blue Steels. 5th string gauge changed from .125 to .128. I then adjusted my string height accordingly while measuring with a 32/64 feeler gauge/ruler at the 12th fret.

I couldn't really explain what I did besides that. I was able to tune up, stretch the strings, re-tune and that's it! I checked for fret buzz all over the fretboard. Continued to warm-up by slapping and popping the strings all over, and re-tuned.

Mission accomplished.

Thanks for all of your guys help. If I did miss a step, I guess I'll know by Friday when I play the bass again.

 

Well, I did check the intonation-but it didn't appear to be difficult after the initial adjustments I made. What's more, after tuning and adjusting the string height, the bass stayed in tune.

I am sure I'll recheck the intonation on Friday. Hopefully it still works!


I think that even if I messed up, I can still start over if I have to.