Setting up my Fender Telecaster

[PTChristopher]

Please also note that the Frets.com information is copyrighted (and really good).

Please do not reproduce it here in any way. Refer to it all you want, but if we can respect the copyright of all the work Frank Ford put into this, that would be great.

I'll link to it whenever it seems like a good idea, but just reading through it all can also be very interesting.

Chris

[aniss1001]

Ah sorry, I had to go for a while there.

And I'm afraid I don't have a lot of tools. Doubt that I have any files apart from nail files I will have to buy what is needed. Nor is it that easy to measure anything less than a mm in particular on the middle strings, but here we go...

About the action... well, I had to raise the action on the higher strings some after I got it back from the luthiers. Simply more fret buzz than I could handle. So now it is somewhat higher that what you mentioned. It is currently set to a tad more than 2mms on the high E string and pretty much exactly 2 mms on the lower E string.

There is still quite a bit of fret buzz, in particular on the 4 higher strings..

EDIT: Ah now you wrote something more. But I'm still in doubt as where to set the action? Do I try raising it more until the fret buzz disappears or do I lower it to match the numbers you said (1.5 - 2.0)?

And I don't know about the wielding supplies?!

[aniss1001]

OK! I read your posts a couple of times. A bit confused now. Don't worry about the time this takes. It's not easy over the internet. But the important thing is that I understand every step.

For now do we presume that the nut is OK? (even though the A and D string MAY need a bit of filing)

About the action... you said "decide what sort of action you want at the 12th fret and set the saddles to that height". Now I can interpret that in 2 ways... Set the action to where:

1) There is no more fret buzz. That wil probably mean some 3mms on the high E string or something.

2) The strings are as close to the neck as I'd like ideally. That is without considering the fret buzz.

And then you said I should set them to 1.5 - 2.0 which would mean lowering pretty much all other strings than the low E string, even though that would create more fret buzz than there allready is...

Ah and generally when we're talking action I measure the space between the highest point of the 12th fret and the string in question.

Just wanna be sure we're talking the same language here

[PTChristopher]

>>> For now do we presume that the nut is OK? (even though the A and D string MAY need a bit of filing)

It's OK-ish. Good enough to move forward and see what we see.

>>> you said I should set [the action] to 1.5 - 2.0 which would mean lowering pretty much all other strings than the low E string, even though that would create more fret buzz than there allready is...

Yes. We need to know why it buzzes first, then see what can be done to reduce the buzz.

I understand that the strings will buzz at the action I suggest above. Try not to tell anyone.

>>> when we're talking action I measure the space between the highest point of the 12th fret and the string in question.

Yes.

We pick the 12th fret because it allows us a very good reference point for the various things we do in a setup (nut height, relief, bridge height, neck angle). There is nothing magic or deeply true about action at the 12th fret, it is just a convenient convention (much like Euclidian geometry).

>>> we're talking the same language here

Zeker weten, jong.

Chris

[aniss1001]

Hi again Chris,

This really is an impossible task for me. I mean how to measure a 10th of a mm?!

Anyway I did my very best to set the action as close as possible to:

1E: 1.5mm
2B: 1.6mm
3G: 1.7mm
4D: 1.8mm
5A: 1.9mm
6E: 2.0mm

This off course meant lowering the higher strings some, thereby increasing the amount of fret buzz. Actually FYI this pretty much corresponds to where the tech left it to begin with.

Then you said "Press the B string down at the first fret and around the 15th fret" and "Now look at the clearance of the B string above the 7th fret".

I presume that "clearance" means the space between the fret and the string?!

If that is the case I'd say about 0.2mm above the 7th fret.

Now since I don't have a capo I was using my hands to press down the 1st and 15th fret while trying to keep the 1E string from blocking my view, so this is a rough estimate. But it does kind of look like it corresponds to the thickness of the B string (which is a tad less than 0.2mm).

So I did not adjust the truss rod which I presume is what you meant when you said "set the clearance".

I then did the same with the other strings too and it seems to be the same. That is.. the space between the 7th fret and the string pretty much corresponds to the B string's thickness on ALL the strings actually.

Sooo... by now I'm not entirely sure I did what you asked me to nor what to do next. Hope to hear from you tomorrow.

Take care and thanks for helping me out again.. and again..

[Classicplayer]

annis1001,

You can improvise a capo with a pencil and a thick rubber band.....I've done it
in the past when I did not own a capo.


Classicplayer

[PTChristopher]

>>> This really is an impossible task for me. I mean how to measure a 10th of a mm?!

Nobody really does accurately measure .1mm of string clearance on a regular basis in setups. Some use feeler gauges, but slight misalignments of the gauges and hard-to-see lifting of the strings means they often are far less accurate than one may think.

Just get it close. Things change slightly with humidity and temperature changes anyway.

**************
NOTE: I forgot to ask you to lower the PUs so they are at least 3mm below the strings when fretted at to highest fret. This is to get rid of any unlikely, but possible, impact of the PU's on buzzing. We can raise them again later to your preferred height, if it is closer to the strings than 3mm.
*****************

OK, so you are at about 1.5mm high E to 2.0mm low E.

>>> "clearance" means the space between the fret and the string?!

Yes.

>>>If that is the case I'd say about 0.2mm above the 7th fret.

>>>But it does kind of look like it corresponds to the thickness of the B string (which is a tad less than 0.2mm).

0.2 mm is about a .0079". That would be an extremely light high E string, and a rather low amount of relief.

But assuming the clearance is about the same as your B string, what is the size of your B string?

>>> I did not adjust the truss rod which I presume is what you meant when you said "set the clearance".

OK

>>> between the 7th fret and the string pretty much corresponds to the B string's thickness on ALL the strings actually.

That is good. It generally means that your neck does not have any troublesome twists.

So forget bridge intonation compensation for now. We have a pretty good idea that your guitar is set up with rather low action and a fairly typical amount of relief.

I know it will buzz for you, but if you can describe where it buzzes and under what conditions we can figure out where to look for trouble.

If it buzzes absolutely everywhere, then you'll need to lighten up some as part of troubleshooting.

Ease up (even though it may be lighter than you wish to play) until you find some sort of pattern to the buzz. That is to say, lighten up until you get some buzz, but not buzz everywhere.

I understand that "lighten up" as a concept, and an actual activity, is not very precise. But we are humans, and we'll do the best we can.

Some typical possibilities (and it usually is a combination of a few):

- Some strings buzz more than others.
- All strings buzz in one area of the FB.
- All string do not buzz in one area of the FB.
- Strings buzz at particular frets, or over an area of a few frets in several pLaces on the FB.
- Some other pattern that you may notice.

Now, looking down a neck to see if it is straight is almost as useless as sniffing a wine bottle cork. But looking down a neck to see if the fret crown peaks are a mess can actually be pretty useful, but it is a little tricky.

I'll try to make a pic later today if I get my design-drawing work done.

But if you face a light and get it to reflect off the fret crowns it can get easy to see if there are specific problem frets, or specific groups of frets that are a problem.

But first play as lightly as needed to get buzzing in some areas and not others and let us know what happens.

I suggest not getting frustrated at this sort of exercise. It can take a while to get the hang of the more human parts of the process.

Chris

[PTChristopher]

And a minor rant on action height and accuracy:

>>> >>> This really is an impossible task for me. I mean how to measure a 10th of a mm?!

I think you could measure .1 mm, but this will take an extreme degree of care and be of limited use.

Your guitar moves around a little all the time. Not a huge amount, but enough to make ultra precise measurement of string height no better than a snapshot of a very specific time, place, temperature, humidity, and orientation.

I once had a guy run into the shop (years ago, I was a kid-luthier) needing to use the Peterson Strobe to "set the intonation" on a fretless bass.

I was curious enough to let him use my bench and tuner. Mostly because he used epoxy to re-finish maple fretless necks and I was getting into using polyester resin for the same purpose on polyester finished Fender fretless necks. So I was curious.

Anyway, he sets the bass face up on the bench and used a flat screwdriver to press the strings down at the calculated "12th fret" position on this fretless neck.

So now he sets the bridge saddles for "perfect" intonation - so long as you play with a screwdriver and set the bass flat on a table.

So he left. I grabbed both a fretless bass and a few guitars, and started to make a few tests.

I came to the opinion than a screwdriver was not the same as a finger and that holding an instrument in playing position was often noticeably different that laying it on a bench.

This may not sound profound, but I made the change and have since always done bridge compensation with the guitar in "playing position" as opposed to flat in the bench. I find that such basic practical things are more effective than transient, ostensibly "super-accurate", measurements - especially when such measurements are made under conditions that can make the measurements not representative of playing conditions.

On the bench vs. on the lap is often not a big difference at all. But it is often far more of a difference than the .01 mm to which some specifications refer.

More rant:

"Nut Action", measured as the clearance of an open string at the first fret is a possibly well-intended way to dumb down the situation.

But it fundamentally makes no sense. Nut height is a function of a continuation of the fret height on the FB. Changing bridge height will change the "nut action" at the first fret but will have no effect on the height of the nut relative to the height of the frets - which is the important part. So "nut action" at the first fret is a meaningless guideline.

Imagine if someone carefully (and to a reported .01mm - that's 0.00039 inches) measured the action above the 3rd fret when strings were fretted at the 2nd fret, this would be as effective a setup guideline as "nut action" measured as clearance above the first fret.

But I suppose if someone published a book showing the "3rd fret action" of Joe Perry, Stevie Ray, and the guy from Guns and Roses with the funny hat, then some luthier somewhere will be asked to match this.

Anyway, I'm all for numbers. But we need to recognize when we reach a point were the numeric accuracy (and choice of parameters) mis-represents the practical needs of making a given guitar suitable for a given player.

In my opinion.

Chris

[aniss1001]

Hi,

Damn I got the inches and mms confused there.

Well as I said I couldn't really measure it so I did it by eye as well as I could. And the clearance is definately (clearly visibly) less than 0.5mm on all the strings. And more than 0.1mm. I can't recall the thickness of the B string since the tech threw out the "envelope" that they came in (allthough I told him not to well because I figured I would need to know the specs at some point). But probably it's 0.016 (perhaps 0.018?) as I recall.

And then you asked WHERE there is fret buzz...

Well as you say the harder you pick the more buzz, so I HAVE been trying to pick as light as possible when playing recently to minimize the buzz.

Anyway with the action set THIS low there is fret buzz EVERWHERE on all the strings if I pick a bit harder than that. Well except the open strings. I don't have to pick extremely hard just not particularly light. Even on the higher frets (fret 17 and whatnot) there is fretbuzz as is.

But generally speaking I'd say the buzz is the worst between the 3rd and 12th fret. And also it seems to be worst on the 3 higher strings. But this I'm not sure of. Perhaps I simply notice it more on the higher strings.

I'll keep playing with this to see if there is some pattern...

EDIT: Ah and the pup is more than 3mms below the strings as is. I measured around 4.8mm on the low E and 5.1 on the high E.

EDIT AGAIN: I believe that dude from Guns n' roses with the funny hat is called "underscore", "semicolon", "slash" or something like that

[Classicplayer]

annis1001,

Seems like you are anguishing over the buzzing issue. Here is the way I'd go setting up a Tele' (I have a Strat with the same scale length). I use .10s on my guitars. I cut three short pieces of guitar string one in .010, one .011, and one 012. I wrap a short piece of scotch tape and attach it to the end of each of the pieces and I write on the tape the string guage. Those are my "measures". I capo the guitar at the 1st. fret and while pressing down on the 17th fret, I slip the .010 string under the high E string at the 8th. fret. Tip the guitar on it's side and if the string falls out, I gently tighten the truss rod and then check to see if the string can hold my "measure"/"gauge" in place. Some folks like more so you can choose which one suits you.....it might be the .012. By doing all this I get a decent amount of relief in the neck, but not so much that the action now is unplayable......the goal is to eliminate buzzing.

Next, I sit down and and play unplugged and listen for a buzzing. Keep in mind that if you do happen to hear some, do not be alarmed.....plug the guitar into your amp and play and listen again and chances are you won't hear it through you amp.

All the above is assuming the tech did a decent job setting up the guitar in the first place and found no high frets. A high fret hear and there can be the culprit in the buzzing issue, but they can be filed down or replaced to get rid of it. Note: If you have no capo, use a lead pencil and a rubber band to make one.

Classicplayer

[Classicplayer]

annis1001,

I forgot to say that I slip the string under the not only the high E string, but also under the low E string. Sorry!


Classicplayer

[aniss1001]

Seems like you are anguishing over the buzzing issue....

Thanks for your tips. And I don't know if the tech did a good job or not. That is in part what I'm trying to figure out now. I do know that he did nothing to the frets. He 2st said that the neck, nut and frets were all good BEFORE I ventured into modding the guitar. And then later he said it was all bad so I dunno. He did leave the guitar with a very low action setting and a LOT of fret buzz.

Anyway for know I'll simply follow the instruction of Chris the best I can and see where that leads me.

[PTChristopher]

Aniss and C'Player,

The idea here is to walk our way through this and see if the frets do need work.

It is certainly true that the player's fingers and ears are a big part of the buzz picture. But I am hoping to cross each bridge as we come to it.

Anecdotally, for players who have buzz everywhere, all the time - I try to get them to not just lighten up, but also look at their right (for right hand players) wrist. Straighten the wrist completely. It will be awkward, your elbow will stick out, but you will also strike the strings more across the strings with less up/down vibration. It helps in some cases.

It also makes it harder to really lay into the strings, so a double benefit.

Chris

[PTChristopher]

Classic-P,

Thanks very much for joining in here.

[aniss1001]

Hehe well I'm afraid that with the action THIS low there IS fret buzz everywhere unless I pick EXTREMELY light.

But I might add that there has always been some fret buzz on this guitar. I believe the problem is in particular between fret 3 and 9 on the 3 highest string. I always had to be "careful" around there.

But with this action setting it is everywhere!

EDIT: BTW I found the webpage of the strings I'm using so I can see that the B string is 0.015 since I'm using the "heavy medium" set.

Hmm... and it seems that you don't know what to say after I said that that the fret buzz is everwhere. I've been playing with it some more and I'm afraid that is the case with THIS action setting. Unless I pick unrealistically light it is hard to find any spot below say the 15th fret that doesn't buzz. In particual the higher strings are really bad like this. That is why I raised them immediately when I got back from the tech. They sound awful no matter how I pick. But then again 1.5mm clearence seems like extremely low to me.

Anyhoo not sure what to do from here?

[Classicplayer]

D'Addario Jazz Light (Chrome) strings run .011 through .050 with a B string that is the 15. Could that be like your set?

Classicplayer

[aniss1001]

Hmm I keep reading the posts in this thread and I think I'm in over my head here. I need a tech for this. Unfortunately I have lost some respect for the tech I've been using and I have not been able to find another one.

Besides it bothers me that if I get a fret job done it will likely be rather expensive and I'm currently not even sure that is the (main) reason for the fret buzz....

On the other hand it really does seem like the neck and the nut are pretty OK so what else could be the problem?

[aniss1001]

D'Addario Jazz Light (Chrome) strings run .011 through .050 with a B string that is the 15. Could that be like your set?

I'm currently using nickel plated round wounds like this:

.012 .015 .024 .032 .042 .052

[Classicplayer]

I took a look at my Strat and at the 17th. fret my high e-string is 1/16" (you'll have to convert to mm). The low e-string is just a bit over 3/32". The other strings are right around 1/16" (inch).

I wonder if your tech lowered your bridge parts too low for you. With some relief in the Tele' neck, say, .012 or so, there should be very little buzzing going on. Also make sure that when you play both e strings at the last fret, that they do not touch the neck or bridge pickups.

With the gauge string you are using the relief and strings heights at the 17th fret might have to be raised slightly......by raising the bridge saddles. Even the most inexpensive Tele should not have the type of problem that you have.

Classicplayer

[PTChristopher]

Aniss,

Kinda busy here, so a quick response:

>>> I think I'm in over my head here.

Well, there is nothing here that you can not do and un-do.

>>> neck and the nut are pretty OK so what else could be the problem

That's what we're working on. It is slow working blind and remotely, but I think it is not hopeless. At worst, you can have some idea of what you need a luthier to do and how long it is likely to take/cost.

[Classicplayer]

PT Chris'

Pleased to meet you if even under annis's dilemma. He should be able to get it all sorted out himself without the aid of a tech; as long as the Tele' was manufactured properly. I learned to set up my own guitars. The method I described above is just how I go about it with my own guitars and I would not hesitate to use it in setting up someone else's either. I can show them how to do the procedure and they can improvise and get it to their own specs.

Classicplayer

[aniss1001]

OK! The thing is I also have some studying to do now so I am running out of time too.

But as I said I kind of have a date with the tech TODAY. That is in a few hours. He will try to raise the action some to get rid of the buzz and also evaluate the frets and nut to see if he believes I need to do something more drastic and give me a budget on the damn thing.

If he manages to adjust everything optimally (well given the guitar as is) I will be somewhat reluctant to fiddle with it myself for now since that would screew up his adjustments.

I had kind of hoped being able to collect a bit more information before going there but yes it is slow like this and I don't have all the time in the world these days either. So here we are.

I'll let y'all know what he said and did the moment I get back...

Thanks for all the help so far

[aniss1001]

I wonder if your tech lowered your bridge parts too low for you. With some relief in the Tele' neck, say, .012 or so, there should be very little buzzing going on.

Well as I said in the topic description he did set the action very low. Kind of where it is now; 1.5-2.0mm high to low.

When I asked him to raise the action some to get rid of the buzz he tried, got all frustrated and said that he could not intonate it properly if he raised the action more. He also said that the action was fine and that the problem was the frets, neck and nut (not being any more specific than that).

Before I did the mods he told me all these things were fine. So natually I'm a bit frustrated over this. Not even sure he is that competent anymore. But I've been asking around and he seems to be it in this town. Haven't been able to find another tech.

Anyway I really doubt that I can learn this unless I have someone to show me. I spent HOURS on this by now. Researching and reading setup manuals and I'm still pretty much on zero. The information seems inconsistent and I have no idea how anyone can determine these things. Like measuring anything like 0.1mm is completely out of my scope.

If my tech had been more competent I wouldn't even have tried and I would then have been able to spend the 30+ hours I've allready spent on this playing with my guitar rather than fiddling with it which I really am no good at!

Anyway thanks a lot for your help. I do appreciate it

[jazzbow]

I don't know whether you caught my Squier Jazzmaster thread on setting up a new guitar. I will not get in the way of Chris's (sisses's) excellent tutorial but check it out.

https://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/guita...ts-set-up.html

[Classicplayer]

You 1.5 to 2.0mm sounds about right if measured at the 17th fret. That means the bridge saddles are about where they should be. Try this.....press down on the high e-string at the 2nd fret. There should be just some daylight showing between the very first fret and the string. Also do the low e-string and you check all of them while you are at it. That should indicated that the problem does not start with poorly cut nut slots.

The other aspect is perhaps that the next time you change to new strings, go down a gauge and see what that does for the buzzing. As I said, I use .010 through .046 on my Fender Strat and, yes, if I play hard, really step down on those strings, I can get it to buzz. I have my action high enough that with my light touch, I don't experience fret buzz...and as long as I don't hear any coming through my amp's speaker, I'm a happy guitar player.

There is one problem that I now have, annis, and that is just how in the world am I going to get that fine Jazz tone that I heard in your sample clip?! I will have to really work on that.

Classicplayer