What might be happening here?

[Dankology]

As noted in a recent posting, I'm using my Squire VI more regularly nowadays, in fact it's the only instrument I've used at our last couple of rehearsals.

 

But the more I use it, the more I'm noticing problems. I've already fitted a Staytrem bridge as the original didn't allow enough saddle movement to intonate the low E and have shimmed the neck slightly. I'm currently using the Newtone Axiom strings which have a 100 (or thereabouts) on the lowest string.

 

But I'm still struggling to intonate the low E despite the saddle being maxed out. At the moment it seems I have two options: drop the bridge to its lowest and get decent intonation but rattles all along the string OR raise the bridge and then have every single note up to about the 15th fret sound sharp. The other strings seem pretty fine.

 

Looking down the neck, there seems to be significant relief (I should check I'm phrasing this correctly here: to my eye the neck seems to bow away from the strings around its midpoint). So I'm wondering if an adjustment here might be what's needed. But this is something I've never had cause to adjust on any guitar before - is it really as simple as gradually turning the adjustment clockwise and seeing how things go?

 

Or does what I describe above speak of a more signficant issue? 

[Andyjr1515]

Does the saddle have a spring behind it?  If it does, then removing the spring can get you a few more mm backward movement...might be just enough

[Reggaebass]

Could it be just a faulty E string if the others are ok , maybe try another string to test it 

Edited March 8, 2022 by Reggaebass

[Andyjr1515]

12 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Does the saddle have a spring behind it?  If it does, then removing the spring can get you a few more mm backward movement...might be just enough

Just noticed that you replaced the bridge - and the Staytrem doesn't have springs.  Ignore my suggestion.

[Dankology]

A new set of strings has just arrived, funnily enough... Will see how things go with them. 

[BigRedX]

The Newtone strings are heavier than the ones the Squier comes fitted with and therefore the saddle(s) will need to be further back. It may be that the bridge simply doesn't have the adjustment room required for these strings. I'll check with mine when I get a moment, but since I got the Eastwood Hooky Bass it's gone into storage so it may take a couple of days.

[Dankology]

I've had another mess around but this is driving me mad.

 

There was barely a 1/16 of a clockwise turn left in the truss rod. In desperation I ended up giving it about an 1/8 of a turn counter-clockwise from its original position and this has allowed me to get the intonation right at the 12th fret.

 

But now every note between 1st and 11th frets is significantly sharp and the string buzzes so much as to be unplayable. The other strings are unaffected.

 

I've included a photo to show how high the action remains despite the bridge being as low as it can go plus a neck shim in situ.

 

I'm beginning to suspect that the neck has something horribly wrong with it but would be grateful for some pointers to try before I smash the thing into pieces and throw it on the fire.

[Daz39]

Crikey - either the Nut is an inch high, or the neck is bent like a longbow...

[PaulThePlug]

You mentioned shimming the neck... how, what with, how thick and where did you put the shim?

 

Looks like it could do with a shim at the back of the neck pocket... did you put a shim at thr front per chance?

 

Side on pick of nut, neck body join and bridge would help...

Edited March 8, 2022 by PaulThePlug

[Dankology]

The shim was a stiff piece of card (from a packet of strings, or something slightly thicker), it starts at the body end of the pocket and reaches about a third of the way up.

 

Photos attached! Looking at the nut, I wonder if the low E slot could do to be a bit deeper.

[Maude]

I was about to say the same as @PaulThePlugabout shimming it wrong, but you appear to have put a sensible sized shim in the the right place. This shim should have angle the neck backwards so you must have a crazy amount of relief in the neck to get that string height.

I'm thinking maybe you've just gone to extremes out of desperation and possibly, although you have a huge string gap, the string when fretted is hitting on the end of the fretboard as the bridge is low. 

Imagine a straight line between nut and saddle that sits just above the last fret. With too much much relief, when fretted in the middle of the board the string will now hit that fret. 

It's hard to say without seeing the bass in the flesh, but I'd be inclined to straighten the neck and remove the shim and start from scratch. 

 

[Maude]

The nut does look quite high. Are the new higher gauge strings sitting at the bottom of the nut slots, or do they need widening slightly? 

[Dankology]

I think the low E slot is cut slightly wrong - the bottom of the slot is little slanted so the string doesn't sit quite as low as it might. Will try and file it down...

 

I thought I was reducing the relief by tightening the truss rod but met significant resistance. Or should it need a good bit of effort to tighten it up? I am truly out of my depth here. 

[PaulThePlug]

^...mmm... Try the tap test...

Fret the string at the 3rd fret...

Between the Nut and the 3rd fret, there should be a little gap, giving a little 'click' when tapping the string on to the actual 1st fret bar (not in the fret gap)

 

Bridge looks low ish, and i see what you mean about maxing the intonation.

This might improve with a neck remedy as the speaking length of the string will become longer...

 

Recon the relief is BIG... More Pic's... might need another pair of hands.

 

Fret at first and where the neck meets the body... 17th fret ish...

Whats the gap between bottom of string and top of frets 7 and 9? Again 'Tap' click test... Business card to Credit Card gap... would be ideal'ish... then Adjust Saddles to clear all or most frett buzz dependingbon what ya after...

 

[PaulThePlug]

Nut slot should be slighy slanted to the headstock, so the string rests on the fretboard side edge of the nut... these are flats on my acoustic.

Edited March 8, 2022 by PaulThePlug

[Maude]

7 minutes ago, Dankology said:

I think the low E slot is cut slightly wrong - the bottom of the slot is little slanted so the string doesn't sit quite as low as it might. Will try and file it down...

 

I thought I was reducing the relief by tightening the truss rod but met significant resistance. Or should it need a good bit of effort to tighten it up? I am truly out of my depth here. 

You shouldn't have to force the trussrod nut, you'll end up rounding out the hex hole or worse snapping something. It's worth giving the neck a little physical help when tightening a stiff trussrod. Place the bass (string side) against a sofa or something, brace with your lower leg and gently, I said gently 😉, prise the neck backwards, then turn the trussrod to hold it in this position. It takes the stress off the threads while adjusting 

 

Was about to say nut slots should be slanted but @PaulThePlughas just covered it.

 

I'll leave Paul to talk you through everything as it'll just get confusing with too many chipping in. 

🙂👍

[Dankology]

Thanks for that. I've admitted defeat for this evening but I'm going to try everything suggested so far tomorrow and see how far I get.

 

Re the nut, it seems to have the proper slant towards the bridge but there's also a left/right slant and the slot itself isn't wide enough to let the string get to the deepest point.

[PaulThePlug]

https://guitarskillsplanet.com/how-to-adjust-guitar-truss-rod/

 

1/8 or 1/4 turn at a time then leave for a goid few hours or overnight.

 

Good fitting Allen Key.

 

If loosening, slacken strings...

[BigRedX]

@Dankology I've just got my Squier Bass VI out of storage and comparing it to your photographs there is something very wrong going on with you bass.

 

I've shimmed the neck on mine (a piece of 400gsm business card that sits in the end of the neck pocket closest to the neck pickup and extends back as far as the closest screw holes, so roughly 25mm x the width of the neck) and I have a more noticeable tilt in than is than is evident in you second photograph of the neck where it joins the body. The result of this is that my bridge is much higher than yours. I'm measuring 17mm from the top of the scratch plate to the bottom of the E strings. The whole point of shimming the neck is to get a much greater break angle over the saddles to reduce the compliance of the strings and therefore tighten up the feel of the low E and A strings in particular. Yours still looks like my Bass VI did when it was new out of the box before I'd added the shim.

 

I have the LaBella Bass VI rounds on mine (I'd already stopped using it in favour of the Burns Barracuda before I got my first set of Newtone Axions) but the low E is only a 95 as opposed to 100 of the Newtone and fits perfectly in the nut without modification. and I doubt that an extra 5 thousands of an inch will make any noticeable difference.

 

Action on mine is 4mm at the 12th fret and it would got down at least 1mm if I adjust the truss rod as there is slightly more bow in the neck then most people would find comfortable.

 

Your bass looks so far out I would stop whatever adjustments you are doing and start again from scratch. Also that way you won't be making the wrong adjustments for the wrong problem. Firstly take off the strings and remove the neck. Check that your shim hasn't moved and if it is in the correct place maybe replace it with a slightly smaller one that doesn't fill quite so much of the length of the pocket - as I said mine fits between the body end and the next set of screw holes. Having done that replace the neck and without fitting the strings adjust the truss rod so that the neck is perfectly flat and straight.

 

Then using a long straight edge along the frets to the bridge, raise the bridge until the saddles touch the bottom of the straight edge. Without any relief to the neck I would say you want the tops of the E string saddles 15mm from the top of the scratch plate. If you can't raise the bridge that far without lifting the straight edge off the frets at the top end of the neck, then you need a fatter shim. Once you have get this right, wind the bridge up another 1-2 mm.

 

Now you can restring, tune to the correct pitch, and then leave the bass for a day. The next day come back, and check that the strings are sitting at the bottom of the nut slots (as I said on mine, out of the box, the slots were wide enough for heavier strings). If not widen them slightly without making them any deeper until the strings sit properly. Then, and only then, slowly adjust the truss rod until you have just enough space the slide a business card between the strings and the 12th fret while holding the string down at the 1st and 21st frets (if you are very hard player [like me] you might want a little more relief than this). Do not worry about the intonation at this point, if you are using the truss rod to get the intonation right you are doing it wrong. You might need to adjust the bridge up or down slightly to compensate for the change in relief.

 

Only once you have got the relief and the string height right should you start to adjust the intonation. The bridge on mine is straight to within 1mm between the highest and lowest strings, so therefore when you you set the intonation you should get each saddle going slightly further back as the strings get thicker. On mine with the original Squier Bass VI bridge to high E string saddle is about 2.5mm from the front of the bridge and the low E string saddle is 3.5mm from the back (I had to remove the spring on this saddle to get it far enough back). That's about 6mm difference between the position of the high and low E saddles. I haven't checked the intonation recently, but when I was using it as my main Bass VI, I was playing plenty of things high up on the neck on all strings without any noticeable tuning issues. The only other tuned instrument in the band where I use this bass is synthesiser, and person who plays that has very good ears when it comes to tuning and notices problems I never hear. 

 

Once you have made all those adjustments, if you still can't get the bass in tune (and have tried another set of strings to rule out the possibility of a faulty string in your current set), please come back with the following photos:

1. Strings in the nut slots

2. Relief at 12th fret while holding the string down at the 1st and 21st frets (you may need someone to either hold the string or take the photo for you)

3. Bridge height

4. photo of the top of the bridge showing the saddle positions.

 

HTH, and good luck!

 

[BigRedX]

Having had another look at all your photographs and descriptions, I would say the problem with the intonation is directly related to the very high action and that is most likely due to the neck being at the wrong angle in relation to the body. Remember that the intonation is there to compensate for the stretching of the string as you push down to fret it. The higher your action is the more you have to push down and the more you have to compensate by moving back the saddle.

 

Follow my instructions and first get the neck angle right, then the action and relief and hopefully the intonation will sort itself out.

[Dankology]

@BigRedX Thank you for the very comprehensive guidance - I'm very grateful to everyone that has offered their expertise here.

 

I'm hoping to set some time aside this evening to start bottoming this out properly. I'm a bit gutted if I'm honest - the Squire had sat unused for months until recently and has now become absolutely essential to about half a dozen new songs.

 

Will report back!

[Daz39]

51 minutes ago, Dankology said:

@BigRedX Thank you for the very comprehensive guidance - I'm very grateful to everyone that has offered their expertise here.

 

I'm hoping to set some time aside this evening to start bottoming this out properly. I'm a bit gutted if I'm honest - the Squire had sat unused for months until recently and has now become absolutely essential to about half a dozen new songs.

 

Will report back!

If all the sage advice fails then you can always resort to a hammer and some shouting.

[Dankology]

10 minutes ago, Daz39 said:

If all the sage advice fails then you can always resort to a hammer and some shouting.

 

I was nearly there last night, let me tell you.

[Andyjr1515]

What part of the country are you in @Dankology ?

 

There's a permanent thread at the top of the Repairs section here of Basschatters round the country who can offer help to other Basschatters.   

 

It wouldn't take long for someone experienced to diagnose the issue...and I'm always bothered when a majorly high action is put down to truss rod (and yours is a majorly high action).  Agreed, the rod may well be not adjusted correctly but, as @BigRedX says, this starts as a neck angle problem and, generally, that is easily fixed.

[EssentialTension]

I had a similar problem with a Squier Bass VI. It was fixable with an appropriate shim