Minininjarob Posted September 8 Share Posted September 8 So I’m a relative beginner and only have one bass, my fender P I bought new. I like a slightly higher action cos I play hard with a pick and I’ve always struggled with fret buzz in various places. I wanted to send my bass to a pro to set up but after looking at some setup videos it looked really easy. My first few attempts didn’t work too well. I got new strings and did the whole thing properly. Polished the frets, set the neck, installed the strings and it sounded great. But still got a lot of buzz above the 12th no matter what I did. Eventually found that if that happens then the neck might need shimming so took strings off, unscrewed the neck and slid in half of one of my wife’s business cards. Put it all back together and WOW sounds great, no fret buzz, action perfect. And for no cost and without having to do without a bass for 2 weeks while a pro sets it up. I do have an advantage that I’ve spent decades setting up bikes and I am a very competent DIYer but in reality if you are carefully and do things in the right order it’s not hard. Now all I have to do is learn to play better but that’s gonna be easier with the instrument set up nicely. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulThePlug Posted September 8 Share Posted September 8 Nice... and a set of the correct good fitting tools, Allen Keys, Screwdriver etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hooky_lowdown Posted September 8 Share Posted September 8 Welcome to the club. Now you've learnt the basics you can use them time and time again. When learning set ups most people are afraid of truss rod adjustments, though if you're careful it's pretty simple. I learnt how to do set ups on YouTube 15+ years ago. Been doing them (basic set ups) ever since. Personally I think every bassist should learn how to do basic set ups, there's loads of good tutorials on YouTube, and it's really not that difficult. You only need a few basic tools. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted September 8 Share Posted September 8 Great stuff. Doing these sorts of things yourself is an excellent way of learning how it all works, what affects what and what you can take liberties with vs those things that need to be right. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minininjarob Posted September 8 Author Share Posted September 8 1 hour ago, hooky_lowdown said: Welcome to the club. Now you've learnt the basics you can use them time and time again. When learning set ups most people are afraid of truss rod adjustments, though if you're careful it's pretty simple. I learnt how to do set ups on YouTube 15+ years ago. Been doing them (basic set ups) ever since. Personally I think every bassist should learn how to do basic set ups, there's loads of good tutorials on YouTube, and it's really not that difficult. You only need a few basic tools. I’ve got friends who are asking me to help them with their instruments and I’m like “woah!!” 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minininjarob Posted September 8 Author Share Posted September 8 2 hours ago, PaulThePlug said: Nice... and a set of the correct good fitting tools, Allen Keys, Screwdriver etc. Good thing is that from 35 years of building and restoring bikes and houses I have some very nice tools! However finding out that the Fender used imperial sized Allen keys was a bummer. 😂 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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