Setup help

[phil30uk]

Following a tech setup guide to setup my guitars properly One is an Ibanez RG1570 prestige and the other a Jackson ATX. The action was quite low on both of them but the bridges were really low too so I added a shim to the body side of the neck of both the guitars to allow me to raise the bridge.

I loosened the truss rod slighly to add a little relief and heightened the action as the strings were catching on the frets. Now the strange thing is, is that on both the guitars the action is almost identical and i'm still getting notes choking on the neck from one place only, if I bend the C# on the top E on both guitars. It couldn't possibly be that both of the guitars need fret work doing could it? The playability of them is good although I would like the action a fraction lower but if I lower it the choking obviously gets worse. Am I overlooking something here or will a fret level cure my problem?

Thanks in advance.

[Spivonious]

Are we talking 10th fret? I'd think you need a tad more relief in the neck then. It's highly unlikely that both guitars need identical fret work.

If it's the 22nd fret, then it's definitely fret work, since the truss rod doesn't adjust that far up the neck.

Then again, couldn't you just raise the bridge slight on the high-e side?

[phil30uk]

I have to take the action quite high to shift the choking and it makes the guitars uncomfortable to play, I have played other peoples' Ibanez and Jackson's with lower action than mine and they have been great it's just really frustrating that I can't get my own guitars to play like them. It seems to be around the 9th - 12th fret. It may be that I need more relief in the neck but a lot of people tend to set these kind of guitars up with a "straight as possible" neck from what I have read. I would take them to a tech to have a look at but there are none within a 30 mile radius of where I live so it would be more practical if I could do it but i've been trying for weeks now to get a decent action without choking and am finding it really hard.

[Cleveland Metal]

Curious as to what tuning are you using? Particularly low?

I tune to C# and D a lot and it plays hell with attaining decent relief on some guitars. My truss rods are so loose they're almost rattling haha...

I dont hear much about it, and I'm wondering if I'm the one of the few having that issue, but I'd sorta doubt it with all the downtuning going on.

[phil30uk]

I'm using standard tuning with 9-42's on them both. The necks on both guitars are pretty much straight with a small amount of relief but even adding a little relief to not sort the problem out.

[dg]

There are a lot of variables at play here. First question: Was everything working properly before you added the shims & adjusted the truss rods? If it was, then you shouldn't need fretwork.

As far as adding relief, the usual reason to do that is if you have fret buzz in the lower frets. If you didn't have lower-fret buzz, then you probably had enough relief. Too much relief can be just as much of a problem as too little. It can cause buzz in the high frets above the neck joint.

Another possibility: How big of a shim did you use? I'm wondering if maybe you created a little too much neck tilt. Compare the action at the 12th fret with that at the 22nd (or 24th). It should be just a tiny bit higher at the end of the fretboard, or at least make sure it's not lower than it is at the 12th. If it is, try a thinner shim and start from scratch with the setup, including going back to the same neck relief you had before you started.

I just feel that if everything was OK before you started, then it should all still be able to be set up right if you take it one variable at a time.

I hope I made some sense here. I've been fighting a bitch of a headache today. Good luck with it!

[phil30uk]

There are a lot of variables at play here. First question: Was everything working properly before you added the shims & adjusted the truss rods? If it was, then you shouldn't need fretwork.

As far as adding relief, the usual reason to do that is if you have fret buzz in the lower frets. If you didn't have lower-fret buzz, then you probably had enough relief. Too much relief can be just as much of a problem as too little. It can cause buzz in the high frets above the neck joint.

Another possibility: How big of a shim did you use? I'm wondering if maybe you created a little too much neck tilt. Compare the action at the 12th fret with that at the 22nd (or 24th). It should be just a tiny bit higher at the end of the fretboard, or at least make sure it's not lower than it is at the 12th. If it is, try a thinner shim and start from scratch with the setup, including going back to the same neck relief you had before you started.

I just feel that if everything was OK before you started, then it should all still be able to be set up right if you take it one variable at a time.

I hope I made some sense here. I've been fighting a bitch of a headache today. Good luck with it!

Fist of all you make perfect sense, ha ha. Thanks for replying even though you have a headache.

When I started doing the setups I was following the Tech setup from the Jemsite forum. RE. neck shims, the bridges on my guitars were set really low to get a decent action so used a shim to allow me to take up the bridge which seems to have worked quite well. Maybe the shim is a little bit too thick, I used them off a standard business card.

The necks are now adjusted so that they are almost straight and to get by without any buzz i've took the bridge up on the high E side to almost get rid of the choking. I may still take my guitar to a tech to get the frets levelled or at least checked out.

[dg]

When I've shimmed necks, a business card is about the right thickness to convert a neck from v-trem (no tilt) to the right angle for a non-recessed floyd. Since these are recessed trems (correct?) and you only want to be able to raise them a little bit, I think a business card is too much shim. In fact, to get the trem raised high enough to be right with this much neck angle, you would probably need to change your sustain block to a longer one or the springs will pop out. If you keep the 32mm block, you can only raise the bridge a little bit.