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Professional setup?
Submitted by Tim on Sat, 12/31/2005 - 17:01.
I think my neck has too much curve in it but when I checked it using the 'rule of thumb' in a book I've got it seemed ok, my bridge is very low though so I was thinking maybe my neck needs straightening and my bridge raising?
Anyhoo, this added to the fact I've never adjusted the intonation etc (we're talking 6 years here) made me think about getting my bass professionally set-up, then I can at least see what things should look like for my own tweakings.
Does anyone know roughly how much this would cost in the UK? What will they do? Is it worth it? Any opinions would be great, thanks,
Tim.
Tim, I had various bits 'n' bobs done, plus a setup, by Steve in Sale, Manchester, for £30.
I have a rough "howto" that I can pass onto you. I'm assuming your nut's fine...
1BL
Thanks that'd be great. As far as I know everythings fine, it's just never been set up properly.
The strings are a couple of mm off the fretboard at the nut, I assume this is ok?
Thanks again,
Tim.
Sorry for the delay Tim - still holiday time. OK, if you go to Peavey.com, go to the support bar and click on "search manuals". Type "bass guitar" and go search. Select the Dynabass 5-string manual and download it as a .pdf
After the initial blurb about the bass and its controls, there is a pretty good section on setting up your bass. I've followed these instructions and succesfully tweaked a couple of basses to get action and intonation better. Hope this helps :)
Looks useful, thanks, Ill have a look see if I dare do it myself!
Tim.
The scary bit is how quickly they suggest a truss-rod tweak. I'm with Peavey, though. If the action is ridiculous at the 12th fret, or the intonation is out, I'd go for a quarter turn on the rod. Raising and lowering saddles is a lot more complicated and involves radius-knowledge, steel rulers and allsorts. Very easy to get it Pete Tong and end up calling the guitar tech. Snapping the rod takes real ham-fisted doofusness, in comparison.
The funniest bit is definately changing the strings every month, although some players may wish to change them more often!!!
I last changed mine when I snapped my E during a battle of the bands.
Oh yeah, I remember reading that bit; presumably Peavey sell their own brand of strings :lol: . If you like a really bright "Tang!" then stainless steel rounds, like the Elites I used, do dull off after a while. A brand new "E" sounded almost like a piano. OTOH, some of those Motown players using flats reckoned they weren't broken in until after a year :)
I've got nickel rounds on the mahogany bass and they sound better now (2 years) than new. I kindof like the way there isn't much attack.
I always fancied flats but I could only ever afford one set at a time so I went for what I knew.
If you can cough up for more than one bass, then a different type of string on each can be interesting.
Warm wood (eg, mahogany) and nickel strings give a different complexion to the same riff compared with ash or alder and stainless steels. And that's just sticking with roundwounds. I'm also anal enough to prefer a maple fretboard over a rosewood one. I can feel my kagoul rustling, though :lol:
Strangely I could actually question you on this for hours :? I've always wanted to try all the different combinations but always focused on keeping the main rig running.
I have a mahogany bass lying around but I took the electrics and (more crucially) the weird bridge to 6th form to stick in a bass I made as my final project...which I then left there when I left...in '99...
The only maple fingerboard I've had on a bass was on my first one which was to be frank, nasty in every other way, so the Rosewood on the Aria seems great (the neck is maple with that lovely satin finish on the back). Do you get many ebony fingerboards on bass? not seen many myself.
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