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That's awfully nice of you to say. Thanks very much.

This is only guesswork, but I'd say "until it's straight (or has a slight forward bow)". What's good for one neck may not be right for another neck because each one would be its own beast. Theoretically you should be able to pull it back with the truss rod if it's a bit too much relief. If it's already OK, then I'd say to just use enough tension so that the rod "grabs" without really doing anything. I have a guitar that's very borderline with the truss rod completely slackened off, but I went up from .009 to .010 and it's better to the point that I'm no longer contemplating what you're doing. I'm fairly comfortable with the idea but I've never had to do it.

@@jeffcookdotau Thanks. I actually did buy a set of .010s, but I'm going to try using the clamps first. It's sort of a project guitar and I'm teaching myself (well, RUclips is teaching me) how to do set-ups on it. The frets need some work as well, but I don't want to do that until I'm sure that the buzzing is caused by high frets and not the back-bow of the neck.

I'm glad that it did the trick. It's from a StewMac video, and I posted it nearly 10 years ago so a friend could watch it and straighten a couple of old Ibanez bass necks. 537736 views later...

Are they DVDs, or does he have a youtube channel?

Indeed, and a Shawbucker 1 in the neck. I'm actually putting a pair of Fralin hum-cancelling P90s in it to see how it goes. A new pickguard is on its way and the pickups are probably about 3 weeks away. Since I recorded the video, which may have been the day that the guitar arrived, it's been refretted with stainless steel medium jumbo because I don't get along with tall narrow frets.

I heard someone say recently that music is made of dots and spaces, and the spaces are harder to play.

The Jackson Bass I just bought preowned, the relief is supposed to be .12-.14 mm at the 8th & 9th frets per Jackson factory specs. They provide that information at the website. Once I had that much relief in the neck, everything adjusted for any action height & tuning I desired to set the bass up for. I understand that extreme weather changes are going to alter the setup slightly, but when the temperature & humidity normalizes, the bass will go right back to where it was set up. All my guitars do that & have for the last 3 years. Periodically I will assess the neck to make sure nothing hasn't warped, but my home is maintained at a constant 50-55% RH with the HVAC system, temperature stays within 1-1.5 degrees F with the thermometer & hydrometer (RH %) that I have. That's a $ 3-4 item at home depot. I use it to maintain the HVAC which is way more expensive than the guitars I own. For neck relief, a piece of paper, even as low as a store receipt applies. Completely flat or back bow is never good for a neck. The strings won't pull a neck completely from end to end, where the pull up is happening is at the nut & headstock, because that's where the stings are bent over the nut to the tuning pegs. At the other end, the saddles have their bend over point, everything in between is suspended over the frets & fretboard, & until one frets a string, open it never contacts as an open string. String break angle matters too. A setup is a juggling act of getting all those points of adjustment set properly. Once that happens the guitar will play both open & fretted for intonation perfectly, assuming the scale length is right & each fret on the fretboard was located where it needs to go. The bridge location is another critical build exact tolerance that matters.

And those saddles, individual saddles that look wonky cool as uneven are wrong. Nobody ever liked crooked teeth vs a beautiful perfect smile of level & straight teeth . The bridge should look like a flawless super model beautiful for saddles. There is a reason the saddles barrel ends are flush. The only exception to saddles not being level ? When the saddle is compensating for more than 1 string (like a Telecaster 3 saddle bridges vs 6 individual saddle bridges). Every Bass player that plays that instrument will be adjusting those for the rest of their miserable lives that way. Level the individual barrels & the screws are flush against the neck plate. even tension/pressure. Wonky as they are, one screw will always vibrate eventually to be loose & free turning. Level the saddles and they stay put. The string will ride uniformly for tension against the saddle slot cuts. Strings stay put and won't have a tendency to jump the saddle slots for down tuning from standard E, even for standard E tuning. Tuning stability will improve too, intonation will be more accurate, it won't drift because the strings won't move microns side to side beyond what wear & tear the strings or saddle slots experience. Guitars are nothing more than math, lengths and tolerances. As they wear, eventually they get sloppier for tolerances. Think of it like a car that's been broken in properly for a few thousand miles in the first oil change or two vs the car that has 150-200K miles on it. Worn out is cool, harder to play because the tolerances just aren't there any more. Proper adjustments early in the process and that minimizes the wear & tear of years of guitar play.

Final thought on ball ends of the strings. I generally align those and I use a section of string that I run thru the eye's of the ball ends for top loaders. That way when playing the instrument in the playing position, the strings ball end holes align perfectly. Maybe that's not really critical, but it does look more professionally done for a new set of strings. Sometimes a manufacturer will actually cut the holes on the back of the bridge plate to orient the ball ends to fit properly. My Ovation acoustic is that way. It's the difference between the ball end seating in the string hole. With the Ovation, have seen too many wooden Rosewood bridges split because the ball end didn't seat in the string hole properly. Again, uneven tension is the problem, properly orienting the ball ends is the solution. Yeah, it takes a little more time, but at the end of the day, doing the job right takes whatever time it takes. Strings might even last longer as the ball end makes better contact evenly around that entire radius instead of on a high single spot. It may seem like OCD, but your instrument won't be fighting uneven tensions & points of contact & friction. Sorry for the long responses, but I'm explaining why I advise to do anything. If one doesn't care, that laziness shows in other areas. Take your time, you have to do it anyway. Might as well be proud of he work when your done. Handing the instrument back for the owner/player's feedback is bad customer service & relations. As techs, any of us are supposed to know what these instruments should be as brand new & perfect. If a player comes back & says I did something wrong, that's a problem. I should fix the guitar right, hand it to them and never hear from them again. And if they do come back with another guitar for a set up, once & done. I can also point out all these things to a customer and if they tell me it's wrong for them, they really don't know how to build or set up a guitar. Even the most affordable Chinese guitar should feel & play like a Fender Custom shop relative to the precision it was built & located. The Chinese guitars are really narrowing the gap on quality. The difference is really in the finish, how many coats, the amount of rubbing & buffing, because the wood is virtually indiscernible. I have $ 100 Monoprice instruments that sound incredible with a little more effort into them. I can pay $ 100 & do it myself or I can pay another $ 2-3K and expect that it was done when the box is opened. There's not much you can do about the layers of finish beyond refinishing the body & wood, but he rest of it should be so tight to tolerances that the sound should be indiscernible.

Thanks very much. Praise from the master!!

You had to be there...

exact middle of the neck, typically around 8-9 fret

Your second fret could be too high and needs to be leveled

Thanks. I'm just improvising to a backing track that I downloaded. It probably sounds like a lot of things but I don't know what. The guitar came from a store in Canberra.

@@thomasnonsense did you use pedals or kemper?

@@BFHPET It's just a Fender Mustang GTX100. I couldn't even tell you what preset it was on, but a fair bit of gain and some delay. It was recorded on a Dell laptop just using the internal camera and microphone, so there's nothing fancy.

@@thomasnonsense how do the guitar sound in real life compared to other guitars

@@thomasnonsense is the guitar worth getting?