Jeff Talks About How to Set Up Your Bass
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- Опубликовано: 20 июл 2024
- Jeff and renowned luthier Joe Glaser discuss everything you need to know to set up your bass.
To learn more about Jeff, his bass lessons, and his new music releases, go to jeffberlinmusicgroup.com
Great tips. Very helpful for bass players starting out or long time bass players who can play but aren't sure how to do a proper set-up. On another note. Jeff Berlin and B.Bruford, A.Holdsworth & D. Stewart are to blame for my lifetime of joy and poverty. I decided very early on that I would dedicate my life to music. One day I bumped my head and thought I should go to College and study Accounting. After 2 years of School I secured a job at an Insurance company. Had the job for 2 days and that night went to see Berlin, Bruford, Holdsworth & Stewart perform at The El Mocambo in Toronto. They knocked me out! They were amazing. Quit my job at the Insurance company the next day and before the month was up I had joined a band and was back on the road. 2 years of school down the drain. So here I am 40 odd years later with no pension, no money and a 13 year old VW. Thanks Jeff.
I know what you mean. The album - One of a Kind by Bill Buford - is my favorite jazz fusion album. A shame Allan Holdsworth has passed away and Buford has retired to teaching. Well, even Mozart and Beethoven died and left us with many treasures. Jeff Berlin is touring hopefully in a town near you. I've been playing classic rock since the 70's. That too is a dying art form as kids today don't know what good music is and only the few are diligent enough to explore the likes of Bill Buford or Jeff Berlin. I am plagued with living in a part of the country that only likes country, hip-hop and grunge. Yuck.
True story!
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One of the best bass players in the world taking his bass to one best guitar and bass techs in the world. That was awesome now I understand why everyone likes Mr Glaser. His patience with his customers and dedication to his craft really makes all the difference.
Mr. Berlins eccentricities are exceeded by his extraordinary bass playing. Thank you!
I've done instrument repair for over 6 years and I can tell Joe knows his stuff. Lots of people get caught up in measuring and specs and things like that but setting up an instrument to play well is about feel. Every guitar is different. Instrument repair is an art. I would like to meet Joe one day. Perhaps if I make it out to Nashville again.
I've heard probably dozens of explanations of how to set nut height. Almost all of them are wrong. This is the first clear and correct explanation I've heard, a revelation! Thanks!
I think the feeler-gauge method should work if you're setting the action to factory specs. He says that method is only invalid because the action varies
3:18 to “That’s a really clever way to remember that” 😭 my sarcastic ass was thinking the same thing
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Who knew that plumbers made good luthiers?
You cannot…CANNOT….over-appreciate a skilled luthier and tech.
I really appreciate this video, and everyone’s time in putting it together.
Very gracious.
Great video and great information. It's about time bass players stop having so much taboo about how to set up their basses and making inexperienced players feel like they should be afraid of their own instruments. Of course you shouldn't make any sort of rough adjustments and depending on what the issue is you should definitely find a professional to help you out. But stop telling players that they should never adjust the truss rod and other things themselves. After all, you want your bass to be set up in a way that you like, and many times local Luthiers might give you a good set up, but it might not be what you're looking for. Most other instrumentalists learn how to adjust their instruments as part of their normal learning process of their instrument. This should be the case for us bass players too. Thank you Jeff for continuing to elevate bass didactics.
I've been playing for nearly 30 years & there was some info in here that I was not aware of. Always learning. Very cool.
It’s about time a clear and detailed setup for the bass is done. Thanks.
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Jeff!! No words for how much I enjoy hearing and watching you play! Thank you! Oh... and thanks for the setup help!
Jeff is tops, as good as it gets!!!! a true master. Joe really did a nice job on that setup!! Excellent!
Id like to hang out with Joe for a week and watch him work on guitar & bass he seems like a great guy and a good teacher
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Now...all I need is a bus ticket to Nashville. I'll always think of Joe whenever I am setting up one of my bass guitars.
Two lovely gentlemen...thanks for demystifying the mystical. Mr Berlin, thanks for your wonderful contribution to our musical world..if only you could have seen the faces of my two young children some years back when they heard for the first time your recording of Joe Frazier...spontaneous joy and laughter.
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Excellent video Jeff, I’ve done a little bit of work with a couple of luthiers a bit over the years and the information in the video is exactly what I’ve been taught. No nonsense, to the point and honest. Thanks very much for posting.
Hey Joe, thanks for the word on Pops!
Very impressed with Joe Glaser! Thanks for the video Jeff.
My pleasure! 🧡
Farout gentlemen.... Thanks Jeff for the intro and thanks Joe for your knowledge. Blessings...
Best setup demo I've seen, very informative. Thanks
I saw Jeff perform in NYC with Allan Holdsworth = O.M.G. - those 2, make you want to Lock-yourself-in-a room . . . and Study Music Theory. 2 phenomenal musicians. oNe LovE from NYC
Wonderfull .. thanks Jeff and Joe.
It was a great affirmation for doing the intonation , in that he does it exactly like I do, so that was great. I basically figured it out myself about 25 years ago but it was great to finally see a pro doing it. I'd love the nut adjustment , that was good for me and thank you Jeff for this and for the Bertolini pickup suggestions a few years ago.
That explanation for setting the nut height I came at just the right time. My son’s bass needs some setup and now I can follow along. Thanks.
It's a joy to watch a couple pros at work.
The subject of a properly set up and intonated bass guitar is of vital importance to beginning players. Yet, it's hardly ever addressed. I spent years thinking I had defective ears because as a self taught player I never saw or heard intonation addressed. As a result when I tried to learn bass parts from recordings the notes on my neck were out of tune no matter what my tuner said.
That song at the end is hilarious!!!! 😂🙌🏾
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Nice to see the masters collaborate agreeably!! Jeff Berlin... I used to read your articles in guitar player magazine back in the early 80's!! Always instructive, always enjoyable!!!! Thank you very much for the lead!!! The whole neck has always been your forte' not just the first 5 frets... I got that right away! Thanks again!!
I really got some good understanding and I thank you guys so very much, my bass is my baby and I do like to take good care of my baby and doing it myself makes it even more personal to me Thank you Mr. Joe and thank you Mr. Jeff for bringing us along with you to have your baby checked out by such a knowledgeable professional like Mr. Joe is look forward for more videos thks. Paul
A very informative video. Thanks guys for doing it.
Nice video, adds a few tips & tricks to setting up a bass. Check out his left hand reach at 21:30! Oh my! My tiny size 5 fingers are in awe!
Thanks for this video. I learned quite bit; thought I knew everything important about "home setup" for a bass, but I picked up a number of really good tips -- and I now realize I need to take my bass in to a luthier to get the nut worked on.
Great to hear, Dave!
A lot of great tips here. The first time I filed a nut, I wound up having to replace the nut - twice! By then I understood how to file a nut! very rewarding.
Thoroughly enjoyed this video!
Thanks for the vid! These tips were enough for me to stop the buzzing in my strings and get better intonation. Not perfect by any means, but way better.
Great video refresher on setup, very informative. Thanks for posting.
What a great informative video. Happiness and blessings Jeff!
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Great video cheers.. I've just bought one of Jeff's basses and i'm loving it..
I'm glad that you enjoy the bass!
Great tips, nice looking Cort! 😎👌
Thanks for doing this video. Great info and excellent presentation.
Glad that it helped!
Thank You , Jeff.
It’s a good idea for any instrumentalist to associate themselves with a competent repair person.
"There goes my Nashville studio career right there" A controversial bass legend, but still a bass legend.
Is he living in Nashville now? I studied under him in LA 200 years ago. Learned a lot.
Jeff rocks. He is an original unsung hero
Love it. I tech electric guitar/bass but I've taken my acoustic instruments to Joe's shop for decades.
Thanks Jeff, I never heard of that righty tighty, lefty loosey thing before. I'm going to use that from now on
Video is perfect. I like that you didn't tune the guitar 85 times while making the adjustments. Great tip on setting inotation without tuning the strings all the way. This is a no nonsense simple method of adjustment. No measuring just adjusting it to the way it feels and sounds best. That's how it's done. 🙂
It really takes no time to use a KORG tuner on the open string set to A=440 and compare the notes intonation at the 12 fret (Octave).You can also compare the octave harmonic to the fretted octave.
Excellent video! About filing your nut; it's always good to go light and incrementally. You can always remove more as needed, but you can't put any back (not a fan of the 'paper' fix). One effective way I've found to raise a nut slot is a mixture of baking soda and CA (super) glue, which is much better than paper, but I've only used that on bone nuts and I'm not sure about the numerous other nut material being used these days. Anyway, some good tips shown here and every musician should know how to setup and tweak their instrument.
thin coat of epoxy could also work if you remove to much from the nut.
Thanks so much for a great video and very informed
Damn, those violin lessons Jeff had to take as a kid certainly paid off!
Great Video Jeff !!!
I wondered if I too would learn something new.And I did :>) clear focus now on nut hight .Thank you very very much.
Thanks Jeff!
Great video and huge of information. I learn a lot.
The way of life : learn, learn, learn...
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@@lumpyjazz You are the Best, Jeff !
Great info for sure!
"We should probably plug into the tuner that'd be great."
Yes
Great video just what I needed.
Thanks Joe, Thanks Jeff
Man Jeff!
your bass sounds almost like an acoustic bass guitar.
Fantastic
Excellent! Thanks!
Butters the expert repairman up by saying he's the best in the area. Then proceeds to tell everyone, you can do this yourself. Gotta love it. 😅
He did say some things are better left to the repair
tech, however anything can be corrected if screwed up by do it yourselfer.
Much thanks for this video :)
when i buy a bass,no tools or paper work never come with the bass,,,,,,so .its good that these vids r available,,,,,,from now on ,i will ask for papers and tools!. thanks guy,,,i apreciate this stuff.
Thx jeff for The tips
gorgeous instrument
Hmm, 'Joe Glaser'; there's a bass tune in there, somewhere Jeff? Thanks for this video that I stumbled across while checking out the Cort Rithimic Jeff Berlin bass.
Good one. Thank you brother. Very helpful. How about adjustable nuts? Would surely appreciate some advice on adjusting those.
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great lesson
Killer Killer video....fornow on I o ow exactly what to do....Invest in a great luthier like this guy!Killer video Luvin the info....teaxhes one big thing if ya dont know what your doing,bring it to the ones that do!Thanks to ya both! ✌
Way to go Jeff love the song
Thank you Jim. Just playing off the cuff is fun for me. :)
Have heard some great things about this bass
CORT Jeff Berlin Model
Dig the diddy... thanks for the tune up info...
This is ABSOLUTELY what I needed. I just finished building my first bass (my first build...I have 5 others) and now I'm totally confident I can set it up. Thank you!
Very good info
very helpful thxs
I check my neck relief by fretting a string at the first and about fifteenth frets. Then, midway, you look at how high the string is off a fret.
That's a dimension every player should be familiar with. Just a hint on the way to making your bass feel good to you.
Yes. Push 1st and 17th fret and about imo the minimum clearence between tring and 8th fret is a thockness of a printer paper. Which is about 0.0018" or 0.05mm. This is absolutely minimum. Neck with good setup can't be perfect straigh. The maximum for me is about 0.011" or 0.3mm. But that high is good only if you play hard, high action and use light gauge strings. More than 0.01" or 0.3mm? You must tighten your trus rod for sure. With good basses should be just a tad of clearence. Almost straight.
totally agree however ,in the video, he sights the neck with his eyes
Very informative
I think i need to know the standard gap between strings and the fretboard especially the difference between first fret and 12th fret as it explained
Anyway thank you for this tips.
You guys are legend
the width of a business card
A business card is about .013" thousandth of an inch.
As a bass player and a tech, nut and truss rod work should be left to the professionals if you are unsure how it works, going to far with a truss rod can cause it to break which can be an expensive issue to fix (neckthroughs require the fret board to be removed, bolt ons you can weigh you options and either have it fixed or replace the neck) next the nut if cut incorrectly too high can make a bass not fun to play cause in the lower register where most gigging bass players will be youll have to work to hard and you intonation will be effected as well, a nut slot that's cut too low will lead to fret buzz on open frets which is not fun. Next intonation outside of checking the octave I check the 15th , 17th and 24th fret (if applicable) and if it's a hair off at the 12th it'll fall farther out of intonation the closer to the bridge you get. Pickup height is the next one pickups too high you can get buzz off it and even loss of sustain as it will pull on the strings too much to far away and your tone could suffer. Agree the truss rod is the only thing that you should be concerned of , I would also detune the strings when making truss rod adjustments and give it a little massage while making adjustments.
excellent
Tune with the tuner as the truss adjustment has moved the entire tuning changing the tension of the strings. In other words, truss adjustment then tune to pitch. Every time you adjust the rod tune to pitch.
Do all truss rod adjustments with loose strings. Otherwise you can strip the truss rod threads, or even snap the truss rod, then bring instrument back to pitch for truss rod measurement.
Grant Koeller you really think you can break a metal bar or strip it’s threads with string tension?
@@eds6889 Many truss rods have snapped or stripped throughout history.
@@grantkoeller8911 sure pal, what ever.
@@eds6889 he's right, sometimes it's best to bend the neck then take up the slack with the nut. Older Rickenbackers you HAD to do it this way
Jeff, you mention that you like your frets "flat" (I assume as opposed to "crowned"). Why do you like the frets flat? Thanks!
Grande Joe!
That was brilliant just enough gab and lots of solid information but where is the part about setting string height at the bridge? It seems like a part is missing
Because his bass string height (action) was already perfect, they skipped it. Usually you would follow the radius curve of the neck at the bridge saddles. Keeping the bridge saddle level side to side. Usually the action would be determined by each different player. Jeff likes a low action. Some players like a higher action. Go to Fender spec for their recommended string height specs.
i have a weird issue with my 1995 US fender. i get the 12th fret and open to intonate fine (on the G string) but the 5th fret note is always off a little. the nut action seems fine though, the truss rod is fine and the overall action is where i like it i got the frets releveled and crowned a few years ago so the frets are not dented either , what could be causing this issue any one got any clues ?
jeff berlin "didn't know" about intonating a bass. astonishing.
Alright thanks
I should have seen it 20 years ago :D
It's very easy to go too far filing the nut. Proceed with caution. I'd also love to know how low those strings are......distance from top of last fret to the bottom of each string.
Most people measure string action at the 12th fret.
I just bought one of the bass s . For some reason I dont have the right allen key size in my set. Is it a weird size?
if you have a bolt on neck then sometimes you may need a shim between the neck and bass … and the magnet pulling on the string can result in false harmonics
Thats called neck angle, that is when the bridge is maxed out heightwise with no adjustability left.
Jeff Hi!! your best record is vox humana champion, players and pump it!! i love those albums!
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Hey Jeff, have you ever tried a 6 string bass?
This is not at all a "you should get more strings because you're so good" argument, rather that you have such a nice melodic style that the high C string would probably sound very good in your style.
He obviously doesn't need one, bro.
cool
I agree the nut is everthing i bought a digital gage and im blowing people away with my set- ups... i also balance pickups and pole pieces playing through loud studio monitors
We should plug into the tuner 😄😄😄
The only difference in how I set up my bass is that I start with the string action, then adjust the neck so that it's completely flat when tuned, check the action again to make sure it's still in place, then I do intonation.
A flat neck will have string buzz, a neck needs neck relief. A tiny slight curve when you sight down the neck.
@@grantkoeller8911 If you can't play with a flat neck, it means there's something you need to fix, like maybe your expectations about string action. Or maybe you just need to level the frets. My bass plays fine with a flat neck and manufacturer suggested string action.
Why do you think most guitars come out of the factory with graduated string action? It's to accommodate a flat neck, which they usually have when shipped. That's how you're supposed to play them. The neck relief thing is a myth; it's a fix they tell you at guitar stores because they don't want to tell you that the instrument needs fret work (most noobs don't understand that guitars don't come out of the factory in perfect condition), they don't want to do the work (or maybe their tech just doesn't know how), or because some players have fantasy expectations about low action. Low action is actually less playable in some respects; for example, it makes vibratos and bends more difficult. It also means less control over dynamics. Low action isn't a fix for tension caused by neck relief; straightening the neck and properly graduating the string action is the fix.
A bass plays just fine with a flat neck and the manufacturer recommended string action; mine plays like butter. If it doesn't, then you need to level the frets. If you absolutely need it to be lower for tapping or some such, then you have to make a tradeoff and give the neck some relief. Just like if you tune lower than standard, you might need to raise the action and make some after market mods to the bridge.
It all depends on what you're going for, and what you can tolerate.
So you want more relief on the thick strings side on any guitar. They use to call this a bent neck. Wow ! I thought all my guitars have neck problems.
My Uncle once told me, ' the older you get the lower the nut. If the nut is below your knees then you're really old.'
A bit of a dangerous video. It seems like a chunk of the video is missing at the beginning. You can't just begin cranking a truss rod without actually measuring the relief beforehand. Requires a capo and feeler gauges. Should have also given an explanation regarding bowing / back bowing as for the reasoning of a truss rod adjustment.
silverdroid for a regular person, I agree. For joe, he don’t. Quite honestly as subjective as a bass is, I only measure for my string height. Truss rod adjustments do require more feel than measurements. Depends on if you want crystal clear notes or if you want a little rasp.
"You can't just begin cranking a truss rod without actually measuring the relief beforehand. Requires a capo and feeler gauges."
nonsense. use your eyes, use your hands/fingers, use the string itself as a straight edge. I've *never* used a capo or a feeler gauge or a ruler on any of my over-fifty instruments. but you need to be careful with truss rod adjustments, particularly on older instruments, for other reasons. especially ricks. & like the cort there, my ibanez musician basses naturally have slightly more relief at the bass side, by design.
Can you take the top nut right down to the fingerboard on a fretless bass?
David Etheridge no. You still need clearance for the strings to create the elliptical motion when they vibrate open. If you were to take the nut all the way down to the fretboard your open strings would produce “dead notes” when plucked.
You can definitely take the nut lower, but not down to the fretboard. I had a T-40 converted to fretless and it needed a new nut that was filed a bit lower, but it still needed to clear the playing surface of the fretboard.
No, it will have a sitar effect if you do.