Getting my Les Paul Setup Part 3 (Finale)
March 17th, 2006
So when I dropped my guitar off on Tuesday the tech said he would have it for me by the end of the week. I hadn’t heard anything (on my cell) on Friday and I was getting a little upset that I would be guitarless for the weekend. However, when I got home he had left a message on my answering machine. I ate dinner with my girlfriend and then we went to pick it up.
The repairs were $107.99 CAD + %7 taxes. This was a little bit steeper than I had expected. I didn’t think it was going to take him that long to do the repairs. However, it turns out that I really did a bad job installing the EMG pickups that I bought last Christmas (a year ago), so he had to reinstall them as well.
When I got the guitar home and plugged it in it all made sense and it was 200% worth it. I would have paid twice as much. I mean it sounds better than when I bought it new. I looked down the neck, and it’s perfectly straight. Now I can see what he saw when he looked at it for that half second when I took it in.
The strings stay in tune all the way up the fretboard. I checked by plucking each string open, and then plucking them while they were fretted on the 12th fret. The pitches sound the same. I can tell the bridge was adjusted because the high strings are lower and the base strings are a bit higher. Also the saddles have been moved. The pickups are working great as well. The tone is much clearer and I get less noise at high volumes. I think he set the height of the pickups as well because the sustain is about 100 times better.
I’m really happy I took it in. It was totally worth it and I’ll probably have it looked at once a year. The next time it won’t be expensive because my pickups are all setup mint now. It’ll be cheaper to have the bridge/intonation set if needed.
tagged guitar maintenance, intonation and tuning
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March 17th, 2006 19:54
I have never had my guitar professionally set up, but maybe I should.
March 17th, 2006 23:47
Honestly I always wondered why my guitar didnt sound like you hear it at a concert or on a CD. I always thought it was because I didnt have the right amp, or didnt know how to set the tone.
Now I realize it was the intonation that was making it sound off.
The easiest way to check is with a tuner. If the harmonic on the 12th fret of each string is sharp or flat compared to the the open note, the intonation could be off.