Help with guitar setup (it's more than just adjustments)

Everything I just mentioned can make most cheap guitars play great

My Glarry GJazz was literally $85 new, and I did not expect it to have perfect build quality out-of-the-box. I was right, it didn't...

...but that was okay. With truly just a little bit of work, I was able to get that bass in fine playing condition.

When you know how to actually perform basic nut and fret repairs, you can pretty much make any guitar play wonderfully.

The neck is what counts more than anything else

In many instances it's true that the only two things keeping a guitar from playing great are the nut and the frets. You can fix this stuff. But you have to be brave about it.

Is filing frets scary? Yes. Is putting glue in a nut slot and/or filing it scary? Yes. But the fear only happens for the first time you do either of those things.

I would argue it's necessary to learn this stuff these days

More people are buying guitars online, meaning you can't try them out in person before purchase.

If the only thing keeping a guitar from being great was one high fret, a sharp fret end or one nut slot that needed fixing, wouldn't it be nice to be able to fix that stuff and keep the guitar rather than having to send it back?

Go buy a cheap electric guitar. It probably will need a little work to make it play great. Use that as your test.

When you can fix the cheap stuff, then you can fix the more expensive stuff afterward. It's well worth your time to learn.

Published 2020 Nov 12