NGD + A Setup Question

[The_Grudge]

I've been on the hunt for an American made PRS for years, but never had the budget to do so until now. Funny how kids and bills can get in our way lol.

I live in Canada in a "medium-sized" city about 2 hours from Toronto. We have a Long and McQuade here, but despite being a PRS dealer, all they ever seem to stock is Epiphones, Fenders, and a tiny selection of Ibanez, usually all with rusty strings and bad setups from sitting in the store for a year. If I ever saw a PRS in there I think I'd faint, let alone an American made PRS.

I already own a PRS Tremonti SE Custom from about 5/6 years ago. It's a great guitar and since I play a lot of Metallica, Soundgarden, Tool etc, it serves its purpose nicely, though I hate the tremolo. If I touch it the G goes out of tune and I just don't have a reason to use it much anyway.

For my new guitar I was eyeing up the S2 single cut (and its stop tail) but I had two concerns. I was worried I might not like the neck shape coming off the Tremonti "pattern thin", and I was worried the pickups would be a little too vintage. Easy enough to swap pickups but as I get older the Metallica jam sessions do often go into cleaner things like "Blackbird" by Paul McCartney or heck, even Alterbridge....so softer sounds are good too =)

I had made the decision to go for the S2 but another local shop in town (also a PRS dealer) told me the orders to PRS were at least a year out at the moment. Feeling bummed I held off and scrolled through Reverb and Sweetwater here and there, recognizing it was likely going to be hard finding someone who would ship to Canada.

A couple weeks ago I was sitting on my couch on a Saturday morning and figured I'd check Reverb. I spotted a shop in Edmonton (Guitar Brando) who is a PRS dealer and they were selling a "custom color" Smokeburst. I saw there were 4 others watching the ad and realized I had hemmed and hawed for too long, this was the one. So I bought it -- more below...

https://imgur.com/a/kKHoY8k

I'm extremely happy with it. The neck is certainly different than the Tremonti but it's a good different. I like having the two options available to me now based on mood, requirements etc. The seller sent the guitar in PERFECT condition as well. Not a blemish on it when I got it.

The only (factory) imperfection (which took me a week to find) was that on the neck around the 3rd fret (down on the treble side, so facing the floor while playing), there is a tiny tiny tiny bump. Like a speck of dust that hit the guitar just before they threw the satin finish on it. It doesn't really bother me and when I showed my wife she rolled her eyes heavily as if to say - wow, how did you even notice that?

Anyway -- after all that gibberish, I came here to ask how many of you set up and tinker with your own guitars? Based on everything I've seen/read online, the PRS factory is notorious for setting up their guitars perfectly when they leave the factory. Honestly, I found the action on mine to be higher than I like and the truss rod needed an ever so slight adjustment to straighten the neck a tiny bit. I suppose going from the factory in Maryland to Edmonton where it's -25 Celsius and then 5 days on a truck to come to me, something is bound to move around a bit. But yeah, I keep tinkering a bit with the action to find that balance of the low action I like and as little fret buzzing as possible. How much do you guys play around with your setups?

 

[Uncle Bob]

Surely the question is: Who doesn’t?!! To not adjust your guitar to your preference is like buying a new car and not moving the driver’s seat from how it came out of the factory!

Anyway, no they absolutely do not all leave the factory perfectly. As much as some people would like to think so and, in fairness, as much as PRS would like them to as well. I’m not sure it’s even possible?

I had to do fretwork on my most expensive core guitar, which was a huge surprise. But, and this is a big but, when it was setup to factory spec it played fine and the couple of high spots didn’t reveal themselves until I wanted to drop the action a little. Still, in the store it played better than all the other guitars I tried, so kudos to PRS for getting maybe 95% of ‘perfection’ where others fell far shorter.

Yes, shipping can affect certain things, but a bad setup is a bad setup. One of my SE guitars was almost unplayable out of the box, despite (rather weirdly) being almost in tune!? If I hadn’t known how to rectify the issues I would have moved it on immediately.

Oh and congrats, that looks really cool

 

[Proteus]

Good questions and observations.

My instinct (not always the right one) is to fiddle around with pretty much every guitar I get - but I've been doing that to some extent or another since I was 15. (Maybe sometimes I shouldn't have.)

Some guitars, new or used, make it perfectly obvious that they need help to get to optimal playing condition: nut slots cut too deeply so strings buzz in first position (rare) or, conversely, left so shallow that in addition to inducing crippling play fatigue, notes and chords from frets 1-4 or so go sharp; truss rods which need a tweak to get the relief just right for that guitar; bridge and saddle adjustments for action, preferred string gauge, and intonation. Pickup height adjustments for pickup balance or a preferred tone. Tweaks to tremolo setups. Sometimes high frets that need attention.

Some brands need more work in more areas than others - and while that's sometimes a function of price, it's not always the case: spensive guitars can play badly and cheapies can come virtually perfect. I think of all of them as race cars: they're intended and (usually) built for a certain level of high performance, but they need the attention of a skilled mechanic to tune to the needs of any particular driver.

The trick is to become one's own mechanic: to take on first the most rudimentary setup proceses, then increasingly tricky ones, and to learn (hopefully without doing catastrophic damage) when we're beyond our competence. (A twisted neck, a ski jump at the base of the neck, a whole neck full of loose or bad frets...maybe time for an expert, or time to pass on that guitar.)

So you gotta be able to change strings, and it should be trivial to figure out how to adjust action and set intonation at the bridge. It's a bit more of a learned skill, but most of us should be able to evaluate and adjust a truss rod - at least for seasonal or climate reasons, and to compensate as needed for a change in string gauge. (A bad or non-functional rod...not for neophytes.)

If we're playing a guitar with a Strat type trem, we oughta know how to adjust its spring tension and level over the top of the guitar (if you change string gauges - or sometimes just brands - you'll have to do that anyway). If we have a Bigsby...we might have to learn a whole repertoire of tricks for tuning stability. If the guitar has a floating bridge - which includes NO PRSes, to my knowledge - we oughta know how to position it for best intonation.

Nuts are a different story, and not - in my experience - as easy to master as all of the above. But when it comes to playability and tuning, the nut may be the single most crucial part of the suspension system. A badly cut and dressed nut - in any one of several ways - can turn a great guitar into a meat-grinder, and a merely good one into sculpture. On tother hand, a perfectly cut and dressed nut can turn an otherwise mediocre guitar into a great player. A guy might take a shot at nut-wrangling, after careful self-education and consideration of everything involved, and turn out to have a good feel for it. If not, it's a good time to defer to a skilled guitar-whisperer.

After getting my hands on enough new guitars from each of various brands, I've started to know what to expect from each one. Of those that generally do a good-to-excellent job at as-delivered setup, each seems to have its own slightly varying standards or recipes - particularly in the relationship between neck relief and bridge height. (I'm mentioning only brands I've found consistently good to excellent; if I leave out any obvious biggies, I'll leave it to the reader to draw conclusions.)

Gretsch seems to go for pretty much the lowest action any particular example is capable of (generally pretty durn low, but not always the same); in the Streamliner/Electromatic range, however, nut slots may be left slightly too shallow (on the theory that it's easier to remove material than to put it back). They might need attention between unboxing and the gig - especially if it's a model with a tension-bar Bigsby. For that, allow an hour or two, and be prepared to diagnose the interaction of nut, tuners, and Damn Bigsby. Pro-series Gretschs are usually on the money, virtually ready to gig with right out of the case.

PRSes have also been pretty much ready to go, whether SE, S2, or Core; it seems to be popular to change the nuts (and the tuners) almost by default, but I haven't found it necessary. I'm particularly impressed by the nut dressing. On more than one new SE, the strings have needed a good stretching AND frets have felt (but not appeared) a little scratchy, needing some play and string-bending to take off the newness. Also, the apparently factory-spec action on new PRSes (in my experience) has been a little higher than on Gretschs.

BUT: after playing the guitars a lot and tweaking on them a little, I've kinda decided Paul and Co know what they're doing: the guitars seem to sound their best (and play just fine) with that action. Rather than immediately cranking the bridge/saddles down to get the action as low as it will go without unacceptable string buzz and rattle, I'm starting to leave the guitars at their factory setup height - because they do seem at their optimal balance of tone and playability with that setup. They've been so consistent that I think I detect the intention behind the parameters; it couldn't happen by accident.

(Whereas with some other brands, unmentioned, I know I'll be in for setup bingo almost every time: I may get a lucky build, I may get run-of-the-mill, and I may get lemon-basted turkey. But (unless the build was blessed by the angels), I won't know till I enter into unnaturally intimate familiarity with nut, truss rod, bridge, and maybe neck angle and frets. It becomes obvious that the setup guidelines for those brands consists of put strings on it and ship it.

For my money (though not an unholy sum of it), Reverend sets a gold standard for as-delivered setup - at least when Zack Green does the work. You could literally unbox a new one before a gig, plug it in, and go. I can see how to tweak the bridge and truss rod on a Reverend, because the parts are similar to other builders' ... but I can't remember ever having to touch one. I know that sounds fantastic (as in fantasy BS), but I think it's true. I've had one Reverend which Zack didn't bless, though, and it just didn't feel - or play - as well. Coincidence? I dunno. Probably maybe. Or not.

So, and, but, however, and also...it took longer than it should have, but I've finally managed to dimly perceive a pattern in the default setups of these best-practices brands AND the respected techs I take my guitars to when I get beyond my whisperin' skills.

That is: these folks generally put the action a bit higher than I dream of (and sometimes try to achieve). I'd like action that responds to thoughts, that plays complex chords and twisted jazz arpeggios when I breathe on the strings. I want to bend around to the back of the neck without fretting out. What I get is action that (when I get around to admitting it) is perfectly comfortable to play - and, most importantly, lets the strings orbit freely enough that the guitar sounds its best. Like the mechanic is saying yeah, I know you want the steering so twitchy you can turn with a nod, but you KEEP WIPING OUT.

 

[Proteus]

(PART TWO OF THE ABOVE, with apologies)

I've played and worked on a bunch of SEs over the past several months - both new and used. The new ones, as I've said, have come in with pretty much ready-to-go setups.

Some of the used ones have been out of whack. (Not a very precise term, but it fits.) For different reasons, they haven't felt right, action has been too stiff in some areas, buzzy in others. It hasn't been immediately obvious in each instance what the fix would be: are there high frets that need knocking down? Too much relief with action too high at the bridge - or too little relief and action too low? IS there something wrong with the nut?

In these cases, I've had to live with the guitars awhile, play them a lot, and thoughtfully and carefully compare them to others. Gradually the solution emerges - and it's usually involved minute and precise adjustments to neck relief and bridge height. Get it wrong, and you can have both stiff action (especially in the middle of the neck) AND fretting out in the upper region of the neck. You think you must have high frets everywhere, or the neck needs falloff toward the top fret, but the fret rocker and straightedge say otherwise. But get the relief and bridge height just right - and suddenly the same guitar is a model of slick playing consistency. It's like 40 miles of bad road through a squall...and suddenly the sun breaks through on a ribbon of velvety asphalt.

I wonder how they got so whacked, what their owners or their paid (and apparently incompetent) mechanics did or didn't do. Then I also observe how slight the needed adjustments are, once I figure out what to try. I notice that with some brands - PRS and Gretsch, for instance - the truss rods have three seemingly magical properties, all at once: smoothly easy to turn, amazingly effective in their influence on the neck, and capable of subtle, predictable, and precise adjustments. This is emphatically NOT the case with many other brands, which take too much cranking for too little - and too unpredictable - change.

Same is true at the bridge: tiny adjustments make the difference between just-right, comfortable action and tension (and note clarity) - and choking/rattling/buzzing at one extreme and I'll-just-play-slide-on-it at the other.

And it seems to me that guitars which are that sensitive to those setup adjustments must be built to a high degree of precision, with tight go-nogo parameters and low tolerance for slop.

Is there a moral to this ramble? Maybe a couple.

• Yep, you should know how to do a basic setup - and you should know what you don't know how to do.
• If you make tiny adjustments, a little at a time, and pay attention to the results, you shouldn't screw it up too badly.
• The factory setups of at least some brands might really turn out to be ideal for most players, most of the time.
• It might take time to figure all that out.

 

[Tom Bradovich]

Welcome to the forum, Grudge, and congrats on your S2 594. For a great video reference on guitar setups, I'd recommend going to YouTube and searching for "Music Nomad Guitar Setup." Scroll down until you find the one for a PRS 594 McCarty. Geoff Luttrell from San Francisco Guitar Works does a great job illustrating the details of a 6-step complete setup on a Core 594, but the bridge & tailpiece hardware on the Core is the same as on our S2s.

The video is about 45 minutes long, and yeah, his fingernails are painted blue (maybe his daughter painted them - I don't know and don't care). The detailed info and insider tips he provides are invaluable, especially for those who've never done a complete setup. Before starting the setup, he recommends dong a string change with plenty of stretch re-tune to provide a solid base from which to start. In brief, here's the steps:

1. Set the neck relief using the truss rod adjustment tool. The PRS specs say .005" to .010", but the Music Nomad gauge is at .006. A player could use that or use a full set of feeler gauges and do a .007" or .008"or more if that feels better.
2. Set the string radius at the bridge. Our 594s are a 10" radius (I think most PRSs are), so use that. Since our 594s do not have individual bridge saddle adjustment screws, if the radius is off at the saddles we are forced to then file down the high ones to match the lower ones. Sounds scary, but his detailed video and tips should take the fear out of that task. Go slow, be accurate. Cut at a slight downward angle towards the tailpiece.
3. Set the action height using the bridge thumb screws - .060" for the low E and .050" for the high E. Or, use that as your starting point and make some small adjustments to suit you.
4. Measure and cut the nut slots with a slight downward angle towards the headstock . Here again, his tips should alleviate any fear of doing this. NOTE: Interesting that even though he's working on a Core model, he had to file both the bridge saddles and nut slots to make them perfect. As Proteus alludes to above, there aren't a hell of a lot of guitars that are perfect out of the box, so it's imperative for us guitar players to be our own mechanic.
5. Set the intonation. He compares the fretted 12th with the open string rather than the harmonic at the 12th - don't know why or if it really matters. Make sure you de-tune the string you're working on if the saddle needs to move.
6. Set the pickup heights. You can use his specs or PRS specs - just remember they are starting points only. Use your ears.

Hope this helps, and once again, congrats on your S2 - a great value in the PRS lineup IMHO.