Hi guys,

Welcome to my column. Let me introduce myself and my background, my name is Chris Horton. I’m a 25 year old guitarist, in a working band, and I play guitar for a local studio, Oasis Records. I also have worked as crew on some big name Australian acts. I got to see and set up first hand some great guitar rigs. This column is about achieving great guitar sound, so I’m gonna start from the very basics and work my way up.  Check it out!

Keep reading more to learn how to take your guitar sound to the next level of awesomeness: 

Todays lesson will be on intonation, the first step for good sound. Good intonation is quite generally a product of good guitar setup. Having set up many guitars myself, I will provide my step by step process of setting up a guitar, and getting its natural sound.

The first step in the process is to play a guitar to get a feel of what you like and what you don’t. Check the straightness of the neck. Fret the guitar at the 1st and last fret on the fretboard. This creates a straight line. Look at where the frets touch, and the line of the neck compared to the fretted string. Check that the center of the neck isn’t raised. A neck should be flat or slightly curved away from the string. Next check the tuning of all the notes on the guitar. Use a chromatic tuner, and check each fret is as close as possible to the note being fretted. Check the harmonic at the 12th fret compared to that of the open note. These should be exact. Adjust the screws at the back of a bridge for a fender, the saddle seat if on a floyd rose, or the string guide on a a Gibson T.O.M. Retune after the adjustments and check the tuning of the 12th fret harmonic to the open note. Get it exact and test every note on the neck for correct tuning. If it is correct, you have good intonation, which is something everyone needs for recording.

This should be checked every time you change strings, just to make sure you still have good intonation. Great guitars can be killed with bad intonation. When restringing, I recommend using a locking technique, to help with tuning. Here is a link to this method here. Also check out what brand of pickups you have in your guitar, and check the manufacturer’s specification on the separation between the pickup and the string. Often, with powerful pickups, the magnets can have a detuning effect on the string itself. Use a feeler gauge to check the height between the pickup and string.

This is basically a set up without restringing or neck adjustment, but you should always check this when restringing, as this is when things like truss adjustments are easily done. I have steered away from exact details, as everyone likes a different feel on there guitar. The next tip is one only known by about 5 percent of people I’ve met know, and it amazes me. Its how to get the “natural” sound of the guitar itself.

Once the above set up is completely, plug the guitar directly into a mixing desk, turn off all effects on the track, even reverb, make the E.Q. completely flat, and strum the guitar, and play it for a little bit. This will give you the natural sound of the guitar itself. This is what the guitar sounds like with no effects. This is a reference point as the sound you get out of an amp should still sound like what the guitar does through a desk, totally clean. Plug into your amp, and select the clean channel. Adjust the E.Q on the amp so you hear the same sound as the mixing desk, adjust volume and reverb to suit.

Switch to the first gain channel. Adjust the gain so this channel sounds completely clean, and adjust the volume so there is little difference between the first and second channels. If you have an E.Q on the second gain stage, E.Q this sound as well to sound exactly like the clean sound. Once they sound as close to exact as possible, slowly add gain and adjust the volume so the gain is where you want it and the volume is the same as the clean channel. Repeat for your third gain stage, adjusting volume to account for compression and gain.

That just about sums it up for today. Id like to hear some feed back about this post, and also hear other things you would like me to speak about, so I can include it in later columns.

Cheers,

Chris Horton

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