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Bass Guitar Setup and Maintenance
Below we will give some simple bass setup tips and bass guitar maintenance
tips. If you are not sure how to setup, adjust, or maintain your bass just
check out some of our bass tips below. Otherwise take your bass to your
local guitar shop, and they should be able to adjust your bass guitar for you
for a fee. So there are options out there.
**Just remember before working on your bass in any way. Make sure you
are unplugged from your amp to avoid any electric shock**
- Bass Guitar Polishing - It's a good idea to pick up a good guitar
polish for your bass guitar. The guitar polish should be applied only to
the guitar body, and only if your neck is a gloss neck. You do not want
to apply polish to any bare wood or even the metal pieces on your bass.
Some polish may affect the finish of your chrome or gold tailpieces, knobs, or
jacks on the bass guitar. So get yourself a guitar chamois and polish in
rub in a little at a time in circles. Then use a dry chamois to wipe
down the area that you have polished. Your bass should now shine and
look like new.
- Bass Neck Adjustment - Sometimes your bass guitar neck may become
curved or arched toward the headstock of your guitar. An easy way to
check it to hold your bass up to a light. You'll want to look from the
body up to the neck and see if you see some curvature in the neck. Most
basses have an adjustment at the headstock of the bass that may be adjusted
for this purpose. You'll want to use a hex wrench or similar type tool
for this adjustment. Use quarter turns and keep checking the neck curve.
This is a trial and error process, but will do wonders with the playability of
your bass with a straight neck. By the way if your neck adjustment does
not appear on the headstock it's most likely at the butt of the neck.
This is a more tedious adjustment because you may have to remove the neck and
strings to get to the bass neck adjuster.
- String Your Bass Guitar or Restringing Bass Guitar -
Stringing your bass guitar is not as difficult as you may think. Most
basses have either a string through body or a string through bridge.
This just means you either start stringing your bass either through back of
the body or through the bridge at the bottom of you bass body. Usually
start with your low E string or thickest guitar string on the 1st hole at the
top. String that through the nut (plastic piece at top of neck but below
headstock) of the guitar and wrap a couple of time around the tuner and take
string through the hole on that tuner. Make sure you take the string
through the hole but on top of the wrap you just made to hole down the wrap of
the string. Most people get pliers to pull and tighten the string and
then cut any excess with some wire cutters. These tips should help you
string your bass guitar in an efficient manner.
- Fret Buzz - If your getting fret buzz on your bass your strings are
likely to low and buzzing on the frets. There are usually two easy ways
to adjust for this. First check the curve of your neck with the tips
listed above. Is your neck curved to much. If so straighten out
your neck with your neck adjustment info above. Secondly, your bridge
pieces may be set to low. A lower setting on your bridge pieces may
cause fret buzz. The bridge pieces on a bass are usually the four ridged
piece where the strings set on the bridge. They usually have screws to
adjust them up or down. Try raising the pieces where the strings sit
that you are having the problem. Just raise them a little at a time
until the problem disappears. If you are not comfortable with this
adjustment most local guitar shops should be able to take care of this for you
at a decent price.
- Bass Pickup Height and Bass Pole Pieces - If your bass pickups are
sounding a little weak, you may want to try adjusting your bass pickups.
Some basses give you the option to adjust bass pickup height and bass pole
pieces. Adjusting both of these options should help you get a stronger
sound from your pickups. One word of caution, do not adjust to much as
you will get out of phase type sounds from your bass. To adjust pickup
height there are screws on either side of the pickup which usually raise or
lower the pickup try small adjustments here. To raise or lower pole
pieces, you have to have pickups with adjustable pole pieces for the most
part. The pole pieces are the metal pieces or magnets that you see in
the middle of the pickup itself. These pieces actually pickup the sound
from the strings of the bass. If your pickups have adjustable pole
pieces you'll see a hex wrench slot or screw as the pole pieces. One can
raise or lower those to change the hotness of the pickup. Remember a
little adjustment goes a long way.
- Bass Strap Locks - It's a great idea to get strap locks for you bass
guitar. They are easy to apply and prevent your bass from falling from
your strap. Basically, Schaller strap locks work great, but I've seen
other brands work just as well. All you need to do is get a wrench and
apply the locks to the strap itself. Then get a screw driver, remove the
old strap buttons from your guitar, and screw in the new strap button.
Your bass guitar is now secure and won't fall off of you during your next gig
or show.
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