Truss Rod Adjustment Procedure: Attaining Lower Action

[John McGuire]

I'm interesting in learning the proper procedure for adjusting the truss rods on a 5 string NT. I want to learn to master this myself as I do not have a shop I trust nearby. My specific bass is a 2008 BSR5GN.

1). Do you need to relieve tension on the neck prior to tightening (ala old rickenbacker)? Any limits on the amount of adjustment per day until the bass settles?

2). My action is abit high. I tried making adjustments at the bridge with no luck. What is some hints on getting the lowest possible action. will taking some of the bow out with a truss adjustment help? I play moderately agressive.

Many thanks in advance for your feedback!

[Ken Smith]

I'm interesting in learning the proper procedure for adjusting the truss rods on a 5 string NT. I want to learn to master this myself as I do not have a shop I trust nearby. My specific bass is a 2008 BSR5GN.

1). Do you need to relieve tension on the neck prior to tightening (ala old rickenbacker)? Any limits on the amount of adjustment per day until the bass settles?

2). My action is abit high. I tried making adjustments at the bridge with no luck. What is some hints on getting the lowest possible action. will taking some of the bow out with a truss adjustment help? I play moderately agressive.

Many thanks in advance for your feedback!

Playing aggressive and with Low action will cause fret buzz. The strings do need some room to vibrate and not hit the frets. Neck Thru Basses can have softer tension than bolt-ons therefor requiring a lighter right hand touch.

To check your neck relief, press down the E or B string (lowest on that bass) at the 1st and 15th frets at the same time using 2 hands. Do this with the Bass on your lap in playing position, not on a bench. Look at the space between the 7th and 9th fret from the top of the fret to the bottom of the string. This is the amount of relief you have. I personally like about 1/16th" relief to 1/8th" at the most in this area. You can use the 24th fret to press down instead of the 15th but from the 15th to the 24th it's about the same level.

The Smith multi piece Neck with graphite inlaid bars and full thick ebony fingerboard is quite a strong neck. A slight truss rod turn will press on the neck internally at the center and the ends as it's turned but may NOT move the Neck right away. IF you do see the Neck move when the rod is turned then chances are that by the next day, it will be too far the other way. This strong neck design/construction needs some time to be 'coaxed' into moving, not forced.

Relieving the tension is not so important as how you turn the Rod and with which size and type wrench. If you use the smaller 3mm size Pickup polepiece wrench you will ruin the Nut. If the 1/8th" wrench is not put all the way in before turning, that too can strip out the slotted end as well.

What seems to be a simple adjustment can be difficult if you don't know what you are doing. Adjusting a car engine timing is easy for a trained auto mechanic. For a novice with his new x-mas tool kit, you may need to have a second car in the driveway.

I can show and explain this much better than I can write it out. Call me on the phone during the week for a few more tips. Since I also play the Bass and worked for 20 years professionally in NY, do not be insulted if my suggestions point to your way of playing. I know more about playing the Bass than most people that adjust instruments do from all of my experience combined. When I give instruction or an opinion, it if from a lifetime of doing it professionally.

By the way John, I don't trust most shops either. Since they are in the business of Repairs for a living (if you can call it that) a 2 minute job turns into a 20 minute overdone poor set-up that you can be charged an hour for. Then, like many have, we get called on the phone and listen to the cries. The Bass gets sent in and we un-do the incorrect work and then do it the right way. A 2 minute job messed up can cost hours of correction and shipping costs two ways. I have horror stories from these so called 'Luthiers' if you guys wanna come by or call me.

The old definition of a Luthier and requirement was to study the art and apprentice in a shop. Then you would take the Guild test to get your license. Like being a doctor, dentist, electrician, etc., In other words, a Professional in your field, trained, proven and tested. In London 200 years ago where I don't believe they had the same Guilds like in Germany or France, you would train in the shop for several years. Often, working for only room and board in exchange for learning a skill. Then if you have the way with it all, open your own shop and test the waters on your own.

Todays definition of a Luthier?, Buy a Screw driver and adjust your Guitar you got for Christmas. No training, no apprenticeship, no Guild test, no License, no proven results.

Knowing that now, why would you take your expensive handmade Bass to someone that just claims to be a professional Luthier? Does he know how my Basses are made and why we do the things the way we do them? Was he trained by me personally on how a Smith Bass is made and adjusted? If not, he is just improvising.

By the way, I do not consider myself a Luthier by the old definition. I humbly accept the title by profession but having known several real Luthiers in my lifetime by the traditional standards. I cannot in my mind use that title when describing what I do or who I am. I play Bass, work on Basses, design Basses and run a shop making Electric Basses. A Bass Specialist if you may including my work and passion with Double Basses.

I can teach anyone with a few ounces of talent how to adjust their own Bass. I even held group classes on this in the past. The last one was a few weeks ago at UArts in Philly which covered whatever they wanted to go over. I did a similar Class at the Gerald Veasley Boot Camp last year and might do one again this year. When I taught in the 1970s-'80s, I held two special group classes for the students so that they can learn hand-on how to adjust their own Bass regardless of the Brand. This is also by the way how you learn about your own Bass and how well or user friendly it was made.

Contact the Boot Camp and request my presence. I will do my best to cover as much as possible. Bring not only your Bass but the Tools you have to do the adjustments. Set-up is not that hard as long as repairs are not needed. That is a different story all together.

[Bram Schoonderbeek]

Adjusting only the bridge has only effect on the area from about 12th/15th fret to 24 whole of the higher registers. The trussrod does his
work from 1st to 12th fret.. So I play with that until it only buzzes when I play really hard and only in the bass-side (1st to 8th fret) of the instrument not the solo side, I dont believe in any ideal measurements at the 8th or 9th fret like a credit card (Ive seen this been put on forums very often) or any kind of stated margin, strings and personal preference make what works best for anyone personally I guess, so play with it until its exectly fits your taste. Anyway anyone trying to do this themselves make really tiny adjustments and when truning a truss to one side give it a little nodge in the other direction Ive learnt when not doing this just like Ken said the effect desired is then mostly is too much...I didn't know tention of the strings could be left on, I always loosen the the stings up, but nice to know ofcourse... Great Ken wants to share this information about this complicated matter.

Just my few cents...

Ah something I have questions about, and this is something I noticed, just wanted to check if that thing I encountered makes any sence to anyone of you guys... When your low B string sounds less in volume then the other strings giving the neck a little more "bow" resolves this diffenrence by a margin.
Also makes you sound a bit warmer.. anyone encountered the same phenomenon?..

Best regards and have a nice christmas ofcource!

[Tim Bishop]

Ah something I have questions about, and this is something I noticed, just wanted to check if that thing I encountered makes any sence to anyone of you guys... When your low B string sounds less in volume then the other strings giving the neck a little more "bow" resolves this diffenrence by a margin.
Also makes you sound a bit warmer.. anyone encountered the same phenomenon?..

Best regards and have a nice christmas ofcource!
My as-brief-as-possible response:

If by "more bow" you mean more relief in the neck to correct your issue, I would disagree that this be an option to correct focus on any string at any time on any bass.

I would suggest:

First: Make sure you have a professional set-up done on your bass for your playing style. I agree with Ken that there are allot of folks out there that call themselves "qualified professionals" and will gladly take your money and may leave you no better off than before. So, if you can't do this yourself, find someone qualified who is. Ask around for recommendations from reliable sources, otherwise, send it back to Ken.

Second: Maybe you have a bad B-string. Yes, this is a possibility.

Third: On most of Ken's P/U's you have the ability to adjust each strings' individual pole pieces. This can help you dial-in focus for each individual string, up and down the neck. More times than not, provided I'm set-up with a fresh quality set of strings, this corrects any focus issue I've ever encountered.

Merry Christmas!

[Bram Schoonderbeek]

My as-brief-as-possible response:

If by "more bow" you mean more relief in the neck to correct your issue, I would disagree that this be an option to correct focus on any string at any time on any bass.

I would suggest:

First: Make sure you have a professional set-up done on your bass for your playing style. I agree with Ken that there are allot of folks out there that call themselves "qualified professionals" and will gladly take your money and may leave you no better off than before. So, if you can't do this yourself, find someone qualified who is. Ask around for recommendations from reliable sources, otherwise, send it back to Ken.

Second: Maybe you have a bad B-string. Yes, this is a possibility.

Third: On most of Ken's P/U's you have the ability to adjust each strings' individual pole pieces. This can help you dial-in focus for each individual string, up and down the neck. More times than not, provided I'm set-up with a fresh quality set of strings, this corrects any focus issue I've ever encountered.

Merry Christmas!

Well my Smith doesnt have this problem, as I had the opportunity to select that one out of a range of Smith basses, it was my other 5 string bass that I bought new, and strangly enough now that B is at the same volume as the other strings, first this was not the case... The softer less present B ive encountered on many other new beautique basses... including new Smith basses I tried sorry to say, its not lacking definition, like you would have with a bad string, just its softer in volume.

But then again maybe it has more to do with playing on an instrument a sertain time and everything smoothes out a bit, one thing is for sertain that 5 string bass of mine thats now half a year old does sound better and better as time goes by the B now is really good and fat too, also it looked like the setup helped a bit, but just wanted to know if anyone else had encountered the same thats all.


Thanks for your reply Tim,

[John McGuire]

Ken, Bram, and Tim:

Thank you much for the advice. Especially since it was Christmas and you made the time!

Well, I gave it a go with the truss rod adjustments per Kens advice. The bass is now perfect to my liking! Approximately 1/16" relief when holding the B and E's down on the 1st and 15th frets respectfully. The bridge adjustments took me some time since I'm not 100% experienced with the KS bass tweaks yet, however after several hours taking my bass apart and tinkering it's now perfect and I have a good initial understanding of the various temperments. I really feel every bass player should learn to set-up their own basses. When I first starting playing I would take my bass in for a "professional set-up" and pay the $40 and many times take home a bass that played worst than before. I started working on all my own guitars and basses about 10 years ago and I can now set up to exactly what's in my head and fingers.

I have some technical questions for you guys:

1). I'm using the stainless steel Smith taper core strings (that's what I put on during this set-up), I'm kind of worried about premature fret wear?

Just curious, what alloy are the frets made out of? Are they hardened/heat treated? I'm assuming the strings are a 304 stainless? As a metallurgical engineer I'm always curious! I'm playing with the idea of looking into a better alloy development & heat treat for fret wire.

2). Also, another metal related question. Why is the bridge made from brass? Ken, when you were developing the bass design, did you experiment with other metal choices. I did some experimenting on an old rickenbacker bass with bridges made from zinc, aluminum, and brass, and each changed the tone significatly.

3). I'm going to experiment with the inside DIP switchs. Does anyone have any experience with the various combinations. Does it really change the tone that much?

J.P.

[Bram Schoonderbeek]

Ken, Bram, and Tim:

Thank you much for the advice. Especially since it was Christmas and you made the time!



Nice to hear you got things changed for the better there man!
Cheers on that ofcourse:)
Happy playing!

Best regards

Bram