What is the relief in your neck?

[moosie]

Depending on the state of the frets, my guitars have relief from .003 to .007. Any flatter is asking for trouble. Minor humidity change, and I'll be repeating the setup. Any more than .007 and I don't like the way it feels when playing. Over .010, and I have trouble avoiding buzzes at my usual medium action (approx 5/64 at the 12th, across the board).

I happen to know my 335 is .003, and has been adjusted to that for years. But it has perfect, stainless frets.

The others are all more likely to be .005".

 

[Orpheum]

Straight neck on my arch tops and very slight relief on the bolt-on ones.

 

[brookdalebill]

My last music store day job dictated I set up guitars differently than I normally would.
The boss wanted some neck relief in the set ups.
He also insisted I stretch the new strings considerably.
My most common request from customers was the famous
“Get the action as low as possible without buzzing.”
To me, that means a straight neck, and a proper nut set-up, saddle height adjustment and intonation setting.
Normally I don’t stretch new strings much, I think it’s easy to kill their liveliness if you do.
I just tune, and re-tune till they settle.
I’ve done a crazy amount of string instrument set-ups.
I still do a few for a few guys who I know from my music-store days.

 

[CalebAaron666]

I use 11-49 strings on everything.
My Teles all have 9.5” radius necks. I can slide a .011” feeler gauge at the 7th fret.
On my guitars with 12” radius necks, I can slide a .008 gauge at the 7th. I think that’s what recommended.

Basically, I want to get my action about 1-1.25mm at the 12th fret on all my guitars. At least according to my action gauge.

I try and not get too lost in the details and trust my hands and ears. If the action is low, if it feels good to play, and if there’s no audible buzz plugged in, I’m a pretty happy boy.

 

[jackal]

I used to have to adjust relief twice a year due to weather changes. I started to set them all at .007, now they stay between .004 and .010, I'm happy not to have to re-adjust them.

 

[Jakedog]

Pretty straight for me. If I press the first and last fret and it looks like maybe I could slide some 0001 aluminum foil through the hole, it’s probably good. My Silver Sky likes just a hair more, but not much.

Everything else gets pretty darn flat, and never more than 1.5mm string height at the 12th fret. If the guitar won’t play perfectly like that with zero buzz, the frets are not level.

 

[Boreas]

Another thing a small amount of relief can help with is irregular frets. If you like a flat neck, you need to make sure your frets are and remain LEVEL. Fretwear and divots tend to be more of an issue with no relief.

I have had a couple electric necks that are too flimsy and the relief/tuning changes depending on how I hold it. With necks like that, ya just hafta fudge it for best performance. Sometimes increasing the truss rod tension can help stabilize the neck, but increases relief. Usually a seasonal thing if the truss rod hits neutral.

 

[Brent Hutto]

Over the weekend I pulled my first electric guitar (before the Telecaster) out of storage, gave it fresh strings and a setup after 10 months in the closet. It’s an Ibanez RG with 16” radius fretboard and oustanding fretwork so it can handle low relief and action.

I stopped at .006”-ish relief because I had the high strings down at .050” action. What a joy to play with 9-42 DaddyO strings in it. I may get curious and cut the relief down to half that much just to see if it buzzes!

 

[rand z]

Very little or no discernible relief.

I like a "flat" fretboard on all of my guitars, acoustic and electric.

So, I can handle a little buzz; but do my own set-ups and fretwork to keep it to a minimum.

imo.

 

[teletail]

Flat as possible, low string height. I never understood why people want to make a guitar harder than necessary to play. But that's just me.

 

[Dioxazine61]

If the action is too low, you will not be able to get your fingers underneath to grab on to them in order to bend. The string will slip underneath your fingers and wham! Terrible sound. Guitars also will sing better with a higher action.

 

[tele_savales]

I shoot for about .007.

 

[Paul G.]

While I like a straight neck, it is impractical. A neck is a piece of wood and temperature and humidity will affect the relief. If your neck is straight, you may end up with backbow under some conditions. Most of my necks are set to ~.007". Works very well.

 

[Brent Hutto]

Flat as possible, low string height. I never understood why people want to make a guitar harder than necessary to play. But that's just me.

Your comment inspired me to ask the same question about my Telecaster setup.

Over the weekend I had pulled my first (electric) guitar out of storage, it's an Ibanez RG421 and had been living in a box in the closet for nearly a year since I got the Tele. Strung it up with a fresh 9-42 set and it was just a dream to play. So I got out the gauges and found it had not a lot of neck relief (about .005-.006") and the action was super-low. Like 0.045" on the high-E string, between .050"-.060" on the middle four strings and a little over .060" on the low-E. No buzzing.

With your "why...make a guitar harder than necessary to play" question fresh in my mind I cranked some of the relief out of the Tele's neck (from .010" down to 0.007") and lowered the action across the board. It had been around 0.062" high-E up to 0.078" low-E, which is about the way Fender specs them from the factory. I went down to 0.052" high-E up to 0.065" low-E.

I did get a bit of incipient buzz when fretting the A string at the 3rd/4th/5th frets so I bumped it up about 0.070" just to be sure.

It doesn't play quite as slick as the Ibanez but practicing some chord progressions tonight was much less tiring than before. Very enjoyable.

So I'm with @teletail on this. For me, I can't hear any difference between a low-and-comfy setup and a higher one. I'm all for 9-42's, minimal neck relief and action a low as practical.

 

[moosie]

Why might someone choose a setup with medium neck relief, and medium action?

1. If you live in a region of changing humidity, or if you travel with the guitar, it can be valuable to have a setup that's more tolerant of neck movement, without needing constant tweaking. This is especially true if you have to pay someone to make the adjustments.

2. If your playing style relies on ringing strings, such as open string country licks, or arpeggiating through held chord shapes. When lowering action, eventually the strings will buzz. But before that happens, there will be "pre-buzz". This is when you can't hear any buzz, but the strings are slightly dampened by their close proximity to the frets. This unnaturally short decay is the enemy of such a playing style.

Guitar geometry is all about tradeoffs.

In theory higher action is more difficult to play. But if you spend half your time playing a bluegrass dread, then medium to high action on an electric probably won't bother you very much.

Personally, I used to chase the lowest possible action. I was honing my setup skills through that period, and I was a bit impatient with folks who (I suspected) didn't so much "like" higher action, but were rationalizing a mediocre setup.

Yes, a bit of arrogance on my part.

Eventually, as my style and musical interests evolved, I realized the low action was holding me back. It was still important to me that I had the chops to achieve a low-action setup, but I no longer wanted my own guitars set up that way.

A side benefit of this is that I no longer obsess over a few thousandths of an inch. Anything in the range is close enough that I'll be happy playing it.

Obviously my preference isn't everyone's, which is why guitars are adjustable!

 

[telemnemonics]

As close to straight as reasonably possible knowing that wood moves and I do not want it to back bow in humid weeks.
No AC in my house so humidity changes a lot, summer can be very humid or quite dry, run a humidifier in winter but still much less humid than summer.

 

[El Marin]

1. If you live in a region of changing humidity, or if you travel with the guitar, it can be valuable to have a setup that's more tolerant of neck movement, without needing constant tweaking. This is especially true if you have to pay someone to make the adjustments.

2. If your playing style relies on ringing strings, such as open string country licks, or arpeggiating through held chord shapes. When lowering action, eventually the strings will buzz. But before that happens, there will be "pre-buzz". This is when you can't hear any buzz, but the strings are slightly dampened by their close proximity to the frets. This unnaturally short decay is the enemy of such a playing style.

I must absolutely agree with you

In theory higher action is more difficult to play. But if you spend half your time playing a bluegrass dread, then medium to high action on an electric probably won't bother you very much.

Correct!! I would add a Spanish Guitar too (you call them classics or nylon)

I need relief, if you use 11-52 or 12's and strum hard, you need relief or those strings will buzz

 

[old wrench]

Every neck is going to play better when setup with appropriate relief for not only the neck itself but for the players style of playing

"Straighter" does not mean "better"

When you pluck a string, it's going to oscillate on it's axis - if it doesn't have sufficient clearance to oscillate without touching the frets - there will be a deadening effect with attendant loss of sustain

If you are a heavy-handed player and strum hard - you are going to benefit from added relief

If you have a softer, gentler string attack you can get away with less relief and not encounter that deadening effect

It's really science and more specifically physics that determine your ideal amount of relief for any particular guitar and player

The obsession with setting up for the lowest possible string height is what accounts for a lot of dead sounding guitars

I usually play with a somewhat restrained string attack, but on some solos I really dig in and let it rip - so I set up with a little more relief than I usually need so my solos ring out clearly

I would advise players to experiment with their relief setting and let their ears guide them to the best setting for their individual guitar and playing style - keep in mind that less is not always better

Neck and fret condition is a very big factor when setting relief - it's pretty easy to envision that the closer a neck is to having a perfect fret job, the less relief is required, because there aren't any errant frets sticking up above that perfect plane for the string to hit and deaden itself as it oscillates around its axis

Simply eyeballing the relief isn't a very accurate method of setting relief, because the difference between so-so relief and optimum relief is often only a few thousandths of an inch

An accurate straight-edge and a set of feeler gauges is the best way to reliably set relief




edit - With my guitars, where I've built the neck and done the fret job, my relief setting usually runs about 5 or 6 thousandths - that's a little lower than most factory recommendations, but my fret jobs are better than most factory fret jobs

5 or 6 thousandths works very well for my playing style and my strings ring out nice and clear and I get very good sustain - that is always my goal when doing a setup

5 or 6 thousandths is a relatively small amount - the only way I can reliably and consistently measure small amounts like that is with a good straight-edge and feeler gauges

When you are setting your relief on your guitar, try to approach it without pre-conceived ideas about what is "best" - instead, let your ears guide you to the best setting, and then measure it - you might be surprised by what learn when using this method


.

 

[FortyEight]

ive used a feeler gauge and tried to get as close to fender specs. but then i just eyeball it. all my guitars and basses are works in progress and i doubt ever has perfectly leveled frets. the straighter the neck the higher the action. and i dont really love a high action like j mascis does or a slide player.

but relief and saddle height go hand in hand to find the sweet spot of feeling good and sounding good.

at present my tele has two or three hinky (deadish) notes way up on the g string. like 17/18/19 when i have the action where i want it. if i raise the saddle to get rid of it i cant stand playing it anywhere else.

the first two years i owned it, it didnt have this issue. so i musta did something to it while playing. wore some frets down idk.

my jazz bass (cv 70s) neck moved constantly for the first 18 months. so i kept straightening it out every month. then finally it stopped. i also have fret leveled in 3-4 stages after i bought it. (new). it seems decent now and i like it. the action is a bit higher than i like but im a bit less pickier about bass than i am guitar. i have learned to like it higher with bass. within reason.

my acoustic is old has a terrible back bow from the wood moving and with the right strings ive found it still very playable to about oooo the 10th fret. i can play single notes above that but dont chord much up there.

my bigger point is all my stuff is imperfect, lower dollar and i just try and dial them in as best i can. which my skills have gotten better over time as a set up man and player. but in comparison to how some of u are talking, ive typically got a bit more relief.

 

[TonyClark]

I've been setting up my own guitars for about 25 years now. I used to have them done by "pros" but I found that I would always tweak them after I got them home.

I realized that doing my own setups made much more sense because I like making tweaks as I play in a new set of strings. Like others have said, it's all about the feel for what you like. When I started doing setups, I would try and measure relief and string height with shims, etc. but measuring distances under 1/64th of an inch, for me, was better done simply by feel and sound.

My setups have a bit higher action than average because I like that feel and sound. (I also gigged for years with my Taylor dreadnaught strung with 13's so my hands tend to grab hard). I find it really rewarding to sit and play guitars while making fine adjustments.