How I set up my guitars! CAUTION: long Video!

Many of you ask how I do certain things to my guitars... Well here is what I do from start to end with every guitar I buy, budget or not!
Some need more extensive work than others, but my pre set up, my addressing of issues and my final set up tweaks, always stay essentially the same.
I'm not a Luthier, nor do I play one on KZbin lol. This is what I do, and it works for me. Take it or leave it, and do your homework to decide what would work best for you!
Here's a fact! No guitar is going to be perfect and they will all need a set up regardless of price point! The only exception, maybe, is if the guitar you have was a custom order spec-ed out for you factory direct. Now you're into the 4 to 5 thousand price range though... if you can swing that, go for it.
I prefer to take a generic guitar, and make it my own with a detailed set up and maybe some mods and upgrades down the road...
Hope this is at least informative😉
Cheers,
J-Man

[@Sea_Jay]

Great tips! I ended up pausing the video a half dozen times thinking someone was talking in the next room (I'm home alone) before I figured out it was someone talking in the next room of the video. Lol!

[@j-man9457]

Hahaha no doubt! Don't know about you but my house is haunted..... with noise lol!

[@wasteddude9387]

Thank God you’re an actual teacher. At least THAT group of students will be alright. Jesus! Times are bad. Thank you, teacher. Thanks J-MAN. And this is a GREAT video! No kidding around, man. You need to realize, dude. You don’t halfass your way through the stuff. God bless you for that.

[@j-man9457]

Thanks buddy. Much appreciated!

[@theguitarprofessionals8584]

Full watch Dude!!!!! No worries!

[@j-man9457]

Hahaha thanks! Any pointers?

[@theguitarprofessionals8584]

Naaaa you are doing good!!!! hopefully you will help a couple of folks and bann a couple of folks!!!!!

[@j-man9457]

@@theguitarprofessionals8584 hahaha!

[@truemanparsons9521]

j-man thank you for this in depth setup procedure. i just received this same guitar and all appears to be good. however, my lack of luthier experience causes me, like a sponge, to absorb the instruction from an experienced and talented guitar professional, to pay attention to detail from your personal experiences. your the man J-MAN i thank you sincerely !

[@j-man9457]

Thanka man... I'm not a pro by any means... great guitar though! Enjoy!

[@johnjolly9519]

I think you could call yourself a guitar tech for sure. Great advice and information. I gotta get some of that nut sauce, haha.

[@j-man9457]

Hahaha yup, gotta have the sauce lol! Maybe not a tech-nician but a fussy-ician for sure hahaha! I'm pretty fussy when it comes to how guitars (well mine anyway) are set up haha!

[@andrewscottfoust]

This is awesome. I'm going to go through this on my Westcreek 333. Thanks!

[@j-man9457]

@@andrewscottfoust hey thanks buddy! Hope it helps! J

[@REX-ks1os]

You are a better then good guitar player, and you do a great job with set up's. Your the proof that it really is the man and his fingers that create the great sounds. you can buy a million dollar hand made guitar but if you cant rock a mid level guitar you wont be able to rock a 59 les paul or a 63 strat .. IT IS ALL ABOUT PRACTICE and the love of music.

[@j-man9457]

100% agree man! And I have a lot of practicing to do hahaha!

[@denisconor648]

Great information thanks

[@TheJohnburghardt]

Nicely done. That is a gorgeous guitar.

[@j-man9457]

Yeah they're great if you like that style! Amazing value🙂

[@guitarzan0515]

Thx J, I be watching!!

[@j-man9457]

Hahaha thanks but you don't need to watch this one, you already do all of this stuff!😀

[@finemeat]

Wow J-Man! Home run on this one and you answered questions I didn’t know I had. Loved hearing “Jonny B Good “ and have to watch Back to the Future now😂

[@j-man9457]

Hahahaha yup the old chuck berry riff! Great guitar for that! Thanks bud!

[@robjones7725]

All good for me. I always go neck relief first, then string height (inc. nut depth/cut) then pickup height (personal preference varies I know) and last of all intonation. I found the guidance on the break angle from the stop-tail to the bridge useful but other advice useful too e.g. fret polishing method. Good video, good guidance and thanks very much J-MAN.

[@j-man9457]

@@robjones7725 much appreciated! Make sure guitar is tuned to pitch first before adjusting relief, otherwise you will be misled with your relief adjustment 😀 Rock on!

[@robjones7725]

@@j-man9457 I do that but slacken strings when the truss rod needs adjustment to take the tension off the neck.

[@calbrockocat8728]

Troll, troll, troll. There. All done! Lots of great info, J!

[@j-man9457]

Hahaha!

[@Stratisfied22]

I learned how to do everything myself years ago because of how bad the "luthiers" are in my area especially at Guitar Center, so I can easily say by watching your work that you would be considered a master luthier by every stretch in my neck of the woods. Hell I'm better than 95% of them now. Nice tools I may have to order some of the Music Nomad stuff it's looking pretty good these days.

[@j-man9457]

Thanks man! Much appreciated. The Musicnomad stuff is fantastic!

[@itsmedonp]

Great set up video! Thanks!

[@j-man9457]

Thanks bud!

[@flppr1]

Thanks so much for this helpful, thorough, valuable video!

[@j-man9457]

Thanks. Glad it served a purpose😀

[@bluztime5271]

Watching your 333 videos I couldn’t resist giving one a try. I picked up a used one (return) off reverb for under $200. I wasn’t as fortunate as you. Mine has numerous high frets and the nut was glued in off centered. Otherwise, not bad. Pickups were acceptable, bridge much better than the neck. Fortunately, I do work on guitars and can level the frets an re-install the nut properly. I can’t complain too much as it cost less than $200 but someone without the skills to make the repairs would not be happy.

[@j-man9457]

Yup it's always hit or miss with budget guitars. Also when buying used, sometimes the original owner tries to mod or fix something and messes it up then gets rid of it...! The red one I got was a mess, but this blue one was really good. Love it!

[@bluztime5271]

@@j-man9457 I’m pretty sure the the one I got was a return because of the issues. That’s why it was sold at a discount. At any rate I’ve got it all straightened out and it’s quite nice now. I might through a bigsby on it.

[@j-man9457]

@@bluztime5271 right on man! Nice work... And a bigsby on these would be cool!

[@2bikemikesguitartopics145]

I see you bought a few expensive tools to work around the nut with. I use a much cheaper Automotive gauge and set the height of the nut slots to be .016 of an inch over the first fret for the trouble strings and .018 over the first fret on the bass strings. This also works every time and it only cost me 12 bucks at Canadian Tire . Nice work overall and a very nice guitar in the end. Oh yeah and I have posted videos😂😂😂😂

[@j-man9457]

Awesome! Should of gone that route too hahaha! The stewmac stuff is crazy $$$$

[@user77434]

Awesome video! Do you know if M Musi will be releasing any new guitars soon? If so, when?

[@j-man9457]

Thanks, I haven't heard of any new models, but Westcreek are apparently releasing an S-style soon. Not sure what that will be like🤔 But if by Style they mean Strat and it has 24.75 scale lenght, that would be pretty cool😁

[@zuperdee]

Looks pretty solid to me! Is this guitar off to a new home, or is this a new swan among all those ducks have have, known as Telecasters? 😁

[@j-man9457]

Haha my good friend wants this one! So off to a new home!😀

[@TechnoRiff]

@J-MAN - Bravo! This video is gold, and needed whatever time it took to walk through the process. I see work on the nut being closely tied to fretwork, and that's where I get apprehensive - especially the nightmare scenario of chasing fret leveling up the neck as you said. What's the grit of that crowning file you used to spot level?

[@j-man9457]

Thanks bro! Doesn't really take that long for a set up but when trying to explain everything and trying to be transparent without too much editing, it's hard to shorten up hahaha😆

[@TechnoRiff]

@@j-man9457 I think a setup might take that whole time at a leisurely yet focused pace. Too fast, we would become those production guys churning out these flaws to be fixed!

[@j-man9457]

@@TechnoRiff haha yup good point!

[@TechnoRiff]

@@j-man9457 Hey man! I think I'm going to spring for a Fret Kisser for spot leveling as I would feel more confident limiting the amount of fret material removed during spot leveling. Thought I'd pass onto you that Stewmac confirmed that the 300 diamond grit on the FK is the same as on their crowning file, so I think I should be good going directly afterwards to the steel wool polishing step, is that right?

[@j-man9457]

@@TechnoRiff looks like nice tool... but you would still have to recrown the fret before polishing otherwise the spot you leveled would be flat. If the top of the fret is flat, too much of the string makes contact with the fret as opposed to just sitting on the very top of the crown. So you could spot level with the fret kisser, but you'd also need to recrown that area before polishing the fret... That's why I used an actual crowning file to level that 1 fret in my video... it's a crappy file as it's too shallow and will take meat off of the top of the fret but it leaves the crown shape. I never use that file to do a full crowning job, only to remove some meat of slightly high frets... Stewmac sells the fret kisser and an understring crowning file as a package... probably for that exact reason😀

[@kfm908]

these guitars are a bargain.Workmanship is great for the price

[@j-man9457]

Yup they sure are Kevin!