Tape the pickups when using the wire wool otherwise the magnets will attract all the tiny bits of wire that come off

TIP......never set intonation with the neck propped up on "anything". That amount of pressure against the neck, just laying on that neck prop gadget is enough to make intonation off in the "playing position". Intonation should always be set in the "playing position"......hold it like you are playing it when doing the adjustments. Many guitars are "position sensitive"....especially heavy necked electric basses. You might set the intonation with the guitar flat on a work bench and then when you are actually playing it, it can be off. ALSO,,,,before you do "any" adjustments on a "screw on neck guitar, like Fender" make sure you tighten those 4 neck mounting screws. I have set up "thousands" of Fenders and right from the factory the screws can be quite loose. Don't start a "set-up" till you have checked those screws. "Guitar Tech since 1974"

You should do a video on replacing pick ups

I need neck relief. I have scoliosis

Fluff, you might want to mention to people that if they're going to use steel wool that they should tape over the pickups to avoid getting loose steel threads stuck to the magnets or in the wiring. It's part of the reason I prefer a liquid metal polish, but they both get the job done. Love the channel, and you've given great advice to young players with these last two videos.

If you have a floating bridge (floyd rose, ibanez bridge), tune on the neck pick up with ur tone all the way off. This helps for a better tuning and keeps it pretty well in tune. don't know what steve vai's tech is doing to keep steve's guitars perfectly in tune tho

"Chasing the needle" is really cool to remember the direction to move the saddles. Thank you for this idea!

I have been doing my own intonation on my guitar for years and years yet every time I do it I never can remember the correct direction. Your chasing the needle tip will stay with me for the rest of my life. Thanks, man!

I'm a professional tech, I agree with everything here except the steel wool, if you use steel wool, use 0000. Not 000. (000 is a little too rough) As for maple boards, I recommend a guitar polish like music nomad The One.

steel wool makes a huge mess and since its steel it sticks to the pickups. White scotch brite pads are are great, mess-free option

Definitely needed these tips. Awesome as always; thanks, Fluff!

For locking a string on non locking tuners, I use this method: 1) Line up the peg hole to face the bridge 2) Put the string through the peg hole 3) Pull the string back 1 fret for the thick low E string, 1.5 to 2 frets for the thin high E string, and gradually change the distance to pull back between the high and low E strings. 4) Wind the tuning peg, keeping tension on the string while winding around the tuning peg. 5) Wind the string end *under* the string on the first wrap around the tuning peg, then *over* the string on each additional wind around the tuning peg. The tension will squeeze the string and lock it in the tuning peg

"Chasing The Needle" Best tip ever. I always keep mixing up which way to move the saddle. Thank you Ryan

Just to expand the knowledge base a bit the truss rod actually has very little affect on the neck beyond where the neck joins the body. Usually right around the 16th fret. When intonating (always in playing position), tune the string by playing the harmonic at the 12th fret. Don't fret it. Tune the harmonic. The check the intonation by fretting the 12th fret. This will give you perfect intonation every time. When stringing a guitar with a floating tremolo I always do the bend over lock style peg wrap for maximum stability. On a standard tailpiece the "one over and two under" (Joe Bonamassa) method will work just fine. If you use steel wool to polish your fret be sure to tape over your pickups. If you get steel wool dust on your pups you might have some other interesting issues to deal with. Never pour liquid directly on your fret board. The liquid can seep down into the fret grooves and what happens to wood that gets wet? It swells. Swelling can cause frets to lift up out of their slots and you'll have high frets and buzzing all over the place. Dab a cloth in the oil and target the wood between the frets trying to avoid getting liquid near the frets at all.

When using steel wool to polish your frets - remember to also cover your pickups and pots with masking tape. It's not good for the electronics if steel wool particles get in there (and they will be attracted due to magnetism).

Thank you for the string winding explanation! I watched a number of other videos that all failed to explain/show it properly so that a beginner could actually learn it. I managed to fix my mangled string windings (from attempting those other vids) and now my new strings are set up great! Great video.

fluff, being a musician is so much fun and believe it or not but setup my guitar for practice or shows has always been my favorite and I am always motivated to learn more about setting up my guitar. thank you for this helpful video

Loved "chase the needle", always had trouble with memorizing which way to go.

This is one of the most useful videos I have watched all year. Thank you!!

I know it's quite late for a response, but I think I have to say this. I recently took up cleaning guitars for a living, and I don't really recommend using steel wool or lemon oil on guitar fretboard for reasons as follows. 1. Steel wool. This is originally designed to clean metal parts, not wood. It does take away the dust, the gunk, but it also takes away the wood. The finest I can find in my country is 00000 and it still does that. To top ot off, it leaves behind tiny flakes of steel on the fretboard, and probably in your fingers, too. That can be quite problematic. the workbench will need cleaning up after the process as well. 2. Lemon oil. Most manufacturers like Dunlop or Planet Waves dub their products lemon oil because of the smell only. the content is around 2%, nowhere near enough to have any effect on the fretboard. The pure lemon oil will do things the other way around. it dries the fretboard, corrode the bindings between the fretboard and the inlays.Given enough time, your fretboard may as well need replacing. ( I had to do this on my cheap chinese made guitars before I started the business) I do have a few suggestions for this. Cleaning the fretboard: any type of wood polish/ conditioner will do the trick. for the century-old gunk, I use a bar of hard plastic and use the sides of it to scrape it off. For the frets, any type of metal cleaning substances will do. apply it, leave it a bit to haze up, then buff it to a mirror-like shine. For my business, I don't want to compromise anything, so this is what I do: for cleaning: I use 3M polishing paper with 6000 grid, the mint color one. Most fretboards are processed with 4000-grid papers so that'll make sure I'll take just the dust and the gunk away. After that, I'll add on the fret-board oil from Music Nomad. For the frets, again, music nomad frine fret. Any type of purpose-specific products will do just fine. I happen to like music nomad because of the pleasant smell. Cheers, mate.

Love the arts and crafts back ground music. It feels soft and warming to the Zen touch.

This and the last video are pretty good. The nut height and neck relief make a huge difference in playability. There are not many decent quality KZfaq videos explaining this. Thank you Ryan.

Can you do a video on changing valves in amps?

Great tip on the intonation, thank you.

I was glad to see the lemon oil method mentioned; I used lemon oil on my fretboard for the first time about a month and a half ago, it looked amazing and played wonderfully.

Great vid Fluff! Better than all the other setup vids I've seen! No wonder you have so many subscribers! Love all your vids!

Yes! That Joe bonamassa video is the same I stumbled across randomly and now I change my strings the same way, my guitar pretty much tunes itself ever since, and it stays in tune very well

Love the tuning tip at the end!! Great vid man.

Thank you fluf! really love those tips!

this is the best direction you could have gone with your channel Fluff. Keep it up!

More videos like this please! They help alot

Thanks man. Your lesson is amazing. I am learning.

Just bought two guitars and this is literaly the video ice been looking for ! Good job on this it's the most useful video I've seen!!!

very helpful Fluff. Just upgraded bridge on my tele. exactly what i was looking for. chasing the needle

For oiling the fretboard, I use Kyser Klassics Dr. Stringfellow to give some conditioning and cleaning.

Thank you for the informative videos, no long diatribe, love the humor as well. And i have learned quite a bit, I appreciate it and am pushing subscribe 👍👍👍

This was great! Thanks. Hoping for more tips

i love your videos. thanks for all the help!

That intonation tip is amazing. Thank you. I always forget which way to move the saddle. I don't setup a lot of guitars but when I do, it's because I just bought a new one or haven't messed with it for a while.

The way you communicate and explain everything is pro dude

Very informative video. Thank you for this.

Thanks for this vid, I don't play guitar, but the band that I do tech for have no idea how to intonate their guitars, this video will prove very, very useful in instructing them!!

best explanation of this i've seen i think. this is something i can share with friends who need to know this but don't understand what i'm talking about.

Same day. Jared comes out with a metal memes video (reaction). Fluff comes out with an informational video.

Great tips! Very easy to understand!

Great explanation to check and fix intonation. Thanks. 👍

Great video Ryan! Greetings from Portugal!

Thank you so much for “chasing the needle”. Brilliant way to remember. Cheers

great vid, thanks for getting right to the point

Thanks dude. I will start to use that string method.

Excellent explanation!

"Chase the needle" is an awesome tip! I can never remember which way to go. Thank you!

Thanks for the intonation tip.....I was always unsure as to whether to move the saddle forward or back....very easy to remember, thanks again!

That Failure poster in the background is awesome. One of my favorite bands

Brother out maybe twenty videos and so many pages reading about setting intonation, that little chase the needle trick made it so easy to understand. I was able to set the intonation like I wanted in about 10 minutes. You can say move the saddle forward if your flat, back if your sharp, but you don't how much. A quarter turn, whole turn, 1/16th of a turn???? So when the gap between a harmonic 12th and fretted 12th is 30 cents, you move the saddle forward and the gap gets smaller. A little more forward, and I'll be dammed if the gap doesn't get bigger. Very frustrating. BUT, hook up the tuner, turn that screw while watching the needle move and gadzooks! I love my guitar again. Thanks again brother.

I ALWAYS forget which way to move the saddle when setting intonation. The needle tuner trick is a great tip. Thanks

That last tip was the best for me. I'm going to try it next time I set up one of my guitars. Maybe tomorrow? I do love my planet waves locking and cutting tuners though.. they are awesome on my SG!

Great tips Fluff!

Dude, because you have a framed Failure gig poster on your wall I just subscribed to your channel. Seen them twice over the past 3 years, love that band

oh my god, thank you so much for the "chase the needle" tip! I have been playing self-learned for about 5-6 years and never really thought about that, thank you

Had no idea I was locking in my tuning by doing that! I used to play quite a bit back in highschool and am getting back into. Using all the tips here and my goodness does my old Ibanez GIO already look 100% better with the steelwool and lemon oil trick! Never knew about the bend (tip 1) nor has Intonating ever been explained to me in "chasing the needle" going to do this all tonight to bass as well as my grandfather's old steel string.

awesome tips man! also the video before, thanks a lot!!

awesome tips bro, ty!

If using steel wool, make sure you tape off your pickups or you'll have a ton of small steel wool filings sticking to them. Also, don't pour that much lemon oil on your fret board. Use sparingly. A light coating will do, wiping off the excess after 5-20 minutes, depending on how dry your board is.

Good info.....I like to change out the all the screws for stainless ones....

Thanks for the intonation advice. May attempt my own guitar setup next time I need one for my electric!

Love the string winding tip

Top notch video again. Thanks bud

Very Informative!

I used to put my strings like you but I prefer the PRS method, its even better!! aaaand.... to tune and intonate a guitar perfectly, the better way is playing position not in the workbench! Trust me!

Chase the needle. I wish i knew this when i did mine. It took me forever!! Thanks Fluff!

Chasing the needle, now thats a good tip, I do a lot of set ups, this is a great rule of thumb, thanks, Guitar Dave.

strings too grimy or rusted and you cant change them/clean them? rub your fingers on your nose, it will add oil to your fingers to allow you to play much easier. great for teenagers at guitar center

Love that Failure poster! I want one! Good video too man.

I love this! First time, I see Fluff, being real. \m/

Great video, please keep those coming, we all need those skills :)

Hey Fluff, I love you videos and appreciate all the work you put into them! What do you do in terms of the nut slots when you get a new guitar and you change string gauges? Do you do that yourself or do you bring it to a tech for that job? If you it yourself, how do you do it?

Great video and I was really happy to see the "Sponsored by" disclosure up front. Good job.

Great video, very informative and helped me out. I love a product called Fast Fret

Chasing the needle. Brings back bad memories. 11 months clean thanks to detox, will power and my guitars!

When I set the intonation of a new guitar, I use the note at the twelfth and then hit the harmonic open at the same fret. If they sound exactly the same, the string has proper intonation. Though, I like 'chasing the needle' I found it to be slower (odd, huh?), I never needed to by using the harmonic pitch at the 'middle' and then setting my saddle. I'm using my ear though, rather than a tuner. More old skool way, I guess, but just as effective.

I usually fret the 17th to do a spot check for relief. I just push the string against the fret and know how much play there needs to be (this is for a situation like I'm about to record or am playing live, when I do proper setups for myself or customers I do it with rulers and feeler gauges). I also find that treated silver/metal polishing cloths work phenomenally well to clean and polish frets. The ones I use are 2 cloths stitched together; 1 is treated the second isn't. If it's gunked up I breathe on it to get a little moisture, then put the treated cloth at the tip of my finger, with the nail where the fret and board meet, and just rub it back and forth. Then do the same with the regular non-treated cloth. The frets will blind you they get so smooth and shiny, and will feel like they're made of glass when bending notes. If they're REALLY bad (like haven't been cleaned in a really long time) I'll use 0000 steel wool first.

Thank you for the tips

If you have a bolt on neck and the guitar is cheap, loosen each screw connecting the neck and body a 1/4 turn, tune it up to the pitch you want, then tighten each screw and you'll have more resonance and sustain

Awesome video!!

For non graphite nuts, a little pencil lead drawn on the nut slots as well as the bridge saddles can offer a type of lubricant for the string. After applying, just draw the clipped string of the proper guage through the slot a couple of times to work the carbon into the nut. This will help prevent binding at the nut or saddle.

These are some really nice tips. There are often easier and more simple ways to accomplish things.

thanks for the easy way to adjust the intonation. no one has ever just said, follow the needle. they'd just say if it's flat go this way, sharp go this way. I don't adjust mine very often so by the time I do it it's like...ok which way did that go?? so much easier to just say follow the needle. Thanks again.

I never use steel wool. Too many metal particles. I use a little template that covers the fret board on both sides with the fret showing through in the middle, and use some metal polishing compound on a rag, to make them shine mirror bright with little effort.

-Hey, a cool notion; a 'Hoppe(s)' gun stock wax permeated flannel rag seems to work greatly for wiping down the guitar strings and neck (I make a round over the front of the guitar and the back of the neck also).

the string winding is really helpful my esp eclipse without locking tuners would have that issue with the high e string slipping out

Chase the needle is a very valuable tip!

Excellent.

that last time really helped me ive been tuning it every 3 or 4 days now i know why

Never heard of that string winding technique, I'll give it a try!

Steel wool in a 0000 format is what I used to do, but now I stopped using steel wool since it has a lot of excess shards embedding into the fretboard. Now I use Never Dull.

great job sir

"Chase the needle'. Thanks for that tip. I can never remember which way to move the saddle. I won't forget it now!

Chase that needle! I never heard that before. very cool.

Tip: In tuning a floyd rose or a floating bridge, after you play with the floating bridge, tune it oppositely. For example, if your guitar is a half step down, tune up 2 steps.