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Fretboard advice please


JB123
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Hi all,

I've just gotten my first Fender Jazz Bass (Absolutely love it). The neck feels smooth and lovely to play, but from the 15th fret onwards, the notes fret out / buzz. 

The neck without strings is straight, and when stung it has a slight forward bow (which is to be expected?). 

Would you say this is a truss rod issue, or perhaps uneven frets higher up on the board, maybe a shim could help? 

JB123

 

 

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It's not a truss rod issue, it's actually why it has a truss rod. The truss rod needs to be tightened to counteract the pull of the strings. You'll then probably need to raise the bridge a little. There are countless setup guides on youtube, watch some before you do anything.

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In summary, you want to tighten the truss rod so that, when in tune and the strings and neck are under tension, you have a relief (forward bow) of about the thickness of a business card between the top of the 8-10th frets and the bottom of the strings. Hold down the E string at the first and last frets, which provides you with a straight line along the neck, to see what the relief is like. Too much relief and you get buzz and choking in the higher frets, as you are experiencing. Too little relief or back bow and you'll get buzz and choking at the lower frets. Get the relief right and you can set a comfortable and playable action along the length of the neck with no buzzing or choking.

Only after you have the neck set up should you think about adjusting the bridge saddles to set the action.

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Capo on the 1st fret, hold E string down on the fret where the neck and body meet, you then need 12 thou at the 7th fret using a feeler guage. Adjust truss rod to acheive this. Set the string height to 5/64ths at the 17th fret for each string by adjusting the bridge saddles.

 

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6 minutes ago, JB123 said:

Cheers Doctor J & Paddy515.

This might sound like a dim question, but to tighten the truss rod I turn it clockwise / to the right? Not something I want to get wrong!

 

"Righty tighty, lefty loosey".

When your headstock is pointing north, turning the allen key to the right to adjust the trussrod will tighten it and will bring the fretboard closer to the strings giving the fretboard a convex look. Turning to the left will give the fretboard a concave look and the fretboard will move away from the strings.

 

Don't turn the allen key any more than a quarter tun at a time.

Edited by TheLowDown
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And put your Allen key to the max in the bullet (that's the way it's called) post of the truss rod, because the alloy of the bullet is softer than your keep. Everything will be fine and you'll avoid rounding the inside Allen imprint and damaging it forever. Also use the correct Allen key (metric and imperial is not the same).

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4 hours ago, Hellzero said:

the bullet (that's the way it's called) 

I don't want to make this more complicated for the topic starter, but I always thought it was only called a "bullet" on the so-called bullet truss rods on 1970s Fenders (which are actually bullet-shaped), and is called a truss rod "nut" on all other guitars and basses. 

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTEAPdSfQb4ESS09CRpib_

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15 hours ago, Hellzero said:

put your Allen key to the max in

^This is the point.^

Make sure you use a key that fits well and make sure there is no crap in the socket* to stop you putting the key fully home.

It's good practice with any threaded fastener.

Also,  you might find that the truss rod adjuster is harder to turn than you expect.  In that case you can slacken the strings to take the string tension out of the system.  It should help.

Welcome to the forum JB.

*It's an internal wrenching fastener.  It's harder to recover a stripped one of these than it is with an external wrenching fastener such as a screw or a bolt.
 

Edited by SpondonBassed
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I finally got around to setting up my new bass last night. It took a couple of days to get the necessary tools delivered, and then a couple more days to quarantine them once they arrived.

The truss rod adjusting was nowhere near as scary as I had originally thought. My Jazz Bass is a '61 reissue, so it took a long time to get it just right. Take the neck off, adjust, neck back on, tune to pitch, wait a bit, measure, take the neck off, adjust and so on, but I got there. I was able to lower the action to the point that, I can play each note clearly and without buzz when playing gently, but if I dig in I can get that 'growly' tone. The pickup height, intonation and nut height were all good out of the box which was a nice surprise.

Thank you all for your advise, it was well received and helpful. I now have a bass that sings.

Edited by JB123
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