Desert island guitar. One !

[Eagle]

Ok this is really hard,
One guitar, you don’t need to own it now but you do need to post a picture of it and say why!
I’ll start;

It is not my favourite guitar even but It sounds amazing unplugged and there is nothing you can’t do on this. Makes me a better musician.
Your turn!

 

[andergtr]

the most versatile guitar i have, my james tyler studio elite.

 

[Eagle]

the most versatile guitar i have, my james tyler studio elite.View attachment 2967

Great choice!

 

[DrewJD82]

I just re-setup my Gilmour Strat last night, went back and forth between neck reliefs to see which I dug more, I definitely prefer a little relief in there over a straighter neck and after a small action adjustment I found that *perfect* spot between ‘plays like butter’ and ‘just a little fight’ and couldn’t put it down for about 4 hours straight after.

 

[Eagle]

I just re-setup my Gilmour Strat last night, went back and forth between neck reliefs to see which I dug more, I definitely prefer a little relief in there over a straighter neck and after a small action adjustment I found that *perfect* spot between ‘plays like butter’ and ‘just a little fight’ and couldn’t put it down for about 4 hours straight after.

View attachment 2978

Hard to better a well playing strat.

 

[fretworn]

Modern S-type by Laurent Brondel and Chuck Thornton collaboration. Ron Ellis PUps.

 

[Eagle]

View attachment 2995

View attachment 2996

View attachment 2998
Modern S-type by Laurent Brondel and Chuck Thornton collaboration. Ron Ellis PUps.


View attachment 2997

Excellent choice.

 

[Steinmetzify]

#1 for nut width, neck shape, simplicity and tone.

Mahog body, maple cap, EMG81, one pickup one knob. Best playing guitar I've ever touched and even though I have some heavy hitters this is pretty much the only one I ever play anymore...

 

[TubeStack]

Not hard at all.

But anyway, easy choice: my #1 for seven years now, 2011 R9:

 

[Eagle]

Both stunning.

 

[la szum]

I just re-setup my Gilmour Strat last night, went back and forth between neck reliefs to see which I dug more, I definitely prefer a little relief in there over a straighter neck and after a small action adjustment I found that *perfect* spot between ‘plays like butter’ and ‘just a little fight’ and couldn’t put it down for about 4 hours straight after.

View attachment 2978

Someone is happy. Someone is baked. Someone is happy and baked.

I am a fan of relief. I don't know how guys can setup a neck totally flat/straight and play
the darn thing. My buddy that I play in a band with and I had a talk about it just this past
week. He gets new guitar. Is upset that the neck has some relief. I say it should have some.
He tweaks the truss rod to get it to have no relief and says it plays like crap and he is getting
a bunch of fretbuzz.

Oh really???


In the process of doing my seasonal setups on my guitars right now. Made it through a couple
and then stalled out. Have to get back on the train and see this through.

 

[Eagle]

The right amount of relief is half the thickness of your high E. If you have fret buzz with this amount then you have other issues.

 

[Mooselake]

Partial pic in avatar. Special build of a Suhr Classic. One piece maple neck recovered from the bottom of the Great Lakes. My happy place is the Northwoods surrounding the western Great Lakes, where this old growth tree would have been felled ~100 years ago. Plays great, feels great, versatile for what I like to do.

 

[la szum]

The right amount of relief is half the thickness of your high E. If you have fret buzz with this amount then you have other issues.

Is there any room in the "right amount of relief" for personal preference?

 

[Eagle]

Is there any room in the "right amount of relief" for personal preference?

Not really because more is actually detrimental to performance at the upper register. Honestly if the relief is correct and in the right place exactly ( and it often isn’t) and your frets are level set you’re action to taste but not less than 1.2mm . You won’t want it different. . When these things are perfect it will feel right and it won’t buzz.

 

[DrewJD82]

Someone is happy. Someone is baked. Someone is happy and baked.

I am a fan of relief. I don't know how guys can setup a neck totally flat/straight and play
the darn thing. My buddy that I play in a band with and I had a talk about it just this past
week. He gets new guitar. Is upset that the neck has some relief. I say it should have some.
He tweaks the truss rod to get it to have no relief and says it plays like crap and he is getting
a bunch of fretbuzz.

Oh really???


In the process of doing my seasonal setups on my guitars right now. Made it through a couple
and then stalled out. Have to get back on the train and see this through.

I dunno how Satch does it, dude prefers no relief in the neck (I’m curious if this is why he prefers straight headstocks opposed to angled) and extremely low action, said he wants to even up the entire neck. I love having that little relief there so as I get above the 12th fret I can get just a little more finger meat under the strings, it’s not a lot though.

And I confirmed my suspicions about neck relief and string tension the other night- added a little relief, tuned it up and my bridge was decked after it was floating previously. I keep it floating maybe at an 1/8”, probably a little under, but that 1/8th of a turn on the truss rod gave enough slack in the strings that the bridge was flat on the body.

 

[Eagle]

I dunno how Satch does it, dude prefers no relief in the neck (I’m curious if this is why he prefers straight headstocks opposed to angled) and extremely low action, said he wants to even up the entire neck. I love having that little relief there so as I get above the 12th fret I can get just a little more finger meat under the strings, it’s not a lot though.

And I confirmed my suspicions about neck relief and string tension the other night- added a little relief, tuned it up and my bridge was decked after it was floating previously. I keep it floating maybe at an 1/8”, probably a little under, but that 1/8th of a turn on the truss rod gave enough slack in the strings that the bridge was flat on the body.

It has the opposite effect. More relief lowers the relative action at the upper end and also negatively effects the next fret clearance there too. The way to get more meat under the strings fret 10 up is near dead flat and taller frets.
More relief makes next fret clearance better only for the way down the hill (fret 1~7ish) then when you get to the bottom everything else is worse. In fact if you have a vintage radius you will be in trouble unless you have a pretty high action and even then the next fret clearance at the same action will be far less potentially choking the dynamic range (depending on how hard you pick.)

 

[DrewJD82]

It has the opposite effect. More relief lowers the relative action at the upper end and also negatively effects the next fret clearance there too. The way to get more meat under the strings fret 10 up is near dead flat and taller frets.
More relief makes next fret clearance better only for the way down the hill (fret 1~7ish) then when you get to the bottom everything else is worse. In fact if you have a vintage radius you will be in trouble unless you have a pretty high action and even then the next fret clearance at the same action will be far less potentially choking the dynamic range (depending on how hard you pick.)

Well, that Strat is a 12” radius with med/jumbo frets, when I straightened it, the action had to get raised a tiny bit to give me the clearance, when I added the relief back, I had to re-set the trem float and lower the action, so I wonder if I’m confusing something along the way between the bridge angle and the action. Either way, it’s perfect now and I’m not touching it again.

 

[Eagle]

I dunno how Satch does it, dude prefers no relief in the neck (I’m curious if this is why he prefers straight headstocks opposed to angled) and extremely low action, said he wants to even up the entire neck. I love having that little relief there so as I get above the 12th fret I can get just a little more finger meat under the strings, it’s not a lot though.

And I confirmed my suspicions about neck relief and string tension the other night- added a little relief, tuned it up and my bridge was decked after it was floating previously. I keep it floating maybe at an 1/8”, probably a little under, but that 1/8th of a turn on the truss rod gave enough slack in the strings that the bridge was flat on the body.

Satch has his guitars pleked and set up low (1mm low) they need to be dead straight with the radius he likes to work at all . The straight head goes way back to the Roadster necks he put on Strats in the mid 80s. It was the only strat style neck Ibanez made at the time and the JS is basically the exact same thing but with 6105 frets.

 

[Eagle]

Well, that Strat is a 12” radius with med/jumbo frets, when I straightened it, the action had to get raised a tiny bit to give me the clearance, when I added the relief back, I had to re-set the trem float and lower the action, so I wonder if I’m confusing something along the way between the bridge angle and the action. Either way, it’s perfect now and I’m not touching it again.

If you add relief you are effectively also raising the action at the same time. If you measure at fret 12 before the truss rod adjustment and compare it at the end.