Set Up Secrets: Nut Height... A 'How To Guide' - ScottBassLessons
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.ย. 2024
- Check out the full "Bass Maintenance and Set-Up Guide" HERE: bit.ly/1qQATPL
Setting the correct nut height of your bass is absolutely crucial to its playability.
In fact, if your strings are to high in the nut your bass will also play out of tune (even if the open strings are perfectly in tune).
The truth is... i'd guess that way over 75% of the basses I pick up have this very problem.Even brand new instruments that cost way over $2k... pretty shocking, right?
In this video, Chris May the master luthier of Overwater basses is going to show you exactly how to set the correct nut heights on your bass for optimum playability.
As always, see you in the shed,
Scott :)
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I believe the correct measures for the height between the first fret and the bottom of the strings without pressing the third fret is between .5 and .55mm for the E and A string, and between .45 and .5mm for the D and G strings.
Thanks for that, noticeably absent from the video! Would you know if this varies significantly for shortscale or micro basses?
@@jonmatthews4254 I don't think there should be a significant difference for shorter scale instruments. But considering there is less tension on them, I would start with a slightly higher distance just to be sure and work my way down if possible. That goes for all situations actually, as you can't get the nut material back, better be safe than sorry.
Thank You for sharing Scott ! This is a very important step in the intonation that a lot of bass players that are just starting out don't consider.
You guys are really good. You never stop enriching me in all areas. Keep enjoying
You´re awesome dude, I´ve been watching all your videos, that help me a lot. It´s unusual to find very complete video lessons on web like yours. Thanks a lot ! Abrazo desde Argentina.
Excellent video. However I always have wonder how should you setup a fretless bass. All the setup procedures are done measuring the distance between the strings and frets (per example here, for neck relief and bridge saddles setup). How should I follow these instructions for my fretless if it don't have frets?
I love the chalkboard diagrams. Super helpful!
How can i buy the cource (Check out the full "Bass Maintenance and Set-Up Guide" HERE: bit.ly/1qQATPL)
scottsbasslessons.com/essential-bass-maintenance-set-guide-course
The link does not work
This was demonstrated beautifully! Thanks for your help.
Phil, you have adjustable frets too? you would change the scale of the bass by having the contact further back. if you adjust the bridge to intonate at the 12th fret you first fret will too long and 2nd to 11th will be sharp, 12th will be ok and 13h above will be flat
So does anyone know what the actual gap in thou of inch or mm, as paper thickness only mentioned? Also does it vary with brand? Wondering what fender american pro p bass is as not mentioned anywhere including their setup manuals. They only state fret board relief, string and pickup heights etc? Cheers
Anyone have a video tutorial for when the nut is too LOW? I think I need to raise the nut on my bass.
Very helpful advice but the correct nut files are awesome expensive... new a whole set is around £70 or over $100 in the UK. Sanding the base of the nuts is a sensible and much cheaper but less accurate alternative. This side of the issue should really have been touched in Chris' talk - not everyone's got that sort of dosh to lash out on a tool you may only ever use once.
Just wrap very smooth sanding paper around a piece of fence wire of the right diameter. no expensive file needed :)
I just used the strings themselves as files, when I got a new nut. Worked fine.
Been doing that for years 🤘
Why couldn’t i have teachers like this guy at school!! He makes something as boring as nut filling interesting 🤷♂️
I can see the point in having a precise point of contact.. but intonation is governed by length. Thats why have an adjustable tailstock. Yes string hight can be adjusted Beware of string buzz.
That's the whole point of what he was talking about. If you get the angle way wrong, the string could vibrate from the headstock end of the nut, making the scale longer.
I dont think you understand guitar intonation at all. your concept is great in your head but not in the real world. in your head the string doesnt move to get to each fret? in your head there is no pressure required to fret a string? in your head string tension is exactly the same for each fret? in your head the fret position is precisely calculated by a computer and not copied from luthier to luthier?
Nice video, great explanations with the blackboard, slightly let down by "a thin piece of paper" as someone who's worked in engineering all my life i would have prefered numbers
Well use your callipers and measure how thick is a thin piece of paper, then get the correct feeler gauge... As long as it doesn't sit on 1st fret, just get as close as you can !
Didnt bother trying to define a thin, medium or thick piece of paper and found exactly what i was after on Foderas very excellent series of clips, they deal with numbers rather than units of measurement such as pieces of paper or potato peel etc, sorry but i can't help being an engineer 😁
The Fodera series of videos for set up are phenomenal. I have to agree however, none of them show you how to set up the nut up unfortunately
Another excellent tutorial!
It's surprising how much information can be packed in a fairly short amount of time .(GOOD WORK!)
I to understand shortness of time, So the question is will you think about selling copies of the Bass Maintenance and set up Guide.
Thank you Thank you
I definitely overlooked this
Hi Scott, thanks for your videos, they all are very interesting nad help us very much. I would like to know if you can speak a little about the diameter of the speakers and how this affects over the quality when you are playing alive, does the choice depends on the music you play?, when is better to use 12" or 15" speakers or it doesn't matter at all?. Thanks a lot!
Lowering the nut slots requires a set of nut files which might not be easy for people to get a hold of. Instead, you could remove the nut then sand the bottom of the it so that the strings are at the right height when you reseat it in the neck. You do need to be careful removing the nut though. They are normally glued in with a tiny amount of glue just to hold them in place. To remove the nut on my bass I placed a small block of wood up against it at the first fret and lightly tapped the wood towards the headstock with a tack hammer.
Hey - i've done that quite a few times before, especially if the nut is waaaaay too high. To get really precise nut files are defo the best, but taking some off the bottom is always another option. I think you just have to be careful if there's a load of laquer around the nut as sometimes when you pop it out it can end up chipping the finish. Thanks for watching man! :)
very helpfull!!! thank you very much! the best!!!
Brilliant
Thanks for stopping by Paul! :)
Agreed
Two questions, one. What if the nut groves are too deep, how do you fix it? Two, What if you have a fretless bass? How do you determine the nut height?
for fretless, affix a capo to the first "fret", measure with a feeler gauge the distance between the bottom of the string and the second 'fret'. This is the height your open E should be measured at the first fret.
Probably a bit late, but: If the grooves are too deep you'd need to change the nut for a new one. This is very easy to do. I changed my Tedur plastic nut to a bell brass nut and it took about ten minutes. You take off any trussrod cover, slip a razor blade under the nut and cut through the glue, then flatten the surface and remove any glue residue with sand paper. then four to five drops of superglue and press on the new one. The rest is self explanatory. Just make sure not to cut yourself with the blade. Cheers
This helped very much. Thanks
Say I have a set of heavier gauge strings (which is what I would typically use) and I find the Nut is already too low? What would be the best way to raise the height?
I think you should just buy a new nut at this point. I'm sure there are thrifty people out there who know decent workarounds but nuts aren't that expensive and relatively easy to install.
So glad I have a Just-A-Nut III on the Thumb
Why not loosen the high-nuttted :s.... Strings enough so you can use them to file it down? I've done that with one of my old bassesdue to the entire nut height was horrendously high. I checked the angle and did the third fret thing as well and I never had a problem after doing it that way(minus the fact that the previous owner used the wrong tool for the truss-rod and stripped it so I couldn't asjust the neck.)
I've even seen Brass Nuts, as used on Matsumoku basses made in Japan
Great Scott !!! Brother you have an Awesome band...
Great video Scott! Very helpful. was great to meet and hang at the Warwick open-day! :-)
I'm making a nut for my bass and right now it's nut is really high but the string still hits the frets even when taught. Don't know what's wrong.
great scott! thanks for the tip. keep it up!
Is it better to adjust nut height by sanding the bottom of the nut or by sanding the individual slots?
@ 2:33 "I'm going to hold the string down at the 3rd fret..."
No.
You measure nut action with string fretted between the SECOND fret and nut. Not at the 3rd fret as you have decided to describe the process.
The string is depressed against the second fret and is taut between it and the nut.
Fretting location is descriptive of the salient fret required, not the empty fingerboard area between the frets.
You have held the string (fretted it) at the second fret in respect to the relevant direction of interest: Fret to nut.
What im thinking first before watch is setting the bridge saddle, but its going to the nut saddle :D
Does anyone have any idea how to measure the nut height on a Fretless? Any resources??
Can a steep angle just after/before nut or saddle have effecto on the strings tension - great thanks.
I have a problem, can you help me? I've bought a jackson bass on the internet(since there is no distribution in my country) and the sitrings are too close to the nut so when i'm playing it they bounce of the 1st fret and are giving this slappy unpleasaant tone. How to fix this without any technical intervention?
If the nut grooves are too deep, the technical intervention would be either a shim under the nut or a nut replacement if it's too problematic. Both are fairly involved processes.
Interesting Scott but I was thinking about installing a brass nut on my Fender Precision Bass what are your thoughts on using brass?
Can I fix a minor open string buzz by just buying lighter string gauges?
Maybe I should have measured for nut height before I watched this. I'm 5' 10" with average length legs, so I'm probably the same nut height as most people my size. Even without measuring, this video still helped me bust a nut.
The bass Maintenance link doesn’t work :(
Sorry about that, we'll get that link fixed! In the meantime... scottsbasslessons.com/blog/nut-height
Watching these bass set up videos have made me realize I'm virtually neglecting my bass like string vest wearing bud drinking wife beater.
link is dead :(
does anyone knows the brand and model of the bass used for this class?
Nick, I don't know the model but, Scot said that Phil comes from "Overwater" so guitars shown I assume are from them.
Idk this exact model, but NYC Sadowsky's are going for almost $10k on eBay right now... 😶
If you wanna hear what they sound like listen to any Jason Aldean record.
For how long can i get the $1 trial? I would really like to see this course but i don't have time to fix my bass in a while...
It's 14 days David :)
That little guitar is sexy. Just got into bass, so idk all the names and brands like that yet lol
Luckily my bass Warwick Corvette has just nut III, then a change to anything at the nut! :)
They're great nuts man! I don't know why more luthiers don't do the same thing. Thanks for watching man :)
opposite case pls
aaaaiight
What if it's too low?
then u gotta buy a new one
What if the string is too close to the fret ? You can’t raise the nut. Now what? Buy a new one and refit ? Oh boy.
John Holmes teaching Brazzer's guy
my bass. you like this model ? :)
The course is gone
From my experience, lowering nut height affects the tone of the E string a great deal. The sound becomes bland and loses harmonics. For some reason this particular string just doesn't like this. I've had it done on one of my basses by a professional luthier, I did it myself on another bass, again the same result. I'm at a loss why nobody ever mentions this. It's so dramatic, it's nothing to do with the classic bridge or truss-rod adjustment change in tone which is mostly due to the change of pickup-string distance.
I never heard this or experience it. What is the ideal height for you? I think not having low ( for me) requires more pressure and it’s not fun to play.
@@jorgeguitar2540 Eventually I figured that it's just very easy to mess up the lowering of the slot. That "professional" luthier proved to be not so professional after all. I took another bass to someone else and despite the dramatic lowering, the tone was 100% as before.
Ha Ha
Five-string bass: When your bassist is trying to be the lead guitarist...
Maybe this is needed on Overwater basses, but if you get Sandberg, it always comes perfect. Get a real German products made in Germany with German quality and precision and so you won't need this scary "do it yourself" magic. After all, you supposed to be a musician, not really a luthier...
Hey Bo! :) Sandberg's are great man - i've played a ton and they've always been bang on. Unfortunately a lot of the other bass makers aren't up to their quality in the "set-up" stage of the manufacturing process - hence why there's a ton of basses with the wrong nut heights. I think being able to to alter stuff like this yourself can be a real help, it certainly has for me. One cat who always blows me away with how handy he is at this sort of stuff is Gary Willis. Speak soon man :)
Yeah, I remember nearly sick looking face of Fender J-Bass owner, who looked at my 5 string Sandberg California J-Bass, when it comes to the quality of the build... :D
But needless to say, the whole three videos of Overwater luthier advices on SBL is a hammer great! I encourage folks to pay to SBL and watch them all (and not just that, haha).
Sandberg's have a zero fret, of course - so no need for filing the nut. I agree they are excellent, I have 3!
Martin Entwistle Which exactly?
Bo Maryniuk MarloweDK 4, VM4 Sunburst/rosewood & TM5 natural/maple