Any knowledgeable guitar people here?

[chreph]

First off, I'm not really the most knowledgeable guy when it comes to guitars. I've owned a few cheap ones for a while but only messed around and never took it seriously or put too much effort. Now I'm giving it another go-around and just picked up an 00-01 MIM strat hss. The other guitar I have is a fairly cheap (but pretty damn good) Ibanez dual hum guitar that's great for distortion and metal, but doesn't give very warm tones (obviously). I LOVE the strat but I have two issues...

1) The strings are WAAAYY too high off the neck for my tastes. You can barely hear the low E string and I wind up muting a bunch of strings accidentally. Is lowering the action a simple task if I don't know what I'm doing or am I better off paying someone to set the guitar up?

2) When the tone selector switch is in the 3 and 5 positions and I have any kind of gain, there is an extremely loud, annoying hum. I know single coil guitars are going to have a hum, but this is very noticable. Anything I can do to dampen that humming? I'd really rather not replace the single coil pickups because I need to replace the humbucker for a little more crunch and there's no way I can afford to replace all 3 right now. The humming wouldn't be a result of the strings being so far off the neck would it?

Thanks for any help!! :toast

[dimsah]

1. You can lower the action by adjusting the truss rod in the neck.
You should have access to it where the neck meets the head stock.
There are multiple youtube videos that can help you with this type of adjustment.
You'll have to intonate the guitar after this is done but the same videos will probably show how to do that also.

2. Not sure if I can help but I would think that unless you can run through a stand-alone mixer or get a noise gate I don't see any other way to get rid of the humming without replacing the pickups.

[Blake]

you have strings on your guitar?

mine has red, green, yellow, blue and orange buttons

[fatsack]

take it to St Cloud Music - they do a great job and are very reasonable.

[chreph]

Thanks for the advice, dimsah.... after even more research, I think I've found that the strat single coil pickups are usually pretty loud and it's just being amplified by the effect settings to the point of unbearable (for reference, I was playing "stinkfist") so I guess I'm stuck with that unless I shell out some cash for noiseless pickups. I was planning on selling the ibanez but I guess I'll keep that guitar for days I feel like playing distorted music.

As for the string height, it seems simple enough to adjust. I'll give it a crack on my own and if I wind up screwing it up, then I'll take it to St. Cloud.

BTW, my 3rd guitar has buttons, too. Unfortunately, I'm pretty bad at it. Can barely pass fairly easy songs on 'hard' lol. That's okay, though, because the drums are where it's at! :bking

[50 cent]

You should always learn on an acoustic, not an electric.

[remingtonbo2001]

I wouldn't recommend lowering the action on your own. It may severly knock out your intonation. In other words, your guitar will be out of tune on certain frets. Many times, truss rod adjustments are required to lower the action. I've learned this the hard way. If your not willing to spend a few hours reading up on it, as well as purchasing a chromatic tuner, I would just go ahead and take it in.

To your second question. If you line the inside of your guitar with Aluminum/Copper tape, it will knock off a considerable amount of the hum your dealing with. There's a modification out there specifically for strats called Taming the Beast Mod. Changing your volume and tone pots may help, also inserting certian capacitors to your input jack. However, lining the inside cavity with copper is the best way to go. I lined my Ibanez with Aluminum and it reduced the hum consideribly. However, copper is the best.

If you have any troubles just PM and I'll give you more information.

If you want information on lowering your action I'll see what information I can pull up. I would do it for you, but it can be a huge pain and very time consuming, depending of the condition of your neck and the height of the action.

I hope this helps you out.

[Blake]

when duelling against Slash, I recommend saving as many 'guitar picks' as possible and then throwing out one right after the other in succession.

[Man Mountain]

What you can do, fairly easily and quickly, is to modify the bridge to provide a lower action. This is an irreversible modification, short of buying or making a new bridge, so make sure you're not just wimping out of developing strength. Also make sure the fault isn't in the neck - ensure that the neck is reasonably straight. I take no responsibility for any damage caused by following this suggestion - you are on your own!

What I did was this: find a guitar that you find easy to play and want to copy. Make sure the difference isn't all in the string gauge: if not, measure the distance from the bottom of each string to the top surface of the 12th fret on this guitar. Measure these gaps on your guitar - you should find the gap is larger by a couple of millimetres on yours. Note this difference (xn) for each string.

As the 12th fret should be positioned exactly halfway along the string (see my writeup in power chord), we can use similar triangles to see that we need to lower the point where each string touches the bridge by 2xn.

Using a knife, make a small nick in the bridge to indicate the point where each string touches. Remove all the strings and slide the bridge out, making sure you know which is the neck side. Make a mark at 2xn below each contact point. Using a small round file, gently file a dip into the bridge vertically down from each contact point to each depth mark. If you want to be cautious, don't go all the way down first time. You must ensure that the lowest point in the filed out section is vertically below the original string contact point to retain the string spacing. Round off the edges of the dip such that the string will touch the centre of the bridge.

Replace the bridge (right way around!), re-string, tune up and try it out!

[50 cent]

I would just take it to have it setup for around $50.

[chreph]

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I think I may give the string height a little more time since I just got the guitar Tuesday... I'm so used to playing the ibanez and between the higher action and larger frets (medium jumbo), I just need time to adjust.

As for the humming, I talked to someone who's worked on fenders for years and he tells me that the pick ups on the early 2000 MIM strats are pretty poor - not much better than the current squire pickups. I guess I'll pick up some noiseless single coils first and get a seymour-duncan humbucker later. When I get the new single coils installed, I'll have the guy make sure there isn't a bad ground/wiring, too.

[stretch]

buy a flute instead

[SequSpur]

dude, take it to the shop. have a professional do it. otherwise you'll have a bunch of dead frets, etc. etc. etc.

don't listen do these internet guitar shreddin wannabees here.

they couldn't tune a guitar hero guitar.

[MannyIsGod]

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I think I may give the string height a little more time since I just got the guitar Tuesday... I'm so used to playing the ibanez and between the higher action and larger frets (medium jumbo), I just need time to adjust.

As for the humming, I talked to someone who's worked on fenders for years and he tells me that the pick ups on the early 2000 MIM strats are pretty poor - not much better than the current squire pickups. I guess I'll pick up some noiseless single coils first and get a seymour-duncan humbucker later. When I get the new single coils installed, I'll have the guy make sure there isn't a bad ground/wiring, too.

I would try the insulation trick mentoined above. Even if you get new pickups it can't hurt.

[helwardman]

1. You can lower the action by adjusting the truss rod in the neck.

You can do this, but I wouldn't recommend it. I have owned a great number of guitars in the past 20 years and I have never had to mess with a truss rod.

To lower the action on a strat (assuming it has the stock bridge), the saddles can be adjusted using a hex key. Start with the low E string, each saddle has two grub screws, play the string open then start to reduce the height of each saddle (balancing the two grub screws to keep the saddle level). Keep playing and adjusting each screw half a turn until the string starts to buzz against the frets. At this point, back off each saddle half a turn until there is no buzzing. Play the string fretted at around the 12th fret and check for buzzing. If it buzzes, raise the saddle slightly until it stops. Do each string in turn to your preference.

As for intonation, it's a doddle to set up. Plug your guitar into an electronic tuner, play the first string you want to set up, tune it to the correct pitch, fret that string at the 12th fret, play the note and watch the tuner. If it still shows as being in tune then the intonation is correct. If the tuner shows sharp then the saddle is too close to the neck, if the tuner shows flat then the saddle isn't close enough to the neck. Adjust the saddle by using a phillips screwdriver on the saddle adjusting screw to move it slightly away from the neck (if sharp) or slightly towards the neck (if flat). Repeat for each string.

There's no mystery to setting up a guitar and you can save yourself $50 doing it yourself.

As for the buzzing, shielding your electrical cavities in the guitar may improve matters. Try using a good quality guitar lead and you will see a definite improvement.

Good luck.

[Obstructed_View]

I'm a builder, and I do guitar and bass setups, repairs and fret jobs all the time. If you want to be able to do it yourself, shoot me a PM and I'll walk you through it. There's almost nothing most shops can do that you can't learn how to do fairly easily. It's not rocket science. I can help you get the thing playing as well as just about anything you can buy, and I might be able to help you get some of the hum under control, too; if it's that bad it could be a loose wire or a ground loop.

[chode_regulator]

I'm a builder, and I do guitar and bass setups, repairs and fret jobs all the time. If you want to be able to do it yourself, shoot me a PM and I'll walk you through it. There's almost nothing most shops can do that you can't learn how to do fairly easily. It's not rocket science. I can help you get the thing playing as well as just about anything you can buy, and I might be able to help you get some of the hum under control, too; if it's that bad it could be a loose wire or a ground loop.

no offense t the OP, but you are assuming that all people are mechanically inclined. some people have no clue when it comes to fixing anything.
i would jus take it to a shop. also make sure that there arent heavy gauge strings on there. most guitars/guitarists use a 09-42 gauge set. some use alot heavier. mine tops out at 52 so if i were to replace my strings with a set of 42's the bridge would drop a ton back into the guitar. and vice versa, if someone threw a set of heavy strings on tehre and never set the guitar up for that then it will pull the bridge away from the body and create a higher action. this is assuming y ou have a termolo on the guitar.

[Obstructed_View]

no offense t the OP, but you are assuming that all people are mechanically inclined. some people have no clue when it comes to fixing anything.
i would jus take it to a shop. also make sure that there arent heavy gauge strings on there. most guitars/guitarists use a 09-42 gauge set. some use alot heavier. mine tops out at 52 so if i were to replace my strings with a set of 42's the bridge would drop a ton back into the guitar. and vice versa, if someone threw a set of heavy strings on tehre and never set the guitar up for that then it will pull the bridge away from the body and create a higher action. this is assuming y ou have a termolo on the guitar.

No offense to you, but it's just simply not that difficult to do. I've never quite understood why there's so much intimidation about it, as evidenced by a poster in this thread having owned a number of guitars and never adjusted a truss rod. He was probably warned years ago that he'd ruin his guitar if he touched it, as I was when I was younger and people would say "just take it to a shop".

Someone that can change their own strings can do a setup, including adjusting the truss rod. I've walked a number of people through it before. Many people that I've seen charging money for setups don't know much more than their customers do anyway. Unless you're dealing with locking nuts and tremolos with fine tuners there ins't anything particularly complex about the process.

Besides, I don't really see what the harm is in contacting me; it doesn't eliminate the option of taking it to a shop. If the OP would send me a PM I could gauge pretty quickly if they were competent to do it and would advise them to seek help if they needed it. They could quickly determine if it's something they actually wanted to do. Most of the time "competence" is determined by willingness of people to attempt something, and the willingness of others to share their knowledge.

[T Park]

I would get into guitar if I could tune the damn thing.....