Steve Rieck: As a beginner guitar player, one of the taboo subjects that you hear about is the truss rod on your guitar, which is ironic, because a truss rod is in many cases the simplest and best way to adjust your guitar so that it plays better, sounds better and you sound better, overall. But it can also be a surefire way to damage your guitar irreparably if you are not careful.
So what I am going to do today is talk about how to adjust it, what it actually is and what it does. If you are all in question about adjusting your truss rod, what I would suggest is, take it to a qualified repair person in the music shop. As you are paying them to adjust your guitar is where you have them show you what it is that they are doing and what the difference is in the guitar after the adjustment, so that you can try it in the future.
But definitely, if you are going to adjust your truss rod it's at your own risk. The thing to realize is that as long as you are not over-tightening or really pulling too hard on it, you really can't do any damage to the guitar; where people go wrong is, they over-tighten the truss rod and it eventually breaks. But this truss rod at the end of this guitar has a little plate that covers it.
I am just going to unscrew that plate. This pops off and then as you can see there is bolt in there. That bolt actually leads to a rod which runs the entire length of the guitar neck, inside the neck. So with this adjustment wrench, I am just going to put this in there, put it over the bolt and this is as simple as just moving it clockwise or counterclockwise.
In the modern truss rod you can adjust either direction. If you turn it clockwise generally, the neck will actually turn a little bit convex and in the other direction it will be concave. So what you're really trying to do is, assess the distance of how far your strings are off your fretboard. If they are very far off your fretboard, you can see the shot up on the screen right now where the strings are just too far above the fretboard. That could lead to intonation problems and it's just generally difficult to play.
If your strings are too close to the fretboard, your notes will buzz and that just won't sound good, you'll get a lot of buzzing notes. If you try to bend strings, they will definitely fret out. So you just want to get that happy medium where the strings are just exactly where they need to be. Adjusting the truss rod again is kind of the first step when you are really trying to get the guitar to play right.
So if I were to turn it like this, you can see I am just using a couple of fingers for pressure, just kind of a quarter turn; that's actually going to make a pretty dramatic change in the neck, believe it or not. Then if I were to take it back and move it the other direction, same idea. What I am really trying to get across is that you never ever want to really get in there and just pull that truss rod as hard as you can with all your might that will definitely break the rod.
So if you have more than that, couple of fingers' pressure, and if you have to do a little more than that, then if it is still not helping your guitar you would definitely want to get it repaired by a professional. But all that being, I said there is really no reason to fear adjusting the truss rod if you just kind of use that guideline, don't use too much pressure.
The other thing about it too is, as you move the truss rod a little bit like that maybe just a quarter turn, you won't let the guitar sit, maybe in an hour or so before you come back. Generally, you will see a difference immediately but it will really set the neck, will kind of adjust this wood after all. So when you adjust, come back after like an half hour, an hour, play and check it out. If that needs more or less truss rod adjustment, give it a shot, but again don't use too much pressure, that's a bad idea.
Generally speaking, if a guitar needs a truss rod adjustment where you really have to go in there and use all of your might to turn the truss rod, then the truss rod itself really isn't the problem, the neck my be warped; it might need a whole fret job, the frets might need to be adjustment; the bridge height might need to be adjusted as well. So there are a few other things you can do and that's a little bit about understanding the truss rod.
Speaker: That starts with the hammer-on from the seventh to the ninth fret on the third string. Then the eighth fret on the second string. So really think about it as three different little sections that make that whole groove, starting with the first section.
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