Guitar rig setups

You'll need two instrument cables to connect a single pedal: One for the guitar to pedal and a second for the pedal to the amplifier. Once your cables are connected you'll need a power source for your guitar pedal.

This can be either a 9V battery or a guitar pedal power supply, like the following:. Use either your battery or a more permanent power supply to power your pedal and connect as follows:. Each pedal will need its own power source, battery or otherwise. Here's a checklist to run through when you're using a guitar pedal, without regard to the type of pedal you're using. When you add a pedal, you'll need an instrument cable to carry the signal from one pedal to another, like this:.

You'll need a power source and connecting instrument cable for each pedal you decide to add. Adding more pedals also increases the need for a more permanent and sustainable power source, like the power supplies I mentioned earlier. Read more: Best guitar pedal power supplies.

As you compile pedals, you might want to consider adding a pedalboard to your guitar rig. Not only does this help protect your pedals, but it also allows you to carry and move them easily, all at once. Once you get to three or more guitar pedals, adding a pedalboard can be a good idea. Read more: Best pedalboards for guitar rigs. How do you get your pedals to stay fixed to the pedalboard?

For any pedalboard user, this is a cheap and worthwhile investment to make as it's the only way to keep your pedals from moving around on the board. This material pulls off into two parts, one with a sticky end which should be cut to fit on the bottom of your pedals. The other end should be fitted and stuck on your pedalboard. Now, when the material makes contact from the pedalboard and the pedals, it'll stick and stay in place.

Some of my pedals staying in place with hook and loop fastener. What about ordering your effects on your pedalboard? What are the best guitar pedal setup practices? I've written a ton of material on this topic, much of which is outside the scope of this article, so I'll refer you to that piece for learning how to arrange and order your guitar pedals. Read more: Guitar pedal setup guide. A more advanced step in setting up your guitar rig involves setting up a clean and distorted channel, which some might also call a "dirty" channel.

This will depend somewhat on the type of gear your have, namely the type of amp and pedals at your disposal. Many amplifiers have multiple channels, one for a clean tone and a second channel for a dirty tone.

Check your amplifier's front panel to see if you can tweak settings for multiple channels. If you aren't sure, consult the user manual for your amplifier. If you don't have multiple channels on your amp, consider using a distortion pedal for your dirty tone. Some amplifiers have more than two channels or multiple presets you can use to bank and save settings. If your amplifier has three or four channels, set the volume levels and tone preferences for each of those channels.

For example, if you have four channels, set them as follows:. In that example, lead tones will be slightly brighter and louder than rhythm tones, which will be a bit heavier but warmer.

If you have additional pedals, you'll want to go through each one and adjust settings to whatever you use most often. A digital audio workstation is a software that you install on your computer. It serves as a platform for all your recording and editing tasks.

There are DAWs that allow you to add other elements to your music like drums and pianos, while others are better for recording and editing only. Also, if you have an electric guitar, you may choose to mic your guitar cabinet and record it. For your playback, you can either use headphones, studio monitors or both.

However, if you were to choose only one of them, then use headphones. This would enable you to monitor the sound while recording and have good playback. This is because the microphone will pick whatever is being played out. At some volumes, even pickups would pick some playback material.

Hence, if you want very clean recordings, use headphones for monitoring. Now you know the equipment that you need. You should also know the setup that will be most effective for you. There are two groups of acoustic guitar players; those that also record vocals and those that do not record any vocals. If you also sing, you may need another mic for your vocals. To cut costs, you could stick to one mic and record the guitar and voice separately.

Alternatively, you could also use a pickup , which you can connect to your audio interface. The advantage of using a pickup for your acoustic guitar is that it allows you more freedom of movement. Also, it would not pick up room reflections and background noise while recording.

If you have a tune-o-matic bridge you will need to use nut files for this, and if the middle strings sit below the radius you will need to use the thumbwheels to raise the E strings up higher and then lower them to the 3 and 2 measurements with the files in order to set the radius of the middle strings.

Angle the file with the approach of the string from the tailpiece, and use a file of the same gauge as each string. Remove small amounts at a time until you get where you need to be. Use some fine sandpaper to remove any sharp edges in the saddle when you are done. The best saddle material is bone. If yours is plastic or some type of synthetic material and you want the best tone possible, have it replaced with bone.

If your saddle is significantly off and this is all new to you, then you should also make a trip to the repair shop. I could take up an entirely new article with the techniques necessary to make a good saddle, and reshaping the top of one to match a radius crosses into that territory too much for our purposes here. Other things to look out for are cracks, major chips, and significant string wear. These can all be signs of a saddle that needs replacing. Once you have verified your fretboard radius and checked the saddle to make sure it matches, take string height measurements with a straight neck and a capo at the first fret in the same manner as described previously.

The only difference here is that you will want to start a little higher than an electric. To get down to these measurements requires you to remove the saddle and take material from the bottom.

You will need a hard flat surface and some self adhesive sandpaper. I like to use thick tempered glass, and I prefer the 3M brand sandpaper, but there are a variety of options here. I use grit unless I have a lot to remove.

Just make sure whatever surface you choose is hard, smooth, and flat. If you have steady hands you can even use a belt sander. Remove the saddle and mark a line on both sides of the saddle with a sharp pencil that represents the amount of material you were above your measurements at the 14th fret. Using the sandpaper and the flat surface, drag the saddle towards you being careful to keep it 90 degrees to the sandpaper.

TIP: Do not sand back and forth, I find that pulling the saddle in one direction only towards myself is the best way to keep control and ensure the base of the saddle stays flat. Once you get close to your pencil line, make sure the bottom of the saddle is square. Replace the saddle, tune the guitar and check your measurements again. Repeat the process if you are still too high. If you are too low, you have two choices: replace the saddle, or shim it.

In general, I prefer to replace, but sometimes a shim is warranted. I prefer to use wood as a shim and you can find thin purfling at StewMac or wood veneer available online or in hobby stores. When you are satisfied with your saddle height, remove the capo and spend some time playing the guitar. See how the action feels and check for string buzz.

Repeat this until you find the height that works for you. If you are setting up an acoustic, this will require shimming. If it plays cleanly but still feels a little stiff, it may be best to leave it where it is for now and set the nut. String height coming off of the nut makes a big impact on playability and you may find it all feels right once that is done.

If not you can always go back and lower the saddle some more later. If the guitar seems to play well at the higher register, but you are getting buzzing in 3rd-7th fret range, you may need a little more relief in your neck and you can loosen the truss rod a little. Small adjustments to the rod can make big changes.

And changing the curve of your neck affects the height of your strings both at the nut and saddles, so if you readjust the neck, you may need to reset your saddles. Remember, all three aspects of the set-up neck, nut, and saddle are related, and when you make changes to one you often need to make changes to all three.

In theory, the nut is just a zero fret that is always fretted…so given that, the height of the strings over the first fret should be pretty close to the height of the strings over the second fret when you have a capo at the first. Use this as a rule of thumb, but I can tell you from experience that what you are looking for is slightly higher than what you see over the second fret. Open strings move a lot, and most players tend to hit open chords a little harder, so give yourself some cushion here.

Lower the slot in small amounts with the corresponding gauge nut file at the angle of the approach of the string. This is a tricky process and there is a very fine line between low enough and too low.

Keep in mind, you can make any string buzz anywhere on the neck if you want to. If your nut slots are already too low and buzzy off of the first fret or you go too far, you have the same options as the saddle: replace or shim and recut it.

TIP: I do not advise filling the slot with anything. It will just cause you tuning issues and whatever you put in there will be temporary at best. A proper nut is critical to the tone, feel, and tuning stability of your guitar, and there really is no substitute for a well-made bone nut. However, making a perfect bone nut is very challenging and best left to a competent luthier, or perhaps the subject of a future article.

For the purposes of this set-up guide, I am assuming your nut is functional but too high. This is often the case even on brand new guitars. Higher up on the neck or dying string bends can indicate saddle action that is too low, at the end and middle of the neck can mean not enough relief, and open notes are almost always low nut slots or a back bowed neck.

Experiment with minor changes to each of these areas to see what combination works best for you and the guitar. Just remember, a change to one of these three key factors usually means a change to one or both of the other two, so always recheck and adjust as needed. Setting intonation involves adjusting the saddles so that the fretted 12th note matches the open note. If the fretted note is sharp when compared to the open note, you will move the saddle back a small amount, retune and check again until you are in tune on both.

If it is flat, you will move it forward. The guitar is an imperfect instrument, there are usually only two exact notes on each string: the open note and the fretted note you choose to intonate the 12th or halfway point of the scale in most all cases. Every other note on the fretboard will be a little sharp or flat. There are two things that occur to me when setting intonation. First, the human ear tends to forgive a flat note more than a sharp one. Neither are great, but sharp notes are more offensive to most people.

Second, when a guitar is in tune and intoned at the 12th fret, it tends to play a little sharp by the nut in the open chord range where many players spend most of their time.

So, I will usually intonate a little flat at the 12th fret in order to bring the first position more in tune. I find this reduces the overall amount of sharp notes going up the fretboard in general. I check the 12th fret and the 3rd fret and find a compromise between the two, often going until the 3rd fret is no longer sharp at all.

If for some reason you play a lot of chords up the neck, this may not work for you, but in my experience, most players fret chords toward the nut and play single notes as they get to the end of the neck, and nothing sours a chord more than sharp notes. You can experiment and see what you prefer for your playing style.

Setting up a guitar perfectly can be challenging. There are many things you have to consider and it often requires trial and error until you find out what works best for the guitar and the player.