Get a PROFESSIONAL Setup on Your Bass Guitar in 30 Minutes

I'm excited to share some tips on doing your own, professional bass setup that's personally tailored to your playing style. We'll cover everything you need to know from filing the nut, setting your neck relief and action to adjusting the intonation. I've added a bonus section at the end that includes a hack for setting your pickup height for even string volume across both pickups.

@stewmac
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Timecodes
0:00 Intro
0:28 Setup
0:48 Filing the Nut
2:04 Neck Relief
3:43 Action or String Height
4:27 Lower Action Secret Sauce
6:14 Intonation
8:39 Pickup Height
9:11 Pickup Height Hack
10:39 Outro

#daveplaysbass #bass #basssetup

[waltwoolvett]

Drill bits of the correct diameter work great too.

[bassinbob]

Great video. Gives specs you can’t find anywhere else. Thanks bud. I appreciate your help

[JuliusLindsey-gc]

Thank you so much for this video. This is really going to help me at church. My bass was so out of whack and I didn't know what to do but thanks to this video, it is fine now, even better than before. Thank you again and May God bless you!

[jimfarey]

Thanks Dave. Clear video and instruction, no nonsense. I'm a full time drummer, bought a bass in 2006 and got it out today and will set it up again properly this week. Fingers crossed.

Great to see so many positive comments and further help from you!

[miklosban]

Very informative and humble video, no useless ego flashing, just the facts and how-to infos. Thank you very much 😊

[adyuriar]

Great hack at the end. I usually use my ears but the meter is more accurate. Thanks.

[lordhytro]

Thanks for the info Dave, I just got an Evil Twin-5 a couple of days ago, and I was curious about the setup. I really lucked out finding this expert video. Great content as always.

[shaunstephen]

Cool video, it definitely should help folks out 👍
When you say intonation is affected by string height, I find it as like this-

When I set the intonation perfectly at 12th fret, I then check and see if the notes are sharp when on 24th fret (or your highest if you dont have 24),
If theyre sharper, you have to set string height lower, then reset the intonation. Its a pain to do but makes all the difference when chords ring true on the 12th fret and above🤘😜

[hewolf]

HolyMolly man! 0, 75 to 1 mm is a very HUGE amount of neck relief!
Are you sure about that? That’s like bow with arrows. 0.3 mm is standard, but you can easily go with less

[CuriousCaine]

This was an extremely clear and concise step by step process- the best I've come across. It would be helpful for me if a future video discussed "back buzz." I am unclear if this can be tamed with normal setup procedure or if it requires a particular repair. My '75 Gibson Grabber seems much better after following this procedure to the letter. However, I cannot lower my action anywhere near the specified level without frets buzzing at the top of the neck. Using a straight edge, it does not appear that any one fret is higher than the others- it seems to be an across-the-board phenomenon. Even so, it plays better than it ever has, by far. So thank you!

[eblonlinebasslessons]

Brilliant explanation!! 👏👏👏👏👏
Thank you so much!!

[AdamDLevy]

You didn't mention it but should you tune the bass first before you make any adjustments? If a bass isn't inntonated and you know it will need adjustments does it make a difference?

[felipesolari]

Thank you! Could you tell me the distance between bridge and bridge pick up on a 60 fender jbass?

[recordlabeldao]

Thank u alot i have a warwick corvette bubinga 6 string i press down tge 17 fret then i have 0.50mm at 7 fret. Then i have 0.30mm at the nut height :) and low action. Thank u alot i always thought 0.50 or 1mm was way too much relief when people told me that was wayy too much.

[rudyzulkarnaen]

I watched your video, maybe my YouTube app is problematic, but I think at 3:25 the video skipped. So the truss rod adjustment part wasn't completed yet, it jumped abruptly to the action settings part. I didn't get the part about the neck relief measurements that people talked in the comment section. Maybe it is in the place where the video skipped. Can you check your video?

[BarefootViking]

Everything you taught worked, thank you. Cant seem to get good sound out of the g tho?

[tonycarel]

Thanks, Dave! This will come in handy. I have ordered the Schecter SLS Elite 5 evil twin. I did check out your review of this bass. ( very well done!) was curious does the fingerprint come off the Satin color over all what do you think of this bass any major or minor issues?

[NodakSavage]

This is the first setup I've ever seen that starts with the nut. Wouldn't relief adjustments in the next change this distance? I was always under the impression you want to do the neck first.

[johnterpack]

I bought a supercheap bass a while back to try and get back into playing. But the setup is so far off it's almost unplayable. Doesn't feel too bad near the nut, but at the bottom of the neck you can almost fit a finger under the strings. I don't know if I can lower the bridge enough to fix it. Would this require shimming the neck?

[jonitaite]

I play a fretless bass. Are there differences for a fretless