How To Adjust Your Guitar Neck (Electric & Acoustic)

This is how to adjust your electric guitar neck and acoustic guitar neck and what causes necks to change shape.

In this episode of "Gibson's Guide to Guitar Setup and Maintenance," Gibson Master Luthier Jim DeCola demonstrates the correct way to adjust the neck on your guitar, both on electric guitars and acoustic guitars (in this example using a Gibson ES-335 and Epiphone Acoustic). Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned professional, Jim will give you pro tips on neck adjustment that can lead to a noticeable difference in the playability of your guitar. Having your neck adjusted properly will ensure better string action, playability, and tension and will deliver a more enjoyable playing experience.

Learn what causes necks to change shape, how to look for signs that your neck needs an adjustment and importantly, how to check the neck relief after adjustments to ensure that you have made the right corrections to the neck using the truss rod.

If you find that you change rooms from hot to cold, you travel with your guitar or you’ve made a string gauge adjustment, this is essential viewing as all of these aspects can affect the playability of your guitar, causing string buzz, dead spots and tuning issues. This is how to fix it! This video is an ideal resource if you're learning how to be a guitar tech, or just want to start adjusting the neck relief on your guitar, brought to you by a master luthier providing a complete guitar neck setup guide.

Chapters:
0:00 Why do guitar necks need to be adjusted?
2:30 Step 1: Remove truss rod cover, tools needed
3:23 Step 2: Play test & how to use a truss rod
6:47 Step 3: Check neck relief
8:54 How to adjust an acoustic guitar neck (complete guide)
11:25 How to tell if you need to adjust your guitar neck
12:46 When you need to adjust your neck

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[henryhoward]

Simple rule: Hold the string down at the 1st and last fret. There should only be a slight space between the string and frets. Then adjust the rod (right=tight / left=loose). If a neck is too flat, you will get fret buzz from frets 1-3. Then loosen to find the "sweet spot" (flat as possible without buzzing from the lower frets). Then do a slight "nudge" in the opposite direction to secure the rod at its new tension.

[ThomasBrandoGreenman]

These videos with Jim are pure gold. Great to watch for beginner or higher. And a great reference to get the most out of your guitar. I personally get more enjoyment out of playing the more I learn how to better maintain it - if I only learned these things years ago!

[hushhog]

This is what I learned from Peavey a long time ago. Great information Jim. Every player needs to know how to adjust a guitar properly and not be scared of the truss rod!

[tonepilot]

Nice to have an official Gibson video on this as there are so many conflicting videos out there. Thanks!

[DavidMorales]

With all of the videos out there on how to do this, this, to me is the best most others rush thru like they are teaching people that already know, Thank You

[feral_]

thanks for not avoiding to tell the difference between the high and low strings. Most videos do the safe thing to tell " there should be the same at both strings" and that's almost never the case. Real scenario videos, I'm falling in love again with gibson.

[viwaldi]

Thanks, Jim.Great information ! Greetings from Poland, Warsaw!

[cw]

I've been watching these instructional videos over and over so when my left-handed Epiphone SG arrives, I'll have the knowledge and confidence to set it up correctly. Thank you, Jim and Gibson!

[philippeguischer]

For what it is worth ... I think Gibson went through a difficult period with its image during the last decade at the least.and I understand why.. not to say youtube is the proper solution but I think Gibson "the process", plus affiliated videos, and especially Jim Decola fronted them are doing a very good job to bring back the legacy Gibson deserves

[thestlguitarman]

Can you do how to do intonation on a hard tail/tune-o-matic bridge? (Les Paul, SG, etc...)

[williamcammer]

A skill every musician should have thanks Gibson!

[alexanderkushnarev]

Oh god thank you so much Gibson. This is why you're my favourite brand. I have an Epiphone LP100 that desperately needs a truss rod adjustment. I don't have Luthier tools and can't get them in my country easily and I've always been intimidated to do it with YouTube tutorials but this is a great explanation and thankfully you explain it in both brands. Please keep it up.

[M_WOODLAND]

WOW!!

Someone FINALLY explains this in a way that I can understand. And I DON'T have to get gouged on tools from StewMac to do this!

Excellent video Jim and Gibson. Thanks so much!

[MrJoey]

good format, would love more of these videos on a bunch of your models !!

[bkozlo]

I love this series. Thank you Jim and Thank you Gibson

[anolanbfg]

I'm glad you dealt with the relief being different on one side to the other- quite a few of my guitars are like that and I was beginning to get paranoid. Good vid

[paulfrehley]

I've been waiting for this official truss rod adjustment video, THANK YOU!!!

[christopheraaron]

At the moment I'm just cleaning my fretboard and changing the strings and letting this run according to its algorithm and this guy is definitely teaching me a lot of stuff that I did not know before because basically I play the guitar but definitely deficient on all the other aspects of this! This guy knows what he's doing I can say that much and that is a hell of a lot more than I do!

[jokerplasma]

There is literally no Video in German that showas this so Professional! Thank you so much and best wishes from Germany!

[mateoaristizabal]

AWESOME, this days I was searching videos about this, and what's better than gibson to learn that? Right