What your tech setup

The reason for the difference has to do with the scope-of-work and the cost of doing business. For example, to make a living, a guitar shop in pricey Boston needs to charge more than a guitar shop in remote New Mexico. As for the scope-of-work, this is where you need to understand that not all setup services are the same. To do the work you must look at every part of the guitar anyway so separating the guitar inspection from the work is a bit of a stretch.

At a minimum the scope-of-work should include an overall inspection, new strings, tuning, intonation and detailing. You should ask about the tuning process and try to find a shop that uses a rack mounted digital strobe tuner.

It levels frets with an accuracy of. Regardless of the value of your guitar it needs a professional quality setup to play properly. A proper setup will help you to get the most from your practice time and best results when playing. If the cost of a guitar setup is an issue, try working with a tech that can give you a reduced scope-of-work for a lower rate. Ask what the price would be for new strings, tuning and setting intonation. Every guitar will need periodic inspection and adjustments.

Every new guitar or bass should be checked out by a guitar tech or luthier … and not someone at the store who is selling it to you. Guitar manufacturers take steps to ship guitars with a reasonably setup but they often are slack on the tolerances. For example, a new guitar with higher than spec string action is not likely to have fret buzz fewer buyer complaints. There is somewhat of a standard task list for a guitar setup. Depending on the particular guitar or bass some things may not need to be adjusted.

Sometimes things need a lot of adjustment. In particular, guitars that are poorly maintained rarely professionally serviced often need more work than a well maintained guitar. The following is a quick view of the main parts of a guitar setup. The first thing most shops will do is give your guitar a visual and mechanical check to identify problems. This could be as simple as noticing missing screws, corrosion, body damage, hardware malfunctions, or neck problems.

A setup should include checks to confirm controls, pickups, jack and other items all work properly. The best guitar techs make written notes on these issues as they do your setup. These notes are especially useful as a reference on subsequent setups when items previously noted as potential issues have become real problems. Except for really low-end acoustic guitars a guitar will have a truss rod.

A truss rod is basically a metal rod inside of the neck which has a truss rod nut to make adjustments. Adjusting the truss rod tension changes the curvature add or decrease bowing of your neck. The primary purpose of adjusting the truss rod is to maintain an ideal string action. Proper adjustment gives you the lowest possible string action without fret buzz.

Ideally your neck will be relatively straight with just a slight amount of relief. Your guitar tech can use any of several ways to assess or measure relief when doing your setup. Before the work is done you should let your guitar tech know if you have and personal preferences on string action, i.

If you have a guitar with a floating bridge and tremolo it may require some adjustment as part of your setup. The tension on the bridge must be balanced to hold the bridge in a position that is parallell with the body.

The string tension pulls the bridge up and away from the body. The trem claw position and springs pull the bridge down and against the body. The string tension is what it is , so the adjustment is done in the trem cavity. Sometimes moving the claw springs in or out can achieve balance.

Some times you may need to add or remove trem springs, or even change to new trem springs with more or less tension strength. Ideally you will choose new strings that are the size of what was originally installed on your guitar. You may want to explore the types of guitar strings and learn how they affect palyability and tone.

The string slots need to fit the string size to mitigate problems with tuning or buzzing. The fretboard on your guitar or bass may look flat but it actually has a slight crown which curves down to each side.

In order to have proper playability the overall radius of your strings should closely match the fretboard radius. Adjusting the radius is done via saddle heights and measured with tools made specifically for this task. Adjusting your string radius can sometimes be a bit tricky.

The details of setting string action are described in an article by Sweetwater. This distance plays a key role in your setup because it determines the ease in which your guitar can be played. Action determines how much pressure and distance is required for the string to make full contact with each fret. If you prefer it higher or lower you need to ask for this before the work is done.

This is because changing the string action also changes the intonation and you would otherwise cause the shop to have to redo their work. Factory settings provide for good playability with some leeway to mitigate the odds of fret buzz.

Your playing style is the top reason you may want to go for something different than factory string heights. Lower String Action requires less effort to fret a note and is ideal for fast playing styles such as metal. Higher String Action requires you to be more deliberate and press down harder to fret notes. It can enhance slower playing styles where you want notes to ring longer. With higher string action you have the least chance of fret buzz.

The distance relationship between the strings and the poles of a pickup have a noticeable affect on tone. When pickups are closer they pick up more sound vibrations, and inversely pick up less if they are too low.

Pickup heights are set after the stricng action has been established. You may have noticed that pickups are not level. This is by design to compensate for string tones. An article by Lindy Fralin covers how to set properly set pickup heights including angled orientation of pickups. Your bass strings have more mass and will disturb the magnetic field more than treble strings.

Obviously, the condition of your frets has a significant impact on playability. During a guitar setup, especially if there are buzzing issues, your tech may discover fret problems.

These problems can range from high spots or rough, protruding ends to a fretboard with significant height disparity among all frets unlevel frets. Fret work is not included in the cost of a guitar setup and prices vary depending on the anount of work required. Common terms and ways to fix fret problems include fret dressing, spot leveling, crowning, full level and fret replacement. Your luthier will advise you of fret repair options and costs.

It replaced a ThinkPad X which I really liked. That was a great device for desktop and portable use. However, it went belly up after a number of years of faithful service and it had replaced a ThinkPad X41 which I liked even more, but also died.

At work I have a custom built desktop running Win10 with 2 24" monitors. At home, I have a custom built desktop running Win7 with 1 27" monitor and an always on VPN tunnel back to work separated from the rest of my home network, of course. For the in-between and remote sites, I have a Lenovo laptop. At home I have another laptop, a custom built desktop from a couple of years back running a liquid cooled i7, 16 GB of RAM, and a ti.

All machines are on Windows 10, so I'm waiting for the creators update to break something on at least one of them.

To continue this discussion, please ask a new question. Lenovo 53, Followers - Follow Mentions Products. Kyle for Lenovo. Get answers from your peers along with millions of IT pros who visit Spiceworks. Photo credit: Evan Lovely. Popular Topics in General Hardware. Spiceworks Help Desk. The help desk software for IT. Track users' IT needs, easily, and with only the features you need. Learn More ». Pure Capsaicin. Neally This person is a verified professional. Verify your account to enable IT peers to see that you are a professional.

I have to strictly separate work and home stuff, so I can not use the same. I had the Surface Pro 3 and hated it Marc92 This person is a verified professional. KarlosDaTechGuy This person is a verified professional. At work I have a laptop with an additional screen.

Thai Pepper. Spartan This person is a verified professional. CrimsonKidA This person is a verified professional. Neally wrote: I have to strictly separate work and home stuff, so I can not use the same. Constantly screwing up and needing to be babied. I upgraded it from Win8. I've wanted to chunk it at a brick wall more than a few times, and I consider myself pretty damn patient with computers like we all are here, lol. Desktop is just a standard Dell Optiplex running Win No real complaints there except search in Win10 for some idiotic reason can't see.

EXE files. Here is everything you need for the ultimate gaming setup. This is a throne fit for Emily Kaldwin herself I see you, Dishonored 2 fans. The AKRacing Core Series EX offered the best performance out of all the gaming chairs we tested, boasting lumbar-support pillows, an adjustable neck for ultimate posture maintenance, and excellent adjustable armrests. If you're looking to spend a little money on a more luxurious item, however, the SecretLabs Omega earned our Best Upgrade pick and is definitely a fan favorite in the gaming community.

If you're in the market for a high-quality pair of noise-canceling headphones, the Sony WHXM4s are our favorite noise-canceling headphones. We've tested plenty of noise-canceling and wireless headphones and this powerhouse pair by Sony came out on top, comfortable enough for all-day wear and providing high-quality audio, as well as features like active noise cancelation that allows you to adjust how much noise is blocked out. Graphics are everything when it comes to the best gaming experience, which is why investing in a good monitor is pretty much essential.

The Acer Predator XBQ Gwbmiiprzx topped our testing pool as the best gaming monitor , offering a high contrast ratio, a Hz refresh rate that can keep up with almost anything you throw at it, and an adjustable stand for the best viewing angle. For a long time, I wasn't a gaming laptop fan.

Into VR gaming? The Oculus Quest 2 is a fantastic VR option, with great specs, a comfortable design, and a catalog of excellent games at its disposal. If you've been looking to get into VR and want options at a good cost, the Oculus Quest 2 fits the bill. If you want a mouse that will provide comfort and stability over long hours of gameplay, the Dark Core RGB Pro is your best bet.

A lot of game consoles are moving toward subscription-based models for their games and services for access to a ton of games for a monthly fee—the Xbox Game Pass. We tried the Xbox Game Pass and explored what options would work best for individual kinds of gaming, whether you're an online MMO person or a single-player RPG devotee. If you're looking to update your game catalog with both older and newer games for a great cost, an iteration of the Xbox Game Pass might be a great call.