Zac's Hacks - Easy Telecaster Setup - Ask Zac 55

well hello friends and welcome to
0:56
another Ask Zac i hope you're doing
0:58
well today uh today we are going to talk
1:01
about my method of telecaster setup
1:06
or if you want to be more oh courant you
1:08
could say
1:09
Zac's telecaster setup hacks so
1:12
anywho just having a little fun there uh
1:16
first off a little uh correction or
1:18
addition
1:19
to uh the last episode on
1:22
a country electric rhythm guitar i
1:24
talked about albert lee
1:26
playing on Rodney Krause tuned stars on
1:29
the water
1:31
and uh well there was this part like
1:35
[Music]
1:38
this
1:40
[Music]
1:44
anywho i said that albert played it and
1:46
albert did play it but
1:47
also the part was being doubled by hank
1:50
DeVito
1:51
and so it's panned hard right and hard
1:53
left so hank was kind enough to contact
1:55
me and tell me that
1:57
that was uh he and albert and hank
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was uh kind enough to add that he was
2:03
using his esquire
2:04
which from the back photo of the album
2:06
you can see him holding an esquire
2:08
it looks to be a 69 because it has the
2:10
big
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uh black uh you know logo you know cbs
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logo
2:15
that was only used really for about 69
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or 70 and then of course there's no more
2:19
esquires for a long time
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and said he used a vox ac30 and they
2:24
both played that part
2:25
and they panned it hard right and hard
2:27
left so anyway i thought that was great
2:30
and so thank you to hank
2:31
if you're not familiar with hank DeVito
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he was the original
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uh steel player in Emmylou Harris's hot
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band so that's him playing on
2:39
all those uh the first five or six
2:41
Emmylou records you know along with
2:43
albert leigh and James burton
2:45
and all those cats and uh he also uh
2:48
co-wrote uh
2:50
juice newton's uh playing with the queen
2:51
of hearts and
2:53
uh sweet little lisa you know that of
2:55
course Dave Edmonds and albert lee and
2:57
many others have recorded
2:58
and uh then a Hal Ketchum tune called a
3:01
small town Saturday night that was kind
3:03
of a
3:04
big hit in the in the early to mid 90s
3:07
and uh and then he's also a really
3:09
acclaimed photographer and he's had
3:11
uh you know kind of gallery showings and
3:14
such and uh
3:15
probably most most famous of his
3:17
photographs is the cover of
3:19
Roseanne cash's king's record shop album
3:23
and so that's actually a photo that he
3:25
took and then he took another photo of
3:26
Roseanne and superimposed it on there
3:28
and that
3:30
album cover uh it won a grammy so there
3:32
you have it so thanks to hank DeVito
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and there's some uh some some love for
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hank
3:37
and uh of course i i love all those
3:40
albums
3:40
so all right but back on to our the task
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at hand
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which is a guitar telecaster setup
3:48
I've been y'all have been asking me to
3:50
do this since January
3:52
and I've kind of been hesitant to do it
3:54
and the reason is
3:56
is well i don't really use any tools
4:02
for setting up guitars so you know a lot
4:03
of guys you know will at least
4:06
use some type of measuring device or you
4:09
know
4:09
calipers or feeler gauges and stuff like
4:11
that i don't use any of that stuff
4:13
and so part of me has just kind of felt
4:15
you know kind of like a hack
4:17
and but this is just the way I've set up
4:20
guitars and i know
4:21
you know professional you know text and
4:23
repairman you know will
4:24
completely maybe uh
4:28
you know the way I've done things but
4:30
you know it's worked for me
4:32
it worked for brad paisley uh you know
4:34
it's it's worked
4:36
for the other people I've worked on
4:37
their guitars uh
4:40
basically i just kind of go by feel and
4:43
uh
4:43
and i think that part that works
4:45
partially because
4:47
you know because i am a guitar player
4:48
and i do you know kind of play all over
4:51
the
4:51
the neck and so that's just what I've
4:53
done it's what I've always done
4:56
so I'm just going to go you know step by
4:58
step on how
4:59
i would go about doing things one last
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thing while you're thinking about it if
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you've been enjoying the show and you
5:05
haven't subscribed
5:06
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5:08
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5:09
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5:12
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5:13
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5:14
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5:17
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5:17
also have a tip jar information in the
5:20
description
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so that's what you want all right
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so how do i set up a guitar
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first I'm going to make a comment about
5:29
frets if you have frets that have divots
5:32
in them and they're all torn up
5:33
well then you need to look at you know
5:36
getting
5:37
getting a refresh or possibly if there's
5:40
enough
5:40
meat in the frets you could probably get
5:42
a fret dress that's where they they
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level all the frets
5:45
uh maybe a partial refret or sometimes
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it's actually cheaper just to buy
5:50
another neck and put it on your telly
5:53
especially if you have
5:54
a more inexpensive instrument it might
5:57
be cheaper to sell it and buy another
5:59
one
5:59
or even get a music craft neck you know
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maybe even pay
6:03
two or three hundred dollars because now
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refrets are in the 400
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range four to five hundred dollars now
6:10
so
6:11
with that in mind unless you have a
6:12
buddy that does really good refrets
6:14
um yeah or you have a really expensive
6:17
guitar you know if you have an old if
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you have an old guitar
6:20
or something here a custom shop or
6:21
something like that then it's worth a
6:23
refresh
6:24
okay so let's say your frets
6:27
are in good shape the first thing I'm
6:29
going to look at is the nut
6:31
now i like the nut really low
6:36
seriously low okay because i
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like an easy playing guitar and i don't
6:42
play
6:42
hard i use light gauge strings so these
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are ernie ball
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strings that are singles i put together
6:49
this set so this is a 10
6:51
a 13 a 15 24
6:54
32 42 so this is kind of like the low
6:57
end
6:59
you know of a of a nine set and then
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this is like the 10 and 13
7:03
is like a 10 set and then you actually
7:05
have a pretty light uh
7:06
g string this is even lighter than you
7:08
know because normally a 16 would be on
7:10
on a nine set so this is what's
7:12
comfortable for me
7:14
this is what i like okay and then i like
7:16
the the nut to be low
7:17
and to me the best way to test you know
7:20
a nut
7:21
to see you know if it's if it's set well
7:24
for me
7:25
is i use a capo so i play the guitar
7:28
open
7:28
first and if it's like tough to play
7:33
you know I'll put a capo on like that
7:37
now if the guitar plays like a
7:38
completely different instrument
7:40
the nut slots are too high okay because
7:43
you've just eliminated the nut
7:44
and so this is kind of an easy hack to
7:47
see also this will show you
7:49
um if there are just certain strings
7:52
that are too high
7:53
because again you'll you'll be able to
7:55
play it open
7:57
and then you'll play it you know with
7:58
the capo on you'll be like wait a second
8:00
now this string is so much easier to
8:02
play or this is too low
8:04
and uh yeah so that's a really good way
8:07
of eliminating the nut and and finding
8:10
out where
8:10
your problems are because if a nut's
8:13
really too
8:14
high you'll put the capo on and then all
8:17
of a sudden it'll actually play too
8:18
low because you what you've done is
8:20
you've probably tried to compensate for
8:22
a too high
8:22
nut by lowering the action too much so
8:26
once the nuts in the right place you
8:28
know sometimes i find i can actually
8:29
raise the action on this
8:30
end uh yeah so that's
8:34
that's kind of the nut i don't work on
8:36
nuts i don't like to
8:38
um you know in an emergency situation
8:42
i'll do some
8:42
filing or filling um you know filling
8:46
could be anything from just getting a
8:48
piece of paper you know i don't know if
8:50
you've ever seen those old uh that old
8:52
albert lee star licks video but he talks
8:55
about having a nut fetish
8:56
and he and he talks about having some
8:58
paper in the nut and that's because the
8:59
slot got too deep
9:01
and he had put some paper in there to
9:03
keep the string from just rattling or
9:05
probably even rattling against this
9:07
first fret so that's an easy hack
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for uh if you're out on the road and you
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find it you know you've got a slot
9:14
that's too deep you can just get some
9:15
paper and you can stuff it in there and
9:16
put the string on top of it
9:18
and you can make through the gig until
9:19
you can get back
9:22
while I've got the capo on well no I'm
9:24
going to take the cable off
9:25
okay the next thing we're going to deal
9:27
with is relief
9:28
in the neck so that has to do you know
9:31
with adjusting the truss rod
9:33
so to check for really relief is the
9:35
amount
9:36
it has to do with whether you have back
9:38
bow or not
9:40
uh or how straight the neck is so to
9:43
check for this
9:44
the way i do it is i use the string
9:46
itself as a straight edge
9:48
by pressing down on the first fret and
9:50
the last fret
9:52
and then I'm looking at the seventh fret
9:56
and I'm looking at the space in between
9:58
the bottom of the string
9:59
and the top of the fret and there should
10:02
be very little space just
10:04
you know it shouldn't be touching
10:05
because if it's touching that's bad that
10:06
means you've got a
10:08
you've got a back bow and you need this
10:10
you need to straighten it
10:13
yeah but you just want the tiniest bit
10:15
of space and again i play
10:16
light so you know i i want it to uh
10:20
you know just have a little bit of space
10:22
if you have it where it's turned like
10:23
this and you have a ton of space you
10:24
know of course you need to
10:25
you need to tighten the rod uh now on an
10:29
old tele like this
10:30
you have to adjust the rod uh via
10:33
you know the end of the neck so my
10:35
little hack for that
10:37
is i put a capo on loosen all this all
10:40
the
10:40
the strings then loosen the four bolts
10:44
move this just enough to get to the uh
10:46
you know the the truss rod screw
10:48
and uh you know adjust it and i don't do
10:50
any more than a quarter of a turn in
10:53
fact most of the time i like to do an
10:54
eighth of a turn that's if it's close
10:57
already
10:58
uh but uh yeah that makes a big
11:00
difference
11:01
you know when you have too much relief
11:03
it just makes the guitar hard to play
11:05
if you know if you've got that back bow
11:08
then you know it's just going to play
11:09
terrible in here and it's going to be
11:10
all rattling and stuff
11:12
so that's that's that
11:16
hack okay so let's say
11:19
frets are in good shape nuts in good
11:22
shape
11:23
uh you've got you've got the uh the neck
11:25
straight now
11:26
or just with a touch of relief
11:29
well you know the next thing you want to
11:31
look at is the action
11:33
so with this again you know i don't use
11:37
you know tools for this so basically
11:40
what i do
11:41
is i I'm worried mainly about the low e
11:44
and the high e
11:45
and so i get them to where they sound
11:48
good they play cleanly and i can bend
11:51
them
11:52
and they're not rattling and then from
11:55
there
11:57
i will kind of follow
12:00
the radius to a degree and so i will you
12:03
know kind of eyeball it
12:05
and then also i will use you know a
12:07
little radius gauge like this
12:09
and so this one has a bunch of it has
12:11
you know 12
12:12
seven and a quarter nine and a half ten
12:15
on here and this came from
12:16
uh there's a Dan Erlin
12:19
uh book called uh make your electric
12:22
guitar play
12:23
and I'll put a link in the uh in the
12:25
description
12:26
and it's a great book that will can
12:28
really if you want to deep dive into
12:29
setting up guitars it will you know give
12:31
you more info and in the back of it
12:33
it has this uh Stuart McDonald
12:36
little uh little uh you know
12:40
radius gauge and you can uh you can make
12:43
your own
12:43
and you can print these out online and
12:46
uh
12:47
and then you can you could make one out
12:49
of cardboard or something like that
12:51
so this is you know good for
12:54
you know you can you know you can look
12:56
at things at the at the nut
12:58
and then you can also press it against
12:59
the bridge and you can kind of see and
13:02
the way you know by just lightly
13:03
touching it and then
13:04
strumming the strings across you'll be
13:06
able to tell which ones are touching the
13:08
radius gauge and which aren't
13:09
now probably at this end
13:12
you would probably want to use you know
13:15
one of these type radius gauges and then
13:17
kind of hold it up maybe with some
13:18
tweezers or something
13:20
and and then you could strum across and
13:22
so when i used this
13:24
7.25 one i found that
13:27
um the d and the g string on this are
13:31
actually a little bit low
13:32
but i don't mind that so uh yeah so
13:36
again I'm not going to just follow the
13:37
radius just because that's the way it is
13:39
because
13:40
i want the guitar to feel good to me
13:43
so yeah so i just kind of set it to
13:47
where it it
13:48
feels good and it rings true and i can
13:51
bend the strings you know all over the
13:52
neck
13:53
I'm not getting rattle or maybe I'm just
13:55
getting a slight amount of rattle but
13:57
nothing anything that's gonna
13:58
you know stop time and uh
14:02
yeah then intonation of course you know
14:05
you have to use a tuner for that so i
14:06
guess i do use a tool for that
14:08
uh you know and you could you know and i
14:11
you know always use uh intonatable
14:15
saddles these are made by advanced
14:17
plating here in Nashville and these are
14:19
steel
14:20
and then of course you just have to move
14:22
them back and forth and when you're
14:23
setting the intonation
14:25
do not use harmonics okay
14:28
so use open notes and fretted notes
14:32
preferably oh you know open and then at
14:34
the 12th fret and also i sometimes will
14:35
check at other
14:37
other frets also and if you're going to
14:39
err on one side of the other because the
14:41
guitar is not perfect it seems like our
14:44
ear can take
14:46
sharpness rather than flatness so if
14:48
you're going to air on one side like if
14:50
it's going to start
14:51
going one way or the other as you go up
14:52
the fretboard
14:54
it's better to go sharp rather than flat
14:57
but again you want to get it as close as
14:58
possible
15:00
all right so now you've got good frets
15:02
you've got you know the
15:04
the nuts in good shape uh you've set the
15:07
action
15:08
uh now you know we're ready to talk
15:10
about the pickups so
15:13
i use you know pretty much vintage style
15:16
either vintage pickups or vintage style
15:19
pickups I'm
15:20
not into high output pickups really um
15:24
that's just not what i like i prefer
15:26
lower output pickups i like a cleaner
15:28
sound
15:30
if you can't tell from you know i think
15:32
I've probably hit an overdrive pedal or
15:34
overdriven the amp maybe twice in
15:38
uh 54 episodes uh
15:41
so yeah that's when I'm going for a
15:42
clean fat
15:44
sound and you you know to me I've i
15:47
haven't found a better way than
15:48
with you know lower output pickups so i
15:51
don't like anything
15:52
really hotter than 7.5 you know really
15:55
on
15:56
on neck or or bridge so
15:59
and sometimes you know i think maybe
16:01
that adder pickup might be a little
16:02
hotter than that and i just kind of
16:03
lower it down a lot
16:05
so this is my hack for setting pickup
16:08
height
16:09
so what i do is i press the high e
16:12
string at the last fret
16:14
and then i raise this side of the pickup
16:17
all the way to the string
16:19
towards touching it and then i just
16:21
lower it just a little bit to where it
16:22
won't
16:23
you know hit it when you're playing
16:26
and that is kind of setting you know
16:29
that's kind of setting the yardstick of
16:31
where we're starting from
16:32
then everything's based on that so next
16:36
I'm going to set the base end of this
16:38
pickup by
16:39
matching the output so I'm going to hit
16:42
this
16:43
high e string and then I'm going to hit
16:45
the low e string and I'm going to match
16:48
the output
16:48
so that usually means I'm going to have
16:50
to lower this side some
16:52
you know and you know usually you're
16:54
going to end up with a bit of an angle
16:55
with it
16:56
lower on the base end and of course it
16:57
depends on the pickup that you have
17:01
then once i get that even
17:04
then I'm going to go to the back and
17:06
again
17:07
I'm all going to it's going to be based
17:09
on this so I'm going to go from the neck
17:10
pickup
17:11
hitting the high e string open and then
17:14
I'm going to go to the back
17:15
and I'm going to hit that and i want to
17:17
match it in output
17:18
if anything i actually make the neck
17:20
where it's a touch hotter
17:22
because the the neck just doesn't cut
17:24
through as much as the bridge
17:26
and yeah i find that like when you're in
17:29
the heat of battle and you're
17:31
and let's say you wanted to go from the
17:33
bridge pickup to the neck pickup and
17:34
then you know while you're
17:35
while you're soloing most the time you
17:39
you need a little more output from the
17:40
neck pickup to cut through
17:42
and so I'll either have more the same
17:45
or the neck pickup is is just slightly
17:48
hotter
17:49
and so yeah so then I've set the high
17:52
side you know the
17:53
the treble side of this pickup again to
17:55
match that
17:56
then i can just go to the back pickup
17:58
and i can match
18:00
this end to that end another thing that
18:03
i find
18:03
helpful you know besides just using my
18:05
ear
18:06
is i like to have some kind of pedal
18:08
that has like
18:10
an input led that comes on and so
18:14
i used to use an old deluxe memory man
18:16
because it had
18:17
you know an input led it was really good
18:20
for helping me set that
18:21
another i used the mirage compressor
18:25
a lot and one of the reasons i like it
18:27
is because it helps me set pickup height
18:30
and everything because i can kind of
18:31
have a not just using my ear but also
18:34
have kind of a
18:35
visual of how hot the signal is
18:38
so yeah so that's that's the way
18:42
i uh i set the uh the pickup height
18:45
and uh and and then at the end of the
18:47
day it's all about does it sound right
18:49
you know does it feel good does it sound
18:51
good
18:53
that's what matters all right so there
18:56
are my little uh
18:58
you know hacks on on setting up a
19:00
telecaster
19:01
uh let's go for our little lesson part
19:05
of uh of today's episode we'll talk
19:07
about the thing that i played at the
19:08
beginning
19:09
of the show and this is kind of a
19:13
a you know a pick and fingers kind of
19:15
exercise
19:17
you know that's it
19:25
let me just play the right hand and you
19:28
get this
19:40
turn the delay off um i'm gonna play
19:43
that even slower again this is just the
19:45
right hand
19:46
[Music]
19:50
slower
19:53
[Music]
20:02
okay and then you have basically going
20:04
over this shape
20:09
then you have this one your d minor
20:11
[Music]
20:17
then you have this shape
20:20
i like that country boy albert lee thing
20:23
[Music]
20:24
and then you just move that down two
20:25
frets
20:26
[Music]
20:32
that's kind of like it looks like a uh
20:35
an a minor seven with a with an e in the
20:38
bass
20:41
so it's probably uh probably it's really
20:44
a one with the with the
20:45
with the the third in the bass i guess
20:47
really
20:50
[Music]
20:51
and then just playing a g so
21:03
all right guys well thank you so much i
21:05
hope you've enjoyed
21:06
today's episode and i hope you have a
21:08
great week bye