Chris Lilley Violin Maker
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Useful information on stringed instrument setupChrislilleyviolins.com |
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The intention of this page is to give useful information to players, stringed instruments. Naturally this will be more specific to Violins, Violas, and Guitars, but most of it is relevant to almost anything that you bow or pluck! This page deals with setup in terms of the strings, for a guide to soundpost setup click here. Set up Two Little words that really mean every thing and nothing all at once, set up is really a way of describing everything that goes into making an instrument easy to play, but is also in the case of violin family instruments especially the difference between an instrument sounding good and great, or a cheap violin even being playable. A Key part of set up is Action this is a way to describe how it feels when you press down a string or fret a chord, and is the combination of several different factors, these are fairly much the same for both the violin family and guitars as well and are as follows: 1. The height of the strings above the fingerboard at the nut (or top nut or top saddle which ever you wish to call it.) 2. The height of the strings above the the fingerboard at the end of the fingerboard (this is primarily determined by bridge height) 3. The curve of the fingerboard as viewed along the length of the strings, this is determined by how the fingerboard has been "shot" in the violin family, and primarily by truss rod adjustments in guitars that have them fitted. It has to be said that in the case of any instrument with a radiused fret board the match of the bridge radius/curve to that of the fingerboard can also play a key role in proceedings.
While there are parameters that need to be be met in terms of Violin set up which are fundamental to getting it "right", Guitar set up has much more liberal boundary to work within. The range of string gauges available for Guitars is much wider and therefore the set up parameters have to be altered to accommodate this. For example a player may choose ultra light gauge strings,these will be easy to fret, but require that the string be much closer to the fret board as the if the action is too high the string will detune to a higher degree due to the relatively higher increase in tension that is placed on it over a higher gauge string (or in other words the thicker the string the higher the tension needed to achieve a given tuning and the less impact the bend placed on the string by fretting it has on the pitch of the note produced). So what's the problem I hear you say, a nice light string and not far to push it....sounds great, but two things need to be born in mind. 1. The higher the string tension the more your instrument will resonate, and the louder and more balanced the sound will be, ( you will get a lot more bottom end and the top end should be sweeter as well). 2. The lower the strings are to the fret board the more importance is placed on the perfect leveling of the frets, with a well made brand new guitar it might not be an immediate problem, but as the frets begin to wear, a process that doesn't ever happen evenly over every fret, the relative levels of one fret to another change and string buzz becomes inevitable. Some players are happy to put up with a bit of buzz, but if you buy a really beautiful sounding guitar, that buzz will probably drive you to distraction as it is getting in the way of that ultimate sound which you probably paid allot for!
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