Parts to Adjust on a Les Paul Guitar

Series Summary

Gibson's Les Paul model is the definitive electric guitar. Designed in the 1950s by the man who invented tape delay, overdubbing and multitrack recording, the Les Paul's distinctive tone has made it perhaps the most popular guitar ever. Guitarists like Keith Richards, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Marc Bolan, and countless others all helped to popularize the instrument to fans of multiple musical styles.

In this series of free videos you'll learn how to setup a Gibson Les Paul electric guitar. Expert guitar repair technician The Ferret shows you how to get the most out of your classic instrument by making a few minor adjustments to various parts of the guitar. He'll demonstrate how to adjust the truss rod, raise and lower the bridge, and flip the saddle bridge on your Les Paul guitar. He then shows you how to adjust the pickup height and set the intonation to ensure that you're getting the best possible sound out of your guitar. Finally he shows you how to string a Les Paul and try out the new adjustments you've made to your Les Paul with a totally sweet electric guitar jam!

Video Transcript

"THE FERRET: Okay. We're going to set up this Gibson Les Paul. Just a general overview of how to do that. We've got three basic things. Your bridge, you've got your screws right here on the bridge post and this turn, okay? So if you turn them clockwise, that lowers the whole bridge. Or if you turn them counterclockwise, it's going to raise it up. You've also got individual string adjustment saddles that move back and forth. Moving them away from the neck is going to give you more string or less string if you move them closer to the neck. And that's going to set your intonation. So you've got action up and down, and intonation back and forth. Underneath this cover at the top, two screws to take that off, you've got a truss rod adjustment. And with a special wrench, you can adjust the neck to make it straight. So the first thing we're going to do is we're going to check the neck. And to do that, we're going to look at it from the top of the neck down along the edge of the neck. And what we're looking to see is that it's nice and straight. It's sometimes okay to have just a little bit of relief, so it's just kind of a little bit like that. But if it's bowed like that, that's not good. You're going to have all kinds of fretting out problems as you play. So I'm looking down the neck and I see that the neck can be adjusted just a little bit. So I'm going to remove the cover and I'm going to remove the truss rod."