Hi, thank you. Yes, I did adjust the neck relief, and then the bridge height. By Fender’s admission (although I play a clone), low string action is 0.080 at the 17th fret on the E string, which is what I have. I wanted to know what some other low action heroes have for their setups.
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Can you link to the fender doc you are referencing?
A string height of .08" at the 17th fret is not just low, it’s flat. And neck relief is usually measued at the 7th fret, not 17th.
My action is relatively low and I’m at 2mm at the 12th fret.
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Oops! I was wrong (off by 10). That’s 2mm at the 17th, and that’s a nice low action. Well done. Sorry for my mistake (was thinking that was .2mm, not 2mm).
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I realise that neck relief is measured at the 7th.
The 17th fret stuff is here: Fender guidelines
Apropos, it’s not 0.08, it’s 0.09.
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Yeah my sleepy brain misread the .080 as .008, and I was confused what you were measuring there 
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Yes, a string height of eight thou would be quite flat 
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In any case your action sounds great to me. I usually run even more on the lower side but mine is up at around 2mm at the 12th due to playing with a pick a lot. Alternating picking runs in to problems for me if I go much lower than that.
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@howard
Then it’s a matter of my technique. Crap
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You won’t regret it. I’ve acquired several StewMac tools for maintaining my basses. They’re not cheap, but the quality is first rate.
If I learned one thing in my 40+ year career as a field technician it was that top quality tools make any job a lot easier. I never once looked at one of my tools and thought, “Gee, I should have bought a cheaper one.”
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Hi Folks.
I just spent a wonderful weekend setting up my P-clone. Now it’s time for the Sterling Ray4. In case anyone else needs some guidance in this, here is a great (albeit a little slow paced :D) ThouPipe 4-part series on setting up a Sterling Sub4, and this will also hold true for the Sterling by MusicMan Ray4. This is a complete A-Z video, which I found very informative.
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I had some buzzing on my 3rd to 6th fret on my E string so I grabbed the allen key and tried to fix it.
Needless to say that the advice of “check out the bass from its butt to the farthest of the neck and you will see if it bends” doesn’t work with me. I don’t get it lol but hey, I said just try 2 to 3 rotations with allen. Quarter rotations, don’t fret.
I just wanted to share that when I started adjusting the rod, I had so many palpitations, so much sweat, I felt like I was playing in a horror movie, for real.
Also, I guess I need a pro to do the setup for me because I still have a minimal buzz -_-
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A new, well produced, clear setup video for you do learn to do your own setups.
Sure, if you want to pay the guy/girl in the shop to do it, have at 'er. Me, I can barely tie my own shoelaces and still managed to teach myself to do setups.
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A lot of the time the guy/girl in the shop knows less about setups than what you can learn, and do yourself, from these type of videos and you end up with problems you never had before they touched the bass.
The main caution I would warn about in this video is cutting the nut slot.
I have never had to do this and would typically leave it alone.
Fret right behind the second fret wire and tap the string over the first fret. There should just be a paper width gap.
Isn’t that one of the reasons they invented velcro 
I am surprised he said nothing about loosening off the strings when doing the intonation, especially if you are sharpening a string.
Oh yeh one last thing, just wanted to say that you can use any color nail polish to accomplish a setup following this guide. 
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I’ve re-cut a nut slot on a friends poorly cut Squier nut. I approach it all just like finish carpentry - “slowly slowly catchee monkey”. Also, if you bollocks it up, then you get to learn how to install an new nut. Which after you’ve done one, then the mystery/fear evaporates.
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Good video but I tend to do it differently. Probably comes out the same.
Now that I’ve got a few different basses I’m starting to drop the action and learn to adjust by feel vs by the numbers. The neck and frets really dictate what you can do and each can be dialed in differently. It’s fun.
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I agree but I think it’s a great clearly presented video, if you’ve never setup your own bass.
I normally set the relief, then set the action as low as I can until it buzzes, then adjust it up just enough to so that I can live with the occasional buzz if I really dig in.
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If you don’t mind watching and listening to Roger Sadowsky and Mike Tobias talking about setting up a bass for almost an hour (!), this is for you:
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Every video with Roger talking about setting up a bass is at least an hour!
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Down in Oxford this weekend. Decided to take the advice , taken my cheap Squier Affinitey to have a set up with a local pro. I think its a good decision
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This video was great - thanks for sharing @Mike_NL . So many little tidbits sprinkled throughout (at least for me, at my level of knowledge)…
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