Rogue RA-090 Dreadnought Guitar: Acoustic $60, Acoustic-Electric (Natural) Expired

These Rogue acoustics play way above their price point

ACOUSTIC GUITAR SETUP ADVICE

There is a lot of good info mixed with half-truth or zero-truth above. Here are some hints for making an acoustic guitar play better. Acoustics are harder to set up than electrics, so be warned.

Step 1: Check neck relief. If you just brought the guitar inside, wait a day for it to acclimate to your room temperature and humidity. Then tune the guitar up to the correct pitch. Push down the lowest string just above the 1st fret and just below the last fret. There should be a tiny gap between the string and the frets in the middle, the thickness of a business card or less. Then try it with the highest string. The gap should be the same. If it isn't, your guitar has a twisted neck and you should return it, because you'll never get it to play right.

If the gap is too high, you need to tighten the truss rod. If there is no gap, you need to loosen the truss rod. Only go 1/8 of a turn at a time when adjusting truss rods. No more! Check after each 1/8 turn. Once you get it about right, let the guitar sit overnight and check again.

The truss rod is an Allen key located inside the sound hole, at the end of the neck. If the guitar comes with an Allen key, that's what it's for.

Once you've done that, then you can move on to:

Step 2: Adjust action.

Likely the strings will be way off the fretboard when you get the truss rod right, so you need to lower the action. To do this, first figure out about how much lower you think you can get it. Then, you have to take off the strings (don't take them out of the bridge, just take them out of the tuners at the top) and remove the little white plastic bar that goes under them. Then you can either file down the bottom of the plastic piece, or file deeper grooves in the top. You should start by filing down the bottom, because you need really small files to do the grooves in the top. Remember, you'll need higher action on the bass strings than the treble strings, so you'll probably take more off the treble side than the bass side.

Put the piece back in and the strings back on, tune to pitch, and check the action. If it's still too high, take off a bit more. Don't take off too much, because then you most likely have to get a new piece and start over. (You can often fudge it with a little piece of paper or cardboard in the bottom, but the connection won't be as solid and the guitar might not sound as good.)

Step 3: Adjust the nut. You do that basically the same way you do the bridge, except it's easier because you don't have to take the strings all the way off. You can just tune them slack until you can slide the nut out. What you want is for the strings to be as close to the first fret as you can get them without buzzing on the first fret. Take material off the bottom of the nut, then slide it back in, tune the strings back up, and check. Again, if you go too far you'll have to start over with a new nut or wedge paper underneath, which isn't as solid.

If you're going to all this trouble, you should probably spend under $10 first, and buy a real bone bridge saddle and nut on ebay. They're much easier to file on than plastic, and then you have the original plastic ones as a backup. Measure yours with a millimeter ruler first to make sure you're buying the right size.

Happy picking!