Customer Reviews

Electric Guitar Setups (Guitar Reference)

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This book not only covers electric guitar setups but also setups for acoustics, archtops, semi-acoustics and electric acoustics.

This book is written for the guitar player who wants to avoid costly and time consuming trips the guitar shop buy teaching the player how to setup a guitar at home. This is not a book on the physics of sound, nor is a book which teaches you how to build a guitar. This book deals purely with guitar setups.

Hideo Kamimoto writes in clear and simple language. The author does not oversimplify nor does he go into unnecessary detail about what needs to be taught.

If you already know how to setup a guitar you do not need this book, however if you have never setup a guitar before this book will teach you how to do it step by step.

As a guitarist myself, I was shocked by how easy it is to setup a guitar with Kamimoto's method.

Basically despite all its pages the book can be summarized as follows: adjust the trus rod first, then the nut and then the bridge. It gives little more insight into the process. When the author does attempt to give more background, such as discussing string clearence etc, it is very poorly explained. Also most of the photographs are just of guitars and guitar hardware and don't really help explain anything.

This book although now a few years old is still the best book I have read about learning how to do proper professional guitar setups. I run a guitar repair shop and give a half day course on guitar setups. This book is pretty much the basis of that course, along with my experience as a repairman too of course.
It covers in detail setups and gives you charts and measurements you can use to get a guitar setup just right. The author is short on bragging about the famous people's guitars he has worked on(like other books on this topic...) and long on good info.
Also covers specific issues on bass guitar setups and acoustics, fret milling, and has a great section on all the different kinds of bridges out there in world on guitars.
The only drawback to me is that the pictures are all in black/white as opposed to color. Still doesnt detract from the info in this book.
So to summarize, this book may not look as flashy as some newer releases on the topic of guitar setups but it still the most complete.

I highly recommend this book for the essential guitar library. I bought this book several years ago & have bascially dog-earred my copy. Although basic in approach it does contain brief information on topics that are also - unfortunately not covered to any extent in similar theme books. The best parts are the pictures of various bridges & the subjective comments the author makes on several models. This book is not at all like the author's other book - that covers acoustic guitar structure.

This author knows his craft. I met him at his store in San Jose, Ca. before I knew about the book. It is a good overview of the subject.