3 step guide to Truss Rod Adjustment

This is a step by step guide to adjusting your truss rod on your electric guitar. This article is intended to get you started in adjusting your truss rod and aimed at people who have a do-it-yourself mentality. First of all, I do not accept any risk of damage caused to your instrument, so make sure you feel comfortable making adjustments and using tools before you adjust your electric guitar.

Step 1.

Locate the truss rod cover on the headstock of your guitar and remove it. You will need a small phillips head screwdriver for this. Make sure to organize the cover into their own little bag or container so they do not get lost.

Step 2.

After the truss rod cover is removed, you should see either an allen head, or if you have a gibson you will see a 5/16 (I think) nut head that you should have a special tool that was included in the case of your gibson. Now, take special care in finding the right tool for this job, because you could create a bigger problem for yourself if you strip the allen or nut.

Tightening the Truss Rod

Turning the truss rod clockwise will bow the neck backwards. So, if the tension of the strings when fully tuned is bowing the neck forward, this is when you need to tighten the truss rod by turning it clockwise. Only turn the truss rod ⅛ of a turn each time to ensure you do not over tighten. After each ⅛ turn, your guitar will be out of tune...so take this chance to tune it. When you tune after each ⅛ turn of the truss rod, you are ensuring that you are adjusting the neck based on the normal string tension that it will experience.

You will need to measure your progress here, and here is a way to do just that. When you feel the neck is getting close to being straight, and after you have tuned your guitar up….use one finger to fret the first fret and use your other hand to fret the 12th fret on the same string. When you have both hands fretting these 2 frets, use another finger to press a few of the frets in the middle of the 2 frets. When you test the middle frets, the distance the string travels to the fret should be very little. If the distance is too great, you will know you have to tighten the truss rod more.

                                                       Loosening the truss rod

When you turn the truss rod counter-clockwise, you are allowing the strings to bow the neck forward more. So, you would do this if the neck is bowed too far backwards. Basically use the same logic here and only turn ⅛ of a turn at a time and tune after each turn. Also measure your progress in the same way, except here you will be looking to create more distance from the string to the fret.

Step 3.

After you have adjusted the neck to your liking, reinstall the truss rod cover. Give your guitar a couple days to settle and check your neck again, as it may have settled a little out of adjustment. If you notice you need to readjust, turn your truss rod in even smaller increments to ensure you do not undo the work you did just 2 days prior

So this should put you on the right path to adjusting your truss rod properly. Please do so in small increments, be careful and attentive to your instrument, and do not rush anything.

Hope this helps all of you DIY’ers out there! Rock on!

Is Cheaper Really Less Quality? An Honest Review of Joyo’s Vintage Overdrive Pedal

The world of guitar pedals is vast to say the least! You have your choice from pedals that compress, pedals that wah, pedals that octavize, etc., and in addition to the blessing and nightmare that is a vast selection, you also have several price points to choose from. Well, today we are going in depth on a lower price point overdrive pedal, the Vintage Overdrive.

Let’s start with a little about the company of Joyo Audio. Joyo is located in ShenZhen, China, which is like the Silicon Valley of China in the sense that ShenZhen houses many of the innovative technology companies of China. Oddly enough, I have a unique tie to this City since my wife is from there and I have spent much time in ShenZhen. From my personal experience, ShenZhen is indeed a technology hub of China. Perhaps next time I am there I will take a tour of the Joyo factory.

Everyone seems to be looking for that perfect overdrive pedal, and while I cannot guarantee that the Vintage Overdrive is that pedal for you, I can say that this pedal is full of surprises for a $40 piece of gear. The Vintage OD is a clone of the famous Ibanez Tube Screamer pedal heard on many popular tracks over the years including the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan. The Vintage OD comes equipped with true bypass which is very handy when you want the OD out of your signal chain. The Vintage OD has a drive knob, a tone knob, and a volume knob. You have the choice of using a 9V battery, or power it with a plug-in power supply that would have to purchased separately from the pedal. Overall, its a lightweight package that boasts green casing and yellow knob aesthetics (which looks pretty cool) and a simple engage foot-switch, which makes operation quite simple…. as to be expected.

Before we get to the sonic, let me first disclose what my signal chain was when testing this pedal: Vox AC30cc2 with 2 Celestion Greenbacks–> Joyo Vintage OD–> Guitar. Guitars used are a mid 2000s USA Fender Strat modded with a CTS wiring kit and Smits Hand-wound Pickups, and a 2015 Gibson Les Paul Traditional. Side notes, I will test the pedal with the amp already on an overdriven setting and then again with the amp set clean. Lastly, I will test each guitar with a pick and then using a finger picking technique all while adjusting tone and volume knobs on the guitars.

So now we get to the meat and potatoes, “How does this thing sound?”! Well, really good! First of all, the phrase “touch sensitivity” will come up quite often in my review. First I plug in my American Strat, set my amp to a clean tone and dial all the knobs on the Vintage OD to half-way. The first thing I notice is that the highs are a little much, so I turn my tone knobs on the guitar to around 7 and the volume knob to around 8.5. This is where I find the sweet spot with this pedal, amp and guitar combination. Touch sensitivity (here we go) is great. Lighten up your pick attack and your in that sweet bluesy Strat tone while still maintaining that chimey tone coming from the Vox AC30. Mids are coming through very nicely on this setting and this setting is very dynamic. Start digging into the strings with your pick attack and you get into Strat Rock! With this setting, pickup positions 2 & 4 really shine and you get a nice Stratty quack. When I switched to using a pick, I rolled down the guitar’s tone knob just a little more due to the extra brightness. Another noticeable feature with this pedal is that it can function quite well as a volume boost. So if you already like the sound of your amp but want some extra volume for a solo, kick it on and wail away! With the Les Paul in this setting, on the neck pick provides a great “Woman Tone” that makes you wanna bust out some creamy “White Room”. Touch sensitivity is great with the Les Paul also, go from crystal cleans to soaring dirty all by how you touch your instrument….stop those dirty thoughts!!! Harmonics on both guitars come through nice and clear.

Let go into high gain territory!! Okay, so the Vintage OD gives a great “higher” gain tone….though not Iron Maiden or any kind of metal territory, but that is alright because this pedal is not built for that. This pedal, much like an Ibanez TS, is meant to emulate a tube amp being pushed, and it does this quite well. Again, the Strat shines in the out-of-phase 2 & 4 pickup positions when the drive knob on the pedal is set from 75% – 100%. This setting with the Strat reminds me of SRV’s guitar sound when he played “The Sky is Cryin” & “Voodoo Child” live. Very overdriven and quacky! Positions 1,3 & 5 also sound really good, especially position 3 as it brings in the meaty mids!! The Les Paul goes into mega squeal territory that would make spandex wearing, balding, 80s rock stars proud. This is the closest my AC30 sounds to an overdriven Marshall. Sustain and creamy overdrive for days.

Okay, now for my absolute favorite setting on this pedal. Volume at 100%, tone & drive at 0%. Setting the pedal this way will push your tube amp into its own unique overdrive. Make sure your amp is set to be overdriven naturally. Touch sensitivity is best in this setting, you can play nice open chords and it is not muddy, and power chords!!! Oh yes, power chords!! You are in AC/DC territory now! Go from picking to finger picking (no flicking please) and just roll that guitar volume to clean up further…..or not, up to you.

So, I really have tried to find something I do not like about the pedal and be completely objective. What I came up with is that the tone knob should be dialed back a little and will require some tweaking on your own special rig, and I also noticed that when al knobs are half-way on the pedal, it does give quite a substantial volume boost. So definitely tweak that volume knob down if you want to switch between a dry signal and an overdriven signal from time to time…or don’t and rock that much harder.

Final thoughts on the pedal. For $40 and even if it was $100, this is a really good pedal. Sure, you might find some minute differences between it and a real TS808 with a fine tooth comb, but when your rocking peoples socks of on stage, and drums, bass, vocals, rhythm guitars are rocking too….you and the crowd are not going to notice those little differences. They will only notice how hard you are rockin-and-rollin, and maybe thinking you should not be wearing so much spandex because it is 2018! Anyway, fashion senses aside…if you are looking for a good clone of a TS, look no further! This one is affordable and does a great job!

Please let me know in the comments of any reviews you would like for me to do in the future, I am but your humble servant.