I was just wondering after reading a few reviews on new guitars,How important is the factory setup to you. I see guitars get knocked for not coming out of the box set up to a players liking and I find this hard to be the fault of any company as who knows what weather the shipment flew through and the fact that a lot of people like there guitars setup differently.

I personally always had two guitars set different,one at medium low for blues based music and one as low as possible without fret buzz for shred techniques like sweeping or tapping and legato.

I really cant say I ever pulled a guitar out of a box and did not have to make adjustments, and thought it was par for the course. But apparently this is a big deal to a lot of people.

Its not that important at all to me either, because I do all my own setup work, and I set up my guitars how I like them.

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It's not a big deal for me if it doesn't sound best right out of the box. As long as it's intact and nothing is broken, I'm happy.

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Not a big deal for us that understand how to do a setup. I always just use Fenders specs as a starting point and adjust from there to my liking.
I do feel sorry for new players that pick up a new guitar off of the wall and say to themselves,"This guitar is not that great and no better than a cheaper one" Big mistake, and a good store owner should know this and not set out any guitar that is not setup correctly.

Does that make any sense at all?

+1

For most guitars, 'Factory Setup' is only going to be basic and good enough to play (except on custom-built or high-end guitars).

Many guitar shops have their own guitar techs who will set up new guitars FOC - one good reason for buying from 'real stores' rather than Internet box-shifters.

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No big deal for me either, I do my own setup anyways. I would expect intonation and minor setup adjustments from the item that has been shipped directly. The guitars that are sold in the shops should be setup.

The one peeve that I have is that I have seen a lot of expensive guitars (over $1000) that have strings chinking/binding when you tune meaning poor nut work. That should not be happening.

It's not important to me. I think you reach a point where you see what a guitar can become. Thats when you dont need store assistants agro'ing you every 30 seconds.

I do however think that a decent in shop setup is a must for every guitar that leaves the shop. Whether it be a £80 or £8000 piece. The onus must be on the shop too. Guitars are in storage containers (or something sililar) for up to weeks maybe even months. Then their thrown into vans and driven around the place and finaly dumped in some shops warehouse. A good factory setup from 3 weeks ago at that point is about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

Gibson police their sellers quite strictly. A friend of mine was offered a dealership by them. He'd have taken it too despite the stringent requirements on shop space allocated and stupid financial rules. What broke the straws back was the £1500 charge for gibson to train him to work (setup) and sell their guitars.

They do have a point though. The way the guitar leaves the shop is of paramount importance. It's the shops job to give the buyer the best service available and in their own intrests to present the product in its best light. I've never once dealt with FMIC or Marshall (zoom, line6, dimarzio, gibson, digitech or anyone else). I have dealt with a lot of shops though.

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Well it gets under my skin when I pull one out of the box and the intonation is not set right….as far as every thing else…I don’t care much because im gonna set the action and pickups to where I want them anyway….Like Rep Paul said most dealers have a tech to do this upon arrival to them.. Most companies know and under stand this so they slack on this a bit prior to shipping…problem is so many distributors these days are via the internet (wont mention any names) you all know who they are. Ship to customers directly via the factories wear house.. the thing never sees a tech.

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I usually do my own set up straight away so that the action is at my preferred height and the bridge is at the right angle for me

I had bought a new Am. Standard Strat in `08. Out of the box the block for the whammy bar was not threaded right and the bar wouldn`t screw in. The block had to be replaced and its been fine since then. Like mentioned above, as long as it didn`t come broken or banged up from shipping you can make the adjustments needed, its not a big deal.

In a perfect world, all guitars would have a decent setup in the store. On the other hand, this usually not being the case, it gives me the chance to find diamonds in the rough that go unnoticed due to poor setups. A good setup is the last thing I'm thinking about when shopping for a guitar. Kind of a sad reality these days.

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-Kirk

GUITARS
'12 Sonoran Acoustic - black (dated 10/31/12)
'13 Standard Strat
AMP
Vox ac4c1-bl
PEDALS
Compressor
Big Muff
Vox Stomplab 1G
Carbon Copy Delay

It is irrelevant to me in one sense but most important in another:

NO guitar 'out of the box' EVER played up to my standards so automatically, it gets a complete setup from me which includes my choice of string set. It would be most refreshing to not have to do anything 'out of the box' but this isn't reality (in my world, any way).

On the other hand, the worse 'out of the box' the better. I say this because some will just look at it and be turned off whereas others will hold it for a mere few seconds and in either case, become disgusted at the piece and move on, thereby leaving the guitar in virtually unplayed condition. Obviously, if it was setup like the greatest thing since 'sliced bread', it would quickly become the, "storewhore" and in a week, look like a 'relic' and as is common knowledge here by now, I have absolutely no use/appreciation for new, trashed guitars. YMMV.

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