Is your setup so unique/special that you can't play your mates guitars?

[vklobucar]

Is there something so unique about your guitars be it setup, string gauge etc that leaves you basically impossible to play your mates "run of the mill" guitars.

I recently scored a decent Squier Strat for a friend's daughter as a Christmas present. I tore it down and set it up with .009's given that she is all of eight years old and just starting to play.

Now when I mean I set it up, I honestly spent a good 2 hours on this axe and made it play about as good as any Squier could. And yet when I plugged in my playing was just horrible.

Switch over to my trusty PC1 loaded with a few upgrades from floydroseupgrades.com and strung up with 13-56 Boomers andIi was back to my old self.

I know you will say that there is no comparing a $100 Squier with a $3000 PC1 but even high end guitars are unplayable in my hands.

Have I grown so accustomed to my setup that I have worked myself into a corner?

[Cygnus X1]

Possible.
I have a few, different guitars/setups lend themselves to different styles of playing.
Grab a couple more and set them up the way you like.
An acoustic will get your head back on track!

[Grandturk]

My little nephew has a recent Squier. It's shit. It doesn't intonate at all - like the frets are in the wrong spots. The Tuners don't hold pitch - like you pull the note sharp when you fret the string. Garbage.

[Bri]

I've never been able to pick up a guitar with a very different neck (width, taper, or profile) to my own and be able to play anything other than chords and even that wasn't easy.

[j2379]

any strings thinner than 9's, or detuned enough the strings are floppy.

[KBRR]

i think everyone gets use to their guitars , i know i do and most other guitars i play i just dont play the same , probably becasuse i set up all my guitars with the neck up bowed or positive relief . Thats probably why i dont keep very many guitars , because most of them fret out between the first 1-4 frets when set up like that, but i just dont lie guitars set up any other way.

[MakeAJazzNoiseHere]

I have a friend who thinks he knows how to set up a guitar.

He likes the following:

1. 1/4" of relief
2. 1/2" action

He will hand me a guitar set up like this and say it "plays good." If I mention the relief or action he says it's "Set up for slide guitar." :think:

He's the one who had my old blue Charvel. When I got it back from him, the JT6 knife edge was against the bolt head rather than "in the groove" on the stud. When I was looking at it before taking it home, I said that I was going to really "go to town" on it and set it up really nice, and he said, "Nah, it's set up great, all that guitar needs is played."

I also bought a Les Paul from him. The neck had a huge amount of relief (strung with 10's and he truss rod nut was LOOSE) and when I mentioned this to him he said he had "Never touched it, it played great."

So, yeah. I can't play his guitars, because they either suck, or because he like a really fucked up setup, or both.

[DonP]

I have a friend who thinks he knows how to set up a guitar.

He likes the following:

1. 1/4" of relief
2. 1/2" action

He will hand me a guitar set up like this and say it "plays good." If I mention the relief or action he says it's "Set up for slide guitar." :think:

He's the one who had my old blue Charvel. When I got it back from him, the JT6 knife edge was against the bolt head rather than "in the groove" on the stud. When I was looking at it before taking it home, I said that I was going to really "go to town" on it and set it up really nice, and he said, "Nah, it's set up great, all that guitar needs is played."

I also bought a Les Paul from him. The neck had a huge amount of relief (strung with 10's and he truss rod nut was LOOSE) and when I mentioned this to him he said he had "Never touched it, it played great."

So, yeah. I can't play his guitars, because they either suck, or because he like a really fucked up setup, or both.

I've never had issues with different setups, but I've never tried anything really radical like this.

[Robert Hendrix]

I don't know if it has to do with setup or neck wicth or both but, I recently played a friends USA strat at a live show and it felt..well...strange..I had alot of trouble and had to really pay attention to what I was doing to play it. Then, after about 2 songs, my left hand started cramping up so bad I couldn't play it at all. I put it down and picked up my Charvel and all was right with the world.. I just chalked it up to the different shape in the neck but it was clunky as hell to play. Just lends more creedence to why I hate strats.

I've also picked up a couple of les pauls at open mics that I had trouble playing.. I'm just spoiled to Charli I guess.

[Hellbat]

I'm giving my brother in law a guitar for Christmas. He's left handed. I gave it a full setup the other night and to check the action and stuff I was playing it right handed but of course strung upside down to a normal right handed guitar. After playing chords and scales upside down for half an hour and sounding like a chimp bashing on a guitar I picked up my Rhoads and forgot how to play with the strings set up with the right side up...

[Sunbane]

I generally can't play guitars with 009 sets. I pull all the chords sour.
But now I'm trying to weane myself off of it by going to increasingly lighter strings.

[wilkinsi]

I have just two guitars - one with 9's, the other with 10's. I'm quite picky over how my guitars feel, look and sound. I see lots of guitars whenever I walk into a shop, but I won't even ask to try one, because they only have cheap shit. I go there for pickup upgrades and FX, nothing more.

I remember before one friend moved out of the county, I tried his LP Standard, a 59' Strat and a Roscoe (the worst one) - I swear he never cleaned the fretboards. The action was good, but they actually STUNK. I'm so glad he never got his mits on any of my USA's.

[Jayster]

I don't know so much about can't play them from shitty set ups, but I will say every guitar plays differently. There will be sweet spots on the neck in different places and other changes based on scale length, fret height, neck width and type of tremolo/bridge...

[Grahf]

I guess if you only play one style or somethin. me i'll play anything, and adapt my playing to suit the type of guitar it is

[zuppermuhle]

The normal 9 set feels too stiff for me. But I usually get used to it after a while. Other than that my set-up isn't so radical.

On related note I once played with 11 sets. Playing chords with someone elses 9 sets sounded awful, vibrato was wobbly, bends went over but man did I feel like shredding god.