If you want to step up your game when it comes to guitar setup… boy, is that trite.  I imagine 30 years from now everyone will be speaking “Cliché.”  Let me try again.

I didn’t want to spend almost $20 on the StewMac string action ruler gauge tool, because it’s 5 cents worth of metal with words and lines printed on it.  And the Co-link version I’m reviewing is roughly the same thing but costs $9.99.  There are versions even cheaper, but… we’re talking about a whole lot of precision required here, and ten bucks isn’t much.

The SARG (Dear Co-link, please feel free to steal my clever nickname) allows you to measure very small distances, such as how many mm your string is from the fretboard.  Or 64ths of an inch.  It’s required for exact measurements instead of “This feels good.”

I have an Optivisor, which was given to me by my father-in-law, and I love the thing – it’s basically an elaborate gizmo you put on your head that sticks magnifying glasses in front of your eyes.  To read the itty bitty lines on this thing, you either need an Optivisor, or if you’re on a really small budget, buy a pair of strong reading glasses from Walgreens.

Onto the actual review.  The SARG is great.  To my mind it’s pretty much as good as the StewMac version for half the price.  It’s also dead flat on every edge, so you can use it as a fret rocker for some of your frets.  The little image I used for this post is kind of blurry, but the actual card isn’t.  Let me be blunt – you either want to learn how to properly set up your own guitar, or you don’t.  If you’re on a budget, you do not want to pay some chucklehead at Guitar Center $50 to do what you can learn to easily do yourself.  Step one is being able to change your own strings – step two is being able to adjust your own truss rod, action, and intonation.  This tool makes it super easy to adjust the action on every string.  It’s way easier than you think.

So we have a winner with the SARG.  Don’t buy the StewMac version – buy this one instead and save some money.

Amazon Link: String Action Ruler Gauge Tool for Electric Bass and Acoustic Guitar