Guitar Action

[abw1987]

How do you like the action on your guitars?

(For those unaware, "action" is the size of the gap between the strings and the fretboard.

As I've posted elsewhere in this forum, I recently purchased a PRS SE Tremonti Custom. I noticed right away that I was having a lot of trouble with bends. Basically, the adjacent string(s) would bunch up under my fretting finger, rather than simply being pushed out of the way, causing the extra string(s) to resonate -- an awful sound, when all I want to hear is one string.

This thread explains it better than I can:
http://acapella.harmony-central.com/arc ... 62459.html

To borrow a couple images from the thread, this picture shows what I'd want to happen...



...and this picture shows what was actually happening.



A bit of searching led me to the above thread, which confirmed my suspicions that this had to do with the low action on the strings. Whether the guitar came this way, or it was set up this way by my luthier, I'll never know.

Regardless, I looked at my old Tremonti SE, and realized that for years I've been playing with relatively high action. Sure, the low action on the new guitar was nice and buttery feeling (legato delight!), but the effect it had on my bends was detrimental. So, I loosened my new guitar's truss rod a bit, and raised the bridge a tad, and now everything is good to go.

Cool story eh?

[TenaciousBe]

I had no idea about action, and being able to adjust it, when I first got into playing. I had this crappy $100 acoustic from a pawn shop that I never really liked, and I came to realize later on that it was partially just its sound, but mostly because the high action made it almost painful to play. It wasn't until I got another acoustic down the road, a Takamine EG340SC, that I realized so much of my reluctance to play acoustic had to do with that first guitar I had. And I realized later on that I could have adjusted the action on it and probably made it a better guitar to use, but I ended up trading it in on a package deal, along with a couple other crappy older guitars, to get a little discount on the acoustic bass I bought last year. Unfortunately, the action is almost too low on the Takamine, as I get a bit of fret buzz and dead notes around the 13-16th frets on the higher strings, but as someone who doesn't play much soloey stuff and prefers to just be a strum monkey, it doesn't bother me much.

[Andy92]

I haven't experimented too much with action on my guitars, but my acoustic sounds a little like TenaciousBe's old one. The action near the bridge is a bit high, but it never really bothered me much because I don't really play past the 12th fret on acoustic honestly. But the action on my PRS is really nice on the higher frets. I haven't had any problems with buzzing or high strings on it. Feels really nice to me.

[Jhenrid]

I have a friend that I always give my guitars to so he can check them out and he sets my action low for me. My first guitar apparently had a really high action but I didn't notice until he lowered it. He laughed at me for having to use a kung fu grip on it.

[Rosenblaetter]

What is a king fu grip?

Guitar action is a hated phrase for me - I had to figure out all the stuff by myself when I bought my bass... and it's hell of a worse with basses! Lower action led straight to the fret buzz - I thought I'd go insane. I visited a luthier and he took care of it properly.

Great that you did it by yourself!

[itaughttremonti]

Stewmac.com has the best articles on how to setup your guitar,IMO.

[Jim]

high action is my worst enemy, that; and iPhone auto-correct.. and dairy

[zazthespaz]

high action is my worst enemy, that; and iPhone auto-correct.. and dairy

poor jim... doesn't get any action...

[Jim]

if only you knew