I've said it before and I'll say it again...

[gardo]

I was at a music store a few days ago trying out Telecasters They were set up the way most people seem to like them but I hated it. If you want to hear what your guitar can really sound like, raise the action as far as is practical . It's amazing how much it frees the string movement up and lets the wood sing .The cleaner you play the more noticeable the difference.

[badpenguin]

Can't agree with you on that Gardo. IF the guitar is set up without the frets interfering, and the pickups lower, it's the same thing.

[gardo]

Can't agree with you on that Gardo. IF the guitar is set up without the frets interfering' date=' and the pickups lower, it's the same thing.[/quote']

I'm very meticulous about pick up adjustments, when the action is raised so are the pickups . "Frets interfering " is the key phrase. Even if there is no detectable string buzz the frets may still interfere with the vibration of the strings . But I also realize that this can become like the old tone wood arguement,some will believe it and some won't.

[Freeman Keller]

The nice thing about a tele is that its so easy to change the setup to whatever you want. If you run out of adjustment on the saddles (either up or down) then shim the neck a bit to get it back in range. I love working on tele's (except the ones with the truss rod adjuster in the heel).

[steve_man]

Can't agree with you on that Gardo. IF the guitar is set up without the frets interfering, and the pickups lower, it's the same thing.

 

agreed...

[WRGKMC]

I understand gardo's point. Not all music stores do good jobs setting up their demo guitars. They also hang guitars which might straighten out a neck and flatten its relief a tad. If they have stock strings they can be even worse.

 

If you're a player that bends strings allot, and you pick up a Tele with a lower radius you often need the action higher then normal to prevent having the strings fret out above the 12th fret. Bringing the strings up 1/64th overall can often fix that problem make bending easier too. The string flex and higher angle off the frets makes the strings stick to your fingers better.

 

When its too low its like trying to pick up a thin coin on a flat surface without fingernails. You cant get under the strings to push them sideways.

Having them too high has its issues too. Light strings can bend sharp when fretted and strum sharp when you dig in hard.

 

I was using my Tele for slide last night. I couldn't hold the top two strings down without bumping the frets with a slide. I hadn't been playing it in awhile. I checked it afterwards I found the relief was gone and I was playing a flat neck.

 

I figured it was the new AC system I just replaced at the house and figured the cooler temps affected it. I gave it a little tweak and playing slide was normal again.

[wankdeplank]

Not really into shredder action where string vibration might be compromised and getting under the string for a bend is an issue but I don't want my strings so high that it effects intonation up the frets either. I really can't enjoy playing a guitar where I have to fight the action.

[DeepEnd]

I tend to gravitate toward moderately high action as well. My Schecter is set up with the action easily 1/64-1/32" higher than "normal" at the 17th fret on both sides. I also have light top/heavy bottom strings on it. My approach (for guitars I set up for myself) is to set the relief and action to recommended specs (Fender Strat specs for a 25.5" scale), set the intonation, tune it to concert, strum a chord, and listen for buzzing. If I can detect buzzing, I raise the action/retune/repeat until I can't. Once I have the action where I want it I do a final correction of the intonation.

[AJ6stringsting]

A few years back, I raised the action of one of my Starts, as Robin Trower, suggested in a video. The guitars tonal potential was off the scale, plus it became my ultimate warm up guitar. Try playing playing some Malmsteen warp speed licks .... Telling ya.

To get back on topic, the strings vibrate more and the notes just make single coil thump better.

[6down1togo]

I don't get why you would want to make a guitar harder to play than it needs to be. I always considered high action the realm of players who just need to slam the strings, or a crutch for guitars that can't be/aren't set up properly.

[Grant Harding]

When you raise the action until the obvious fret buzz juuuust goes away there's still some collision/rubbing that steals some energy. Lots of people like this action because it's so easy to play. For a shredder with a big sustaining distorted lead tone you don't miss much.

If you keep raising the action a tiny bit more you reach a point where the strings almost never touch the frets and the sound is more punchy and clear, especially for clean sounds.

Choose your action for your style.

[DeepEnd]

I don't get why you would want to make a guitar harder to play than it needs to be. I always considered high action the realm of players who just need to slam the strings, or a crutch for guitars that can't be/aren't set up properly.

Raising the action slightly doesn't make the guitar appreciably harder to play, especially if it's an electric. Put 13's on an acoustic that needs a neck reset and you're talking harder to play. A few micro Newtons of force one way or the other is negligible. String buzzing means the strings are striking the frets, which means less sustain. If you use a lot of effects it will mask the problem but it's still there. As an acoustic guy, I have a lower tolerance for that sort of thing than some. Just recently, I was tuning my Schecter when I noticed a tiny amount of buzz on the open high E. I turned the adjusting screw for that end of the bridge 1/8 turn, retuned the guitar, and all was well.

[billybilly]

I DO believe that raising the action from the lowest possible action with no buzz and raising the pickups accordingly, still changes the sound.

[Ratae Corieltauvorum]

Yup, I'm with Gardo on this....it's also the reason why I've come to love Alnico 3 bridge pickups on all guitars...least string pull possible.

 

This is about horses for courses really.

 

There are some occasions when the lowest action possible may be desirable, but when somebody asks me for this setup, I set the pickups at their lowest, ie just before they fall off the screws and then work very slowly up from there to get the volume balanced.

 

I also explain this to whoever is getting the guitar

 

On a Strat, with 10-46 strings, A5 pickups, and all three pickups set to the height that Fender recommends, the strings do not move as much as they can...if the strings don't move as much as they can....well.

 

I see both sides, but I don't think Gardo was talking about slide height type action.

 

I've found over the years, that almost every guitar I do some work on and then setup aftrewards sounds better than when the owner dropped it off, and thats just dealing with some very basic rules of setup, and I don't subscribe to just getting the strings above where they don't buzz school

[Ratae Corieltauvorum]

I do not believe Gardo is talking about high/slide type action, nor harder to play.

[gardo]

A few years back, I raised the action of one of my Starts, as Robin Trower, suggested in a video. The guitars tonal potential was off the scale, plus it became my ultimate warm up guitar. Try playing playing some Malmsteen warp speed licks .... Telling ya.

To get back on topic, the strings vibrate more and the notes just make single coil thump better.

The Trower video convinced me to give it a try. I understand SRV was also a fan of raising the action.

[WRGKMC]

I was playing my semihollow Tele build this weekend. Its an oddball with a tele neck and TOM bridge and tail piece which makes height adjustments really easy, just a twist of the thumb screw raises the height and the radius remains constant.

 

I was getting the last few hours out of some old strings I had on. I don't normally let strings get that old because they do tend to buzz in various places and intonation goes down the toilet.

 

In any case I raised my high strings up to about 5/64ths (normally keep them at 4/64 and normal specs are closer to 3/64)

I adjusted the low strings to 7/64, (I normally have them at 6/64 and normal specs is around 4/64)

 

My ability to bend string playing lead went Way up and the need to add pressure to hold strings down to bend went down.

The drawback is barre chords do get harder to play and to keep in consistent tune especially high on the neck. I was mainly recording lead parts so that wasn't a big issue.

 

Later that night I figured the strings were beat and I had some fret wear I needed to buff out. In the process I rockered the frets and removed a few high spots that were bugging me.

 

After putting the new strings on, the higher string height was immediately noticeable so I set it back to my 4~6/64 settings and it played the same as beat strings with the added height.

 

Two things here, for a bender like myself, strings too low make the instrument more difficult to play. Second when strings are beat they get worn and bent at the frets making them appear to be lower. Wrapped strings can get notches worn into them and more buzzing can occur because of this.

 

Another note when it comes to new guitars, especially budget Fenders. They may level the frets but fail to put a good crown back on them afterwards. Last Squier I bought had frets with flat tops which buzzed badly. Raising the action wouldn't have removed the buzz. I simply rounded the fret tops and polished them to a mirror shine and the problem went away.

[billybilly]

Another note when it comes to new guitars, especially budget Fenders. They may level the frets but fail to put a good crown back on them afterwards. Last Squier I bought had frets with flat tops which buzzed badly. Raising the action wouldn't have removed the buzz. I simply rounded the fret tops and polished them to a mirror shine and the problem went away.

How would crowning, given the height is the same, remove the buzz?

[DeepEnd]

. . . Wrapped strings can get notches worn into them and more buzzing can occur because of this. . . .

I presume you mean the string will sit slightly lower when fretted because of the notches and cause buzz?

[DeepEnd]

. . . A side issue, though, is If you hit a string hard with a lot of clearance the note will initially be sharp and fall slightly over the duration because when the string is curved in the outer limit of the wave it is under more tension. You can see this effect on a tuner if you pluck hard then pluck gently.

Yeah, I didn't realize that until I bought my first electronic tuner. At first, I didn't know why the pitch shifted as the note decayed. Instead, I thought there was something wrong with my tuner.

[Freeman Keller]

I was playing my semihollow Tele build this weekend. Its an oddball with a tele neck and TOM bridge and tail piece which makes height adjustments really easy, just a twist of the thumb screw raises the height and the radius remains constant.

 

I realize you made it so this might be a moot point but normally a tele neck is 9-1/2 inch radius and most ToM's are 12. The radius might remain constant but it would be wrong.

 

[Freeman Keller]

Bingo

[Freeman Keller]

According to Dan Erlewine, SRV's guitar was 5/64 (high E) and 7/64 (low). Strings were 0.013 to 0.056, tuned to Eb. Thats a little higher than most electrics, a lot closer to a typical acoustic.

[Phil O'Keefe]

 

I realize you made it so this might be a moot point but normally a tele neck is 9-1/2 inch radius and most ToM's are 12. The radius might remain constant but it would be wrong.

 

Actually, many Telecasters have 7.25" neck radius, so a ToM designed for a 12" radius is going to be even more out of whack.

 

I like my guitar action to be higher than a lot of people prefer, but not silly-high. On Fenders, I generally ask for "stock from the Fender factory" action height - which IIRC is 4/64" at the 12th fret for the high E string, and 5/64" at the same place on the low E; the specs for the newer, flatter profile necks (9.5" and 12" radius) is 4/64" on both E strings.

 

My friend Dennis (who is a Custom Shop Master Builder) can do amazing setups - the best post-factory setups I've ever seen (and I've had guitars set up by Carruthers and Soest, among others) and he can get the strings amazingly low without any buzzing or fretting out... and whenever he sets up one of my guitars and hands it to me and asks what I think, I usually have to ask him to nudge it a bit higher, and he laughs... But if it's too low, I have problems with bending strings, and I absolutely hate the sound of buzzing strings or notes fretting out.

[DeepEnd]

. . . On Fenders' date=' I generally ask for "stock from the Fender factory" action height - which IIRC is 4/64" at the 12th fret for the high E string, and 5/64" at the same place on the low E; the specs for the newer, flatter profile necks (9.5" and 12" radius) is 4/64" on both E strings. . . .[/quote']

"Fender specs," at least for a Strat, call for 3/64-4/64" on the treble side and 4/64-5/64" on the bass side, depending on neck radius, but measured at the 17th fret: http://www2.fender.com/support/articles/stratocaster-setup-guide/. As an acoustic guy, I find measuring at the 17th fret vs. the 12th counter-intuitive but I figure the folks at Fender know what they're talking about. Anyway, I use that as a starting point and usually stick with it for guitars I set up for friends but I prefer higher action on my own guitar.