Action: 1.25 on low E and 1.0 on high E, too much to ask?

fcs101 said:
Sorry, I misunderstood you.

Yes, the truss rod does allow for changes in the neck due to temp/humidity. However, the neck is flexible to allow for personal preference in the first place. Classical guitars don't even have a truss rod. You absolutely can design a neck that will not warp or bend, it's been a bit but I think there are some carbon fiber designs out there.
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It's not for personal preference it is so whin the thing is actually built you can fine tune it to be correct .
 
fcs101 said:
Sorry, I misunderstood you.
You absolutely can design a neck that will not warp or bend, it's been a bit but I think there are some carbon fiber designs out there.
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I was referring to necks made of wood when I said, "You cannot make a long, slender piece of wood never move, even if you built it from laminates."
I suppose you could make one out of steel, but I didn't see the context of this thread being about synthetics, since it wasn't mentioned prior.

Plus, since an adjustable truss rod allows one a mechanical means to counter the force of the strings, you'd never be able to change string gauges, or tuning, w/o one, and the neck would have to be built with just the right amount of curve, so that when the strings were installed, it would have the designed amount of relief. Way too many variable to consider not having one.
 
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TSJMajesty said:
I was referring to necks made of wood when I said, "You cannot make a long, slender piece of wood never move, even if you built it from laminates."
I suppose you could make one out of steel, but I didn't see the context of this thread being about synthetics, since it wasn't mentioned prior.

Plus, since an adjustable truss rod allows one a mechanical means to counter the force of the strings, you'd never be able to change string gauges, or tuning, w/o one, and the neck would have to be built with just the right amount of curve, so that when the strings were installed, it would have the designed amount of relief. Way too many variable to consider not having one.
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You can make wood necks that don't move. I don't care what string gauges you use, you can put a nonadjustable rod in there and it won't make a difference.
 
fcs101 said:
You can make wood necks that don't move. I don't care what string gauges you use, you can put a nonadjustable rod in there and it won't make a difference.
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You did say non-adjustable truss rod. For some reason I also misunderstood what you were saying, thinking you meant not having one.
 
In my experience, this largely depends on string tension, radius, what you're willing to put up with, how hard you pick or bend, fretwork.

More tension and I can usually get away with lower action. Rounder radius and I'll have to be cognisant of its limits for string bends when the action is lowered. On my PRS, I have the action at about 1mm (or slightly more actually).

You can hear some "zing" when bending, unplugged. And I can make it fret out if I pick too hard when bending too if the action is low enough. My charvel is more forgiving due to flatter radius.

And of course the question of fretwork and relief are also relevant. A nearly perfectly straight neck set at 1mm on 12th fret will have lower action on some lower frets compared to a neck with more relief. You may not want that if you're trying to achieve super low action up high. Or you may not -- because any relief curve will have to ramp upwards eventually, which can cause issues.

It's not the simplest topic imo because of all the variables at play.

For me 1mm or near that is usually possible after some fretwork. ATM I tend to go higher.
 
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Cave Man said:
Is setting the action at the 12th fret to 1.25 on low E and 1.0 on high E too low or too much to ask?

What do you think? I'm new to all this.
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And btw. If you have a specific guitar and you want to get the action as low, you could offer some details, because help may be on offer. It's not the simplest topic imo.. because of all the variables involved.. including one's playing style. But there's certainly things you can do set-up or fretwork wise.
 
Andy Eagle said:
Too much is seriously detrimental to the next fret clearance at the upper end of the neck at the same measured action. The ONLY time a lot of relief works is if you have a sledge hammer right hand and don't play above the 7th fret but this is effectively the same as high action and the right (almost nothing ) relief. This would at least work if you did play the upper register .
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For sure a relief curve has to ramp up somewhere -- doesn't only go down, unfortunately. And to make matters worse, at least in my experience, the way truss rods affect guitar necks can be rather unpredictable too.
 
Andy Eagle said:
It's not for personal preference it is so whin the thing is actually built you can fine tune it to be correct .
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But won't "correct" be partly based on what one's preference is? At least in the context of a guitar player?

Some people even seem to want a substantial relief curve due to the feel of it. Extra buzz for them as the relief ramps up may be fine.

I can understand this being "incorrect" in a context of what a specific builder may want to achieve with a guitar. Or even some assumptions, standards a given PLEK operator may make.

If a player wants "no buzz on higher frets", with their current playing style and string tension, but also wants 2mm relief at 9th fret, I can understand how this is unreasonable.

But there's a lot that does seem to be "preference" more so -- at the very least not "incorrect" in the above manner. At least some truss rod adjustments seem to fall into this category, to me.
 
Cave Man said:
Is setting the action at the 12th fret to 1.25 on low E and 1.0 on high E too low or too much to ask?

What do you think? I'm new to all this.
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For me that is too low, I have a pretty heavy picking hand. I do my own fret work so I can get the action pretty low, but anything under under 1.5mm doesn’t feel right to me. I set my high e to 1.5mm and my low E to 2.0mm and go form there.
 
Andy Eagle said:
This is rubbish. Have you ever looked at Plek data? No I would guess or you wouldn't come up with all this.
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It's not me coming up with it. What does Plek data have to do with your personal preference? I wonder how they set up guitars before we had Plek machines?

There's no one way to set up a guitar. If there were, we'd have stabilized necks all set to perfection.

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Joe Bfstplk said:
I haven't measured with rulers and feeler gauges in years.

I set the truss rod for almost straight - roughly 0.003" to 0.005" relief when fretting at 1st and whichever fret is where the neck joins the body and measuring at the middle. When you tap the string in the middle, there is a particular sound the string makes that I've learned to recognize which indicates the right amount of relief. Too much relief, and it sounds clear. The 'Goldilocks zone' is when it starts to sound slightly flammed from hitting the other frets when the tap starts the shock wave down the string.

Once that is working, I lower the saddles until it just starts to buzz, then go back up a quarter turn....
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So, basically, get the neck nearly straight to go low with the action?
 
Cave Man said:
So, basically, get the neck nearly straight to go low with the action?
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Yes, that will get you the lowest action. Just be advised that you can expect string buzz. Some people are fine with that; it's personal taste/tolerance. Just be careful not to get back bow; no one would advocate for that.
 
Thanks! I have a Jackson Pro Series King V I am going to try to set the action as low as possible as an experiment, and it may be good for certain things - there is this one riff. I have other guitars that are not set up low.
 
The thing for me is, I always go higher than the lowest action the guitar will allow. At some point when the action is low enough the tone changes negatively for me, and my fretting fingers no longer run in to the next string, muting it as they normally would, but they start to want inadvertently to fret the adjacent string too. I can’t remember my measurements, but I think around 1/8” at the 24th fret with nothing fretted is where I end up. I’m not an expert on anything and I just go by feel, so take this with a grain of salt.
 
Kevinwhite338 said:
For me that is too low, I have a pretty heavy picking hand. I do my own fret work so I can get the action pretty low, but anything under under 1.5mm doesn’t feel right to me. I set my high e to 1.5mm and my low E to 2.0mm and go form there.
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Thats exactly what measurements I use. 1.5mm and 2.0mm. Any lower and its hard to bend the plain strings for me and I start getting too much buzz on the lower strings.
 
State of Epicicity said:
The thing for me is, I always go higher than the lowest action the guitar will allow. At some point when the action is low enough the tone changes negatively for me, and my fretting fingers no longer run in to the next string, muting it as they normally would, but they start to want inadvertently to fret the adjacent string too. I can’t remember my measurements, but I think around 1/8” at the 24th fret with nothing fretted is where I end up. I’m not an expert on anything and I just go by feel, so take this with a grain of salt.
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You need to share something outlandish so I can stop agreeing with you dammit!! ;)

I go by feel and tone, too. But apparently my measurements are way off!!!!! :)

Good luck, Caveman! If it feels right, then it is right.
 
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