How low is your acoustic action?

fastonebaz · October 2021

On your acoustic, how low is your action...

What's the height of your 6th string at the 12th fret?

I'm curious.

(Everyone's going to say, what shape, nylon or steel, what scale etc. I'm not worried about that, I'm just curious what your height is. )

Mines currently 2mm but I think this is too high and am gradually sanding my bridge saddle down.

sev112 · October 2021

About 5mm, but I pretty much plays well, the neck relief is good, no buzzes and plays well.

Wouldnt mind it a bit lower, but it’s a Taylor and I’m not going to faff around with anything other than the truss road a tiny bit, unless I can find a local Taylor tech who knows what they are doing with neck shims etc.

fastonebaz · October 2021

5mm sounds huge.

BloodEagle · October 2021

5mm sounds nuts. My Martin is about 2.5 mm

rze99 · October 2021

2mm on the bass side here a bit lower on the high E. Taylor and Guild. Any lower and bad stuff happens. It's just right. For me.

Tannin · October 2021

My lot are 2mm, 2.1mm, 2.1mm, 2.15mm, 2mm, 2.35mm, and 2.3mm.

All of those are pretty much perfectly adjusted except for the Mineur which is new to me and a fraction higher than I like at 2.35mm, though still very playable. I'll take it to my guitar chap for tweaking after I have decided what strings it is going to usually wear. (As it happens, he is the chap who made it in the first place.) The last one, at 2.3mm, is not too high - it's a very long scale baritone and it wouldn't want to be any lower.

The second one, a Guild CO-2, is also quite new to me. It was slightly high at 2.25mm and 0.3mm relief when I bought it: I took that down to 2.1 by tweaking the truss rod. The other day I decided to try it with Darco brass medium strings. Prompted by this thread, I re-measured just now to discover that they have taken it up to a very slightly too high 2.3mm. They sound good but are a little hard to play and just a tiny fraction strangled. I'm not going to adjust the action as, once these wear out, I'll go to a bluegrass set, which ought to be exactly right for it.

Anyway, 2mm or very slightly over is what I like. And I like full-length scales - aside from the 730mm baritone, all mine are 650mm.

Another thing. Measuring at the 12th fret is the standard, sure. But why do I measure there? I dislike the sound of short strings on an acoustic and hardly ever play up at the dusty end of the fretboard, so action at (say) the 5th fret would be more relevant to me. But measuring at the 12th seems to work.

fastonebaz · October 2021

0.3mm relief sounds tiny. Did you mean 1.3mm?

Tannin · October 2021

No Baz, that's 0.3mm relief measured in what I understand is the usual way: fret the string at the 12th fret and measure the distance between the string and the 5th fret with a feeler gauge. 0.3mm indicates just the tiniest bit of an upward curve in the neck - which is usually what you want to see.

As a sanity check just now, I measured the relief on my Angel (which plays beautifully) at 0.2mm. The others are all around about that mark. Action on the Angel (measured at the 12th fret) is 2.1mm (bass) and 1.75mm (treble)

EDIT: but there may be various other "usual ways" I'm not familiar with.

Mellish · October 2021

My HD28 is set up with 0.05" relief at the 7th, 18 thou at the nut and 2.48mm at the 12th (low E). I use 12-54 gauge strings. It plays easily and I can dig in without fret buzz

DavidR · October 2021

It will be interesting to see answers.

For me - Martin OM28 2.25. Yamaha FG5 also 2.25. Just measured them. Both with Martin Monel strings 12 gauge (MM12).

I know you don't particularly want to know other details fastonebaz but, for me, gauge too is fundamental to action. If I go over 12's I find the action just too hard when I've tried to do it over the years. It must be the strength of my fingers or the hardness of the fingertip calluses or something but I just find it uncomfortable - even on longer scale length instruments. Less than 12 and the action's fine but my tone goes thin.

Everybody is going to be different and that's one of the fascinating things about acoustic playing but probably everyone should be aware of the parameters involved as they evolve as a player, be able to measure (or judge) them, and then know which parameters can be altered and how. As regards action, I have taught myself to be able to adjust saddle height, neck relief and nut slot height on a new instrument and I think that's better than having a luthier or techy do it because I have the ability to measure, adjust and reassess it all myself, as opposed to just giving rough guidance as to what you want and hoping it comes back "better".

That can be a long journey, for me years. A forum like FB and threads like this can speed up the process!

DavidR · October 2021

fastonebaz said:

On your acoustic, how low is your action...

What's the height of your 6th string at the 12th fret?

I'm curious.

(Everyone's going to say, what shape, nylon or steel, what scale etc. I'm not worried about that, I'm just curious what your height is. )

Mines currently 2mm but I think this is too high and am gradually sanding my bridge saddle down.

Teaching granny how to suck eggs probably fastonebaz but do it slow. In my mind, less than 2.0 is risking string buzz especially on the 2nd and 3rd frets. My experience is limited though and entirely trial and error. We need some sales/players type members who are doing this all the time and testing out the results. If your playing style is always light you might be less at risk of buzzing. Playing with 3 fingerpicks and having occasionally loud dynamics though I would find less than 2.0 a bit risky.

But as I have said above, everyone's different and many will contradict me.

Lewy · October 2021

Usually 3/32” at the 12th for the Low E and 2/32” for the High E with .005” relief. My Martin is a tiny bit higher.

Lewy · October 2021

fastonebaz said:

0.3mm relief sounds tiny. Did you mean 1.3mm?

Standard relief according to Martin specs is somewhere between 5 and 8 thousandths of an inch (5 thou = 0.13mm, 8 thou = 0.2mm)

If your relief is at a level where you're thinking 1.3mm is more normal than 0.3mm you might want to start there before you do anything with your saddle!

Lewy · October 2021

Tannin said:

No Baz, that's 0.3mm relief measured in what I understand is the usual way: fret the string at the 12th fret and measure the distance between the string and the 5th fret with a feeler gauge.

Fret the where the neck meets the body AND the 1st fret (use a capo on 1st fret so you're not using up all your hands!)

drofluf · October 2021

Mine’s about 2.25mm

Tannin · October 2021

Thanks Lewy.

fastonebaz · October 2021

For relief test I capo 1st fret, then hold the 15th fret with finger and measure at 7th fret. Usually is around 0.07"

fastonebaz · October 2021

It's interesting to see most people are around 2mm or just over.

Lewy · October 2021

fastonebaz said:

For relief test I capo 1st fret, then hold the 15th fret with finger and measure at 7th fret. Usually is around 0.07"

So that’s around x10 the standard Martin spec. Relief makes such a massive difference to the feel of an acoustic because whilst we usually talk about action at the 12th, it’s often the mid-neck action that makes you feel like a guitar is playing nicely or stiffly.

fastonebaz · October 2021

Oops typo, I meant 0.007"

its far too early currently.

bluechargeboy · October 2021

Just shy of 3mm on my main gigging dreadnought. I would try lower but I don't want to ruin the magic!

sev112 · October 2021

sev112 said:

About 5mm, but I pretty much plays well, the neck relief is good, no buzzes and plays well.

Wouldnt mind it a bit lower, but it’s a Taylor and I’m not going to faff around with anything other than the truss road a tiny bit, unless I can find a local Taylor tech who knows what they are doing with neck shims etc.

Edit
a re-measure in daylight and not red wine affected, suggests between 2 and 3 !

Kilgore · October 2021

Around 2mm. I've never accurately measured it. I just make adjustments until it feels right.

Mellish · October 2021

bluechargeboy said:

Just shy of 3mm on my main gigging dreadnought. I would try lower but I don't want to ruin the magic!

That's what starts to happen. You can go lower than 3/32 but you start to lose the fire

bluechargeboy · October 2021

3/32 x 25.4 = 2.4mm. Got it

Mellish · October 2021

With 13s you can get away with lower but I prefer 12s.13s seem to choke my HD28, though I'm rambling off-topic!

LastMantra · October 2021

You guys must have a dainty touch!

Mellish · October 2021

Extreme age in my case

. Anything above 2.5mm at the 12th and my chord changes slow

artiebear · October 2021

On my guitars strung with 12's I generally aim for 3/32" to 2/23" at the 12th fret with as little relief as possible ( typically settling at .003" / .004" at the 7th fret ( it tends to vary from guitar to guitar, but always as close to straight as feels right ) There are, however, exceptions specific to particular guitars. My Sobell plays best with a slightly higher 12th fret action and very little relief ( I use .13's on that one ), same with a Collings CJ35, which is also strung with 13's.

Regarding relief, I was setting up a Gibson J-185 this week, which plays at it's best with almost zero discernible relief ( it is there but need a backlight to see it ) while the 12th fret action is the usual 3/32" to 2/32"

Tannin · October 2021

bluechargeboy said:

3/32 x 25.4 = 2.4mm. Got it

I just don't bother anymore. Other than string gauges (which in practice are more arbitrary guide numbers than actual measurements), anything written in those crazy fractions of an inch just causes me to ignore the whole post. Yes, I know how to do the sums but I have better things to do with my life.

ICBM · October 2021

fastonebaz said:

On your acoustic, how low is your action...

What's the height of your 6th string at the 12th fret?

I'm curious.

(Everyone's going to say, what shape, nylon or steel, what scale etc. I'm not worried about that, I'm just curious what your height is. )

Mines currently 2mm but I think this is too high and am gradually sanding my bridge saddle down.

2mm for the *6th* (low, or thick E string) is at the lower limit of what I'd consider for an acoustic, probably slightly too low. Any lower than that and you will definitely get rattle. I would normally go for about 2.5mm.

It's more normal to judge action using the high (thin) E string, since that makes a bigger difference to the feel. For that, I would say about 1.5mm is the absolute lower limit, a bit higher is better, but over 2mm is probably the point where it gets too high and you don't get any benefit going higher. I normally go for about 1.7-1.8mm if all else is equal, although I don't usually measure it, other than as a reference. How the guitar plays and feels is more important.

(Apologies for spelling out which E is which, some people do number them the other way which could be confusing.)

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How low is your acoustic action?

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