I'm going to talk a little about how to lower the action on an acoustic guitar or bass. That involves modifying the saddle — actually cutting or sanding to make it shorter. Before I get to the no-going-back nuts and bolts, therefore, I'm going to give you a tip for how to assess how much adjustment your saddle will need.
I should mention that setting action is just one part of a good setup and you'll get the best bang for your setup-buck if you perform all of the steps. On an acoustic instrument, I definitely recommend getting your neck relief (and nut height if possible) in good shape
You begin adjusting action. I talk about all off this stuff (and the right order for the steps) in my Sketchy Setups guides — Sketchy Setups #7 is dedicated just to acoustic guitars. If you're interested in getting the best from your setup, that's a great place to start.
Question] Is My Acoustic Guitar's Action Too High?
Why geometry? you ask. Because we can use some pretty simple geometry to take the guesswork out of adjusting an acoustic guitar saddle. Anything that can make that less daunting is helpful.
If you picture your guitar from the side, you can imagine that the string-line, the saddle, and a line along the top of the frets form three sides of a right-angle triangle. Of course there are tiny deviations in this model but they're all negligible and we don't need to worry about them.
To quote, Pythagoras, Right-angle triangles ROCK! Well, he may not have said that but, for the purposes of making acoustic guitar setup more straightforward, they really do rock.
How To Fix High Action On An Acoustic Guitar
The middle point between nut and saddle is the 12th fret. If we measure our string action at the 12th fret, we can know ('cos geometry) that it's half the height of the upright part of the triangle, i.e. the saddle.
Let's say you measure your action at the 12th fret and decide that it's too high. You'd rather it was 2/64 (about .8mm) lower. To get that 12th fret height lower by 2/64, we need to have the saddle lowered by twice that amount.
Because the saddle height is twice the 12th fret height, removing 4/64 (1.6mm) from it will cause the 12th fret action to lower by 2/64 (.8mm).
Guitar Action Guide: Measure And Adjust String Height
In the real world, you'll want to measure the action on the top and bottom string to determine what changes you want. This will often be a different figure for each. That's ok. Note the desired change for the top string and for the bottom string, double each, and mark the appropriate measurement on the corresponding end of the saddle.
This will all become more clear when I get to the saddle adjustments. We'll look at that next. For now, you've got geometry homework to digest. 😉I have a relatively new Martin dreadnought guitar, and I generally love how it feels and sounds. I don’t get as many chances to pick it up as I might like. After not playing it for a couple of months this spring, I pulled it out of the case and the action felt like it was a mile high. It’s really hard to play, and my left hand is getting a workout just trying. It wasn’t like this the last time I played it. What happened? Is it my fault for neglecting the guitar? How should I fix it?
A: You sound like a lot of guitar owners that I talk to in our shop. You get busy, and end up not playing your beloved guitar for a while, only to find that when you pick it back up, things don’t feel as good. Before you turn yourself in to Guitar Protective Services, let’s think about what may have happened and why.
Raise Your Action: A Plea
I’d like to take a moment to say that I’m not a tech who thinks that super-low action is a desirable state for most guitars. When your action is too low, it may be easier to press the strings down, but lots of tonal nuance, frequency range, and volume can be lost. When it comes to action, lower is not necessarily better. But I digress; back to the problem at hand. You said that all of a sudden, the action feels really high, and it’s difficult to play. Action, or string height, plays a crucial role in how comfortable it is to play your guitar. High action could be due to a lot of different reasons—some of them are easy fixes.
First, your neck may have bowed forward. Changes in temperature and humidity during the spring could have contributed to the wood of your neck pulling forward with string tension. Some measure of this is to be expected during a guitar’s life, and may have happened whether you were there to see it or not. It’s hard to say whether this applies to your guitar, but sometimes the wood used to make a guitar neck hasn’t seasoned long enough, and still has a bit of moving around to do. If your neck has bowed forward for any of these reasons, we’d adjust it with your truss rod. Hopefully that would take care of most of the problem. This could generally be done during a setup, and maybe your tech would also take some height off the saddle.
Next, the neck itself may have pulled forward just a bit. In the case of a newer Martin like yours, the neck is held on to the body with two bolts. This issue will be clear if there is a little gap at the bottom of the heel, but sometimes it is more subtle, and not severe enough to leave a visible gap. There is a plate stuck onto the neck block with your serial number on it, and to fix this problem, we would start by removing it. Under it, we can access the bolts. We simply tighten them all the way down and re-attach the cover plate.
How To Set Electric Guitar String Height Yourself!
It’s also possible that the neck pulled forward a lot. If the block has rotated forward some, and if that has pulled the arch built into the guitar’s back towards being flatter, the neck angle may need to be reset. This is a simpler affair when the neck is held on with bolts than when it is glued on with a dovetail joint. We would unglue the fingerboard extension, unbolt the neck, and re-carve the heel to fit at the correct angle. Once it’s re-attached, it’ll feel and sound better.
One more thing to consider is that your bridge could be pulling up. It’s possible that while your guitar was in its case this spring, the changing temperature and humidity contributed to the glue joint under the bridge failing. If the bridge did become unglued and pulled up off the guitar’s top any amount, your action could get higher.
Lastly, it could be some combination of these things. Only your luthier or guitar tech will be able to tell. Get thee to the repair shop so that you can get back to enjoying your guitar. As always, you can help minimize wood moving around by doing your best to keep your instruments in a stable environment. In a perfect world, we’d have homes that were 70 degrees and 50 percent humidity, year round. Of course, we can only do our best in that regard, but thankfully it’s usually enough to avoid involving GPS!
Diy Adjusting String Action On Acoustic Guitar
’s resident repair expert. Send an email with the subject line “Repair Expert” to Editors.AG@stringletter.com. If AG selects your question for publication, you’ll receive a complimentary copy of AG’s The Acoustic Guitar Owner’s Manual.
Mamie Minch is the co-owner of Brooklyn Lutherie and an active blues player. She is the former head of repair at Retrofret Guitars.Guitar action is important to understand and know how to adjust. If you want your guitar to be as comfortable as possible to play, read through this guide to learn how to properly adjust your guitar’s action.
In this guide, you will learn what guitar action is, why it is important, how to measure it, and how to adjust it for acoustic or electric guitars.
Classical Guitar And Flamenco Guitar Action
Guitar action also plays an important part in your guitar’s intonation. Find out about intonation and how to adjust it in this guide.
Guitar action or guitar action height is the height of the guitar strings over the fretboard. Guitar action plays a big role in how a guitar feels to play.
If the action is too high, the guitar will feel uncomfortable to play. If the action is too low, you will hear string buzzing.
High Action And High Humidity
If your guitar’s action is too high, your fingers need to push the strings down really far before they come into contact with the strings. This can make it awkward to play and slows you down.
Before we look at how to adjust action, let’s look at how to properly measure it and what your action should be set to.
This Ultimate Guide on Truss Rods explains how to check if your truss rod is set properly and how to adjust it for the best results. Read the guide to
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