Saddle modification to lower string height.

Haych

I've been reunited with my old Takamine EG330SC.

It's a cheapish Chinese made guitar which isn't too bad apart from one thing - it's a bit painful to play due to the action being rather high.  I think this was the reason I gave it away in the first place.

Normally I would remove the saddle and shave some material off to lower the action, but the saddle and pickup seem to be some kind of integrated unit.  Looking at replacement parts it might be that the saddle will come away from the pickup but then they seem to be shaped to have specific pressure points, one for each string, where it sits on the pickup, so still don't know if shaving any material off the saddle is a feasible idea?

Is it possible to somehow lower the string height without ballsing up the pickup system?

Thanks in advance.

ICBM

Check for shims under the pickup first.

If you haven't done already, check the relief and nut height too - these make a surprisingly big difference to the action and feel if they're too high.

Haych

ICBM said:

Check for shims under the pickup first.

If you haven't done already, check the relief and nut height too - these make a surprisingly big difference to the action and feel if they're too high.

There are no shims under the pickup and the neck is virtually straight with just a tiny bit of relief between 1st and 14th frets.

The nut doesn't seem bad at all to me, there is possibly room for the tiniest bit of improvement on the bass side but it wouldn't be much at all.

ICBM

Haych said:

There are no shims under the pickup and the neck is virtually straight with just a tiny bit of relief between 1st and 14th frets.

The nut doesn't seem bad at all to me, there is possibly room for the tiniest bit of improvement on the bass side but it wouldn't be much at all.

Damn.

In that case you'll have to lower the saddle from the top, and reprofile it. The good news is that then means you can also improve the intonation by cutting two angles into the top, front to back under the E-B strings and the G-D-A-E strings.

Like this...

Haych

Thanks, I was hoping there would be another way I hadn't thought of.

I'll see if I can separate the saddle from the pickup next time I change strings - it might be more straight forward than it looks.

The existing saddle is already compensated quite well, which is why I was hoping not to have to ruin it's profile.  Ho-hum.