How low is your acoustic action?

fastonebaz

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

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

5mm sounds huge.  

BloodEagle

5mm sounds nuts. My Martin is about 2.5 mm

rze99

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

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

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

Tannin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mine’s about 2.25mm

Tannin

Thanks Lewy.  

fastonebaz

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

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

Lewy

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

Oops typo, I meant 0.007"   its far too early currently. 

bluechargeboy

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