How low is your acoustic action?

sev112

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

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

Mellish

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

3/32 x 25.4 = 2.4mm. Got it  

Mellish

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

You guys must have a dainty touch! 

Mellish

Extreme age in my case . Anything above 2.5mm at the 12th and my chord changes slow  

artiebear

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

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

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.)

Open_G

I've never measured it, but on a multi functional acoustic, I feel you need a bit of height to cover all your bases- slide, finger picking, chord bashing, moveable harmonics (I know what I mean- just don't know what they are called). The only thing that suffers from a bit of a higher action for me would be barring.

earwighoney

I think my main acoustic a Stanford OM (Furch designed MIC version of their Om32) is 1.5mm for high E, and 2.5mm for Low E, and I'm finding it too low, and I play fingerstyle with a light touch, but I use lightish strings and tune to Open C.

I'm not sure how much relief it has, I can't measure it but I find my Stanford needs a bit more relief than my other guitars.

I'm in the midst of adjusting a new saddle, trying to adjust it to match the radius of my fretboard.

BillDL

I have acoustics that I would prefer to have slightly lower action, but on some guitars you just won't get enough breakover angle from where the string meets the bridge at the pin and the saddle crown if you take too much off the saddle height.  You can add some extra angle by carefully lengthening the short slots between the bridge pin holes and the saddle so that the string goes down below the surface of the bridge before it meets the bridge pin, but it's very easy to screw this up.  I have a cheaper small bodied "Yamaha APX-Styled" electro-acoustic that has a very "electric" feel to it, but sanding down the saddle to get a low action left it with the associated tinny buzziness you get when there is insufficient breakover angle on the saddle even after deepening and lengthening the slots between the pin holes and the saddle.  The last time I restrung it I dug out my Dremel and used a mini sanding drum to grind a flat depression into the bridge a bit beyond the outside pin holes and a short distance back from the saddle.  I re-reamed the pin holes and added new string grooves, and the strings now delve down a bit lower than the height of the rest of the saddle and provide that much needed additional breakover angle.  I have a feeling that I recently saw a commercially available acoustic guitar that uses this same principle of a stepped bridge height, but I can't recall what make it was.

For me the correct nut action is a lot more important than the action at the 12th fret.  It's quite painstaking to gradually deepen the string slots in the nut and keep retuning and testing until you get the best compromise between ease of fretting in the first few frets and lack of fret buzz, but it's well worth it and the guitar will intonate better.  I have one acoustic where the 1st fret action is practically no-existent.  It has what I suppose would be a medium action for an acoustic and the relief is unremarkable, but it plays effotlessly without any buzzing up to just above the body joint, which is as high as I ever need to play anyway.

All my acoustics have very different actions because I use them for different styles of playing.

Lewy

artiebear said:

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"

My Collings D1A currently has, as far as I can tell, a perfectly straight neck by virtue of me recently changing from 13s to 12s and not getting round to tweaking the truss rod. With a 12th fret action dead on 3/32 and 2/32 it has zero buzz. I do wonder how much of people’s varying experience is down to how much you have to hit the guitar to get it to give up the goods. If it’s loud enough with less required twatting, the less relief required.

stratman3142

Mine's about 3.5mm. I've never considered it a problem. But maybe that's why I can't play like Mike Dawes.

artiebear

Lewy said:

artiebear said:

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"

My Collings D1A currently has, as far as I can tell, a perfectly straight neck by virtue of me recently changing from 13s to 12s and not getting round to tweaking the truss rod. With a 12th fret action dead on 3/32 and 2/32 it has zero buzz. I do wonder how much of people’s varying experience is down to how much you have to hit the guitar to get it to give up the goods. If it’s loud enough with less required twatting, the less relief required.

Could be something in that. I have had to learn to lighten up my right hand a bit even when playing finger style. I was finding that I could make some  fellow players guitars rattle and buzz like crazy when my own guitars were set up higher and heavier. Since I've consciously reigned it in, I am really enjoying the low and straight set up approach.

As far as that J185 goes it's so straight it feels like it shouldn't work. After sighting it and checking with a straight edge, I did go out of my way to try to make it buzz. By some miracle, I couldn't get it to do so. Other guitars I play would be hopeless with that set up, especially when drop tuning etc which has a further small but critical effect on neck tension.

Lebarque

You're trying to turn your acoustic into a Jem, aren't you, @fastonebaz ;?

ToneControl

need to know how people are measuring this - it can vary massively with some methods,
those steel or plastic credit-card sized things are the easiest

Given that I like my electrics with a higher action than normal, it's ironic that I like my acoustics with an action lower than usual: if possible, Bass 2.25mm; Treble 1.75mm, otherwise a bit higher

fastonebaz

Lebarque said:

You're trying to turn your acoustic into a Jem, aren't you, @fastonebaz ;?

Yup.  Actually I sold my Ibanez euphoria EP9 Vai acoustic which did play like an electric the action was so smooth and low.  Got a Faith now.

Mellish

I'm measuring with capo on 1st, hold down at body join, feeler gauge at 7th. At 12th,stacked feelers