Adjusting the action (help!)

[Alicia Willis]

Hey guys ! So my husband recent adjusted the action on my guitar….he did it to the settings he prefers to play and now I feel like I’m having difficulty picking and strumming anything. It seems pretty high. Is there a certain height you guys prefer ? I am a beginner and he’s trying to help me but I feel like the adjustments he made to my guitar are actually making it more difficult for me to play. Any input or advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Ed Seith]

Action is a matter of personal preference, but typically the ideal action is as low as possible without causing any buzz. If you’re playing slide, you may want to raise it, and some people want it high just because they want to watch the world burn
If you’re a beginner and he’s more experienced, it may make sense to try to get used to it, as it may benefit you in the long run. On the other hand, if he’s prone to “mansplaining” and thinking his way is the best way for everything… Well, then you might want to watch some youtube videos and learn how to adjust it yourself back to the level you prefer.
Good luck!

 

[Alicia Willis]

Haha thanks Ed ! My hubs is definitely more experienced ! He adjusted the action on his schecter and love it so much he decided to do my fender and I’m not loving it lol. I feel the strings are incredibly too high now though when I play his guitar it’s perfectly fine for me. I think I may need him to change it back lol even though it was a pin in the ass to do the first time around lol.

 

[Ed Seith]

Your Fender might also need a truss rod adjustment. Strung and tuned, the neck should have a VERY slight forward bow. If there’s not quite enough bow, the bridge or saddles would need to be raised a lot to allow the notes to ring out, creating unnaturally high action. You should be able to put it on a desk or bench, fret the first and last fret of each string, pluck it and still hear a note ring (not plugged in). If you can’t, the truss rod needs loosening. Never adjust more than a 1/4 turn a day.

 

[Alicia Willis]

Thanks ! For the input. He did in fact adjust the truss rod and everything seems well tone wise so perhaps it’s just me lol. i had ALOT of buzz before but none after. Before his adjustments I had to tune it every ten minutes it seemed like, now it stays in tune longer so im guessing the adjustments helps and imnksir a lost cause lmao.

 

[idssdi]

Depending on the guitar I’mean playing I kinda have my action as low as tof where it does not cause string buzz.

 

[Jak Angelescu]

Ugh when I played on Syn’s guitar at a show, his action was RIDICULOUS! I don’t know if the neck got all wonky from so many people playing it and through traveling, but I couldn’t play for crap on his setup, so I know how you feel! Sometimes it’s ideal to have a higher action because for example, on my ESP, the action came naturally lower than I’m use to, and when I bend the high E string, it’s difficult to avoiding accidentally catching the B string while I’m at it. The way I adjusted my Schecter (I put 11’s on that beast and it bowed the neck pretty badly to where it took me FOREVER to “set it straight”), was that I adjusted it until there was no string contact with the fret bars when I put my fingers down on the 3rd and 12th fret, and the strings were measurably close to the fret bars still (I still don’t know what those damn things are called!) If you have small hands or weaker hands, playing with high action is a nightmare. Simply ask your husband to adjust it to YOUR standards, as it’s not his guitar, nor his hands

 

[idssdi]

Did Syn have low or high action?