String Height

[LITTLEWING]

There's another aspect to all this string height thing. What type and what gauge of strings are on our basses? I recently chucked a set of Fender 9050ML flats on my P bass and have managed to drop the height down more than rounds and it's so much more incredibly playable. It's turning into my favourite bass at the moment.

[FinnDave]

I'm really surprised that people want the action in their basses as low as possible - I appreciate it means less effort to fret the strings (or whatever the equivalent word is for fretless basses) but I find repeated small movements of my fingers more tiring than working them a bit more. I use an action of at least 1/8" (3.2mm) at the 12th fret for my basses and play long sets without trouble. I've tried lower, but my fretting hand gets cramped after an hour or two of playing. 

I'm not criticising people who prefer a lower action, I simply don't understand it, as it doesn't match up with my experience at all.

[4000]

2 hours ago, FinnDave said:

I'm really surprised that people want the action in their basses as low as possible - I appreciate it means less effort to fret the strings (or whatever the equivalent word is for fretless basses) but I find repeated small movements of my fingers more tiring than working them a bit more. I use an action of at least 1/8" (3.2mm) at the 12th fret for my basses and play long sets without trouble. I've tried lower, but my fretting hand gets cramped after an hour or two of playing. 

I'm not criticising people who prefer a lower action, I simply don't understand it, as it doesn't match up with my experience at all.

That’s the exact opposite of my experience. Everyone’s body is different. 😉

[FinnDave]

3 hours ago, 4000 said:

That’s the exact opposite of my experience. Everyone’s body is different. 😉

It's interesting how different we all are - certainly there's no 'one size fits all' when it comes to basses (not even Precisions!).

[bloke_zero]

On 03/04/2020 at 18:45, Woodwind said:

I have a tiny, tiny amount of relief in the neck (it varies depending on the weather more on this bass than others I've owned) and then about 1.4mm on the E to 1mm on the G at the 12th octave (and this seems to be pretty much the same height up to the end of the fingerboard).

I have the nut cut very low so the strings are almost touching the fingerboard at the nut.

Thanks - I've tried as close to that as I can get - the bridge is big and high, so putting that as low as possible still gives me 3mm at the 12th on E! The nut is cut low so everything I do it a bit of a compromise.  The bridge has a piezo pickup in it so non-trivial to swap out, though I'm starting to think in that direction.

Frustrating that my fretted bass has a lower action than the fretless!

[dave_bass5]

1 hour ago, bloke_zero said:

Thanks - I've tried as close to that as I can get - the bridge is big and high, so putting that as low as possible still gives me 3mm at the 12th on E! The nut is cut low so everything I do it a bit of a compromise.  The bridge has a piezo pickup in it so non-trivial to swap out, though I'm starting to think in that direction.

Frustrating that my fretted bass has a lower action than the fretless!

Can you shim the neck? If it’s not a through neck then put a piece of business card in the neck pocket  and that will allow you to raise the saddles and still have a low action. I actual do this to all my basses (not done the Yamahas yet though). It also gives a more consistent action along the whole neck. 

[bloke_zero]

8 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

Can you shim the neck? If it’s not a through neck then put a piece of business card in the neck pocket  and that will allow you to raise the saddles and still have a low action. I actual do this to all my basses (not done the Yamahas yet though). It also gives a more consistent action along the whole neck. 

Thanks Dave - I'll give that a try.  The lowest I can get the action is 11m at the bridge (measuring from wood to bottom of string), my other bass is more like 8.5mm - I know the neck, depth of neck pocket etc will all make a difference but it gives an indication of how big the thing is!

[dave_bass5]

14 minutes ago, bloke_zero said:

Thanks Dave - I'll give that a try.  The lowest I can get the action is 11m at the bridge (measuring from wood to bottom of string), my other bass is more like 8.5mm - I know the neck, depth of neck pocket etc will all make a difference but it gives an indication of how big the thing is!

Wow, that is a chunky bridge. That photo makes it look like your kitchen work surface has a bass bridge attached lol. 

[Woodwind]

2 hours ago, bloke_zero said:

Thanks - I've tried as close to that as I can get - the bridge is big and high, so putting that as low as possible still gives me 3mm at the 12th on E! The nut is cut low so everything I do it a bit of a compromise.  The bridge has a piezo pickup in it so non-trivial to swap out, though I'm starting to think in that direction.

Frustrating that my fretted bass has a lower action than the fretless!

Definitely Shim the neck (assuming it's a bolt on).

I had to do that on my bass to get the action low (even now the G saddle is bottomed out).

If anything the tone improved once the neck was shimmed so don't worry about that

Edited April 6, 2020 by Woodwind

[bloke_zero]

1 hour ago, dave_bass5 said:

Wow, that is a chunky bridge. That photo makes it look like your kitchen work surface has a bass bridge attached lol. 

Mate - formica is a very under rated tone wood in my book!

[bloke_zero]

On 06/04/2020 at 11:52, dave_bass5 said:

Can you shim the neck?

I finally got round to doing this - got a bit of maple veneer and cut it to size, gave it a bit of an slope, punched out holes for the neck bolts and it's really made the difference - feels solid, and stupidly low action without buzz.  Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

[Baloney Balderdash]

About 2mm at 12th fret for the low E string side (slightly more for 5 or 6 strings with low B), and slightly less for the highest/thinnest string side of the fretboard, seems to be a pretty standard medium/lower medium kind of string action.

I have a feeling that that's about the consensus for what might be the most common kind of action for people to prefer on a bass, though the official Fender guide states slightly higher numbers (even if not really by that much though), and also depending on fretboard radius, the lower radius the higher action is recommended.

When that is said though I have actually found that surprisingly small differences in string action height can have a surprisingly big impact on how it will feel to play, relatively speaking. 

Other than that, beside of course personal preferences for what feels and sounds right to each individual bass player, frets that haven't been perfectly leveled will require higher action to avoid fret buzz, as well as the higher tension the strings are under the lower they will go too, since the tension to some extend will limit the maximum vibration curve of the strings. 

My personal preferred setting actually happens to match pretty closely to what the general consensus of preferred string action seems to be too, I seem to prefer almost spot on, perhaps ever so slightly bellow, 2mm at 12th fret, low E string side (which is actually an F# at the moment, but that's really irrelevant for the point of this), and with my main bass that's actually pretty much the same measurement as for 17th fret, as the corresponding angle  between the strings and the fretboard happens to be pretty flat on that one, for the thinnest/highest string on the opposite side the number is about 1,3mm or so (I think that might actually be a bit bigger difference between thick/low and thin/high string side than usually recommended, but I didn't actually measure anything when I set up the bass, just went by what felt right for me).

I actually prefer pretty much the same kind of action for electrical guitar as well.

Seems to give me just a slight hint of resistance, since I'd like to be able to actually feel when I fret a note, while still making it a pretty effortless action, and just exactly high enough for relatively heavy emphasized picking not too easily resulting in choking the picked string(s) against the frets, while still allowing for a certain degree of controlled fret clank. 

So, yes, a bit above 2mm low/thick string side at 12th fret is usually what the standard guides says, and then about 4mm or so lower for the high string side, I have a feeling though that most people actually go for slightly lower than those standard recommendations, but in the end it is really a very personal thing for the individual player, and even individual bass, some people would actually prefer what most would perceive as insanely way too high action, and other's what most would consider as insanely way too low action, without for that matter anyone really being wrong. 

Lower is not always better, what feels and sounds right to you, fits your way of playing and your particular bass the best, is the only thing that is truly just the absolutely perfect right string action.

I guess one universal thing that will almost always be true though regarding string action is that ideally the action of the individual strings should follow a curve corresponding to the radius of the fretboard, but tilting ever so slightly towards the side of the fretboard with the highest/thinnest string. 

 

Edit!!!:

Forgot to mention that neck relief will influence on how low action you can get as well, more relief will allow for the strings to vibrate more freely, usually allowing lower action without fret buzz, though more relief will also cause the action of the strings around the middle of the neck to feel higher.

My main actually got a really minimal amount of relief, and as said pretty spot on 2mm action, perhaps even ever so slightly bellow, at 12th fret, low E string side, and about 1,3 mm high G string side, without causing any issues for me whatsoever, I could probably even go slightly lower, if that was what I truly wanted and how I liked it (though that doesn't actually happen to be the case), and that is a super cheap budget bass, an Ibanez GSRM20 Mikro Bass to be exact, and, believe it or not, but the fretwork on my 5 string Mikro is even more perfect, not to say actually absolutely dead on perfect, you would think they had pleked it at the factory, though I am quite sure that didn't happen, as I bought it from new and wasn't charged any extra money, if I wanted I could get insane low action on that one without any issues, guess they were just exceptionally lucky with the fret applying procedure on that neck.

I guess I have just been lucky with those two basses though, quality control is usually all over (or rather more or less completely absent) with these kind of cheap budget basses, so you might get a truly great bass, that by cheer luck and accident got the best pieces of wood out of the random pile they happened to have in stock at the factory at that particular point and for that particular production, assembled by a guy who just happened to get particular lucky with doing a great job on this particular one, and for some reason payed particular extra attention to just that bass, and the fret applying procedure just by a strike of luck first shot turning out perfect, and miraculously staying that way too, or you might get the exact opposite, a piece of pure utter useless crap, which actually did happen to me as well, when I took the risk buying me a second brand new 4 string Mikro, one of the GSRM20B ones, with black hardware and in the Weathered Black finish, from Ebay, cause while it did in fact look awesome it was right out unplayable, there were buzz all over the neck, no matter how I adjusted it, unless I would have found it reasonable to live with a 10mm  high string action at 12th fret or something totally ridiculous like that, makes me think it might not only had been that they had been terribly unlucky with applying the frets on that neck, but that there by all likelihood was something horribly wrong with the neck and/or fretboard it self in the first place, that one should definitely never had left the factory, and wouldn't if proper quality control had actually been a real thing with these basses.

Ironically the factory setup on the two really great Mikro Basses I got was absolutely horrendously bad and ultimately completely useless, whereas had the horribly malfunctioning hack job one actually worked as it was supposed to the setup done on it from factory would actually had been surprisingly decent, which, when you begin to think the implications of that properly though, makes it not only ironic but also really really odd and hard to make any sense of whatsoever, though I guess it does support my point about the randomness of the production of these basses. 

Anyway, to round off this whole off topic escapade and derailing line of stray thoughts I somehow got myself intertwined with, actually most of the time when buying cheap budget instrument in fact you will most likely get a quite decent one, but once in a really rare while you can get exceptionally lucky and hit a truly great one, that could be turned into a genuinely awesome instrument with an upgrade of the pickups and perhaps some of the electronics and hardware as well, or you could get really unlucky and get a truly pure utter crap one that isn't even really capable of actually playing, and with no way of fixing it that will be worth even half the effort, just being an absolute ultimate waste of wood, time and money. 

Edited June 19, 2020 by Baloney Balderdash

[michele]

On 10/01/2015 at 19:11, Twincam said:

I had my guitars set up all different ways.

Here is my "own personal" view on strings heights and neck relief measurements. Now people do measure height in different places i measure at the 17th fret (from top of fret to bottom of string). Also it depends on strings. In general the higher tension the string the lower you can go.

4.0mm string height measured at the 17th fret and neck relief .20 measured at the 7th (with capo at 1st fret and finger on the last. Is the max string height and relief most people could get away with. This setup will be very clean and give a nice deep tone. This comes with trade off's such as ease and speed of playing. There are folks out there how can easy play with a setup like this and even higher, but in general this really is the most you want.

3.0mm and .15 relief. is a good trade off between a standard action height and a high one.

2.4mm and .10 to .15 relief. This is in line with fender specs. Pretty much any bass will play ok with this setup. Some players with a robust attack might still get fretbuzz when not intended. This i my default go to setup, from there i will adjust a bass to match what i want or if im doing a set up for another i will fine tune it for them.

2.0mm and up to .15 relief Will just be really starting to test how good the frets are. Most people with a controlled attack can play this set up.

under 2.0mm-1.5mm and .10 and under relief needs good fret work. Someone who can control there attack.

Under 1.5 mm i feel tone starts to degrade (my view only). 0 to .7 relief is for players with a very light touch. There are some great players who can get big sounds out of low relief im not one of them.

My personal set up is using rounds 3.0mm and .10 relief. Flatwounds 2.0mm and .10 relief.

Carol Kaye used a high setup and used to recommend 4mm from fret board to string. So just over 3mm or depending on your fret height.

James Jamerson supposedly had huge string clearance too. You can really hear this in his tone, it's not all about the ancient flatwounds he was playing. He had a very strong plucking technique and needed that room to let the string really vibrate.

Will Lee. He had a big string height at 4mm and still complained of fret buzz. Apprently his action has came down over the years.

In the other direction. There are also plenty of players who make low action work for them, and there is tone in fret buzz and clank too. Chris Squire, John Entwhistle etc etc.

There are no rules just what feels right for you.

Gold info here.

I respectfully disagree with people who do setups exclusively by feel. Simply because we (and especially experienced players) easily adapt.

Numbers are good.

[bloke_zero]

2 hours ago, michele said:

Numbers are good.

I agree - re-reading that has made me re-think.  Science works if you have the patience and sensible metrics.

[dave_bass5]

1 hour ago, bloke_zero said:

I agree - re-reading that has made me re-think.  Science works if you have the patience and sensible metrics.

And where would you get the metrics from? How would you know 2mm/2.5mm etc is ideal without feeling it?

[bloke_zero]

19 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

And where would you get the metrics from? How would you know 2mm/2.5mm etc is ideal without feeling it?

The dilemma of science - what can you quantify? I guess I'm thinking that I've gone to low and sacrificing tone for playability.  You could record in between height adjustments and blind test. I agree there must be an element of feel - art and science.

[Baloney Balderdash]

26 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

And where would you get the metrics from? How would you know 2mm/2.5mm etc is ideal without feeling it?

 

4 minutes ago, bloke_zero said:

The dilemma of science - what can you quantify? I guess I'm thinking that I've gone to low and sacrificing tone for playability.  You could record in between height adjustments and blind test. I agree there must be an element of feel - art and science.

I guess it's really a matter of having some measurements as guidelines, rather then set in stone rules, and then make fine adjustments according to feeling and verifying with your own ears.

Edited June 25, 2020 by Baloney Balderdash

[michele]

1 hour ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

 

I guess it's really a matter of having some measurements as guidelines, rather then set in stone rules, and then make fine adjustments according to feeling and verifying with your own ears.

This.

It takes time and experience. You start from guidelines measurements and then move a little, esperiment for a white, liste etc... hopefully with time you'll discover your "magic numbers" and you'll stick to them. I do.

Edited June 25, 2020 by michele

[Stub Mandrel]

I think some folks are confounding some principles here.

Different frets and neck widths, fingerboard radiuses, string gauges etc. are going to have an effect on 'feel' too.

If you get the right set up for one bass, transferring the numbers across to another bass might work for this reason:

7 hours ago, michele said:

Simply because we (and especially experienced players) easily adapt.

You wouldn't set the sights on a bow or a rifle the same as on another one and expect them to be spot on.

[EMG456]

I've been setting up my own basses since the mid 70s and have never taken a measurement once. I know what works for me and how far I can push each instrument probably better than the luthier or company that manufactured the instrument.

That said, I can certainly see the value of a standard spec for manufacturing purposes or for setting up an instrument for someone else but again in my experience, no matter who's doing it, the best setups for a player will always involve a bit of "slightly up on the D string" trial and error refinement.

Of course, because I like the ability to induce a bit of clank and buzz as required in my playing, it's crucial to me that the action is as near as possible to how I like it. If I favoured a high, very clean action, the setup by numbers would be more likely to succeed.

[weitheiml]

On 02/04/2020 at 21:38, 4000 said:

 

Personally I struggle to understand how anyone can play most of the basses I play in shops, I can barely even fret most of them. 
 

You might look for a shop with a better luthier then...

[Guest]

On 19/06/2020 at 13:52, Baloney Balderdash said:

About 2mm at 12th fret for the low E string side (slightly more for 5 or 6 strings with low B), and slightly less for the highest/thinnest string side of the fretboard, seems to be a pretty standard medium/lower medium kind of string action.

I have a feeling that that's about the consensus for what might be the most common kind of action for people to prefer on a bass, though the official Fender guide states slightly higher numbers (even if not really by that much though), and also depending on fretboard radius, the lower radius the higher action is recommended.

When that is said though I have actually found that surprisingly small differences in string action height can have a surprisingly big impact on how it will feel to play, relatively speaking. 

Other than that, beside of course personal preferences for what feels and sounds right to each individual bass player, frets that haven't been perfectly leveled will require higher action to avoid fret buzz, as well as the higher tension the strings are under the lower they will go too, since the tension to some extend will limit the maximum vibration curve of the strings. 

My personal preferred setting actually happens to match pretty closely to what the general consensus of preferred string action seems to be too, I seem to prefer almost spot on, perhaps ever so slightly bellow, 2mm at 12th fret, low E string side (which is actually an F# at the moment, but that's really irrelevant for the point of this), and with my main bass that's actually pretty much the same measurement as for 17th fret, as the corresponding angle  between the strings and the fretboard happens to be pretty flat on that one, for the thinnest/highest string on the opposite side the number is about 1,3mm or so (I think that might actually be a bit bigger difference between thick/low and thin/high string side than usually recommended, but I didn't actually measure anything when I set up the bass, just went by what felt right for me).

I actually prefer pretty much the same kind of action for electrical guitar as well.

Seems to give me just a slight hint of resistance, since I'd like to be able to actually feel when I fret a note, while still making it a pretty effortless action, and just exactly high enough for relatively heavy emphasized picking not too easily resulting in choking the picked string(s) against the frets, while still allowing for a certain degree of controlled fret clank. 

So, yes, a bit above 2mm low/thick string side at 12th fret is usually what the standard guides says, and then about 4mm or so lower for the high string side, I have a feeling though that most people actually go for slightly lower than those standard recommendations, but in the end it is really a very personal thing for the individual player, and even individual bass, some people would actually prefer what most would perceive as insanely way too high action, and other's what most would consider as insanely way too low action, without for that matter anyone really being wrong. 

Lower is not always better, what feels and sounds right to you, fits your way of playing and your particular bass the best, is the only thing that is truly just the absolutely perfect right string action.

I guess one universal thing that will almost always be true though regarding string action is that ideally the action of the individual strings should follow a curve corresponding to the radius of the fretboard, but tilting ever so slightly towards the side of the fretboard with the highest/thinnest string. 

 

Edit!!!:

Forgot to mention that neck relief will influence on how low action you can get as well, more relief will allow for the strings to vibrate more freely, usually allowing lower action without fret buzz, though more relief will also cause the action of the strings around the middle of the neck to feel higher.

My main actually got a really minimal amount of relief, and as said pretty spot on 2mm action, perhaps even ever so slightly bellow, at 12th fret, low E string side, and about 1,3 mm high G string side, without causing any issues for me whatsoever, I could probably even go slightly lower, if that was what I truly wanted and how I liked it (though that doesn't actually happen to be the case), and that is a super cheap budget bass, an Ibanez GSRM20 Mikro Bass to be exact, and, believe it or not, but the fretwork on my 5 string Mikro is even more perfect, not to say actually absolutely dead on perfect, you would think they had pleked it at the factory, though I am quite sure that didn't happen, as I bought it from new and wasn't charged any extra money, if I wanted I could get insane low action on that one without any issues, guess they were just exceptionally lucky with the fret applying procedure on that neck.

I guess I have just been lucky with those two basses though, quality control is usually all over (or rather more or less completely absent) with these kind of cheap budget basses, so you might get a truly great bass, that by cheer luck and accident got the best pieces of wood out of the random pile they happened to have in stock at the factory at that particular point and for that particular production, assembled by a guy who just happened to get particular lucky with doing a great job on this particular one, and for some reason payed particular extra attention to just that bass, and the fret applying procedure just by a strike of luck first shot turning out perfect, and miraculously staying that way too, or you might get the exact opposite, a piece of pure utter useless crap, which actually did happen to me as well, when I took the risk buying me a second brand new 4 string Mikro, one of the GSRM20B ones, with black hardware and in the Weathered Black finish, from Ebay, cause while it did in fact look awesome it was right out unplayable, there were buzz all over the neck, no matter how I adjusted it, unless I would have found it reasonable to live with a 10mm  high string action at 12th fret or something totally ridiculous like that, makes me think it might not only had been that they had been terribly unlucky with applying the frets on that neck, but that there by all likelihood was something horribly wrong with the neck and/or fretboard it self in the first place, that one should definitely never had left the factory, and wouldn't if proper quality control had actually been a real thing with these basses.

Ironically the factory setup on the two really great Mikro Basses I got was absolutely horrendously bad and ultimately completely useless, whereas had the horribly malfunctioning hack job one actually worked as it was supposed to the setup done on it from factory would actually had been surprisingly decent, which, when you begin to think the implications of that properly though, makes it not only ironic but also really really odd and hard to make any sense of whatsoever, though I guess it does support my point about the randomness of the production of these basses. 

Anyway, to round off this whole off topic escapade and derailing line of stray thoughts I somehow got myself intertwined with, actually most of the time when buying cheap budget instrument in fact you will most likely get a quite decent one, but once in a really rare while you can get exceptionally lucky and hit a truly great one, that could be turned into a genuinely awesome instrument with an upgrade of the pickups and perhaps some of the electronics and hardware as well, or you could get really unlucky and get a truly pure utter crap one that isn't even really capable of actually playing, and with no way of fixing it that will be worth even half the effort, just being an absolute ultimate waste of wood, time and money. 

Seeing as this thread was recently resurrected I’ll add some thoughts. I really liked this post as there was a lot good information here. It got me curious about my setups. I use feeler gauges and start with Fender specs as a starting point. Ibanez specs for the 5-strings. Apparently I end up just below 2mm at the 12th fret for string height. I never measured that before, just going by feel there. It is consistent on all my basses. Relief, depending  on the bass, as measured at the 7th fret and using a capo on the first fret and pressing down on the 21st fret is set at either .25mm or .30 mm. That seems to depend on string type and neck specifications. 
 

I’ll just add another vote for using numbers to dial it in. After that, definitely use feel to tweak it. I use to do it all by feel but I found measuring helped me quickly identify issues and resolve them. 
 

 

[4000]

On 13/10/2021 at 13:43, weitheiml said:

You might look for a shop with a better luthier then...

It’s called the Bass Gallery. 😉😂

[Stub Mandrel]

Just measured two basses at ~1.7 to 1.8 mm at twelfth fret..

 

Then a short scale at nearly 3mm - yet it feels really easy to play because of the low string tension and I don't think I would want to drop it any more.

 

My fretless is nearer to 4mm, perhaps it could come down a smidge.

 

[Marty Forrer]

On my Manne Design Malibu 5 I set mine as per Sadowsky's setup. 12thou neck relief, B = 7/64" at 12th fret with capo on 1st, G = 1/16", graduated B to G. Perfect.