12 fret action on p bass

[Geek99]

@Andyjr1515 is a ski jump something you could sort out ? I don’t recall if you’re local though 

[nilebodgers]

8 hours ago, Geek99 said:

Anyway - both my basses, one with acceptable action and the one in question here, which does not, have first fret clearances of 0.3mm!

That would be buzz city for me. I’ve got 0.5mm - 0.6mm on all my basses.

 

(first fret clearance)

Edited October 18, 2021 by nilebodgers
Clarification

[Andyjr1515]

23 minutes ago, Geek99 said:

@Andyjr1515 is a ski jump something you could sort out ? I don’t recall if you’re local though 

Pretty local - 5 miles N of Derby.  And yes.  I'll pm you tomorrow

[Lo-E]

My string height at the 12th is typically 2.3mm for the E string and lowering very slightly with each smaller string. 
 

I measure my neck relief at the 6th fret with the string gently touching the 1st and 12th frets. I aim for .2mm (actually .008”).

 

These measurements always end up getting adjusted slightly higher or lower, depending upon the bass, the strings and whatever feels most comfortable to me at the time I’m setting the bass up. It’s not very often I can get very much lower than these bogey values without buzzing but sometimes an instrument will be very cooperative and give me a pleasant surprise. 

[Geek99]

7 hours ago, nilebodgers said:

That would be buzz city for me. I’ve got 0.5mm - 0.6mm on all my basses.

That’s at fret 1 - the nut test 

 

[Geek99]

6 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Pretty local - 5 miles N of Derby.  And yes.  I'll pm you tomorrow

No please - just enquiring if you can do it at some point 

 

Thanks 

[Andyjr1515]

1 minute ago, Geek99 said:

No please - just enquiring if you can do it at some point 

 

Thanks 

No probs Yes.  Just drop me a pm if and when

[nilebodgers]

42 minutes ago, Geek99 said:

That’s at fret 1 - the nut test 

 

Yes, isn’t that what you said your 0.3mm was, “first fret clearance”?

[Hellzero]

Check this @Geek99 (even if I'm not a big Fodera fan) and if, after following all these great step by step instructions, it's still buzzing, then it's time to go and see a luthier. Just ask @Andyjr1515

 

https://fodera.com/pages/how-to-set-up-your-fodera

[dmccombe7]

That's a great link. Cheers for that. Lot of little tips in there.

Dave

[Stub Mandrel]

My brother has a tame luthier who does all his setups.

 

I'm conflicted  on one hand I enjoy incrementally tuning my instruments over time, on the other I am tempted by a good setup.

[Reggaebass]

For many years I used shops to set up my basses but always ended up having to tweak them myself after, so I  now do basic setups  myself, anything specialist like fret work, or work to the electrics  I leave to the shop 

[dmccombe7]

I'm much the same. Areas i wont tackle is fret levelling or nut height. I probably could tackle most electrical / electronic stuff but generally dont. 

Dave

[Lo-E]

6 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

My brother has a tame luthier who does all his setups.

I’m a feral luthier myself. 

[Geek99]

8 minutes ago, Lo-E said:

I’m a feral luthier myself. 

And what is your opinion on my predicament? 

[dmccombe7]

2 hours ago, Geek99 said:

And what is your opinion on my predicament? 

Yir goosed 😂

 

Hopefully one of these nice luthier type peoples on BC can help.

 

All the best with it and if you get it sorted it would be good to know what was causing the issue.

Dave

[Lo-E]

18 hours ago, Geek99 said:

And what is your opinion on my predicament? 

Well, I was kidding a bit; tame luthier….  feral luthier….  It was funny in my head, anyway.  Nevertheless, I’m happy to weigh in on your situation. 
 

Truss rods don’t have a whole lot of effect on neck relief past the 12th fret. They affect it a little bit, but it’s negligible. That’s why I measure neck relief between the 1st and 12th frets rather than the first and last; those first 12 frets are where truss rod adjustments really count. Furthermore, if you do have a “ski jump” and you measure relief between the 1st and last, the ski jump can fool you into believing that your neck relief is greater than it really is. 
 

With this in mind, let’s think about your symptoms:  Your buzzing doesn’t occur until after the 12th fret so it’s safe to assume (for now) that your nut height is fine and your neck relief is, at least, okay. That leaves two possibilities: a ski jump or a high fret. 
 

A high fret is best found using fret rockers - short pieces of straightedge that will span three frets and will ‘rock’ on the middle fret if it’s high. If you don’t have anything to use as fret rockers, the less precise method is just to play the instrument and see if the buzzing stops past a certain fret. If it does, that’s the high fret. If you have a high fret and you’re able to identify it, you then need to determine if it was simply never dressed correctly or if it is raising up out of the fret slot. Once that’s determined, you can either reseat the fret or file and redress it. 
 

A ski jump is fairly easy to spot with a straightedge. Because the truss rod has little effect upon the neck past the 12th fret you can just lay a straightedge between the 12th and last fret and see where you stand. A healthy board should be pretty flat regardless of how the truss rod is adjusted. If there’s a ski jump you’ll see it immediately. 
 

Addressing a ski jump depends upon several different factors. If a bass has a lot of meat on the frets and the ski jump is very slight, I will first try just leveling some of the height off of the last 5 frets. It’s the least invasive fix and it risks nothing to try since any other fix will sacrifice the last 5 frets anyway.  Sometimes there’s enough material on those frets to enable this simple fix to be sufficient for years, if not forever. 
 

If the ski jump is too big to “dress out” of the frets, the last several frets will need to be removed, the fingerboard re-leveled, the fret slots deepened and the high frets replaced and dressed. In particularly bad cases, the entire fingerboard might need to be defretted, leveled and refretted but that would be a pretty extreme case and would indicate other, more serious neck issues at play. 
 

Once the issue, either a high fret or ski jump, is addressed you’ll need to go back and re-check your setup top-to-bottom and make sure everything is still where you want it. In most cases, you’ll be able to improve it. 
 

Hopefully this will help you diagnose your issue and give you an idea of what you’re up against. 
 

 

 

Edited October 19, 2021 by Lo-E

[Geek99]

So I got out the nut files and got my first fret clearance down to 0.08 at first - it was 0.3 

 

I set the 8th clearance to 0.3mm with first and last held 

 

I still had some buzz on all frets from 17 up so raised the action slightly and after re-applying the fb radius to strings I ended up with 2.5 mm at the 12 with open strings and no buzz 

 

not as low as I hoped but all this tells me I’ve got a ski ramp starting since it won’t go any lower. Sound reasonable ? 
 

 

I got my stingray clone down to 1.75mm at 12th open but have spotted that 12th   Fret is high as all strings buzz on playing at 11 and none buzz at 12th thanks @Lo-Efor that tip - might able to get around that by raising the action slightly 

 

looks like both will be going to visit andyjr1515 at some point 

Edited October 19, 2021 by Geek99

[Hellzero]

That's really good @Geek99, with your perseverance and all the guidance you received, you now know how to perfectly set up the action and spot the issues.

 

It's always pleasant to learn something and be able to apply it.

 

Also good to pay a visit to @Andyjr1515 as he will definitely fix all your frets issues.

 

And congratulations to @Lo-E who has been able to explain clearly with words what to do, when we all only gave guidance(s) or link(s). That's a tricky thing to achieve the correct way and he did.

Edited October 20, 2021 by Hellzero
Misssing end

[dmccombe7]

Brilliant news but i'm curious why it cant go a bit lower. Is it down to uneven fret height being an issue.

Thanks for this post its been quite interesting as we've all had basses that needed tweaking to some degree.

Dave 

[Reggaebass]

@Geek99 I’m glad you’ve tracked down the problem, the good thing is at least it’s fixable, I don’t think it will be an expensive job to rectify, maybe levelling/sorting a few frets will work 🙂

[Geek99]

It’s a skill I need to gain - youtube time I think 

[Andyjr1515]

13 hours ago, Geek99 said:

So I got out the nut files and got my first fret clearance down to 0.08 at first - it was 0.3 

 

I set the 8th clearance to 0.3mm with first and last held 

 

I still had some buzz on all frets from 17 up so raised the action slightly and after re-applying the fb radius to strings I ended up with 2.5 mm at the 12 with open strings and no buzz 

 

not as low as I hoped but all this tells me I’ve got a ski ramp starting since it won’t go any lower. Sound reasonable ? 
 

 

I got my stingray clone down to 1.75mm at 12th open but have spotted that 12th   Fret is high as all strings buzz on playing at 11 and none buzz at 12th thanks @Lo-Efor that tip - might able to get around that by raising the action slightly 

 

looks like both will be going to visit andyjr1515 at some point 

 

Sounds to me like you are doing well enough without me  . 

 

For a bass, 1.75mm is actually pretty good.  Is that all strings?  What does it drop to if you hold the string down at the 1st fret?  For initial set up, with a capo at the 1st fret, I usually start off at around 2.7mm for bottom E and 2.4 for top G at the 17th fret.  That has to be pretty similar. 

 

To get much lower than that, then you are likely to need some careful fret levelling.  That said, there's a real quick, cheap and dirty way of sorting the occasional high fret or high spot (it involves an old credit card to use as a rocker and an emery board nail file from Boots or Sainsbury's, etc to sort out the high spot) and also a fairly quick, moderate cost and only lightly soiled way of sorting the upper frets/ski-slope out too (which involves a fine/coarse diamond sharpening stone).   No good for 6-string electric string benders, but usually absolutely fine, functionally, for a bass. 

 

 

[Geek99]

19 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

 

Sounds to me like you are doing well enough without me  . 

 

For a bass, 1.75mm is actually pretty good.  Is that all strings?  What does it drop to if you hold the string down at the 1st fret?  For initial set up, with a capo at the 1st fret, I usually start off at around 2.7mm for bottom E and 2.4 for top G at the 17th fret.  That has to be pretty similar. 

 

To get much lower than that, then you are likely to need some careful fret levelling.  That said, there's a real quick, cheap and dirty way of sorting the occasional high fret or high spot (it involves an old credit card to use as a rocker and an emery board nail file from Boots or Sainsbury's, etc to sort out the high spot) and also a fairly quick, moderate cost and only lightly soiled way of sorting the upper frets/ski-slope out too (which involves a fine/coarse diamond sharpening stone).   No good for 6-string electric string benders, but usually absolutely fine, functionally, for a bass. 

 

 

Andy - the 1.75 is on a different bass, which has a high 12th fret. 13 and up are fine 

 

I’ve got 2.5mm on the p bass still and it won’t go lower without upper fret buzz 

 

fret 1 gap on both is now 0.08mm

Edited October 20, 2021 by Geek99

[Andyjr1515]

1 minute ago, Geek99 said:

Andy - the 1.75 is on a different bass, which has a high 12th fret. 13 and up are fine 

 

I’ve got 2.5mm on the p bass still and it won’t go lower with upper fret buzz 

 

fret 1 gap on both is 0.08mm

 

Ah - OK.  That'll teach me to speed-read 

 

Do you want the quick-and-dirty fixes?