How to set your Guitar’s Action (string height)

Here’s a video of me playing an Epiphone Les Paul Junior:

I set the guitar up myself- which included re-stringing the guitar, and then setting the intonation and action (the height of the strings above the fretboard). Now, re-stringing the guitar was the easy part (and if you have trouble putting new strings on a guitar, you should refer to this post on how to re-string)- the more interesting (or should that be “difficult”?) part of the process was setting the string height for the guitar.

Should the action be set high or low? How high is “high”? How low is “low”?! Alot of this comes down to personal preference. I usually prefer my guitars to have an action of about 4mm at the 12th fret- and obviously, no fret buzz! Many people would consider that to be quite high. Modern guitar “shredders”, on the other hand, would prefer a much lower action (I’ve heard quoted 2mm at the 12 fret). A few millimetres difference might not sound like much, but it feels so much different when you’re actually playing!

Lower action can make the guitar easier (or faster) to play, but a higher action can make string-bending easier (and some say it even adds to the tone). Of course, the guitar feels “tougher” to play with a higher action, but- equally- a lower action can sometimes feel a bit soft- OK, now what am I talking about?!

Well, I normally play with quite alot of “aggression” (i.e. I’m quite tough on the strings, strum quite hard etc,)- it’s not because I feel I need to be so rough with the guitar, but it’s just how I prefer to play (especially when I’m getting into it). With a higher action, the strings feel stiffer (play an electric with a low action, and then try to play an acoustic to see what I mean), and I just prefer this feel when I play.

How do you Play?

If you’re ever in the position of needing to set the action on your guitar, you’ll need to take note of your own preference. Do you like the strings high or low? Pick up your guitar now and try it. Play all along your guitar’s neck. If you start to find it difficult to play then you’ve probably got the action too high, but if you’re hearing the strings of the guitar vibrating against the frets it’s probably too low.

I’ve already written about setting up your guitar, so what was the process I used to set the action?

Setting the Action

When I first put the strings on the guitar, the bridge was flat to the body of the guitar (i.e. the action was as low as it could go) and this obviously caused fretbuzz. What I did was: I loosened the strings and raised the bridge a bit. Loosening the strings is a good idea because as you raise the bridge you’re actually pulling the strings tighter (depending, of course, on the style of guitar bridge- but it’s best to loosen them, just to be sure). How far should you move the bridge to start off with? Well, it doesn’t matter- the point is that it’s a start.

On the guitar in the video it has a Gibson style bridge, which has two large screws holding the bridge to the body. To increase the height, you just need to loosen the screw, and to decrease the height you just tighten the screw (thus screwing the bridge further into the body).

Getting Rid of Fretbuzz

Next, you should tune the low E string back up and play the note on the first fret. Does it buzz? If it does, then the string is too low- raise the bridge (but make sure you loosen the string again first) and start again. If it doesn’t buzz, then try another fret. Good frets to try this with are the 1st, 5th, 12th and 17th- but there’s nothing wrong with playing them all!

Once you’re in a position where no frets are buzzing, try the action at the 12th fret. How does it feel to play? If it feels too high then it needs to go down- lower the bridge (but not too low watch out for fretbuzz!). If it’s too low then you just need to raise it (no fear of creating buzz this time!).

Ideally, you’re looking for an action that feels good to play, but isn’t so low that the strings buzz against the frets. Some guitars (and I’m thinking of the Gibson style here) only allow you to adjust the bridge on the side of the low E, and on the other side (near the high E); other guitars (e.g. the Fender style) allow you to change the action for each string individually with each string running over a separate little, adjustable “saddle”. With either type of bridge, you’re going to need to check for fretbuzz on every string!

If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.
Rob.

June 16, 2010 at 11:00 pm | Equipment and Maintenance, How to | 4 comments

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