#All rigs of rods mods how to#

Most guitarists like their action to be as low as possible, which will be what we’re focusing on in this article. Therefore, to make the guitar play and sound the best it possibly can, you’ll need to have leveled frets, and have a healthy balance between natural fret buzz and low action. This is often in conjunction with uneven frets, and is a problem that plagues almost all lower end guitars. There’s a certain point at which the buzz is so strong it overpowers the vibration of the string, causing dead notes. This doesn’t mean that it won’t be audible at all if the buzz is too strong. Luckily, if the fret buzz is mild enough, it won’t translate through the pickups, meaning you’ll only hear it acoustically, but not amplified. This usually occurs in the higher frets, where the length of the string is very short as there’s less space for the string to vibrate. Unless your strings are so high off the fretboard that you can stick another guitar in between, you’ll always have fret buzz in some way. Unfortunately, this is something that plagues all electric guitars one way or another. This is what we call ‘ fret-buzz’ (not to be confused with string noise from playing). Getting the action too low means the strings are too close to the frets, which means a string can touch the frets too much while vibrating, causing a nasty buzzing sound.

And when there’s more space for the string to move, the more rotations it gets, which increases note clarity and sustain. A string doesn’t just vibrate, it rotates along its own axis between the bridge and the nut (kind of like the way a skip rope works). Which seems strange at first, but if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Generally, higher action will sound better. Lower action makes it easier to play faster passages, and makes things like hammer-ons and slides easier to play.

High action means that your fingers have to push the string down a greater distance for it to touch the fret and create a note. There are conceivably exceptions to this, but we’re going to keep it relatively simple. A larger distance between the frets and the strings generally means a guitar is harder to play. This is part of what makes a guitar play the way it does. What Tools Do I Need to Change my Guitar’s Action?Īction on a guitar is basically the distance between the strings and the frets on the fretboard.Why Did my Action Change Without me Changing Anything?.

#All rigs of rods mods how to#

How to Adjust the Action on an Electric Guitar.

How to Adjust the Action on an Acoustic Guitar.

How to Adjust the Action on a Classical Guitar.

Contrary to popular belief, you can get low action on an acoustic guitar.

Action goes hand in hand with intonation, so you need to find balance between both.

High action on an electric is 1.65mm on the high E and for an acoustic is 2.3mm on the high E.

Low action on an electric is 1.00mm on the high E and for an acoustic is 1.5mm on the high E.

Guitar action can be adjusted at the bridge, the nut or with the truss rod.

We’re going to walk you through everything you need to know about action in this article, including how to diagnose and fix any action issues you might have, but if you’re in a hurry, here’s some of the key takeaways from this article

If the string is naturally very close to the fretboard (low action), it is much easier to fret a note, but at the same time, you can induce fret buzz and misplayed notes more easily. When you have a high action, which means you have a lot of distance, you have to apply more pressure with your fingers to get a note to ring clearly. Guitar action means the distance between the strings and the fretboard.