Low Action
>Dear Mr. Pfaff,
>
>My name is J. I've been playing guitar for a few years now, but want to learn the bass.
>
>I have no plans on being a great bassist or anything, I just want to play basic stuff and join a rock band.
>
>I guess my question to you is, do you know of a type of bass that has very low string action (so it's not hard to play and fret notes)? I would need a bass that is set up really well. Also, I'm sure you get e-mails from people like me a lot, but could you give someone like me any advice?
>
>Thank you.
>
>J
Dear J,
All electric basses come with a metal truss rod in the neck, which you adjust to give the amount of "bow" you want. This is primarily what determines the string action. You could make any bass have low action. As long as the neck isn't warped and the frets are level, you can have low action. Don't adjust the truss rod more than a quarter-turn at a time. It's a very sensitive adjustment.
Outside of that, my advice is to get a bass and play. Don't overthink it.
Hope this helps,
Andy
andrewpfaff.com
posted by Andrew Pfaff @ 5:40 PM
2 Comments:
The trussrod is NOT a good way to adjust your action. You can actually screw things up pretty badly messing with it. The trussrod is for setting the neck relief (amount of bow in the neck), the height adjustments on the bridge are the primary means of setting the action.
You can usually screw them up as much as you want without doing any damage, It'll just sound bad.
You'll have to reset your intonation when you're done adjusting it. You can move the bridge towards or away from the neck. When you have it in the right position, a 12th fret harmonic will sound the same pitch as a 12th fret pressed down normally.
True, you can mess up your instrument by manipulating the truss rod, but wood is _WAY_ more changeable than metal, so if the action on a bass was fine once and then changed, it is much more likely the wood's fault, so to speak.
I have seen so many basses with a huge amount of neck bow and the bridge saddles adjusted as far down as they go. And they play terribly. It's because the neck has never ever been adjusted.
Most of my basses need a slight neck adjustment at least a couple times a year.
And yes, this may throw intonation off, but it's more likely that adjusting the neck for a proper amount of relief brings an old intonation job CLOSER to its original accuracy.
The one thing I would say is always adjust your neck for proper relief BEFORE adjusting intonation, because it does have an effect.
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