super low action needed!

[sprokky]

Hi all,

I've been a jazz guitarist for a long while now, and have played the damned thing pretty hard over the years! Downside of this has been that I've got a mild form of R.S.I. from all that practice.

So the thing is I'm looking for an acoustic or electro-acoustic guitar, with a really low action in order to compensate for this deficit.

I came across the Dean Acoustic Tribal Cutaway, which looked promising. Seller says it has an action or about "2 to 3 mm at the 12th fret on the treble side", which sounds amazing!

I also like the look of the Ozark 3515E Electro Resonator, but have no idea whether it's action is anywhere near as low. Does anyone have any ideas about this? An approximate measurement at the 12th fret would make a handy comparison! Thanks for any other comments/suggestions,

sprokky

[sprokky]

In fact any 'resonator guitars' with low actions would be of interest! Cheers!

[robn]

Hi Sprokky,

Action is normally measured from the top of the 12th fret to the underside of the string. Unfortunately, there is a huge difference between an action of 2 mm and an action of 3 mm on the treble side at the 12th fret. A 2 mm action is reasonably low (not ultra low) and 3 mm is really quite high. Quoting 2 to 3 mm is really not very helpful to you.

Most luthiers will be able to adjust any reasonable quality guitar to give you the action you want for your playing style/needs. My advice would be to buy the guitar you want but budget to spend another £50 or so to have it set-up specifically for you.

There is a good chance that an off-the-shelf Ozark 3515E will have quite a high action and 13-56 medium gauge strings. Resonators can be great for jazz (particularly brass-bodied models) but you would need to find one with a good neck set angle that could have the action lowered whilst still keeping downpressure on the bridge/cone.

Robin

[Deleted]

Today I had a go on the Ozark "Robert Johnson" guitar which is an electro acoustic. The action was very low and my retuning it to open D caused the slide to bounce off the frets.

I couldn't measure the action but it seemed pretty daft to me to set up an RJ guitar which was not suitable for slide playing.

Barry

[SoloBill]

Hi,
Can I ask, is it minimum movement or minimum pressure on the strings you are looking for?

Not relevant (I don't think) to a resonator but have you considered a nylon strung guitar? They might be easier on your fingers.

[smoochimoto]

Sprokky, Michael is correct you can have the action adjusted on any instrument you like. RE the Ozark, the one I have has a very slender neck width. (the neck is actually narrower and less deep than on my Taylor acoustic guitar. I would imagine with low action this would be very comfortable to play, even with repetitive stress injury.

Regards,
Lucian

[sprokky]

Thanks guys, some really interesting/useful replies so far.

Not expert enough to describe the force needed in Newtons I'm afraid!

Do you know, will most guitar shops provide a service for lowering the action on instruments, or do you need to need to ask a specialist luthier to do this?

Cheers,

sprokky,

[robbie]

hiya sprokky,
welome to the forum, regarding a reso with a low action, I am about to sell my johnson JM-998 geetar its fitted with a quaterman cone and a national biscuit/ bridge it has an extremly low "none" buzz action in fact a joy to play ,it includes the hard moulded carring case.
please drop me a mail if you are interested

cheers
robbie

[Deleted]

Lucian

A low action is great if it works with a slide, but when the slide bounces off the frets you need a higher action and/or heavier strings. I was asked to play it by the chap in the guitar shop...I have no wish to buy it as my cutaway Goodfellow has everything I need to play acoustic rock and folk on one guitar. Too low for slide but that's why I have resos.

Barry

[andys]

Nov 18, 2008 16:16:16 GMT @barryreeves said:

Lucian

A low action is great if it works with a slide, but when the slide bounces off the frets you need a higher action and/or heavier strings.

Some slide players have this as part of their tone. Theres quite a few Ry Cooder tracks where you can hear the slide hitting the frets!

[Deleted]

Andys

Oh all right then!!! It's not my thing but so what?

Cheers

[steverino]

Sprokky, I have one of the inexpensive Rogue Triolian wooden body biscuit resonators set up with a low, easy action. The tension rod is set for minimal neck relief, the nut slots are set for about .013" gap under the first fret and the bridge height is adjusted for about 2mm clearance at the 12th fret (sorry about mixing measurement systems!). It is strung with Martin Silk and Steel .0115" - .047". The combination of the loud resonator response and Strat-like playability makes it a joy to play. I've hardly picked up any other guitars for weeks now.

[Deleted]

Chaps

My last message was wrong...I've just played a slide song in open G on that v v low action Fylde and although very quite there was no problem. Perchance the brass slide made the difference, as my glass slide is heavier. Sounds fine through the Fender Champ on the 'clean' setting. I capoed up to the 2nd fret which may have had some effect too, but thinking about it I doubt it.

Barry

[mikevernon]

Hi Sprokky

Can I ask what kind of guitar you use to play jazz? A semi-acoustic? And what action height do you use on that? It's easy to measure if you haven't tried before. I use playing cards. A stack of 50 of my cards measures 15mm so each card is 0.3mm. The number of cards which will fit between the 12th fret and the underside of the string without deflecting the string gives an easy measurement of the action height. Remember that the lower strings need slightly more height than the upper strings because they vibrate with more amplititude, which is why the action is normally measured on both the top and bottom E strings.

Any half decent guitar should come from the factory with a record of the string clearances. For example my Tanglewood acoustics (TW15NS and TW1000) came with labels showing the following clearances:-
1st string 1st fret 0.5mm 12th fret 2.3mm
6th string 1st fret 0.5mm 12th fret 2.7mm
These seem to be fairly standard factory settings for regular acoustic guitars, but personally I prefer a lower action. Anything higher than this certainly feels horrible to me, even on a guitar set up for slide.

Luckily the action is usually easily adjusted on an acoustic by sanding the underside of the saddle, provided that there's enough depth to allow it. It's easy to do at home. The same operation on a biscuit resonator is equally easy although there's a bit more dismantling involved and the biscuit/saddle needs to be postioned so as not to upset the intonation (again, not difficult).

My Faith Saturn acoustic came with 1.8mm to 2.1mm clearance at the 12th which I still found a bit high, so this morning I removed around 1.2mm from the saddle to give an action height of 1.2mm to 1.5mm (4 to 5 playing cards with my measurement system).
I find this just about ideal, although I wouldn't risk going any lower.

[sprokky]

Thanks for the reply Mike, it's a Korean electro-aoustic (please don't ask me the make!) I think I've pretty much settled for the Dean Tribal as my next investment. To be honest, the reason why I've been asking around here is that I know next to nothing about modern guitars, despite playing well over 10 yrs ! All my knowledge is about music theory, but the Tribal feels and sounds nice.
May well consider a resonator in the future: heard a guy playing a mixture of a classical style and jazz recently, and was well impressed


Hold on I'll try and find the YouTube link ,was kind of interesting:
[youtube]
uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij-CMGqzenA&feature=related[/youtube]

Kind of reminds me of some earlier Segovia recordings, except the 'vibrating sound' from those came more from the recording technology, whereas here it's the sound of the guitar! Sounds great to me, anyway!