How to determine string height?

[Guitar55]

My son has a cheap Behringer strat-type guitar that has pretty high action. I know how to set intonation, but how do I determine what the height should be for each string?

[The Geoff]

Assuming the neck is reasonably straight with only a modicum of relief, I lower the bridge(s) until the string buzzes with normal playing then gradually lift it until it sounds OK. I know this isn't Dan Erlewine stuff, but providing the neck's sound, it pretty much works.

 

G.

[BillWelcome Home Studios]

Is it two pennies at the 12th fret?

 

Bill

[Caevan O’Shite]

How detailed and perfectionist do you want to get?

[Guitar55]

Not very, just enought to make the guitar more playable for a 10 year old.

 

It looks like Mr. O'SHite is having a bumping party tonight. :-)

[Caevan O’Shite]

Yeah, enough o' that crap!

 

Anyways, get yourself a flexible slim steel 6" rule, like machinists favor for keping near to hand in a pocket, etc. One that can be easily read, even its finer fractional measurements.

 

With the neck fairly straight (maybe even arrow-straight, Strats in particular seem to work best that way) via its truss-rod adjustment for relief- do a search here for "relief truss rod capo" if you need info on that- figure out by trial-and-error what action height feels right without too much fret-buzz on, say, the 3rd and 4th strings.

 

Measure the space between the top of a fret and the bottom of those two strings at a given fret- the last one, for instance- and then simply use the 6" rule to measure in the other strings. They'll fairly conform to the radius of the fretboard this way. Tune-up, check and adjust intonation, check the action again, trial-and-error and repeat as necessary untill you're satisfied. It's O.K. if you wind up with the action growing slightly higher as you progress from the 1st/"High E" to the 6th/"Low E" for less fret-buzz on the basses, too.

 

Hope this is at least a little helpful; there's more than one way, but this seemed the most straightforward.

[Bluesape]

Thanks, Cav - that was magically delicious!!

[Caevan O’Shite]

[Mass Effect]

Do you have to have a strobe tuner to get intonation right or is one like the Boss TU12/15 good enough?

[Bluesape]

Ya don't need a tuner at all. A pitch fork or even the dial tone will give you an A440 reference. If ya know how to tune with harmonics from there, you're all set.

[Mass Effect]

Cool I'm switching to 10's on my strat but was going to wait to get the $ together for a tuner first.

 

BTW, and OT, I don't know why they ship guitars with 9's on 'em. It's almost impossible not to press down too hard and bend notes sharp. It's kinda like a scalloped fretboard with med.jumbo frets and those rubber band gauge strings.

[Bluesape]

Hey, Hey - some of us like those skinny strings. I use 8's myself, and have learned to use a lighter touch, and my strings stay in tune.

[Mass Effect]

Yeah I guess it depends on the person playing the instrument.I'm a bit ham fisted with it.

[Bluesape]

It's the nicotene!

[Mass Effect]

and those four packs of Red Bull... http://www.websmileys.com/sm/crazy/1062.gif

[Bluesape]