How do you like your action?

Action is a word that gets thrown around a lot. It’s almost always used sincerely, but sometimes thrown at you like a curveball because it’s a “guitar term.”

I’ve had beginner and intermediate guitarists’ eyes grow when asking them how they like their action. Some are new to the question or maybe haven’t quite figured out what they like. Maybe they never took the time to find out either.  I’ve even had well seasoned guitarists who have owned the same guitar longer than I’ve been alive bashfully admit that they weren’t quite certain as to what I meant by the term. They’ve heard it before, even used it themselves. But what does it really mean?

Fret not!

The simplest explanation is this: action is the height of the strings over the frets, or, for fretless instruments, the fingerboard.

But over the years I’ve heard it in general use and very specific uses describing the way a guitar plays. Aside from describing the height of the strings over the frets, it’s been used to describe more specific areas like:

• Their height at “the nut.” The “action at the nut” is determine by how deep the strings slots in the nut are cut in relation to the 1st fret. Low and mid-tier guitars off the factory line are generally left with high action at the nut for a quality control technician to finish up after the fretwork is properly assessed and finished, though this doesn’t happen for the bulk of them. High action at the nut attributes to severe sharpness on the first handful of frets which can be nauseating on open chords.

• “Action on the neck.” Guaranteed to raise eyebrows. The client was simply referring to the relief (forward bow) in his neck being too much for their playing.

• It has also be used to refer to string tension: how hard one must press down on the string to meet the frets. I have a preference for heavier gauge strings on a few of my guitars and a friend of mine doesn’t like the “action” on one because the strings are thicker and take a little more to depress.

• I had a client describe a pickups height being too close to the strings (in fact the pickup was making contact with strings) as “action was low over the pickups.” An unusual way of putting it, but I’ve progress ed in reading peoples interpretation of what action means: The pickups are too high.

High, low, or normal action is how we differentiate our setup and it helps us define our taste in playability, keeping us comfortable behind and above the neck. With so many elements of a guitar’s playability being described by a single word, it can be a very broad term to say to a guitar tech or luthier and will indefinitely be met with further probing on what “action” is referring to at this moment.

There are several factors that contribute to our guitar’s “action” and they are worked out during a guitar’s setup.

The strings need enough clearance above the fingerboard- or frets, to vibrate freely in their elliptical motion without making any contact. 

A string vibrates between the nut and the saddle, with the greatest travel occurring around the 12th fret.

If the action is too low in any area, meaning the strings are too close to the frets, it could impede the guitar’s playability by causing unwanted buzzing.

Strings that are too high might be painful to press against the frets or just slow you down. Every note might play too sharp if the intonation hasn’t been adjusted- if there’s room!

Having your guitar setup is the process of finding this balance that goes hand-in-hand with your playing style. This is how you like your action. Your preferred action may be higher than a factory setup due to your style and comfort. You could be a heavy strummer, slap bassist or down-tuning 2 1/2 steps to B and chainsawing on a set of 13’s. All generally require higher action.

But what kind of action do you like? Well, What’s high to you? What’s low to you? Let’s establish a base to differentiate from.

At this point I believe that it’s very imperative to emphasize that your playing technique and style is very critical in determining what action you like, or more so, what action is required for you and your guitar to play as one.

Factory Specs: A Litmus Test

If you have a brand new instrument or just got your guitar back from having a setup with no special requests made, you’re likely to have a guitar setup with the guitar manufacturers “factory specifications.” This means that from the string gauge selected, adjustments made with the truss rod, at the nut and bridge, all the way to the height of the pickups, have been adjusted to a guitar manufacturer’s specifications when it leaves their facility to be sold in stores or to the customer directly.

These specifications can be different from manufacturers and will even be different across a single company’s product line. Many factors determine these factory specs but are a great place to start in determining how you will prefer your guitar to play. Many companies offer their factory specs in pamphlets accompanying their instruments or on their websites.

These factory specs are what I, and many of my friends and acquaintances in the guitar industry will often use as a litmus test for a client new to guitar or who is uncertain as to what action they prefer. We usually have our own versions of a factory setup, finding our own improvements to the individual guitar on our benches. Many of my clients find  “normal” action, or “the factory setup” to be just how they like it. It’s often worth experimenting for yourself.  The action on your guitar could be holding you back. 

Technique Precedes Critique

I’ve seen dozens of techniques in strumming patterns and velocities, pick handling and picking positions, finger-style, and varying fretting-hand idiosyncrasies from clients. I’ve learned a lot of great techniques from some very gifted musicians, I’ve also seen poor playing skills be the fulcrum of a guitar’s playability. We all play the same instrument although we all play it a little differently. I highly recommend factory specs for beginners to develop their playing abilities on before customizing their setup to accommodate shortcomings or falling to the power of suggestion. Build those calluses with pride.

If you play in standard tuning with a string gauge standard to your instrument’s scale length, you are among the easiest guitarists to please and you probably spend more time playing than fooling around. On the other hand, some players might start incorporating a slide and find that  the strings are too low and possibly too loose for the slide to be easily managed. Raising the bridge could be the fix for one guitar or guitarist.  Straightening the neck and raising the bridge could be more suitable for another.

Once you start tuning up or down, the string gauges start straying from a normal setup and this is when the average guitarist might start uncovering the problems of a DIY setup and seek the expertise of a professional.

Attestation For Higher Action

Heavy strummers with an acoustic guitar will prefer their action to be slightly higher to compensate for their heavy picking hand. Slide players need extra distance between the strings and the frets across the entire fingerboard or else they’ll be bashing their slide against the frets until they lose their minds. A  fingerpicking bassist who slaps with a heavy thumb and digs into each note with their fingers appreciates that extra distance too. Action higher than the factory specifications would be required to negate all of the unwanted buzzing or compromised performances in these scenarios, however, they aren’t the only reasons that one might require higher action.

A metal guitarist making a move to heavier strings and tuning down will need to accommodate for the thicker strings. This will typically result in a truss rod adjustment, the bridge height being raised, if not at the nut as well, all to  provide more clearance and minimize the strings contacting the frets when they shouldn’t be (buzzing). The string slots in the nut and on the saddles will need to be widened to properly fit larger diameter strings, too. And, as always, once everything is where it’s comfortable, the intonation brings everything together at the end. The more of a change – the more change required in the setup.

High Action In A Negative Light

The common complaint against higher action is often the “mile” of distance to cover while trying to fret the right notes. Those with a good ear often tell me, “it plays too sharp all the way up and down the neck.” Without getting into intonation here; the further a string has to travel to the fret, the sharper the resulting note(s) will be. Action that is too high can also fatigue the hand fairly quickly. In my experience, this is usually the result of a neck with too much relief in it, high replacement or factory fresh saddles a close second.

There is a difference between preferring high action and your action getting high on you. The former- a preference; The later- a motivation for rectification.

So you like it low?

I have a few shredder clients that prefer their setups done with 8’s or 9’s and they like the action “as low as it can go without buzzing.” It’s not uncommon to hear shred guys boast about their 1-1.25mm (0.039” -0.049”) action (do they two-hand tap through every song?) which I would consider “extremely low” and settle on more common happiness found at 0.050 -0.060” for the high e string and 0.060”-0.0625” (1/16”) for the low e string of a standard tuned guitar with a stand set of 8’s or 9’s. This is suitable for very light strummers or those with a very controlled picking hand. Many seek to achieve these ridiculously low action setups used by their heroes but, unfortunately, learn tough lessons about their own technique needing improvement. 

Folks fingerpicking on their lightly-strung steel-string acoustics generally prefer lower action than a heavy strummer. Nothing remotely like a shredder, but one with a well-developed fingerpicking style will find it beneficial to switch to a lighter gauge set of strings and having the strings closer to the frets. They might find themselves picking up speed from the change.

The compromises of low action

Electric guitarists who start to venture into the acoustic realm notice the action on their new Dreadnought is a bit higher than their Tele’s and may prefer it lower. Some clients even ask for the same string gauge as their electric guitar. While these accommodations are easily made, I find making an acoustic guitar play like an electric guitar a compromise steeped in ease of playing at the expense of volume and tone. An acoustic guitar’s volume and tone is driven by the top, which will diminish when lowering the action at the bridge and dropping down in string gauge. 

Action is all a matter of the instrument itself and how you play it. Your tastes in strings, tunings, the guitar’s scale length, and even pickups will also affect the setup. It’s the union of your fingers against the strings of a given instrument that gives birth to the personalization of your action.