String height affect sound?

Jouni

New member
Hi!

I recently tightened the neck-rod of my Studio baritone, since the 0.14 gauge strings had slightly curved the neck.
The neck straightened OK, and the strings/action got lower and easier to play, some marginal buzzing.. I'm going to raise the action a tad.

But as the neck straightened and strings came down, the sound changed!!:confused:
The guitar lost some bottom end!.. And the top end became a bit shrill.

I kept checking the amp's settings over and over, and thought my mind is playing tricks on me, until the drummer looked at me and said "It's lost some bottom end hasn't it?" Odd that the change was so clear that both of us noticed!...

Anyone else come across this??.. Will the sound ghange back if I raise the action/adjust the pickup-level..?
 
Hi!

I recently tightened the neck-rod of my Studio baritone, since the 0.14 gauge strings had slightly curved the neck.
The neck straightened OK, and the strings/action got lower and easier to play, some marginal buzzing.. I'm going to raise the action a tad.

But as the neck straightened and strings came down, the sound changed!!:confused:
The guitar lost some bottom end!.. And the top end became a bit shrill.

I kept checking the amp's settings over and over, and thought my mind is playing tricks on me, until the drummer looked at me and said "It's lost some bottom end hasn't it?" Odd that the change was so clear that both of us noticed!...

Anyone else come across this??.. Will the sound ghange back if I raise the action/adjust the pickup-level..?

well, string height definitely affects sound. Higher action allows the string to vibrate more to some extent. This'll be more evident on an acoustic but when the strings get too low it will rob some sound.
On an electric a bigger issue is getting the strings too close to the magnets in the p/ups. The magnets then can have a 'damping' effect on the strings causing them to die out quicker andlosing some tone in the process.
If you got the strings low enough to start buzzing, I'm gonna say it's a combination of both.
Buzzing is caused by the string actually hitting something as it vibrates and that will obviously drag the sound down ..... hitting frets or the fretboard clearly will take way some of the vibrations and you're now closer to the magnets as well.
 
So, lowering the pickups and slightly lifting the strings should help. That was what I thought. Thanks for the assuring. :D
 
So, lowering the pickups and slightly lifting the strings should help. That was what I thought. Thanks for the assuring. :D

that was what I was going to say when I entered the thread but LT Bob did such a good job of answering the question I don't think anything else needed to be said. But ya, lowering the pickups should remedy the problem for the most part and maybe raise the action just a tad bit.:)
 
When you adjusted the neck (truss rod) did you leave a slight bow or did you get the neck very straight, or even with a slight back bow? The neck should have a very slight bow, this will help with fret buzz, especialy further up the neck. An easy way to check this is to press a string (low E is easiest to see) at the first fret and at the last fret, look for a slight gap (about the same as the thickness of a medium to thick pick) between the string and the top of the frets near the middle of the fingerboard (about at the 7th or 8th fret.) For the pick ups I would suggest lowering the treble side rather than raising the low side. If you noticed a loss of sustain, the pups need to be lowered.
 
Hmmmm..... It did get very straight. Maybe a slight bow would've been better. The thing is, that the nut in the truss rod was VERY loose, I had to tighten a couple of twists before I felt that it was tensioned at all. After that, I twisted maybe less than a half a turn, checked after five days and it was completely straight, left it there, checked a week later, still straight.
I think that if I'll try to loosen the truss rod one bit, it'll come totally loose again.
I don't mind lifting the action a tad, I don't play solos, as long as I can hold barrechords it's all good.:D
 
Hmmmm..... It did get very straight. Maybe a slight bow would've been better. The thing is, that the nut in the truss rod was VERY loose, I had to tighten a couple of twists before I felt that it was tensioned at all. After that, I twisted maybe less than a half a turn, checked after five days and it was completely straight, left it there, checked a week later, still straight.
I think that if I'll try to loosen the truss rod one bit, it'll come totally loose again.
I don't mind lifting the action a tad, I don't play solos, as long as I can hold barrechords it's all good.:D
on the trussrod ..... now, I'm NOT saying to loosen it om your git, but just as a discussion subject ..... there's no real reason why a truss rod needs to be tight at all if the neck is the right amount of straightness. The truss rod is there to allow you to adjust the neck IF it gets too bowed. But necks don't always bow ..... some necks just happen to have a piece of wood that's just right so it'll be straight without any corrective action. Hell, for a long time Martin put no adjustable trussrod in any of their gits.

So I wouldn't feel any need to tighten a truss rod just because it seems like it should be tightened. If the neck is straight ...... then it can be loose as can be and that's fine as long as the rod's not rattling around inside the neck making noises.
 
This bass might need a slight adjustment in string height....
 

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