I have been taking lessons and using an acoustic (classical) for a while now, but I also have an Agile Les Paul knockoff.
I have always avoided the electric because I always found it really tricky to play, but today I tried something... I lowered the action and retuned.
Wow what a difference! The guitar is now a joy to play and I find things that are really difficult on my acoustic are quite easy on the Agile.
Since I don't really know what I am doing, is there anything I could have done here to mess up the "setup" of my guitar?
It seems to still sound great after re-tuning of course, but are there other factors here that I may not know about? Can I leave it as is?
Being a beginner, I am mostly playing up at the top of the neck, but could I have messed things up on the high frets by doing this?
I tried sounding all the notes and they seem ok...
Sorry for the silly question.
Hi,
If it sounds OK you should be fine. I wouldn't do any more worrying in advance. You can always learn more if and when you strike any other difficulties.
People can sometimes get confused about what can be fixed by adjusting the truss rod, and when it's appropriate to lower the action at the bridge or the nut. The usual outcome of adjusting the wrong thing, or taking it too far, is likely to be buzzing at some of the frets when you play in certain areas. But if you've played up and down the neck and it plays nicely now without having caused any buzzing at some of the frets, then I'd say you've scored a win there. 8) Enjoy. :)
Chris
As far as I know, adjusting the action can't cause any actual/permanent damage to the guitar itself, but I think it could have altered the string length and therefore the intonation (assuming it was set right before). If you have a tuner (or really good ear for tone), try checking that the 12th fret is in tune too when the open string is in tune (they should be precisely one octave apart); if the note at 12 is sharp, you need to lengthen the string (usually tightening a screw on the bridge in my experience), if it's flat you need to shorten it.
Truss rod adjustments, on the other hand, can damage a guitar if you aren't careful, so I'd talk to a teacher or Google it a bit before touching that. ;)
Enjoy!
-- Voidious
Voidious is right. But if it's just a TINY bit off, this isn't neccesarily the inntonation. Keep in mind that our finger pressure will very. When playing open strings, there is no finger pressure, so this doesn't come into play. But when you go to the 12 fret, it is a factor.
I'd get the AP guitar tuner (google it, I can be found for free) and if it's more than 5% off from the center, either way, I'd consider adjusting the intonation.
