First of all, congrats on the board, could have used it two days ago before I took off the bridge without a clue on what I was doing :D
Q1) Is there any ACTUAL use for higher action? Other than to keep frets from buzzing?
Q2) How do you lower/higher action, because I think I did that to my guitar while screwing the bridge on.
Q3) My Pickups, from the sides, are made of this, uh, material thingy that seems to catch dust from time to time, how should I clean that? And would a damp rag hurt pickups?
I also suggest a sticky topic be made concerning general stuff on action and what not, since I'm sure that will be asked A LOT of time on this board.
yes, its asked all the time on this board ;D. Â Heh. Â ok.
for Q1 a higher action is used by slide guitarists that arent that great (no offense, i learned this from other forums though). Â They put it up high so the slide doesnt hit the frets. Â As many have told me and i have learned it doesnt take you changing the guitar to play slide well. Â It take you changing your technique so that you only touch the string and not push the strings down to the point where you hit the frets. Â So an extremely high action is not good. Â Very hard to play too.
For Q2 if you have an acoustic then you have to alter the nut/saddle to be shorter but i reccommend you have a professional do it if you are not familiar with this procedure. Â If you have an electric LP style then there are two screws which are posts for the tune-o-matic bridge, you can change turn them from the top (with screwdriver) or the bottom (with hands when you are re-stringing), they set its hight. Â The tune-o-matic bridge is the part that has the intonation settings on it. Â Theres also screws for the hardtail thingy but i dont touch any screws on my guitar. Â Sorry but i dont know about stratocaster style or tele style bridges. Â I dont reccommend touching any parts of the bridge without learning all about it first. Look at the image.
For Q3 im not quit sure i understand. Â Its a material, but you dont know what it is. Â Whats it feel like? Â Do you have a Digital camera? Â If you do take some pics and put em on the web or send them to me at [email protected] and ill put them up. Â I would think it should be ok to wipe it off but you should wait for someone that is a little more experienced with pickups made of this material. Â
Good luck with any of your action troubles. Â
aka Izabella
As in material thingy are talking about some kind of cloth?
Yep.
I wouldn't use water on it might cause moisture to be trapped inside and then cause the windings on the pickups to oxidize. I would get one of those air duster cans you use for computers or if you have a air compressor, but I would be real careful with it and make sure it has a water trap inline with the hose to catch the moisture it produces.
The material( cloth) thingy is a glue impregnated cloth that is wound around the wiring on the bobbin which makes up the pickup. Do not use water to wipe the dust off. Use a Q tip and some of those alcohol pads,dampen the Q tip with the alcohol pad and gently( do not use alcohos straight out of a bottle because the Q tip will be soaked and too much alcohol will unglue the cloth.) wipe the dust off, NOTE be sure to wipe in the direction opposite to the folded edge of the material so as not to unwind the cloth.The alcohol will evaporate away quicklyand not affect the pickup.* Info the wiring used to wind a pickup coil is extremely fine and is coated with a very thin film of schellac. if the coatring is removed or damaged the wire can corrode and fail.If the material is coming off get some surgical tape,like you can get for bandages at the drug store, cut the take the desired width and wrap it around the pickup coil.You would have to take the pickup loose and raise it out of the hole to do this.
Hiagh Action. A higher action that is necessary to properly tune the guitar will cause intonation problems. The ideal action is one that allows you to tune your guitar to proper pitch and get the best sound from the strings.too low action causes string buss on the frets and excess vibration that causes noise and poor harmonics, too hagh an action causes difficulty in making cords and in hindering the use of a pick to get a tremola sound in addition the guitar will be hard to play and to keep in tune as cause the strings to sound compressed as if you were using a compressor to clip the high and low vibrations of the string, ideally you want just enough height to allow you to play comfortably and to get the maximun effect from the vibration of the string. There are some very good information on setup at WWW.mrgearhead.com.
do you have a standard strat trem bridge? if so, action is adjusted on the individual string saddles by ywo small bolts that can be moved with a small screwdriver or allan key. when you adjust action, intonalion may become a problem, so you'll have to adjust the screw on the back of the bridge (not the underside part that has the plastic piece over it, with the springs and such.) its a set of 6 screws that adjust the distance between the saddle and the nut.
if its a floydrose, or something like it, the two screws that the floating bridge balances on adjust the action, and the intonation is the same as above.
