Do you prefer: high action or low action???
 

do you like higher action for that extra tonal "kick?" or would you rather have lower action with increased playability???

I guess i've always liked the lower action cause it made playing such a joy... do miss the volume and tone of the higher saddle though.

If you have the neck reset, you can have low action with a higher saddle. That's the way I set mine up.

Whoo boy. You must have missed the big "action" thread from a little while back.
Here is a link to it. Lots of good information from folks whose make their livings building guitars;
http://69.41.173.82/forums/showthrea...ghlight=action

Bottom line, a "low action" and "volume/tone" are not mutually exclusive if a guitar is built, for want of a better word, "optimally".

To answer you question, I prefer what I would consider a "medium action"...about 6/64's at the 12th fret, E string.....4 to 5/64's e string.

I spent my first 3 or so years learning to play on a guitar with action high enough to stick your wrist through. Even after experiences with other acoustics, I still prefer mid-high range action.

oh wow, I did miss all of that...

It's just that my taylor used to have a high saddle on it, and I recently had it shaved down just a bit (professionally set up). It had HUGE implications on the tone and volume of the guitar, literally... it sounds like a COMPLETELY different guitar, i have it recorded both with a lower and higher saddle and the sound is immensely different. The higher saddle gave me this rich even texture that just jumped out of the guitar (beautiful), while the lower saddle gave me a much more treble sound that wasn't very interesting (killed alot of the volume to).


I just thought that tone/volume and action were exclusive...

I think, and our pro builders may disagree here with me, that if you are lowering the action on a guitar already built, you often do diminish volume and tone. How much really depends on the guitar, guitar builder, saddle heigth, neck angle.
If getting a very well built instrument by somebody like a custom builder, they know how to build them to allow low action without compromising volume and tone.

I'm sure nobody wants this to turn into a action vs tone thread of late. So I'll keep those opinions to myself.
BUT...Since you have a Taylor, the fix is really quite easy. Take it back to the shop that did the work. Have them re shim the neck so that it has a greater angle, then put a new saddle in at the original height. Should fix it right up.

Yeah, already had that bloody battle on the thread I linked to. :eek: :lol:

It's all relative. :)

Oh, I forgot to mention that the saddle I had was a new Ivory saddle and came as a high default height...

The new saddle was a lot higher than my original saddle, and it sound SO much better. The improvement was incredible. But I thought it was more material than height so I had a professional trim it down to the same height as the original tusq saddle, and that's where it lost a lot of sound...

I just wanted to clear that up... that the saddle had to be higher than normal for the considerable improvement.
I don't know, maybe my guitar was just one of those built that favored a higher than normal saddle???

I play mostly Martins and the last one I bought came set at 4.5/32in which left me room to make minor adjustments.However the action at the nut was fine and I consider that important for at home setup.I had to make a slight truss rod adjustment and sand a little off the saddle to end up at 3.5/32in which for me is perfect for my Martins.Because the nut action was set correct and the neck angle correct at the factory setup it leaves me plenty off room to get the action I want at the 12th fret.At 3.5/32in my action feels low on my Martin,inotation is right,saddle break angle correct,neck relief is also right.It left the factory pretty much that way giving me room to let me get my own custom setup with a simple truss rod adjustment and sanding the saddle bottom...cib

+1 on that for me.

medium low

Since I am a Bluegrasser and play a pretty heavy rythmn, I want my action just high enough to eliminate string rattle. When I first received my HD-28V, the action was factory set way too low and I had to raise it another half times the height, but the guitar still plays like butter.