nf_arkie
Aug-13-2007, 10:20am
Howdy all,
After playing my Rover following a restring and set-up adjustment for better action, I felt like the tone had actually suffered a bit - it was kind-of plucky sounding, especially the G strings. So remembering that bridge height can affect tone, I started playing with bridge height to see if the tone could be improved with minor adjustment.
Immediately upon raising the G side, no more than a half turn, tone and sustain improved. But the ring in the E side deminished as well. So I raised that a smidge to see what happened. Well, this went on (back and forth) for a while with improvement and decline of varying degree. And the sound I was hunting for seemed to be directly affected by the relative height of the E side to G side.
I finally got the E,A, & D strings to ring pretty well up the neck, but the G falters around the 8th fret - sounds a bit dull and plucky from there up.
BTW - the action on boths sides is almost exactly 2mm at the 12th fret, and much lower seems to put it right on the edge of fret buzz when you attack the G strings more aggressively. The bridge is set slightly higher on the G side; string height at the bottom of the slot is roughly 2.1 cm compared to 1.95 cm on the E side. Also the bridge appears to cant forward (from perpendicular) slightly more on the E side, maybe 1-2 mm.
Is there a "science" to this bridge adjustment thing, or is it more of an art? Is it to be expected that an adjustment up or down on one side will necessarily affect tone across the entire bridge, and is it predictable?
Any thoughts appreciated.
Thanks - JP
After playing my Rover following a restring and set-up adjustment for better action, I felt like the tone had actually suffered a bit - it was kind-of plucky sounding, especially the G strings. So remembering that bridge height can affect tone, I started playing with bridge height to see if the tone could be improved with minor adjustment.
Immediately upon raising the G side, no more than a half turn, tone and sustain improved. But the ring in the E side deminished as well. So I raised that a smidge to see what happened. Well, this went on (back and forth) for a while with improvement and decline of varying degree. And the sound I was hunting for seemed to be directly affected by the relative height of the E side to G side.
I finally got the E,A, & D strings to ring pretty well up the neck, but the G falters around the 8th fret - sounds a bit dull and plucky from there up.
BTW - the action on boths sides is almost exactly 2mm at the 12th fret, and much lower seems to put it right on the edge of fret buzz when you attack the G strings more aggressively. The bridge is set slightly higher on the G side; string height at the bottom of the slot is roughly 2.1 cm compared to 1.95 cm on the E side. Also the bridge appears to cant forward (from perpendicular) slightly more on the E side, maybe 1-2 mm.
Is there a "science" to this bridge adjustment thing, or is it more of an art? Is it to be expected that an adjustment up or down on one side will necessarily affect tone across the entire bridge, and is it predictable?
Any thoughts appreciated.
Thanks - JP