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acoustic bass guitar action ?
What would be a reasonably low action (at fret#12) for an acoustic bass guitar with 34" scale length ?
I just bought one used, the neck has some relief and action at fret#12 is 4mm.
If I straight out the neck by adjusting the truss rod, the action goes down to a tiny bit below 3.5mm and the E and A strings have some buzz. Is 3.5mm too low ?
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Re: acoustic bass guitar action ?
My electric bass guitar has 3mm action at fret#12. Don't know if it means anything.
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Re: acoustic bass guitar action ?
My experiance is that my acoustic bass guitar needs a bit higher action than electrics. 4mm sounds pretty good.
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Re: acoustic bass guitar action ?
Hi Nevin,
is it normal that the fretting sound is quite loud on acoustic bass? Or it is caused by my poor technique.
I do not hear fretting sound on electric bass.
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Registered User
Re: acoustic bass guitar action ?
Loud fretting sound/string noise, low volume - welcome to the world of the acoustic bass. Then if you play hard you'll get fret buzz. Things improved greatly on mine by fitting nylon core thomastik strings. It gives a much more mellow upright bass sound but further robs some of the volume (but then there's a reason most of these guitars come with a pickup). You do have to adjust the truss rod after fitting them as they exert a lot less tension than metal strings. Only problem is they are ferociously expensive - I've bought guitars which cost less than a set of those strings!
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Re: acoustic bass guitar action ?
Mine comes with a built in paasive pickup. So the tone and volume is not that great when plug in. I just spent the last hour to put in an active pickup with preamp. It sounds at least 3 time louder and much better tone.
I will play it for a few months before thinking about putting on expensive string.
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Re: acoustic bass guitar action ?
I use tapewound strings which cut down on the fret noise. Even flat-wound strings were an improvment on the round-wound ones it came with. Don't expect to get much volume from them without an active pickup system.
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Re: acoustic bass guitar action ?
Searching eBay gives some tape wound string set that are quite reasonable in price, between 32$ to 37$ included. Thanks for the tip on "tape wound string". My bass guitar has an active pickup now so volume should not be an issue, except when not plug-in.
Last edited by kkmm; Apr-19-2015 at 6:32pm.
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