Hey guys today I lowered the action on mine, just to see what happened. I'm proud to say I did not lose any volume, tone, etc, but it made it much more enjoyable to play for my poor "old" fingers. I cranked it down to about half of what it was. Don't get me wrong, it played very well as it was, but now it is alot easier. Might be something ya'll want to test out. I use J-75 strings, for the little extra "Whomp" they give, and I initally thought I might get a buzz or rattle, but everything was good, no problems. Ain't we some of the luckiest mandolin players here ? !!!!!
how close are the strings from the neck at the 12th fret? How aggressively do you play?
Greg before I lowered it I measured it the other day with dial calipers. At the 12th fret from bottom of string to top of fret; G = .110 E= .090. I think I lowered it at least half of those measurements. And like I said no ill effects, plenty of that great tone, plenty of volume and power. On the question on how I play, I've always picked pretty hard, I had to for all these years of not having a good mandolin, so I had to really bear down on them and being as how I've been doing that for the past 40+ years, I guess I'm locked into it, but maybe not as this mandolin is so responsive I don't have to hit it as hard. I guess over time that will become more natural for me. Ok I just went and got my calipers and remeasured, again from bottom of string to top of fret; G= .087, E= .070transfered to inches; G= 3/32 E= 1/16. The action it has now feels great, alot easier on my fingers and hands. I've always used J-75s, but I might put on a set of J-74s that I have whenever the time comes to change strings just to see how it sounds. I'm thinking that these JMs are so good it probably wont matter very much what type of string you put on them Give me feedback on how your is set up now, and if you lower it/raise it any what the differance is if any. Also to the rest of the folk on here if they read this.
