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My 2 cents are to consider the action at the 12th fret (as usual from bottom of the string to the top of the fret) at open E string. At the end of the day this is the common standard among players and dealers.
I for one, when checking an instrument, always consider the action at the 12th fret together with other factors, like the action at the bridge, how high are the frets and how stiff is the top. I'm not a maniac of the fractions of mm. etc. but it's a matter of fact that I always end up preferring an action around 3mm (a little more or less according to the instrument).
The fashion of the 2mm action is just a misinformation of a couple of dealers IMHO. They say Vicente plays with 2 mm action, but 1) he is an exception (and btw he plays the guitar with a peculiar technique, with a lot of slides and pulls like if it was an electrical guitar) and 2) I believe the fretboard of his guitars are worked in a peculiar way...3) I'm not Vicente.
Close. It was about an actual dick with no measurable action to report. But I really should know better by now.
On an unrelated note, when the meter was introduced in France shortly after the Revolution, the authorities set up 16 stone rulers, carved into the face of buildings and strategically laid out across the region so that those industries that needed to use the new measurement system could have a reference. Four of these are still standing. One is right across the street from the French Senate, carved into marble. It goes unnoticed by most tourists and sadly by most locals, probably unaware that it's an actual piece of history.
I think you guys should all start using a good ol' Egyptian cubit rod to measure action. The conversion might be a bit tricky at first. I don't know how many inches are in a sideways owl or how many milimeters are in a long squiggly line over an open eye but I believe the proper action looked for at the 12th fret would be two sideways owls plus three long squiggly lines over an open eye.
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
Close. It was about an actual dick with no measurable action to report. But I really should know better by now.
On an unrelated note, when the meter was introduced in France shortly after the Revolution, the authorities set up 16 stone rulers, carved into the face of buildings and strategically laid out across the region so that those industries that needed to use the new measurement system could have a reference. Four of these are still standing. One is right across the street from the French Senate, carved into marble. It goes unnoticed by most tourists and sadly by most locals, probably unaware that it's an actual piece of history.
I did not know that, but I can see why it would be important. If you ever run across it Daniel Borstin an American historian wrote a book called 'The Discoverers', he covers the French revolution and in includes a fun section about the successes and failures of the metric system. One of the problems arose when the government decided to metricate time. They had 10 hour day, based on a hundred minute hour and a 100 second minute. The week had ten days, and the year had ten months. I can't remember how the months were created, but the whole catastrophe only lasted a brief period. It was rejected by farmers who followed the agrarian abased solar calendar, the Gregorian calendar or a variation.
The metric calendar was great is you were a cerebral wonk, but you could not plant crops to it or make any sense of it in relation to the solar calendar. The overlay of the metric system on the guitar works, but a guitar does not have four seasons.
The history of mensuration is fascinating. The cubit you mention, biblical, but my favorite marker of measurement is the fathom. Fathom that.
I've always enjoyed those informal units of measurement that take what apparently are supposed to be known references but always leave you without even the slightest idea of the size of what they're talking about, like football fields, Albert Halls, Hiroshima bombs or banana equivalents. Which is why I've decided I'll be measuring picado in Ceperos. PdL and Gerardo play at 1.3 Ceperos. Diego del Morao is usually around 0.7 Ceperos but can sometimes work his way up to 0.9. You'd think this would be a problem, but it actually works pretty well with singers that sing at 0.73 Camarons or less.
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
Ah I see, One Cepero is not good enough, Cepero has to be some odd amount like a teaspoon or a palmful,or sever hairs width 0r a sheet of typng paper thick.
The question is where is the original unit kept? The one 'pic' pronounced 'Pe'ek' that set the standard.
Rumor has it, it's in an undergroud vault somewhere in the mines of the Sierra Norte de Sevilla, guarded by two Santez guitars.
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
It came to me on the toilet this morning like kensho. The question of press the string to the first fret or not has entered the realm of what I call the 'Galileo Moment' -
When the church held Galileo under house arrest for not complying with the church mandate that he renounce Heliocentrism, he was finally convinced to save his own skin by swearing an oath that he will not disseminate the concept of heliocentrism and thus commit heresy. Gaileo was coerced to pronounce the the Earth as the still center of the known solar system and as a matter of course the universe. He said the Earth and the solar system were Geocentric. Under his breath, audible to only those sitting close he said of the earth, "And yet it moves."
Let the epithet of my biography read - "And yet we press at the first fret."
Let the epithet of my biography read - "And yet we press at the first fret."
Or, we could press the 2nd (or 3rd, or...) fret but not tell anyone until the customer complains that the action is higher than advertised. Then we could simply say, "Oh, I press the 11th fret when I measure the action at the 12th fret."
That's my point either. I could press the string at the 3rd fret in order to check the if the nut is properly slotted but this is a different matter . I understand the point of Stephen but the customer generally mean the action at the open E. If you look for setting a standard better to keep the latter.
It would be advisable to write something about the "correct action" of a guitar as there is a general misinformation about it. Some people would like to be sure their guitar has no problems. Some other people claim that a perfect playability entails a very low action, which is not necessarily true.. On the other side you can find flamenco guitars sold with 4 mm action and (falsely) claimed to be perfect.
I don't know about everyone else but my eyes aren't good enough to measure in tenths of a mm and I don't have a rule with those increments (I do have a thickness gauge). If I say it's 2.8mm at the twelfth it's an educated guess (in other words a little bit under 3). I realize I could buy a set of thickness shims to get an accurate measurement but what for? The guitar either plays properly or it doesn't.
I go with this approach if it feels and plays right which is something more tactile to each player.
I like the veneer caliper method too. I guess you could measure to the top of the string and then subtract the string thickness from that depth measurement.
I bought a set of feeler gauges but it IS a pain and won't be wasting time doing that again!
When I set up an electric guitar, I place a cejilla on the first fret and another on the fourteenth fret. Then, with the "hated" feller guages, (I come from the world of racing bikes and cars where feelers are necessary), I adjust the tornillo to have a relief of approx 0.25mm (.010in) at the seventh fret. This assumes that the nut is correctly adjusted.
Guitar are guitars and the same thinking can be applied to acoustics, electrics and flamencos, even if there is no tornillo (truss rod).
3 mm is the standard, ok; the debate is wether to take the measure with the open string or by pressing down the string at the 1st fret. Few decimals are involved..
A tiny bit of rolling ok, squishing no. A bit of rolling means 8 mm saddle and that is not bad thing.
I know a guy who had a guitar with a ok action at the 12th fret, but 12 milli at the saddle. He taped a thick piece of plexiglass under the strings to raise his thumb and make the saddle height 7mm....he thought that was very clever.
The only measure that really matters is the cigarette test
7.5 mm for non smokers
As smoking declines and health improves this valuable tool will be lost. Another loss will be the cigarette burn provenance test – a burn mark on the head of a used guitar suggests that it was so good to play that the owner forgot the burning cigarette temporarily stuck into the strings.
He taped a thick piece of plexiglass under the strings to raise his thumb
Seriously--Why didn't he just raise his thumb, if that's what he wanted? I've had classical players comment that they can't play flamencas with low bridges because there's not enough room for their fingers under the strings.
He taped a thick piece of plexiglass under the strings to raise his thumb
Seriously--Why didn't he just raise his thumb, if that's what he wanted? I've had classical players comment that they can't play flamencas with low bridges because there's not enough room for their fingers under the strings.
I apologize for being serious.
I have no idea why he wanted to glue a thick slab of plexiglass under his strings. But it was amusing. Obviously he rolled a wee bit too much.
He taped a thick piece of plexiglass under the strings to raise his thumb
Seriously--Why didn't he just raise his thumb, if that's what he wanted? I've had classical players comment that they can't play flamencas with low bridges because there's not enough room for their fingers under the strings.
I apologize for being serious.
I have no idea why he wanted to glue a thick slab of plexiglass under his strings. But it was amusing. Obviously he rolled a wee bit too much.
The strings need to feel close to the top, closer the better for rhythm. The only problem is when doing picados aggressive, you can hit the top if the strings are at 7mm or less. THe plexiglass thing is pretty good idea IMO, especially for a piezo amplified guitar where acoustics probably matter less than bloody fingers.
But you do realize gluing a 1/4" thick x 6 x 6 " slab of plex to the top of a guitar is somewhat of a damping factor?
The problem is either the neck angle, or perhaps maybe even the neck angle. Or it could also be the neck angle, but in another case it could have been sthe neck angle.
And then there's always addressing the neck angle, which could lead one to suspect the neck angle.
Yes, quarter inch is a lot of material. Though isn't amazing that even the thick golpeadors don't seem to have a deleterious effect? It seems that that region of the soundboard is very forgiving.
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