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Questions about "string height"?
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britguy
Posts: 712
Joined: Dec. 26 2010
From: Ontario, Canada
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Questions about "string height&...
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I've been reading a lot of stuff on how string height affects action and playability, and I'm interested in checking the string height on a few of my guitars, and comparing the action, sound and playability. *Does "string height" mean just the first and sixth at the 12th fret, or also at the 1st fret? *Is there such a thing as an "ideal" string height for a flamenco guitar and a classical? *How to accurately measure string height, (without having any special measuring tools). * Would High Tensions strings (ideally) require a different height than Low Tension? * Is there any trade-off between 'optimum sound' and playability, that is affected by string height? Lots of questions; and maybe no simple answers??? Interested to hear any thoughts, whatever. . .
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Fruit farmer, Ontario, Canada
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Date Oct. 29 2013 21:27:27
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Anders Eliasson
Posts: 5780
Joined: Oct. 18 2006
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RE: Questions about "string hei... (in reply to britguy)
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quote:
Not everyone thinks it is. I have been playing for 45 years and do not find it important unless the saddle is really, really high. It does make it easier to do "martillo" golpes, where you hit the golpeador above the strings with the back of the fingernail on the way to hitting the bass strings with that same back of fingernail. Some people find that it can be problematic having the saddle very low, because it's hard to get fingers in place to do free stroke. I wish people wouldn't refer to having the saddle low as low action, though, because this makes things confusing. My recomendations come from letting good local Andalucian flamenco players test and comment my instruments. In the case of stringheight at the bridge, something around 80% find that 9mm is to high, that 8mm is ok and that 7 - 7,5mm is just right. Most of them, the first thing they do when they check a guitar is to look at the stringheight at the bridge. If its to high, they comment on that before they play. And some almost refuse to test a guitar that has much more than "cigaret" stringheight at the bridge. Most of them are in constant contact with the soundbord with one or more fingers except when doing arpeggios. They have been brougt up with flamenco guitars and have been told their whole life that things have to be a certain way and so they have gotten used to guitars with some special. physical characteristics. Funny enough, VERY few found that 3mm stringheight 6th string at the 12th fret was to high. Besides that, I find it to be totally correct to include saddle height in the term "action height" (being low or high) On flamenco guitars it is such an important issue and it goes together ia a complete setup pack with terms like relief, stringheight at 12th fret and stringheight at the bridge.
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Date Nov. 3 2013 8:25:47
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constructordeguitarras
Posts: 1677
Joined: Jan. 29 2012
From: Seattle, Washington, USA
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RE: Questions about "string hei... (in reply to Anders Eliasson)
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quote:
Besides that, I find it to be totally correct to include saddle height in the term "action height" (being low or high) On flamenco guitars it is such an important issue and it goes together ia a complete setup pack with terms like relief, stringheight at 12th fret and stringheight at the bridge. I agree with you, Anders, that the string height at the bridge is important to some or many or most flamenco guitarists and should be specified and given attention. "Action" means "movement" and we move the strings when we press them down to fret them. (The "action" of a piano is the ease of hitting the strings with the hammer by pressing the key.) That's why the term "action" seems appropriate to me at the fingerboard. We don't move the strings up and down at the bridge, so it doesn't make sense to me to talk about the "action" there. I wish there were a better, separate, term to use because I ran into trouble years ago with a client who kept telling me the action had to be low. Later, after the guitar was built, I found out he was only talking about the saddle.
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Ethan Deutsch www.edluthier.com www.facebook.com/ethandeutschguitars www.youtube.com/marioamayaflamenco I always have flamenco guitars available for sale.
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Date Nov. 3 2013 14:26:24
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Rosiec7
Posts: 5
Joined: Nov. 3 2013
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RE: Questions about "string hei... (in reply to britguy)
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This is kind of interesting, I've had a lot of problems with pain in my fingers playing flamenco to the point where I just could not play, started of with HT strings then MT, but still after 20 minutes of playing, the pain in my joints starts again and I got to the point of giving up, A friend suggested using low tension strings at least while i,m learning ,yes they sound a little quiet but I can practice for as long as I like with no problems. Now for the interesting bit, I started to think about the action and setup more, the bridge was far to high strings almost 6mm of 12 fret so lowered down to 3mm for both Es filing bone down just to the point of very slight buzz and sounds fine, still using low tension strings as my guide. thinking when I go back to hard or medium, things will sound just great but not the case, so a day of experimenting the HT strings and mt 's buzz like crazy totally unplayable at this 3mm -12 fret setup and I was really expecting the opposite to happen any thoughts. D'Addario HT & MT strings Augistine low tension strings Vicente Sanchis A1
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Date Nov. 4 2013 0:03:13
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