Home Page › Forums › Discuss Your Gear › Let’s talk about “Action”
- This topic has 6 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 2 years, 1 month ago by melanieh.
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January 19, 2022 at 11:30 pm #50425melaniehParticipant
Hi Guys,
I recently bought a string action ruler. I’m just curious about the action height of all my ukuleles. I’m just wondering, what action height do you prefer especially Kanile’a ukes owners?
Thanks,
MelanieJanuary 20, 2022 at 12:07 pm #50432AndrewKeymasterAction @ the 12 on my concerts are 2.5mm. I don’t remember what the standard height is out of the factory, but when I bought my first one from The Ukulele Site this is what they set it up at. When I had my custom uke built, I requested the same height.
January 21, 2022 at 6:56 pm #50482January 22, 2022 at 7:10 am #50484surferjayParticipantMine, never got a setup and is higher than 2.5 . It definitely makes it harder to play. I’m going to take mine to get lowered to 2.5 and also put on some Low G’s and new tuners.
January 24, 2022 at 1:39 pm #50503recdogParticipantI’ve been working with “action” quite a bit recently. Can be measured at 12th fret, from top of fret to bottom of string. Good to have a string action gauge or what I have now is just a good scale that starts at zero. I ordered a new kanilea saddle from the ukulele site as I thought my action was too low. I just raised mine up a few tenths of a mm to about 2.7-2.8 and I think the volume is better and still easy to play. My 3 tenors now all have about the same action at the 12th. I have heard Tobias Elof say that he likes it more like 3.0 and he told a story of James Hill going to a shop to get his action raised. The luthier told him that beginners bring ukes in to lower the action and pros bring them in raise it, so you must be a pro. Tobias thinks that too low an action limits the uke.
Action is also measured at the nut slots, which is really important especially for beginners mostly playing on the first four frets. I like there to be just a tiny space, maybe .2mm at the first fret when the third fret is pressed.
RonJanuary 27, 2022 at 1:35 pm #50574surferjayParticipant@recdog interesting! The action is more of a problem for me at the nut slot. I have to press down really hard to get a clean sound and also preferably play closer to the first fret marker than the nut itself otherwise I get a muted vibration type sound. I’m sure a setup would fix this.
It would be great actually to get a couple of saddles with different heights to play with.. I think only then I would know what I prefer as I have nothing really to measure it against.
February 7, 2022 at 5:14 am #50776 -
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