C. Action

Action can generally be described as the distance between your strings and your frets when you are not fretting them, usually measured as the distance between any string and the top of the 12th (or sometimes 24th) fret. This depends on your nut height, your bridge height, and your truss rod tension. Properly setting up your action is way beyond the scope of this guide; we are only focusing on how action affects your tone, assuming whether you can set up your guitar correctly for your desired action.

High action is often regarded to have "better" tone (see below), but can be more difficult to play. This is mainly due to poor setup in other areas, which causes a lower area to have too much fret buzz. It can also be more difficult to get a good intonation (making you sound out of tune). Low action runs the risk of fret buzz, especially when other aspects of your setup are bad or you pick aggressively and use a thick pick. For metal, fret buzz is a no-no (too noisy). I like a medium to low action across the board - high enough so that I don't get a strong buzz when I pick the strings at a low to medium strength.

A lot of people think action has little impact on tone, other than the amount of fret buzz. That might be true on a low-quality instrument or one that hasn't been set up properly because by the time you get the action low enough so that it affects tone, it's already getting quite a bit of sustaining buzz. With a great instrument well set up to allow a really low action with virtually no sustaining fret buzz, action has a strong impact on tone. At higher action, the strings don't have as much twang or pop to their attack and sustain a strong bass response. As you lower the action, the strings will occasionally hit the frets. This pop during attack can be regarded as good or bad. It tends to add a little brightness to the tone.

My advice here is not to try to basically EQ your guitar tone through the action. And if you have a strong bass response, you can always EQ it out later, whereas you can't EQ it in if it wasn't there to begin with. A boost pedal does a much better job of filtering out too much mud than a low action.

For reference, Petrucci's tech said in some forum that he runs a super-low action: ~1mm at 12th fret for all strings (~1.2 - 1.3mm @24th fret). You can hear how much pop and how little bass (and how much buzz) this gives the tone in the intro solo to Hollow Years on the Live at Bukokan DVD. Petrucci's setup has been said to be absurdly low. Most low action shred setups are around 1.5 - 2mm on the high E string at the 24th fret. For more on this, see Ibanez Rules action setup page.

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D. Fret Buzz

Fret buzz is the bane of most guitarists' existence. As such, there is so much stigma and strong language around it that more novice players can be misled about what to expect from their instrument. This section is simply designed to clarify a few things.

Fret buzz is not the same thing as fretting out or choking. Fretting out is completely unacceptable - it means the string doesn't even have enough clearance above the frets higher than the one you're fretting to make a sustainable vibration. This can be caused by having your action too low, too much truss rod tension (making the fret board side of the neck convex), or unlevel frets. A bit of fret buzz, on the other hand, is acceptable; as long as it isn't having a strong impact on your tone.

You should gauge the amount of fret buzz you are getting by playing through an amp using a clean tone, not simply listening to the guitar when it's not plugged in. All electric guitars tend to have a little buzz, but that won't necessarily be heard by the pickups. Some people may try to completely eliminate all acoustic buzzing, making their instrument near unplayable for ABSOLUTELY NO tonal benefit.

Eliminating (reducing) fret buzz uses multiple points of attack. First, I want to make sure I'm using tight enough string gauges for the tuning I'm using (and the playability I desire). See above. The more tension on the strings, the smaller their vibration distance for a given volume, and the less fret buzz they'll produce. If I can accept a little more buzz for ease of play, I use a guitar with lighter strings. And when I say a desirable amount of buzz, I mean just a touch of it on the very initial part of my attack. I don't want it to occur through (and kill) my attack, and I DEFINITELY don't want it continue as I sustain. And again, I don't use that guitar for metal.

Next, make sure your neck is virtually flat. You need to adjust your truss rod to counter-balance the tension the strings exert on one side of the neck, but you still want the neck to have a little bow to it for the frets closest to the nut to avoid fret buzz. Again, Ibanez Rules action setup page is a good reference. Be careful when doing a truss rod adjustment - you don't want to turn more than a quarter turn without giving the neck time to adjust to the new tension. Make sure you're turning the right direction too. If this is your first time, have an experienced friend or commercial technician demonstrate the process for you. Or do lots of internet research. Also, be sure to re-tune to ensure the neck is receiving the right amount of tension after adjustments.

Finally, I want to raise my bridge (either adjusting the saddles or the entire bridge depending on the type of bridge). I'll raise it a bit at a time, retune at least one string to test, and see how much buzz I get playing a medium amount of pick strength across at a couple frets from 1-12. Make sure you retune after any bridge adjustment. If you raise the bridge, you may be tightening the string(s), resulting in less buzz...until you actually tune to the proper note. Or vice versa. If you are adjusting via individual saddles, be sure to keep the saddles at the same relative heights as the fret board radius. If you already have the saddles fit to the fret board radius, it's usually best to adjust the two bridge posts when possible. Also, watch out for how floating trem bridges make contact with the posts. You generally want the knife edges to hit at a perfect 90 degrees. This will vary with the bear claw tension in the back cavity of the guitar as well as the string gauge, tuning, bridge height, saddle heights. You basically have to adjust everything at once, slowly moving closer and closer to the ideal setup.

Beyond those adjustments, the only way to get your action lower with the same amount of buzz is to have the frets re-leveled or the nut filed down. I would get a professional to do such modifications, although there are plenty of tutorials on the web that can help you. I'd try to find several of them, as some may make them sound way easier than they are. Filing and/or replacing your nut is the far simpler of the two, but you'll need precise tools to do it at a professional level.

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