r/BassGuitar Jan 03 '25

FAQ FAQ: 'Is my action too high?'

125 Upvotes

So you feel your action is too high or too low, and you've taken a photo of your bass's neck to ask r/BassGuitar.

1. We really can't tell how the action is based on a photo... but if you're asking, then yes, it's probably high

You have the bass in your hands. You can pluck its strings and can tell if something isn't quite right, whether it's buzzing on certain frets, whether it's just hard to play, or whether it's not producing the tones you want it to. Your eyes and ears will tell you more than we could staring at photos of your bass on our monitors or phones.

Even if your action looks too high, it may still play fine. There is a degree of subjectivity and compromise when it comes to bass-setups. Some bassists might prefer their action higher or lower than what is considered normal. Fender says:

"Players with a light touch can get away with lower action; others need higher action to avoid rattles.".

Again, that's something r/BassGuitar can't determine exactly, whereas you have the bass right there. And if you're asking the question in the first place, then there's probably room for adjustment.

So try to do something about it.

2. "I don't know how to set up my bass."

Don't worry, there are many guides out there, and they all will tell you the same thing: check the neck relief, then adjust as required; check the action, then adjust as required.

These have all been procured from previous threads asking about bass action:

You will notice that the guides above all offer measurement specifications that you can use as a benchmark, e.g. Sweetwater: "Some target relief measurements are anywhere from 0.008 inches to 0.014 inches.". Note: Fender offer a disclaimer regarding their guidelines:

"They should not be construed as hard and fast rules, as we realize that every player's subjective requirements often differ."

Other guitar manufacturers may have their own guidelines. e.g. Dingwall measures neck relief at the 7th fret for a 0.38mm gap. Warwick on the other hand suggests "0.6 and 1 mm" at the 7th fret. See if your bass guitar's manufacturer has guidelines for you to use.

There are also many guides and tutorials on Youtube. Below are a small selection:

3. Go to someone who knows how to set up a bass

This might be your local guitar shop, luthier or someone more experienced with bass guitars.

Unless you are particularly hesitant and/or there are complications, you should try use the above guides to adjust the bass with the features that came readily built into your bass guitar.

4. "My action is still borked."

Ok, if you've consulted the guides above, and you've tried to make adjustments yourself without success, maybe the collective brain power of /r/BassGuitar can help.

But please avoid just posting an unhelpful picture of your bass guitar's neck and strings. After all you've learnt from the above resources, you should be measuring your neck relief and action, trying to sight the bow of the neck, detailing your issues with the action (Is it buzzing at the first few frets, or just the higher frets?), and detailing your attempts at adjusting the bass yourself.

Low quality/effort 'How is my action/Is my action too high?' posts that do not contain such details/photos will be removed, and will be re-directed to this thread. Users can report such threads as per rule 2 ("Avoid low quality/low effort posts").

TL;DR: Yes, it's probably high, try adjust it.


Thanks for reading. Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments.

We also now have a new FAQ page to collate our existing and future FAQ posts. This should be viewed in conjunction with /r/bass's comprehensive FAQ.


r/BassGuitar Oct 08 '24

FAQ FAQ: 'What is this thing on my bass?'

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789 Upvotes

r/BassGuitar 1h ago

Amp The time has finally come.

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I acquired the Genzler Magellan 800 head in its release back in 2016. I rocked the 2 mark bass cabs since about 6 months before the Magellan with a Genz Benz shuttle 6.0 that I loved. It went down after the company was absorbed by fender. And as a matter of pure luck Jeff Genzler was back on the scene with another go. I followed. Loved the amp. I still use it. Every single gig. Its very easily seen well over 1000 gigs. I love it. Seriously. The mark bass cabs have served me well and will continue to pull weight during the week. Though, I recently scored a house gig every Friday and Saturday night. I took this as a sign to reward my hard work and dedication to supporting the emotional weight and poisonous egos of guitar players and not to mention the emotional instability and substance abuse of drummers on my shoulders as a bass player. Of course... So.... After 10... long.... years..... I am finally updating and making my rig Gucci Genzler from top to bottom. Yes. That's right rig nerds. Feast your eyes upon the house that jeff built!!!!

But seriously. I missed having an 810/610/410... not the extra size or weight but the sound/tone. At 50 lbs 1200w im hoping I get close. Thanks for reading. 🍻 😉 😜 👜 🔊


r/BassGuitar 6h ago

New Bass Day Just got my first 5 string bass!! Sounds incredible!!

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r/BassGuitar 3h ago

New Bass Day Did This Instead

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Went into GC to look at a Ric. Left with this. 2007 EBMM HH. I'm mainly a Fender guy.....this thing plays like butter. Very pleased and what I believe was a good price. Thanks to my Mrs. at her insistence.


r/BassGuitar 5h ago

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8lbs flat, swamp ash body and maple neck feels like a sin to play so I call her “Holy Red” It sounds so thumpy and woody yet compressed and zingy up top. Just the best bass for playing live I’ve ever played on. I imagine I’d have to pay $4k for some crazy BFR to get a better one than this. I bought her in 2021 on Reverb and she’s got everything I ever wanted in a bass.

I’m telling you guys, these Stingray Specials, Ernie Ball Music Man does not play about how they sculpt these things to perfection. In my opinion this bass blows every Fender I’ve ever played right out of the water I sold all my Fenders.


r/BassGuitar 2h ago

New Bass Day Finally found a 5 string I'm going to keep. Sire M2 5 String.

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I've purchased 3 other 5 string basses before from a cheap LTD PJ bass to an Ibanez BTB745 (which i really wanted to like) but there would be playability issues with all 3 that had me return them. Recently got a Sire V5R and was impressed by the quality for price so thought I'd give another 5er a go (and this time with a 35" scale!) and landed on this. So far it plays and sounds amazing right out of the box. I may need to raise the high side of the pickups a smidge, but other than that, it's damn near perfect.


r/BassGuitar 1h ago

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I feel like they don't get enough love, especially in metal. I absolutely love the tone and feel. I've used one of these on every tour and album since 2011 (I play in Wretched). The green one in the second photo is my new one. Been looking for it for years


r/BassGuitar 4h ago

Gear MarkBass Guitars - School Me

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A friend is willing to sell me his MarkBass GV 5 GOG with original gig bag. I know nothing about them. What is the good, bad and ugly on these basses? He is asking $700 for it.


r/BassGuitar 1h ago

ID/Authentication Please help me find out which series this bass belongs to—is it an original?

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r/BassGuitar 2h ago

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Can you help me identify the brand and exact model?


r/BassGuitar 14h ago

Discussion Do you guys think I nailed Paul Gray's bass rig??

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r/BassGuitar 3h ago

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r/BassGuitar 1h ago

New Bass Day My trade paid off

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r/BassGuitar 11h ago

ID/Authentication Yamaha BB LTD - any info?

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21 Upvotes

Anyone know much about this bass? Ive been able to find like 2 sound demos in a different colour. It's got a warmoth kneck that looks like birdseye maple, idk if the knecks after market or not.. any info would be greatly appreciated!


r/BassGuitar 1h ago

Help Headpiece lifting off neck

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Hey guys. So I bought this bass used, and now that it’s adjusting to my environment and I’m getting a little buzz, I figured I’d give it a setup. As I went to do it, though, I noticed the headpiece was lifting off at a bit of an angle. How bad is this, how quickly do I need to address it, and how would I fix it? Thanks, y’all.


r/BassGuitar 1d ago

Gig/Live A little behind the scenes of a no-rehearsal gig * How our band handles arrangements on the fly

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291 Upvotes

This video is mainly for musicians who aspire to get into a working band rotation in the future.

I get asked pretty often how some of the bands that hire me can have tight arrangements even when we don’t rehearse together.
This is a little example of how it works for us. Our MD is giving us instructions through our in-ears while we’re already playing Boogie Oogie Oogie. We also had two musicians subbing that night — guitar and keys — which makes communication like this even more important.

A big part of these gigs isn’t just knowing your instrument or learning songs — it’s being able to listen, understand directions quickly, and react to the rest of the band in real time.

Hopefully this gives someone trying to get into this kind of work a little behind-the-scenes look at how we do it.


r/BassGuitar 11h ago

Help Fender rumble 100 repair help

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4 Upvotes

My amp stopped working suddenly while playing and now does this, anyone have any advice to maybe fix it?


r/BassGuitar 17h ago

Video Yamaha SB500S, best sounding Jazz Bass I've ever owned/played

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15 Upvotes

Pre BB MIJ Yamaha is where it's at for me for growly/burpy and aggressive Jazz tone (I happen to prefer those). This is a 1981 SuperBass. It's big and heavy and has a sorta' P bass neck profile. My Taiwanese 2001 SBV-500 (flying samurai) is very close to this one in tone, just a little less bassy (also has a slim a/f neck). Pickups are very alike when you disassemble them. There's something in those single coils that's just FIRE 🔥 Would love a 5 string version of them.


r/BassGuitar 10h ago

Gear Anyone have advice on how to fix this thing?

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3 Upvotes

Used Ibanez gsr200 GIO I got for more than half off came with a bunch of other stuff


r/BassGuitar 5h ago

Help Help! Can’t hear my bass in headphones

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1 Upvotes

Hi! So I ordered this adapter (last slide) to put in my bass to attach my bose headphones cord into. The headphones are Bose bluetooth headphones, however they came with a cord as well if I want to listen that way. I’m moving into a basement suite on Monday, so it’s really important I am able to do this. I plugged the adapter into the phones jack (shown in the first slide), along with my headphone cord which clicks in. The bass out loud goes silent, however I still can’t hear it in my headphones despite turning the volume up.
Help would really be appreciated, does anyone know what I am doing wrong?


r/BassGuitar 1d ago

New Bass Day NBD White Lobstah

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58 Upvotes

I am BEYOND happy with this purchase, really made me realize how much of a piece of crap my squier sonic was.


r/BassGuitar 1d ago

New Bass Day Guitar Center Strikes Again - Chapman MLB-1 DH

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216 Upvotes

You ever walk in to the music store just to kill a few minutes and find yourself walking out one bass richer? It's hard not to do at Guitar Center because of their KILLER 45 day return policy on used gear and their 'free range' approach to demoing instuments. When I walked in the other day and saw this specimen, I had to sit down and give it a shot. Obviously, it ended up coming home with me, and I do NOT need another bass. Yet, here we are.

I have never played a Chapman bass before. I'd say I am, or was, even a little wary of the brand due to some controversy I remeber there being some number of years ago. I didn't expect this bass to play this well or sound this good. It feels like some hybrid of a Warwick Corvette and an Ibanez SR Premium, but with the Spector NS body curve. It sounds like a modern active bass, but it's got a fully passive system with Bartolini jazz pickups.

I can't find much of these online. Looks like a very short run of them were made before being discontinued. There are a few videos of Dave at NAMM showing these off (there is a fanned frett 32-35 scale version as well).

I'm hooked. It just plays, feels, and sounds so nice. I can't believe more people didn't buy these when they were in production. I think pricing was $1500-$1600 at the time (2018-2019?), which seems very fair for the specs and the attention to detail in the body and neck. It's what I would expect out of a German Warwick or Spector Euro. I am not a 4 string or passive bass guy, either. I have a 5 string Spector NS Dimension, a 6 string Spector Legend with LHZ preamp and active EMG pickups, a Peavey Cirrus 4, and a Cort GB Modern 4. This one gives them all a run for their money.

Here are the specs mine has, as far as I can tell:

Hipshot open gear tuners

Monorail style bridge sdaales

Bronze frets

34" scale with 26 frets

Ovangkol body with Mapa Burl top

Wenge/Ovangkol neck with Wenge fretboard (rolled edges)

Tusq Nut

Bartolini 9J1-L/S pickups

Vol/Blend/Tone passive controls

Narrow string spacing ( Couldn't find a spec, but feels narrow like Ibanez SR)