If you’ve bought a new guitar, but it doesn’t play quite the way you want it to, then perhaps it needs to undergo a process known as a setup. A setup ranges from simple, minor adjustments through to more compress processes. Some of these minor adjustments can be done at home with little to no experience in guitar maintenance.
The easiest one to do yourself is to adjust the string action.
The string action is the height of the strings from the frets on the fretboard. As a rule, the higher the string action, the harder the strings are to push down and the lower the action, the easier the strings are to push down.
You don’t need any prior tech experience to adjust action, you just need some simple tools. You’ll either need an allen key or a screwdriver.
A common style of bridge adjustment is that which is found on the Blackstar Carry on Travel Guitar:
This is adjusted by using an allen key to raise or lower the bridge from either side to achieve the desired string height across the fretboard. When you adjust the action, be sure to only make small, minor adjustments. Do a quarter turn each time and retune and check the guitar before you adjust further.
If you have a Gibson style guitar, you may have the same bridge adjustment available, but it will be done with a screwdriver instead of an allen key.
For any Strat or PRS style guitar owners, you may have a bridge that looks like this image, which has action adjustment for each individual string. This takes slightly longer to set up but allows you to fine tune each string. Each string is adjusted with 2 small allen key heads on the bridge saddle:
If you have a Telecaster style guitar, the bridge adjustment is commonly done for pairings of strings as each pair of strings sits on a single “barrel” saddle. The same principle applies, but you’re just working with 2 strings at a time:
And finally, for all the Floyd Rose Locking Tremolo players out there, the bridge adjustment is once again done with an allen key, but from the two posts either side of the bridge:
It’s very easy to do this yourself at home without needing to consult a specialist. It can make any guitar play better and all you need is a little time and some basic tools. If it’s your first time setting the action, go slow. Take your time and remember where you started so you can easily reset the adjustments if you need to.
Doing this can make your guitar feel better out of the box.
Remember, there is no right or wrong when it comes to string action. It’s all dependent on how the guitar feels in your hands. Check out the linked video for more detail on adjusting string action.