JediMasterThrash
Well-Known Member
This might seem like a stupid newbie question for someone who's been shredding for 30 years.
One of those things I think I just didn't pay attention to until I started messing with the setups on all my guitars by myself.
When you bend a string say the 5th string, what do you do with the 4th string? The bend usually passes through the 4th string and may even hit the 3rd string.
This is why it comes from setups, as it's all dependent on the string height at the fret you're bending at.
Three possibilities, the action is low, and the 4th string gets wedged under the finger as you bend. I find this ruins the bend, as the added friction and tension under the finger just makes the bend unnatural or the reduced pressure causes it to lose sustain.
The action is medium, where the string is simply "pushed" with the tip of the finger. This is my ideal, as it's basically like nothing happens, the 4th string is naturally muted and you keep the same pressure and drag friction on the bend string.
The action is high, and the string gets caught up in your fingernail. Or it slides up the fingernail. This one causes a lot of noise as the fingernail doesn't mute like the tip, and when you hit the string with the fingernail and release the bend and the string pops off the nail, you get unwanted pings.
I basically setup my guitars action to be about as low as possible that still lets me tip-push on a bend. I recently got all these guitar gauges and tools to help with setup, and I find the numbers for string relief recommended actually quite lower, like if i actually setup my guitar that way, all the bends would cause my finger to ride over the string. And actually I feel I typically use a relatively low action, as I trade off an acceptable amount of fret buzz for easy of shredding, so it seems the "standard" action is lower than I Thought.
One of those things I think I just didn't pay attention to until I started messing with the setups on all my guitars by myself.
When you bend a string say the 5th string, what do you do with the 4th string? The bend usually passes through the 4th string and may even hit the 3rd string.
This is why it comes from setups, as it's all dependent on the string height at the fret you're bending at.
Three possibilities, the action is low, and the 4th string gets wedged under the finger as you bend. I find this ruins the bend, as the added friction and tension under the finger just makes the bend unnatural or the reduced pressure causes it to lose sustain.
The action is medium, where the string is simply "pushed" with the tip of the finger. This is my ideal, as it's basically like nothing happens, the 4th string is naturally muted and you keep the same pressure and drag friction on the bend string.
The action is high, and the string gets caught up in your fingernail. Or it slides up the fingernail. This one causes a lot of noise as the fingernail doesn't mute like the tip, and when you hit the string with the fingernail and release the bend and the string pops off the nail, you get unwanted pings.
I basically setup my guitars action to be about as low as possible that still lets me tip-push on a bend. I recently got all these guitar gauges and tools to help with setup, and I find the numbers for string relief recommended actually quite lower, like if i actually setup my guitar that way, all the bends would cause my finger to ride over the string. And actually I feel I typically use a relatively low action, as I trade off an acceptable amount of fret buzz for easy of shredding, so it seems the "standard" action is lower than I Thought.
