Action needs adjustment?

[Thecomedian]

I was playing fine before I bought new strings, now it seems if I play a little too rough touch to get louder attack, my strings bang on the fretboard, however a light touch they don't, but I get no fret noise. I feel like I should change the truss rod and move it a bit higher, or raise and shorten the saddles. which would you recommend?

[Pilgrim]

You need to do a basic setup. Check the stickies at the top of the Hardware and Repair forum for "how to" info. Messing with the truss rod by itself is not a solution. You probably need to re-intonate and make some other adjustments as well - but they interact, so there's no specific cookbook of actions.

[megafiddle]

What type and gauge did you change from, and what type and gauge did you change to?

If the tension with the new strings is lower, the neck will relax and the relief will decrease.
In that case, you would want to loosen the truss rod to restore the relief to where
it was originally. That will also increase the action height, but it may or may not go
back exactly where it was. So you may have to adjust the saddles also.

If the new strings are not lower tension, then something else is going on. And in that
case, would need more information.

[Thecomedian]

roundwound unknown gauges to standard ernie ball pack for 5 string bass.

I raised the saddles of all the strings, and the intonation is still correct, after tuning, for everything but the G string.

edit: nvm, it's fixed now.


As to why's, I find it likely to be due to weather. It was hot until a month or two ago, then there was a few cold"ish" days, then it got into 70-80 temps again until this sunday, and today was cold and foggy. Basically, winter came ridiculously late here, and I cite that as the probable culprit of the change. Lots of ruined orange crops this winter. woot..