I got the Ibanez BTB 866 ms back in February and fell in love with it. My wife and I don’t have a storage room at the house because the rooms are bedrooms for us and the kids, so I keep my gear at my parents house. Dad is a diabetic and that means it can be 100 degrees outside and he will have the heater on inside. We live in NC, so our summers are fairly hot and muggy. Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating about them and the summer, but it’s nothing for their house to be hot in the spring. Either way it’s usually way warmer than I prefer. Recently when we have practiced, it seems like the action on that bass is higher than what I remembered it being in February when I got the bass. We have been practicing 1 time a week for around 2 hours doing 2 run throughs of the 12 songs we play for our church’s special homecoming service. Yesterday we did a semi run through of all the songs before we played. 2 hours of playing. I don’t have calluses on my fingers but they are sore. They were sore Wednesday night after we practiced. I’ve been playing for 30 years and thought I was beyond the stage of sore fingers. I noticed yesterday it was very tiring. Is it normal for high action to be exhausting while you are playing? Or should we have just warmed up with one song before we actually played? It does seem like I’m having to press the fretboard harder with the higher action. Don’t throw stones at me for what I’m getting ready to say. I’m sure the bass needs a proper set up. I’ve always took my instruments to shops when they needed setting up. I know proper set up is a useful skill I need. Hopefully I can take the time and learn it. I will also add that the action got higher on my Music man Bongo once, but not to the extent of being difficult to play. Forgive me if maybe this thread should have been done on the Luthier section.
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Action a little high for me?
- Thread starter Cory rich40
- Start date
Setting up a bass is easy. There are plenty of detailed step by step videos on youtube on how to do it.
It sounds to me that this is a typical example of the effect of changing humidity between the colder and warmer months: The neck absorbs moisture and expands when the humidity goes up, but the strings don't, so you wind up with more bow in the neck and thus higher action. Lots of players -- maybe even most? -- find that they have to make "seasonal adjustments" in the fall and spring in response to changes in humidity.
Set up is easy, but it can be a little intimidating when you first set out, and it's time-consuming when you've got to make relatively big adjustments. The best guide I've seen is Jerzy Drozd's, because it's straightforward and easy to follow and it's written by an expert:
www.jerzydrozdbasses.com
Even though it's over 60 pages, the section about string height and action are only a couple pages long.
Ibanez includes all the tools you need for set-up with their guitars and basses, so if you bought new you should have them around.
The Ultimate Guide to The Perfect Bass Setup
Everything You Always Wanted To Learn and Know About Perfect Bass Setup
Even though it's over 60 pages, the section about string height and action are only a couple pages long.
Ibanez includes all the tools you need for set-up with their guitars and basses, so if you bought new you should have them around.
I'll add that North Carolina's had very unusual weather so far this year. We've been in a drought since September, rainfall is far lower than usual and among other things that's contributed to dryer air than usual here -- and then this past weekend the hammer came down, we got a heat wave and the air got swampy. Everybody's guitars here have shifted in the past week, it's not just yours.
I don't think it is throwing stones, but it sounds like all it needs is a truss rod tweak. A hot truss rod is a long truss rod compared to a cold one, so it will let go of some tension which leads to more relief, which translates to a higher action. Time to break out the Allen keys... My SR4 is very sensitive to temperature changes - tweaking the neck a smidge either way is routine throughout the year (or even at certain venues) and should be nothing to be afraid of. Putting the cost of a workshop visit aside, I would think there is little point getting the thing set up in a place other than where it is being kept and played, only to get home and find it has moved.
Both my Ibanez SRs came from GC and neither one included tools. Pretty sure one of them, the SR370EF, was a return that had been played previously. The SR Premium was definitely new and untouched. Anyway, no tools.Set up is easy, but it can be a little intimidating when you first set out, and it's time-consuming when you've got to make relatively big adjustments. The best guide I've seen is Jerzy Drozd's, because it's straightforward and easy to follow and it's written by an expert:
The Ultimate Guide to The Perfect Bass Setup
Everything You Always Wanted To Learn and Know About Perfect Bass Setup
Even though it's over 60 pages, the section about string height and action are only a couple pages long.
Ibanez includes all the tools you need for set-up with their guitars and basses, so if you bought new you should have them around.
JazznFunk
Supporting Member
I live in the NC mountains. Grew up here. Our weather definitely goes from really dry to really humid - depending on where you are. That said, it sounds like the issues you're dealing with are independent of the ambient weather. If your bass is constantly in a hot, dry environment (like a very hot and dry house, or a very hot and humid house), it will affect the wood by drying it out, which will shrink it, and it will exacerbate the bow (relief) in the neck, and possibly cause fret sprout (the fret ends feel sharp up and down the sides of the fretboard. While a simple truss rod adjustment might make things better, long-term you may want to think about keeping at least your bass in an environment you trust. Under tension, the bow may become 'baked in' and negatively affect your ability to adjust it out. If the temperature is not comfortable for you, it's probably not good or comfortable for your bass either. I'm a proponent of NOT having to fight your instrument to make music. Good luck.
you know I failed to mention that my dad is the primary lead guitar player. It makes me wonder if he has had issues with the action on his guitars. My wife is the exact opposite. The colder the better. Would that be better on my basses than being too hot?
JazznFunk
Supporting Member
Not really. Extremes are never desirable. Again - if you yourself are uncomfortable, your instruments probably are as well. In my home/studio, the temp is usually set around 70-72 in the summer, and the humidity lives around 50% (give or take). In the winter, we live with it a little colder, anywhere from 65-67 degrees, and the humidity sometimes dips into the 40s if it's a cold stretch and we run the heat a lot. But all of that is still 'comfortable', and my basses rarely show any signs of shifts from the climate. My upright bass is also a huge consideration for me when it comes to environmental control.
JazznFunk
Supporting Member
Depends on the wood, and the construction of the neck. I have necks that move more than others, but none move to any great degree - maybe requiring a quarter turn of a truss rod one way or another, maximum. The ones with graphite reinforcement rods in them never move.
The clerk forgot or "forgot", then. They're supposed to be included and the manual specifies them.
Not even sure I got a manual. GC isn't quite up to SW's standards when it comes to checking contents. Actually, both basses came from Musician's Friend, bought thru GC.
I remember when I got the SR1350B I was confused with how the bridge worked, and if there was a manual it didn't specify how even string changes worked. I emailed Ibanez and never got a response. I figured it out. About a year later I emailed them with a question about how to take care of the finish on the body, and got almost immediate response, with specific instructions.
Perhaps they have gotten better organized since I bought the basses? Been about 2 years for the SR Premium, about 9 months for the SR fretless. Anyway, there is always plenty of info available on TB.
Turnaround
Commercial User
Correcting a couple of pieces of mis-information in this thread.
It's not the truss rod changing because of differences in humidity that causes changes in relief. It's changes in relative humidity causing the wood to expand/contract that causes that change.
And as the relative humidity goes down, the neck upbows. When humidity increases the neck backbows. For any given amount of moisture in the air, the relative humidity drops as temperature rises. So if it's cold outside and you house is full of air that came from the outdoors, as you turn up the heat in the house the relative humidity drops. You have to add humidity to the air inside the house.
So the OP's problem of upbow is not the result of high humidity.
It's not the truss rod changing because of differences in humidity that causes changes in relief. It's changes in relative humidity causing the wood to expand/contract that causes that change.
And as the relative humidity goes down, the neck upbows. When humidity increases the neck backbows. For any given amount of moisture in the air, the relative humidity drops as temperature rises. So if it's cold outside and you house is full of air that came from the outdoors, as you turn up the heat in the house the relative humidity drops. You have to add humidity to the air inside the house.
So the OP's problem of upbow is not the result of high humidity.
Would you agree that singnificant temperature change has a more direct and immediate effect on the metal parts than humidity does on the wooden parts? That's certainly what my physics brain would expect and what my anecdotal experience bears out.
I mean, I imagine, and you will know most if not all of what there is to know on this, that wood takes extended exposure to actually absorb or lose moisture, whereas metals parts, especially small or thin ones, tend to respond almost instantly to temperature change.
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Some people are more sensitive to string height and action than other people. I remember reading about somebody trying Stevie Ray Vaughn's guitar and complaining that the action was a mile high and the strings as taut as cutting wire. This was while SRV was still alive, so it's not because the guitar had languished from neglect.
It's not the temperature (or humidity) alone as much as the change in temperature and humidity. A guitar's neck won't move much if it's kept in a hot humid room, as long as that room's always hot and humid. Move it into an overly air-conditioned room and you'll shortly have to adjust the truss rod.
I suspect the truss rod is insulated by the wood along most of its length so it's not going to experience a dramatic temperature change as quickly as that.
Experience tells me otherwise. I remember playing in a particularly cold place on time and having to adjust within about 15-20 minutes or so of taking the bass from the case. I can't imagine the moisure content of a lump of wood ever changing that quickly, especially as the place was less than half an hour from home. Not saying humidity doesn't matter - of course it does - but surely it has to be a much slower process, as in days or weeks?
JazznFunk
Supporting Member
I've found temperature to be a much quicker influence on the neck than humidity for sure. It's why we upright players are encouraged to leave our instruments in the gig bag for a decent stretch of time when going from one temperature extreme to another. Quick changes WILL cause cracking in the top/sides/back.
