Action and intonation: which order?

[themickster]

I found tutorials about setups that say to do the action before intonation. Changing intonation changes the action, so does it matter that much which order to do them?

 

[ImTheOnlyOne]

10mm (1 centimetre) of saddle movement is a lot of adjustment for intonation correction. And my calculations suggest a much smaller change of string height, especially if you stat with low action. But regardless it is always best to do intonation after the truss rod and saddle adjustments.

A 1 cm change to any setup parameter is way beyond intonation and hopefully exceeds any needed change to action.

I like your order truss, saddle, intonation.

Just this evening this thread had me doing a setup on a well liked but underplayed 4-string electric bass that has a hard time holding good action across Mid-Atlantic seasons. I quickly got it to decent action and no fret buzz and its 12th fret harmonics were on, BUT G and A pitches past the 7th grew flatter and flatter the higher up the neck I fretted. It was then I realized those two saddles were SEVERAL twists too far back tail-wise.

This was a case where the last year setup was off, so minute adjustments weren't zeroing in on good intonation.

I recall reading somewhere that, on say a 34" scale bass, it's good practice to measure and set scale length on the G at 34" between nut and saddle. Is that true?

 

[DigitalMan]

Rough intonation first.

Final intonation last.

If intonation affects action, I have some …questions about the setup.

 

[Tim Skaggs]

In general, the last adjustment should be the intonation. Adjusting the intonation should not change the action any significant amount, but there are a few bridge designs that can change action while adjusting intonation.

One is the notorious Gibson 3-point bridge. The "frame" of the 3 point bridge that the saddles sit on can be at an angle to the lengthwise "plane" of the neck. We all know a neck is usually not perfectly flat, but imagine a plane that touches the first fret and the last fret. The 3-point bridge can be "tilted" toward the nut or away from the nut. Adjusting the bridge saddles toward or away from the nut is going uphill or downhill in relation to the plane of the neck.

These are rare exceptions where adjusting the intonation would change string height over the 12th fret by very tiny amounts of tenths or maybe hundredths of a mm, and probably unmeasurably small amounts over frets 1 through 7. It's small enough to ignore.

 

[J Wilson]

For me, always and only in this order (and I don't move to the next step until the current one is completed, and this assumes an instrument with a properly-cut nut and no fret issues)

Relief.
Action (or height over the last fret).
Intonation (and always/only with new strings, played-in strings will lie to you).
Pickup clearance.

Start hopscotching over each of these and you can tie yourself up in a knot fairly quickly.

 

[ImTheOnlyOne]

Rough intonation first.

Final intonation last.

If intonation affects action, I have some …questions about the setup.

I think it has an effect when the initial bridge/neck action setup is too rough.

 

[DigitalMan]

I think it has an effect when the initial bridge/neck action setup is too rough.

The geometry doesn't geometry.

(Except in the extremely rare case when the saddles travel in a channel that is not parallel to the body or the neck has been improperly shimmed to be straight but at an angle (non-parallel) relative to the body. That means it's either a throwaway bridge or a bad shim job.

Also assuming the relief is set properly and not eligible for the Winter Olympics.

 

[Polfuste]

This:

I consider it to be an iterative process.

1. Adjust relief
2. Adjust action
3. Tune
4. Adjust intonation
5. Tune
6. Play hard and soft, with fingers and pick, all the way up the neck

Repeat until everything sounds and feels right. As long as there are no defects (fret levels, neck twists, etc.), that should be all that is needed.