How high is your action and what do you consider low action?

[filler83]

Both have some validity. With finger on first fret that takes a badly cut nut out of the equation, as that mostly affects play in the money area (below 5th fret). But then you could argue that if you play in the money area it's very relevant. In an ideal world pressing down on the first fret shouldn't make that much difference (imagine there was a 0th fret).

gotcha - I see.

 

[bobyoung53]

Something that is obvious but there are lots of variables, but for me anyway the looser the strings the higher the action so I go by how the bass plays and feels. Shorter scale higher action, lighter gauge higher action. Or opposite, you can for example use the La Bella Jamerson set (.100-.055, heavy and tight and great sounding) and put your action way down low without bottoming out. I bought my first good bass in 1971, Fender P bass, sunburst, tort, complete with covers, foam and flat wounds, coming from my cheap Japanese bass I could not believe how low the action was from the factory and it played great, no buzzes etc but it was too low for me, I couldn't get used to it.

 

[Michael Moore]

By bottom do you mean top? That is a crazy low E string but an appropriate G string height. You'd have a super low G string to maintain the radius.

I dig in hard so my basses are usually about 2.4mm E-B and about 2mm G-C at the last fret, with maybe .7mm relief, StingRay is .5mm. I don't measure the 12th fret when I setup so I don't know...

I rarely ever play at the 20th to 24th fret(many basses, fretted and fretless, mostly 5 n 6 string), but play between the nut and 12th fret... a lot. That's why it's a good idea to measure at the 8th and 12th fret. Also fret at the 1st(capo works good) and 14th fret and check for a little bit of negative bow around the 6th to 8th frets. .5mm is good. Thickness of a business card slipping thru like a feeler guage. Zero is okay,... but is starts to rattle, clack, n buzz around there. Just stick to the standards. It's geometry. You can't change the math.