USA Lakland Owners: Any Problems Getting Really Low Action?

[narud]

Here's my take on all this if anyone is interested.

From the original post I wonder if the neck was set too straight. An optimal setup should have relief from the first fret all the way to the last. If the truss rod is too tight (and the strings set too high) you'll have exactly the symptom you describe. Low action from the first fret to somewhere aroud the 12th and then it'll get higher. Typically, to correct this, you'd loosen the neck and lower the strings at the saddles. There is a sweet spot between neck relief and saddle height where everything should be as good as it can get. The guys at Lakland really know what they're doing and have been doing it for a long time so I'd be really surprised if the neck had some kind of issue. But, necks are made of wood and things can happen.

Regarding "fall away": When the neck is under tension there should be no apparrent fall away. The idea behind adding fall away is that it's done before the frets are installed to approximately guess where the neck will pull to under tension. Skilled builders develop a pretty good idea of how much of this they need over time and usually nail it in the finished product. We try to eliminate this guess work here in our shop by stressing the neck to simulate string tension when we sand the fingerboard true before installing the frets. Look up Stew Mac's Erlewine Neck Jig to get a better idea of the concept.

You should not see fall away in a neck at pitch. If you do the truss rod is too tight, or there is a serious issue with the neck.

Hope that helps.

wouldnt you notice the fallaway if the neck was setup straight? i remember in the erlewine fretting video, he sets up some masking tape to put fallaway into the board to compensate for having some relief in the neck.

 

[Carey]

wouldnt you notice the fallaway if the neck was setup straight? i remember in the erlewine fretting video, he sets up some masking tape to put fallaway into the board to compensate for having some relief in the neck.

No. I don't believe you should have fall away with a straight neck. This may be a matter of opinion, but here's why I don't believe in that kind of fall away.

Necks have truss rods to deal with the fact that wood does not have a predictable fleixbility factor. Necks always seem to work a little bit differently. Truss rods also allow a player to have the relief dialed in to his taste. But the typical truss rod only works for the section of the neck past the heel. There is little to no potential for it to fix any flex in that zone where the neck transitions from the heel to the main shaft. This is where the common flip happens in Fender style instruments (especially J basses with their slim necks) where the neck has a bit of a ski jump up to the last fret which impedes a reasonable set up.

So the "fall away" we're talking about is intended to compensate for the section of the neck that isn't affected by the truss rod, thus avoiding the flip.

But to answer your question more specifically Joe, I believe, and my experience seems to confirm, that fall away on an optimally set up neck at pitch will cause buzzing issues through the mid range of frets. And then the action will get high where the fall away starts. Which is what the original poster had problems with.

In my experience, the lowest setups for light action are achieved with a tiny amount of relief and low string height and for this to be successful the neck from the 12th fret or so up has to be just less than straight. Any fall away under tension will not allow this.

Is this making sense?

 

[MooseLumps]

Glad to hear it's sorted out. Been looking pretty hard at an import Lakie and would hate to learn that there was an issue in the build process, or a run of instruments.

 

[lefty007]

Thanks for your comments, Carey. I'm aware that setting the neck with too much tension would create a forward bow, but I don't think that was it. When a loosened the truss rod to make sure that wasn't the issue, the whole action across the neck became too high, and the saddles were already bottomed out.

Also, it's worth mentioning that I could see the slope or fallaway only on the G -string side-- the neck looked perfectly straight on the B-string side. Are fallways applied to only one side of the neck?

I could have loosened the rod to make the neck straighter on the G-string side, but because the saddles were bottomed out, I would have had to insert a shim in the pocket, but I wasn't about to do that on a brand new $3200 bass.

 

[Carey]

Thanks for your comments, Carey. I'm aware that setting the neck with too much tension would create a forward bow, but I don't think that was it. When a loosened the truss rod to make sure that wasn't the issue, the whole action across the neck became too high, and the saddles were already bottomed out.

Also, it's worth mentioning that I could see the slope or fallaway only on the G -string side-- the neck looked perfectly straight on the B-string side. Are fallways applied to only one side of the neck?

I could have loosened the rod to make the neck straighter on the G-string side, but because the saddles were bottomed out, I would have had to insert a shim in the pocket, but I wasn't about to do that on a brand new $3200 bass.

I don't think there should be any visible fall away on an at pitch neck. And if you have it on one side of the neck and not the other then that is a problem.

But in my experience just sighting down the neck is not 100% reliable. It's best to use the string as a straightedge by holding it against frets outside the zone you want to check. And you can do this for different regions of the neck to track down an issue. In your case, check for relief between 1 and 12 and then between 12 and 21. If the neck is straight between 1 and 12 and has relief between 12 and 21 then you have the truss rod too straight and and there is not enough fall away (or there is a flip - same thing).

I understand about not being able to get the action right because the saddles were bottomed out, and agree that on a high end bass that shouldn't be a problem. But you could have shimmed the neck to see if that fixed your setup problem and then you'd have known if the neck had an issue or if the neck was too deep in the pocket and needed to be reset or have a shim added.

Ultimately, it sounds like you purchased a bass that you couldn't set up to your satisfaction for whatever reason and returning it was probably your best move.

 

[vince a]

I guess I'm just not reading it . . . what is fallout?

 

[Brado]

No. I don't believe you should have fall away with a straight neck. This may be a matter of opinion, but here's why I don't believe in that kind of fall away.

Necks have truss rods to deal with the fact that wood does not have a predictable fleixbility factor. Necks always seem to work a little bit differently. Truss rods also allow a player to have the relief dialed in to his taste. But the typical truss rod only works for the section of the neck past the heel. There is little to no potential for it to fix any flex in that zone where the neck transitions from the heel to the main shaft. This is where the common flip happens in Fender style instruments (especially J basses with their slim necks) where the neck has a bit of a ski jump up to the last fret which impedes a reasonable set up.

So the "fall away" we're talking about is intended to compensate for the section of the neck that isn't affected by the truss rod, thus avoiding the flip.

But to answer your question more specifically Joe, I believe, and my experience seems to confirm, that fall away on an optimally set up neck at pitch will cause buzzing issues through the mid range of frets. And then the action will get high where the fall away starts. Which is what the original poster had problems with.

In my experience, the lowest setups for light action are achieved with a tiny amount of relief and low string height and for this to be successful the neck from the 12th fret or so up has to be just less than straight. Any fall away under tension will not allow this.

Is this making sense?

I have to agree with Cary 100% on this. I just completed my first bass build.....I added a bit of fall away in my fingerboard before I fretted my bass...the action is awesome up until about the 12th fret. Then, it gets higher & higher all to way to the 24th. It's almost impossible to tap on the 22nd-24th frets. Intonation is slightly off as well, as the strings are having to be pulled further down to reach a fret than they are from the 12th & below. This being my first build, I've DEFINITELY learned from it. I'll start with a perfectly level fingerboard & compensate with how the frets are leveled from now on. A slight amount of fall away (and I mean SLIGHT) ma be in order for a fretless, though.

 

[dj5]

I think part of the problem is that the specified string heights on most builders's sites are so high for those that like a low action that people think you are just being fussy when you can't get that action low.
It might be within spec, but what does that mean? Most basses will go as low as the Lakland spec, it's only when you take it down you find out if the neck is that good.
My Skyline neck will go ridiculously low (Plekked), and so will my sixer, which I did the fret-level on myself (and I'm no expert), so I'm afraid I can't see why Lakland weren't concerned with this problem (now hopefully resolved).
I found Lakland's legendary customer care to be somewhat mythical until I spoke to Dan himself, when as if by magic all was made good.
I suppose it depends on who you get to speak to.