I had an Eleuke with at least 4mm action at the 12th fret and no matter how hard I tried, doing the D shape (eg. E chord) was impossible without hitting the bottom string. I lowered it quite a bit and now the uke is much easier to play. To me, it's not a matter of pushing down, it's my pudgy fingers that touch other strings. I haven't been playing a fretted instrument for all my life so I'm not blessed with the looooong bendable fingers that you see in the videos (^_^). Hopefully that will come in time. For now, I really like to lower the action so that I can at least sound good and not get discouraged.
Buzzing to me is as much technique as it is action. Fretting too far back can always cause buzzing for me, even on high action ukes.
As a side note, I have a Les Paul Epiphone Concert that I shimmed and it's action is waaaay low ~1.5 at the 12th fret. That uke is an absolute joy to play. Too bad it sounds tinny because of the thin body. If I can get a full-bodied uke with that low of an action, I would pay top dollar for sure.
Wow...1.5MM...you must be using high tension strings!!
We spend a lot of time on set up in the uke building classes we do. One full day in fact and all the students get to learn how do make a nut, saddle, tie strings correctly, dress frets and of course set up the instrument with the correct action for their preferred style of playing.
With medium to high tension strings the action is measured at the first fret by fretting the string at the 3rd. There should be the width of a cigarette paper between the top of the first fret and the bottom edge of the string on the G, E and A strings. 2 papers thickness on the C. If you are using a low G then the same goes for it as the C string.
Once you've got the set up for the 1st fret, then you go on to the 12th. This is in a range of 2 to 2.5 mm between the top of the 12th fret and the bottom of all the strings for most players. For people who like to work in inches then the range will be from 0.080" for low action, 0.90" for medium and 0.100" for high. I occasionally have customers that want their set up down as low as 0.070" and they manage to get that to work with their style of playing, but you do loose a bit of volume and tone.
The most important part of set up is getting that action at the 1st fret right, and the one that is most often left way too high.
Good thread, and thanks to all who have been so generous with their knowledge and experience. I learned a heck of a lot here in about a ten-minute read! In a recent exchange that I had with Mim, she made the point that super-low action runs the risk of sacrificing tone, and can be uncomfortable for those who are primarily strummers (like me). She has a good point there, as I notice that when I strum a super-low-action uke for any significant amount of time, my index finger starts to get sore from brushing against the fretboard, due to the super-low action. So, I guess "super-low" isn't always the ideal.
Good thread, and thanks to all who have been so generous with their knowledge and experience. I learned a heck of a lot here in about a ten-minute read! In a recent exchange that I had with Mim, she made the point that super-low action runs the risk of sacrificing tone, and can be uncomfortable for those who are primarily strummers (like me). She has a good point there, as I notice that when I strum a super-low-action uke for any significant amount of time, my index finger starts to get sore from brushing against the fretboard, due to the super-low action. So, I guess "super-low" isn't always the ideal.
Thank you, Allen for clarifying string height at the nut! I've seen all kinds of online guidance about height at 12th fret but your response is the first I've seen as to string height at the 1st fret.We spend a lot of time on set up in the uke building classes we do. One full day in fact and all the students get to learn how do make a nut, saddle, tie strings correctly, dress frets and of course set up the instrument with the correct action for their preferred style of playing.
With medium to high tension strings the action is measured at the first fret by fretting the string at the 3rd. There should be the width of a cigarette paper between the top of the first fret and the bottom edge of the string on the G, E and A strings. 2 papers thickness on the C. If you are using a low G then the same goes for it as the C string.
Once you've got the set up for the 1st fret, then you go on to the 12th. This is in a range of 2 to 2.5 mm between the top of the 12th fret and the bottom of all the strings for most players. For people who like to work in inches then the range will be from 0.080" for low action, 0.90" for medium and 0.100" for high. I occasionally have customers that want their set up down as low as 0.070" and they manage to get that to work with their style of playing, but you do loose a bit of volume and tone.
The most important part of set up is getting that action at the 1st fret right, and the one that is most often left way too high.