How To Find A Saddle To Lower Acoustic Guitar Action Height
This guide provides a step-by-step process to find an appropriate saddle to lower your acoustic guitar’s action height.
Step One – Address Other Playability Issues
People often assume that the only way to improve playability is to lower action height, but other methods exist. Before you lower your saddle and action height, please see our guide on Acoustic Guitar Action ‘As Low As Possible Without Buzzing’ for tips on improving playability.
Step Two – Determine Whether A Lower Saddle Height Is Possible
You need sufficient string break angle at the saddle, or you will get poor tone and poor undersaddle pickup output. See the following link for more information: Acoustic Guitar Tone and String Break Angle
In the below image you can see that, even before being strung up, the saddle will be too low, even with string ramps.
Step Three – Determine Goal Action Height
Action height will largely depend on your picking hand attack. Please see our article on How High Should the Action Be On An Acoustic Guitar? for more information.
Step Four – Determine Saddle Height Changes
Now that you have your goal action height, you can estimate how much lower of a saddle height you need. Measure your current twelfth fret action height for the bass and treble E. Then, remove your saddle, and measure the height from the bottom of the saddle to where the strings rest at the bass E and treble E strings.
In order to reach your twelfth fret goal action height, you need to remove twice as much height from your saddle. For example, if your bass E twelfth fret action is 7/64” and you want to reduce it by 1/64”, then you need to remove 1/32” material from the bottom of the bass E edge of your saddle. Do the same for the treble edge.
Note that you may want to change the bass to treble height difference for your new saddle, and need to factor this in when looking for a replacement saddle to ensure that you have sufficient height. See our article on How To Adjust Saddle Height On One Side for more information.
Once you have all of the above, you can determine how much of a maximum height and bass to treble height difference is needed from your current saddle height for a new saddle height.
Note that it’s extremely unlikely that any saddles you find online will be to your exact needs. Each guitar will have a slightly different neck angle, and so although the factory might set the action at a specified height, this can be achieved through a combination of adjusting the neck relief, nut slot height, or saddle height.
Still Wondering What Saddle You Need?
Once you have determined all of the above, please send us the following:
- Current saddle maximum height
- Current saddle bass to treble height difference
- Current twelfth fret action height
- Goal twelfth fret action height
We can then let you know whether we have any saddles that will work.
If we do have something appropriate, it’s extremely unlikely that any of our saddles will be to your exact needs, and so you would likely need to make adjustments. Please see our Video page for more information.