jay said:
I tuned up and the tension and action is crazy high. Do I need a neck adjustment, or lower it at the bridge. The action gets higher towards the bridge...
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Not trying to be funny or insulting, but the action ALWAYS gets higher toward the bridge. You do not want uniform action from end to end. You want the correct amount of relief [very slight backbow] and the correct clearance above the octave fret [varies with style, etc but 2.5 to 3mm is typical, higher for very slappy or other hyperactive styles].
Simply put, never mess with the bridge to compensate changes in relief [neck bow]. Weather and string tension [different strings or tunings] affect only the relief, which is addressed only with the neck rod, not the bridge adjustments.
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That said, for others who may be reading this, for Fender types where you remove the neck to access the rod nut, if the seasonal changes are not too extreme, you can be lazy like me: During a really humid hot summer month, adjust the rod to the barest minimum workable relief, much less than "standard", but not quite truly totally flat. Now raise the saddles til the buzz is gone or tolerable.
In less humid seasons, as the neck relief increases all by itself, you can drop the saddles to keep the action playable. Or you can get rid of this ax forever. I happen to live right on a major river. I don't try for a 12 month solution. The ax in question has its rod adjusted such that I can fudge the action with the saddles, never removing the neck to access the rod, but it's only a 10 month solution. It's just not my dead-of-winter ax ..... unless I wanna tolerate too-high action, just to show up with a white bass at Xmas time
Actually, Xmas is usually OK. The true dryest coldest part of winter here is around february and early march.
My dead-of-winter basses are wood-free all-composite basses, so this solution is OK for me. If your climate is less variable than mine, you can get a lazy-dude 12 month solution via the same procedure. Or you can neatly rout out a more realistic rod access. But as you all know, basses are manufactured by vengeful gods who see everything and will set seven plagues upon you if you do any unreversable mods, even with professional level workmanship to correct all the stoopid design flaws that the gods put in there to make you suffer for your art so you will get 72 virgins in the afterlife. Hopefully, they did not simply remain virgins just cuz they are gross and repulsive ......... it would also be cool if they can sing and play. You don't need a cook in the afterlife. BBQ ribs and chicken grow on trees all year round [so don't expect your virgins to have 22" waistlines].
Hope this helps. YMMV, a lot !!!
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