Guitar Action Opinions Needed Please. Fender American Player Strat. Also, about that PU Height...
EDIT: the guitar is an American PERFORMER. For some reason I spoke out of turn. I bought it brand new just recently...
Truss rod looks good, nut seems to be cut appropriately. Based on some research, I was told that I should set the action to 2/64" across all the strings, and measure at the 17th fret, due to the jumbo frets and 9.5" radius. I originally looked at trying out 4/64", but that is what Fender uses for non-jumbo fret models.
My question to you:
*Would you set it up like this, if you are going for faster shred-style music?*
At a string height of 2/64" the action seems too high for my tastes. I'm using 9-46 strings, so nothing unusual there. My fingers feel like they are putting in way too much effort now, and actually hurt slightly. I have been playing for a long time, and I guess I am used to having significantly lower action.
In my opinion, the guitar seemed okay before with the lower action, but I can tell that I am getting better tone with string bends etc.
*And one more question, sorry!*
How do you like your PU string-distances? Particularly higher gain tones, with more bite...
I also lowered the pickups quite a bit, compared to how it came from the store, using 4/64" for bridge, 5/64" middle/neck. The tone is okay, but I feel like it's lost some of its definition. A bit smoother sounding now. No problems with sustain or anything like that, and interestingly enough, I have to back off on my gain because I am getting more noise and feedback in my signal. The noise gate is having trouble keeping up...
Thanks for your time and any advice you can give...I used Gemini and YT, but having trouble getting definitive answers. I'm starting to think I should just tweak everything to my liking...