Pro Mod action

[ekalb09]

Every pro mod I've played has a little bit high action, what's up with this? Maybe I'm just playing too many shop abused charvels lately but have any of you guys gotten great low action like a fender strat on these things? I'm so close to a purchase I can smell it.

[Grandturk]

In my experience - every guitar is going to have a different optimal action. You can only get the lowest action with a properly adjusted truss rod and well leveled and crowned frets.

As soon as you start wearing the frets down, this is going to change. For the record, the action on my new ProMod is the thickness of a Jazz III at the 12th fret.

[straycat]

My 08 had a std set up which was a little high but I was able to put it right where I like it with a few cranks on the trem studs.NP.

[biged71]

Both of mine have had very low action and great set-ups, but I had to sift through several to find the ones that felt the best to me. Good luck with the search. They are a pretty good bang for the buck axe.

[vondran]

Mine had very low action right out of the box. Was the floyd level with the body on the ones you looked it?

[AndyK]

You can almost always count on the fact that guitars hanging in Guitar Center or other stores will need a neck adjustment / set up. I've seen Les Pauls with huge bows in the necks and action that was like a slide guitar! I've seen Strats that had a back-bow on their necks, with action that buzzzzzzed like crazy. If I didn't know about setting up guitars, I would think all Les Pauls had high action, and all Strats were buzzy, know what I mean?

[toejam]

but have any of you guys gotten great low action like a fender strat on these things?

Great, low action on a Fender Strat? Really? Maybe if you don't care about bending strings. :ROTF:
Unless you've got a 12" or greater radius, the action of a typical 9.5" or 7.25" Fender fingerboard will not yield very low action.

[Newc]

Why do people still think that a guitar should be set up in the store to their personal preference? DUH! Everyone likes different setups, ergo manufacturers have to pick a happy medium, which some people find too high and other will say it's too low.

Here's a tip: when you go to a shop, take your setup tools with you. Set the action to your liking, then see if you'll have to adjust anything else. If you've ever set up a guitar, you should have the ability to "project" what you'll need to do, and not dismiss an entire range of guitars based simply on the one you picked off the wall.

Imagine if, in the distant future when we're long gone, an alien race lands on Earth and digs up the skeleton of someone with Down Syndrome and says "Ah HAH! This is what Earthlings looked like!" - that'd be pretty damn stupid, right? So why the hell does it make perfect sense to expect any guitar in any shop to be set to your specific preference?

Fucking duh.

[MakeAJazzNoiseHere]

Of the two Pro Mods I had, one had crappy fret work and needed the action set very high to play well. The other, I just had to lower the bridge a little.

The tolerances on these aren't great, and the fret work is not what you get on a Custom Shop guitar. What would you expect for $1099 MAP? :dunno:

Rest assured that a good fret level and dress by someone who knows what they are doing will get it playing with the same low action (or lower) you get from a Charvel Custom Shop guitar (which can also vary from awesome to pretty crappy.)

[vondran]

Great, low action on a Fender Strat? Really? Maybe if you don't care about bending strings. :ROTF:
Unless you've got a 12" or greater radius, the action of a typical 9.5" or 7.25" Fender fingerboard will not yield very low action.

I agree, my experience with fenders is they're not the ones to use as a benchmark for low action.

[shreddermon]

Great, low action on a Fender Strat? Really? Maybe if you don't care about bending strings. :ROTF:
Unless you've got a 12" or greater radius, the action of a typical 9.5" or 7.25" Fender fingerboard will not yield very low action.

Depends on how you set it up. The string heights on most modern Fender trems are adjustable at each saddle. So this, in whole or part, can compensate for the rounder fretboard radius and still yield very low action. Heck, StewMac sells a tool for this very purpose! (It aligns bridge saddle heights with your guitar's fretboard radius.)

The same can't be said for a Floyd, where only the post heights are adjustable. Otherwise, the saddles would have to be shimmed (...which is another tradeoff altogether).

As to ProMod action, once set up properly, the couple that I've owned were right in line with my custom shop guitars. Heck, maybe better than a couple of them. No matter what your preferences, every guitar is going to have slight variances and, thus, set-up somewhat differently.

[MakeAJazzNoiseHere]

Depends on how you set it up.

No, that's the whole reason for flatter-radiused (and compound-radius) fingerboards... If you lower the saddle for the high E "low" then when you start pushing it across the fretboard over to where the D string should be then <squeak> goes your note.

Yeah, you can get the action low, but as toejam pointed out, you won't be able to bend very far before your notes fret out.

I will agree though, one of my Pro Mods had lower action (and still fully playable) than one of my Custom Shops, and one of my Pro Mods had higher action than anything else, until I leveled the frets on both of the guitars with higher action... At which point, it's all in how good a job you did on leveling the frets.

[ekalb09]

I played another SoCal today and it was fantastic, thanks for the input guys.

[charvel750]

Hey, Newc, as far as I know, Down's Syndrome doesn't present deformities to the skeletal system. It only creates a "retardation" of the brain and small or crossed eyes. So if aliens dug up a skeleton of a human who had that, the skeleton would be normal, but we get what yer saying nonetheless! Here's lookin' at you, kid:

[toejam]

Depends on how you set it up. The string heights on most modern Fender trems are adjustable at each saddle. So this, in whole or part, can compensate for the rounder fretboard radius and still yield very low action. Heck, StewMac sells a tool for this very purpose! (It aligns bridge saddle heights with your guitar's fretboard radius.)

No, that's the whole reason for flatter-radiused (and compound-radius) fingerboards... If you lower the saddle for the high E "low" then when you start pushing it across the fretboard over to where the D string should be then <squeak> goes your note.

Yeah, you can get the action low, but as toejam pointed out, you won't be able to bend very far before your notes fret out.

Yep, I know the saddles can be adjusted... I've got a USA Double Fat Hardtail. With the roundness of the 9.5" board, there's only so much you can lower the saddles to compensate.