How much relief do you have on your neck?

[psychodave]

I have a SL2H that I got in January and the neck was set straight from the factory. This past weekend while I was changing strings, I noticed that the ebony board was pretty dry so I put some lemon oil (made for guitars) on the neck and put on the new strings. The next day the neck had a back bow, I think it is normal since the ebony was very dry, So I adjusted the neck and re-set the action and Floyd. I adjusted the neck to have a slight bow (relief) and the guitar came alive. The tone is a 100+% better, smoother and all around more musical. The only problem is that the action is not as low as it was before and my quandry is do I want slightly better playability with lower action, or do I want better tone with a worse feel??

How do you guys like your necks set and do you compromise tone for playability? How high do you like your action set? With a little buzz or no buzz at all?

[thetroy]

I set mine to straight or very little relief and generally bring the action down as low as I can before getting buzz

[DonP]

I think I compromise tone for playability. A little buzz doesn't bug me as long as the action is low and fast. I will give my axes some relief however, just because it makes sense.

If the strings didn't move, I could understand a straight neck, but since they move more in the middle of the string, it just makes sense to have a little more room there so that they won't be smacking the frets.

[rjohnstone]

I think I compromise tone for playability. A little buzz doesn't bug me as long as the action is low and fast. I will give my axes some relief however, just because it makes sense.

If the strings didn't move, I could understand a straight neck, but since they move more in the middle of the string, it just makes sense to have a little more room there so that they won't be smacking the frets.

+1

[mm2002]

Exactly. The proper amount of relief is very crucial on a guitar with low action. Most people seem to have the idea that for sick low action, they need a perfectly straight neck. That's just not true. You CAN get away with a perfectly flat neck ONLY if you play with high action.

[xenophobe]

I think I compromise tone for playability.

+1

The farther the strings are way from the fretboard, the more freely they will resonate. The strings will vibrate against the next unfretted note up. Raise the action, this distance increases and your sound is much more pure. Lower it, and it will dampen the string or start to buzz.

Since I play mostly technical death, I like to get my fretboard as flat as I can and the action as low as possible, to the point where some slight buzz is consistent through most of the range of the neck when playing clean or unplugged. The difference when playing distorted is minimal, I don't need more than a few seconds of sustain, so this doesn't bother me one bit. I generally have my guitars set to about 1.5mm at the 24th fret... Great for fast technical stuff, but not really great for artsy emotional stuff.

If I were playing clean, my neck would have some noticable bow, and the action height would probably be about 2-3mm at the 22/24th fret... I've done a number of setups for friends like this, and they're usually happy with them.

[YetAnotherOne]

I set mine to straight or very little relief and generally bring the action down as low as I can before getting buzz

That's approximately where I start. Flat or with just a little relief then lower the action until fretting at the first few frets causes a bit of buzz. From there I add relief until fretting on the first few frets doesn't cause any buzz, then adjust the bridge height to taste. Of course that presupposes that your truss rod works well, your neck isn't squirrelly, and you don't have any fret-leveling issues.

[Razor]

Mine range from .010 to .012 at the 6th and 7th frets with a capo on the 1st fret and being fretted at the 12th and 14th frets.

[RR0849]

I like to have a good amount of relief and a high action. It just makes the guitar resonate more especially since I also use fat strings in standard E tuning.

I have guitars that have really come alive with fatter strings and more relief on the neck but there are some that resonate no matter how the action is set.

[JZ06]

If I had that little tool, I'd be CONSTANTLY adjusting the neck until it was MY WAY!

I would like to get one of those tools to see if maybe I can set it up to my liking(I am VERY difficult to please) instead of the way the technicians I've used do it.

Along with the wealth of knowledge this forum has, I'm sure I could be steered to do it the right way.