Action on Gitane

bloomschool

Hello everyone. In an effort to improve the playability of my guitar I am asking if anyone knows what is the correct action, height of strings from fretboard, is for a Gypsy guitar? Thanks!

Bob Holo

A good generic starting point is 3mm at the 12th fret on both the high and low E strings. You will likely go up or down from there as you become more experienced and develop a feel for your instrument and the picking style and the string gauge you prefer. The lowest usable string height I've ever played was 2.3mm and playability starts becoming a real issue much beyond 3.5mm. There are people in the fringes who play lower and higher actions than this... but not many.

Welcome to the journey!

-Bob

PS - it's not the height of the strings from the fretboard... it's the height of the strings from the fret... in other words, the distance between the top of the fret and the bottom of the string... the distance between them... you probably knew this - but it sounded like you may have needed some clarity on it.

bloomschool

Thanks for the quick reply! I will go and check my guitar now.

BluesBop Harry

One thing I've come to realize recently is that action height and string gauge go together.
I own a Gitane Dg250, I have it set up with a replacement bridge and the action is just a hair higher than 4mm. I use Argentines 10's. I really like the tone, lots of body and I've gotten used to the feel of the action.
The other day I replaced the first 3 strings with ones from an 11's set and the guitar started sounding like a tin can, the top closed up.
After a couple hours I remembered reading something about this here in a "Setup stories" post By Michael Horowitz.
I took the strings off and put back the 10's and Voila! The sound was there again, seems the top it's being pushed to the edge now and sounds the best I've heard it yet.
In a ideal situation I'd like to have 3 or 4 bridges of different heights and experiment lowering and raising the action along with going back and forth between string gauges to find the combination that lets a guitar sound it's best, or offers the best compromise between playability and sound.