The strings on my bass are set too high. How can i lower them?

Question

I want to lower them because i have to press them too hard . Is it the piece on the headstock that needs fixing?

Answer 1

Have you checked to make sure the neck isn't warped? If they are closer at the top of the neck, but further down toward the body of the bass, then the neck could be warped. Sometimes you can adjust the truss rod in the neck, but I would take it to someone that knows what the are doing to have it done.

Is it elec. or a stand-up bass? You CAN simply lower the strings a bit... I lowered the strings on my acoustic guitar by notching the piece on the headstock a bit more, and by sanding down the piece on the bridge that the strings tension across... do it a little at a time though, you don't want them too close or it will cause a "frett buzz". If it's an elec. bass the adjustment to lower the strings should be built in to the bridge... If it's a stand-up you can still adjust the bridge with some minor sanding and notching.

Answer 2

You don't say what brand you have, but most will be adjusted from the bridge.
There should be screws on the bridge that raise and lower the bridge for the strings.
You might even have one bridge and a set of screws for each string.
I have a Squire/Fender Jazz bass, each string has it's own bridge.

The best thing to do is to play the open string as you lower it to make sure it doesn't go too low and give you fret buzz.

Once you get that set, then play each fret from the head to the body to make sure there is no fret buzz on those.

Do that with each string till you get a good action and height on the strings.

Good luck and good playing.


What john boy did at the neck was to sand down his nut. The slots in the nuts are very touchy to adjust. It's not a good idea to sand those unless you really know what you're doing, too much and you blew it, you'll get fret buzz at the first fret and then you'll have to either add a shim to it, or bring it in to have a new nut put on.

Here's a site I was just looking at, I have a Les Paul I was thinking of changing nuts on, my High E was a bit too low.

Hope this helps.

http://www.fretnotguitarrepair.com/