I have an American Standard Stratocaster. I play a lot of rhythm and strum pretty hard. I think I like the sound of 9's the best, but I get some buzz when I strum hard or even play individual strings hard. I changed the action to 5/64th inch at the 17th fret for all the strings.

Do you think this is too high?

What do you set your action at?

And why?

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American Standard Stratocaster

I like my neck relief set with the neck as flat as possible. Then I start out with Fender specs from here: http://www.fender.com/support/stratocas ... _guide.php Then adjust my action as low as I can go with no buzz from there.

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Chet Feathers

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I didn't Lose my mind, I traded it for this guitar.

OK, just for you, I dug around in the garage until I found a metal ruler that would give me the answer: Both of my American Standard Strat are set at 9/64 of an inch to the bottom of the 6th string at the 17th fret. I had no idea what the measurement would be although I do my own set-ups. I use 10's. One set is a heavy bottom set with a .54 6th while the other is a more standard .46 6th. I am on the verge of going to a .54 6th on both guitars.

With what you say about your playing, I really think you should consider stringing up with a set of 10's. They sound better for rythum than a lighter set of 9's. They also stay in better tune. If you are a string bender (for leads) you will think I have steered you wrong when you first play a lead, but you will get used to it quickly. After that a set of 9's will feel way too light.

I use EB 10's and set action to 5/64 on wound strings, 4/64 on unwound strings. No rhyme or reason to it, just how I like it.

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Fender CIJ Jerry Donahue Telecaster
Vox Pathfinder 15R

Personally, my action is set pretty low but I couldn't give you any specific numbers. In my own case, I set my action pretty much by "feel" any more...the Fender specs make for a good guideline but there's nothing set in stone there. For neck relief I look for a slight amount of bow on the neck and I just set the saddles to where it feels right as I'm playing...if the strings are too high or too low, I adjust them a little and go again. I guess I've been doing this so long that I just know what I like.

Also, on my Strats, I do tend to raise the E and B strings just a bit higher than the others...for me at least, it makes it a bit easier to really dig in to string bends without choking on the G string the way I tend to with a factory setup.

Peace,
Jim