I was considering playing with the saddles as necessary on my John Mayer Sig Strat. I would like to know what the standard starting point is. I have been hearing that 3/64" is a good string height, but some go as low as 2/64". I want to avoid buzz, but I want to increase overall playability. I am switching to 9's and feel that might help a little bit from 11's. I also would like to know if anyone has any specs on pickup height for either John Mayer, SRV and/or Hendrix. Just looking at it, it seems like the bridge pup on my strat is over a 1/4" away from the low E. Any suggestions here would be very much appreciated.

Hi and welcome.
Here is Fender's setup guide: http://www.fender.com/support/stratocas ... _guide.php Fender suggests 4/64" as a starting point. I consider that low action.

Starting point for pickup height is in the setup guide also. It's a very personal preference. Play with different heights until you find something that sounds good to YOU.

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Obligatory gear list: Fender, Rickenbacker, Gibson, Gretsch, Vox, Martin, and more Fender.

thanks, I will take these specs as a good starting point.

Regarding the buzz, I use the specs as starting point, then I test the low e and low a strings and check for buzz, depending on your style of picking (lighter or heavier) the buzz may varies. So if with standard specs the 2 top strings buzzes I raise them a bit until I hear no buzz (dont mind for rattle, or buzz if the guitar is unpluged, tipicaly it wont buzz plugged as much as unplugged). So when I have the low e and low a setup I then set the rest of the saddles to lineup to the low e and low a making a concave shape, as you can check on your nut (the guitar nut ), pass your fingers above all 6 strings, youll feel the curve, try reproduce the same curve on the bridge, test it again and your all set!
I was very worried about the setup of my stratocasters, but with time, trust me, with time the guitar will FEEL YOU better, and you´d recognize what it is asking for, higher strings, or a bit truss rod ajustment (carefull with that), pickup hights etc.
Rock on mate!

Do a search for member-CaFeathers- (Chet) nickle method!! A very easy and good starting place!!


Here you go!! I looked it up for you!! Hope it helps!!

http://www.fender.com/community/forums/ ... +hieght%2A

SRV's string and pickup height specs are well known. Here ya go: http://www.tangledupinblues.com/setup.html I would NOT be comfortable playing a guitar setup to his specs with 13 gauge strings!

Don't know if there is any info out there on how John Mayer sets his guitars up. There is probably a guitar mag article about somewhere, try google. I highly doubt there is info on Hendrix's setup specs, he didn't seem like the type to bother writing down to share those details and who back in the 60's really obsessed over that stuff?

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Obligatory gear list: Fender, Rickenbacker, Gibson, Gretsch, Vox, Martin, and more Fender.

I found that the pickup height settings were way too high, based on the Fender specs. This is however just a matter of personal taste.
For pickups, I lowered my bass string side about 1/32" more, and my treble about 1/64 more than what was recommended.
The low E string, I raised to about 5/64 measured at 17th fret.
This is on a '57 AV Strat, with .010 - .046 gauge strings
Again, your mileage may vary.