This is a very common complaint. “My action is way too high. I tried turning the truss rod, but…”

Don’t do that. The only reason to adjust your truss rod is because you measured your neck relief and found it to be too much or too little relief.

“My action is way too high. I tried lowering the bridge saddles, but….”

Again, don’t do that. Don’t adjust your string heights if you haven’t first made sure your neck relief is right. Set your neck relief to a reasonable number, 8 thousandths of an inch for electric guitar, 12 thousandths for bass. Then measure your string heights and adjust as needed. Electric guitar will be 4/64ths of an inch for the low E and 2.5-3/64ths for the high E. For bass, it’s 5/64ths for the E and around 3 for the G.

What if you have done your neck relief and your saddles won’t lower your strings enough? It can happen. This might be a good time to take it in and have it looked at. Often this is dealt with using a neck shim. It’s just a thin piece of non-compressible material, like hardwood, that is placed in the neck pocket to angle the neck back. I had to shim a 2002 MIM Fender Jazz bass a few years ago. It played great after, and the saddles were no longer bottomed out.