True or false? (or just your opinion)

[mhalsey]

Higher action enables you to mute the strings you don't want sounding?

[jgcable]

False.

[mhalsey]

Lemme rephrase: does it make it EASIER to mute them? (shoulda slowed down when I was typing)

[jgcable]

no

[thetroy]

I think it's harder if anything

[Super_shredder]

+1

[Shawn Lutz]

no...for muting to me action doesnt matter...its in the technique. Higher action to me also improve your tone of the guitar...

[Newc]

Depends on how you learned. I started on a high-action guitar, and even though I'm used to low action, I can still mute with my fretting hand quite easily.

Muting with my picking hand is almost instinct.

And to clarify what Shawn said: higher action prevents the string from slapping the frets needlessly, and you get a fuller, less obstructed tone because of this. "Better" is always subjective. "Different" is an undeniable constant.

[Norton]

I started playing with an 30 years-old acoustic guitar with 1 cm high, action.I still like high string tension because of that.And when I play with 9 gauge strings, it feels like I'm cheating, so I don't use them.


The pro's of high action are better control over vibrato and a clearer,brighter sound.At least that's what it is to me.

[Pigsnatcher]

I'm curious, what are the cons to higher action?

[Endrik]

I'm curious, what are the cons to higher action?

the pros are: better tone, A LOT better to play with slide, better to do 4 and 5 step bends

the cons are: harder to play

[atomic charvel guy]

i agree about playing slide but i never was hampered by low action, except playing slide-lol

[blackendvampire]

I like having electric guitars all with super low intense shredder action, but no buzzing. And then I like to have my nice classical acoustic with like normal action for that, then I have this really old nice Dreadnaught that I practise on when Im not using electrics, I have the action super high on this Dreadnaught, I just randomly adjusted the trussrod so it did because the bridge is too low and I get a buzzing noise and Im way too lazy to fix the bone bridge. So Like I said, I bent the neck on purpose and made the string action higher, didnt help the buzzing really, but made the action super high, And I tried playing it that way anyways, and it made me have to work, it was like lifting weights or somthing for guitar playing, I now practise that way all the time so that when I go back to the electric guitar its like I was training for the olympics and all the sudden get to race against a bunch of children in a school.

[Number Of The Priest]

the cons are: harder to play

I just thought of a hypothetical con: intonation can very slightly be affected with higher action. The higher the action, the more distance the string needs to be pressed down to the fret, and the more the string is "stretched", like with a bend. Especially when you compare a fretted note relative to an open string.

Probably isn't enough of a difference to really hear though.

[mhalsey]

I just thought of a hypothetical con: intonation can very slightly be affected with higher action. The higher the action, the more distance the string needs to be pressed down to the fret, and the more the string is "stretched", like with a bend. Especially when you compare a fretted note relative to an open string.

Probably isn't enough of a difference to really hear though.

That's a good point, Alex. I guess it would be the equivalent of fretting a string with so much pressure that it actually pulls the note sharp, maybe even with medium action?