Neon_Knight_
Well-Known Member
I think it's a matter of what your hands are used to. If you are only used to low action (like me), high action feels unnecessarily awkward.
I often hear people saying they can't get hold of strings properly for bends if the action is low, but I have the complete opposite problem with high action. With low action, if I'm going straight into a bend (rather than momentarily holding the note before bending it up), my fretting finger will tend to move diagonally to the string (not perpendicular to the fretboard) and I then simply keep pushing through to bend it. I have no idea whether that's good or bad technique, but it works just fine for me. However, if I use the same technique with high action, I the "wrong" part of my fretting finger contacts the string (finger almost goes under the string) and then it's very slightly bent before it's even fretted. I've even had a string painfully catch under the end of my fingernail at least once.
At the end of the day, if you are relatively used to both high and low action, low action is physically less effort to use and therefore has some advantages for playability (at the expense of sustain).
