Ever found a higher action easier to play?

Lewy

Had an interesting experience this weekend at a bluegrass festival....a friend of mine has a virtually identical guitar to mine - same manufacturer, same strings, same model save for the variety of spruce the top is made of...but his has a higher action and when we swapped guitars during a picking session I found his quite a bit easier to play than mine. 

I have a theory it was down to one or a combination of the following...

- increased string height over the soundboard made for projection and thus less picking hand input required to be heard
- increased string height over the soundboard put my picking hand in a better position
- we were capo'd a lot, and the higher action made me feel more able to dig in with rest strokes and not worry about buzzes
- just the little nudge you get from trying something different.

Have a couple of saddle blanks on the way to play around and see what gives.

Anyone else had similar experience?

Gassage

yes, always with vintage radius guitars.

AliGorie

I posted on why I prefer a higher string layout than suggested and the main reason it to get a full range of dynamics from the various tuning's and resultant varying tensions of the strings.
One thing u did'nt mention was -what kinda strings u'r m8 was using - different from u'rs ?

Lewy

AliGorie said:

I posted on why I prefer a higher string layout than suggested and the main reason it to get a full range of dynamics from the various tuning's and resultant varying tensions of the strings.
One thing u did'nt mention was -what kinda strings u'r m8 was using - different from u'rs ?

Both using EJ17s. Different fret wire - his was stock Collings, mine is Evo. Didn't compare relief, that obviously could have been a factor, although I know mine is really straight ... .004 or thereabouts.

As I reflect on it I think it mostly felt easier because the situation called for volume and the higher string height over the top delivered it more easily. I probably didn't notice that the fretting was harder in that situation but may well find it hard going doing a recording or something. 

Maybe be I need a "festival saddle" the same way some people have winter/summer ones....

BigLicks67

Yes, but generally only on electric guitars, but I suppose it depends on the overall set up when dealing with an acoustic.