Balancing act between string tension/gauge and action

[jerryjg]

For those of you, whom, like myself are addicted to the lowest possible playing action, you realise you often sacrifice tone and put up, most likely with some buzzing. Well, I also have been really pushing it by having slinky 9 gauge strings and on top of that, setting the tension of the strings low, so that i border on the verge of constant buzz and also lose a lot of that tone you get with the tension ,action and string gauge all higher. So tonight i tuned up on the guitar strings and even tho you gotta work harder on bends , its actaully easier to do one handed/ one note noodling , and theres more definition between notes. This is still with 9 gauge strings. Now if i could just set that action a tad bit higher..not like SRV or anything, but not buzzzing the frets...

[Don]

I don't favor low action.

Years ago, I had a Les Paul professionally set up with extremely low action and had to change it back when I got it home.
I couldn't play it!

What do you mean when you say you set the tension of the strings low? Are you talking about using a thinner gage?

[cooltone]

It sounds to me like you were tuning your strings lower(?) Tuning down a half or whole step AND using lighter strings, if I'm understanding you. The low string height and looser tension of tuning down will cause you to have a lot of buzzing and rattling of strings.

Any time you make a change i. e. change to a different string gauge, change fret size or change how you tune your guitar, it will affect your 'action' (think of 'action' as the relation of string height to the tops of your frets and not to the fretboard.). Some guys will accept a certain amount of 'buzz' in order to have a perfectly straight neck and low action, others like to have some neck relief, etc. There are many possibilities.