I notice a lot of guitar players including Yoppe put something around the neck like a hair elastic and I know Micheal Angelo Batio sells a string dampener. My understanding is its used so the other strings don't ring out?? Especially when doing sweep picking. In what other cases would you use it for and is it worth doing??

Great timing, I just tried my friend's thousand dollar Fender Tele, its a REALLY sturdy guitar but my friend has REALLY low action on it, less than 2mm. I thought I'd love low action and that my speed would be great on it.

The thing is, while my playing did feel a bit more fluent, the speed didn't change. I realised today how much I love medium action (2mm) as I've got my ESP M-II set up.

The action like the one on the Tele I was talking about was too low for that guitar and that low action does require a dampener of some kind. Because in all honesty I couldn't mute a single time I tried to play a shred lick. No speed picking, no legato, no tapping, no sweeping, I could do nothing without the dampener. The other strings would ring out too much, even when I tried muting with my fret hand.

Frankly, the thousand dollar guitar felt broken without a dampener and trust me, you don't want that feeling on any guitar, not just expensive ones.

So yeah, IMHO if you have extreme micro action, you definitely need a dampener. Andy James always uses a headband when he's tapping, but everything else he does is without it.

Hope that helps

Thanks Sam Yeah it does help. My Strings have very low action as well and I might give that a try to see if it works, although in my case still need a lot of work on my technique so its probably the technique

Of course Dampeners shouldn't be used while practicing, you should practice muting the strings as well when you're practicing something new I've also found something else. Micro action guitars (like any signature guitars) that are actually built for having micro action perform a bit better in this regard. I've played an Ibanez Prestige 1560 in a studio while recording something, and that guitar plays by itself.

But its made for low action and I've had very little problems with the muting (but yes, I did use a headband while recording just to be on the safe side )

Conclusion: if your guitar is built for micro action, you can probably get away without using it. The Ibanez Prestige was perfection. Frets leveled, neck not too thin not too thick (Wizard neck) and the truss rod was DEAD straight. I only used a headband because I wasn't gonna get the guitar, it was just one recording and a couple of studio sessions

Again Thank you, I know the action on the EVH wolfgang guitar is low even if I practice sweeping slowly there is a slight ring when I lift the fingers of the Arpeggios shapes I'm doing but not enough to bother me.

For me, medium action is great as well, because it allows the strings to have more sustain, rather than the low action. In the end it's a matter of ease of playing versus tone. I prefer tone

Action is always a matter of taste. I know players who have strings laying on the frets and it works for them...probably because most of them play very softly...and it's a technique itself....But...sign me in to the list Cosmin - Tone hurts with too low action...especially while playing hard. There are no hard rules about the precise height - matter of fret dimennsions, string gauge so comparing our action is pointless by giving sort of mm parameters


As for the string dampeners....I like to use on the headstock to mute those tricky measures of strings between nut and the tuners. They can be annoying while You play on distortion

Some ultra advanced tapping players use it also. I can understand that - when You have all fingers working, there's not much left to mute unwanted strings.


But...I'm not sure about the purpose of using dampeners among players who play usuall way...

I'm with Darius and Cosmin in this. I'm used to medium action and I think that it's a good balance between tone and playability. But it's obviously a matter of taste, you should try guitars with different action and go for the one that you feel is better for you, your playing and the style that you play.

I have never used Dampeners but I think that these ones are useful for avoiding unwanted noises when you are playing tricky Sweep Picking, Alternate Picking or tapping tunes.

Gabe is right - extreme techniques and playing require some nifty gadgets for sure Now about string height - I heard that Gary Moore had a very exaggerated string height and that's one of the secrets to his big tone

Some players use height to would be impossible to play for some of us

What height are you using Darius?

Thank you all for the advice

Anytime Tom!