Technique: Electric Guitar -- Cleaning Up...???'s

Good question, and I'm interested in any responses you get, beacause like you, I play my acoustic more, mainly to build up finger strength and callouses. The electric seems so much easier after the acoustic, but like you mentioned, it does get sloppy sounding.

Practice more on electric.

On accoustic you don't have to worry about muting strings too much because there isn't as much sustain. I think some muting practice would help things out.

I don't know about you, but I've got thick fingers so I can just shift/rock a finger over and mute a string. Other times if I fret a note and I want to kill it I can just lift up the pressure of the finger fretting it so the string is off the fret, but maintain contact with the string.

I really can't offer any specific advice about pick noises. I don't know how, but I eventually got to where I could reduce or eliminate it by practicing. A lot. Are you sure these noises are coming through the amp? You could just be hearing them from the guitar that happens to be less than 2 feet from your ears.

You should also talk with your teacher about this, see what he has to say. That's what he's there for!

Practice more on electric.
You should also talk with your teacher about this, see what he has to say. That's what he's there for!

Thanks Metaellihead.. My lesson is tomorrow and I was gonna ask, I'll let ya ll know what I find out.

Good luck.

I practice everything on both my electric and acoustic - roughly equal amounts, for the same reasons expressed here. For me, at least, it was a matter of practice to handle the two guitars a bit differently.

You can try amplifying your acoustic to see if the noise is your playing. It will show up if it is there, especially during chord switching. Amplifying my acoustic helps me clean up my playing and chord switching, I hear things in my switching plugged into the the amp that I don't otherwise hear sometimes. :D

Muting is very important for stopping unwanted ringing and harmonics. I don't have trouble with noise, but that's because I've been playing a while, and because I play a fretless bass as well, which is the worst instrument on the planet for unwanted playing noises. I sure notice noise on it! So I know what you're talking about even though I don't have trouble myself. I'd also recommend learning to work with things like pick scrapes rather than prevent them althogether. It's easier to deal with noises like that when you can work with them as well as against them.

Is this slop? or lack of picking hand control?? or lack of muting skills?? or my own technique?

Yes. It takes a lighter touch to play electric, and when you start out you'll get a lot of extraneous noise. The good news is you're sensitive to it, so you'll be able to discern what works better as you work on your technique.

The bad news is it never goes completely away... technique will allow you to control it and minimize it... but whenever I'm feeling full of myself about my control, all I have to do is run the axe direct through a board and put headphones on, and all the finger noises jump right out at me!

In some ways, practicing on the electric really teaches you control, because clean you hear everything. But part of this is the nature of the particular guitar's pickups and the amp it is being played through. Some amp's have a natural compression that will tend to smooth over some of the harsh edges (some old tube amps can be great for this, particularly some with tube rectifiers) and some humbuckers can have a similar mellowing effect. You're probably playing on a solid state, which can be a lot like Tom running direct, depending on the amp. This is one reason for the popularity of distortion :wink:
It will get better, or so they tell me, as one's technique improves. For chord strumming, you might find that you can smooth it out a bit by switching to the neck pickup, maybe even dropping the pickup a bit, to make it a bit less sensitive, maybe a bit more on the high side, so those bright little strings don't jump out quite so much. You'll lose some definition on the high end, though, so you'll have to watch out for mushyness. (Measure and record your current pickup adjustment before you mess with it, so you can move it back if you are unhappy with the adjustment.)
I have one guitar with a weak, "vintagey" bridge pickup, that has a weak high end, that is much more forgiving than any other guitar or position I have.

I have a new Epi LP Custom... with very strong P/Ups. I'll be giving it to my tech guy here at my local shop in a week or so... he's slammed right now.

My Amps.. Yes I have Solid States, a Kustom 16 Solo and a Spider II 112....and as something kinda cute, a friend gave me one of those tiny Micro Marshalls in my Stocking... its kewl to sit on the bed in the morning and jam a lil bit.

I also have a Digitech RP100 I run through my Kustom and the Noise Gate does a good job. Like Noteboat I think said, I am getting senstive to hearing other sounds.

But I guess My initial question what, OK Now I'm sensitve to the Lighter touch of the electric over the accoustic and I was wondering if there are any excercises or things I could do to get more clean?

Thanks for the input about the P/Ups. I'll see what my tech guys says about lowering em just a hair or two.

Dag.

I think all of the suggestions given are correct, but I don't think you'll find any exercises per se that are going to directly effect that.

It's a matter of your technique which will take time to develop and I think is something that never ends.

But like Tom mentioned it will still be there to some degree it'll be up to you to be able to manage it.

OK. Had my Lesson yesterday and I brought this up with my instructor, who by the way is a very well accomplished Blues Guy here in the Pac N.W. Gary Meziere, but anyway....

So.. at the lesson, the inevitable happened.. you know you take your car to the mechanic and the noise goes away??? Yup... he asked me to play something that I hear the noise(s) and of course I did it perfectly so no noise..( a riff from one of my Favs, Heart's Magic Man) then I remembered... OK lets just play a simple Chord Progression, Mag E (D,D), Mag A (D,D,U,D,U), then Mag D, (D,U,D), back to the E..... and there it was. Now I went slow enough to hit the chord changes...but

He says its a muting issue. "you cant just hammer on an electric like you do on an accoustic" Its that very subtle "feel" thing with either you palm and/or you fret hand to quiet the strings.

He suggested to try to play as quiet as I can then.. he demostrated hitting the strings harder and harder.. and man I was like it was turning up the volume on the amp.

Conclusively, he says its my lack of Touch and to give myself a break, this is only the third month we've been playing together and admittedly on my part I play the accoustic more than the electric and told me to practice more on the electric. He also showed me a few muting techniques to work on and practice.

Interesting, captivating, obsessive yearning this Gee-Tar thingy spurs in us huh?

Thanks everyone for your input... always appreciated.

Happy New Year..... Dag

Dagwood

Lots of good advice from everybody. And just recognizing the noise is the first step in correcting it, so you are gonna be alright.

I have said this before, and I'll say it again... Guitar (especially electric guitar) is one of the most difficult instruments to play. Period. Guitar is difficult to make it sound good, but incredibly easy to make it sound bad.
You've got 6 strings so close together. You've got to hit just the right ones without hitting others. And this is two hands at once! Every single mistake you make is amplified!

OK, that wasn't to discourage you. Just letting you know that all this noise you are hearing is perfectly normal.

As others said, you have to play electric guitar easy. You have to learn to make the smallest movements possible with your picking hand. If you want to play a rock n roll riff on the top two strings, then just move your pick enough to strike these two. When you are playing on the treble strings, use the side or palm of your picking hand to mute the strings above.

Here is something that sounds easier than it is, but it is very important to playing well. You must learn to RELAX when you play. Pay attention to tension in your body when you play and teach yourself to relax at all times. When you relax your playing will become much more precise. Your fretting fingers will move easier. Even when you strum it will sound more even and controlled. You will not strike the wrong strings as often. So learn to relax.

Anyway, this is what everybody else said. Keep listening carefully for unwanted noises. Use both hands to mute strings you don't want to sound.
Keep the movement of your picking hand small, relaxed, and precise. Keep your picking hand close to the strings. It takes practice, but you will get rid of all those noises.

Hey everybody!

My local guitar (Jedi) master told me that we have to bring the sound out of an acoustic and control the sound out of an electric, which I have found to be true. Definitely 2 different "beasts' if you will for me.

Cheers!
Bert