guitar open string ringing

[X14Halo]

When i palm mute ONLY the bottom string and pluck only the bottom string, all the other strings ring very horribly.
listen

Midway through where it gets clean, that is me palm muting all the strings.
I understand that I should be palm muting all of the strings, but should they be ringing THIS bad without it? Anytime i do some little riff that requires me to lift my palm up, I get that nasty high pitched stuff happening. Any way of minimizing that? Or is that just bad technique on my part?

 

[Trevoire520]

Palm mute all the strings = problem solved. Noise like this is totally normal. After all when you play even just one string your whole guitar resonates, causing the other strings to vibrate.

Some guys use tape/velcro cable ties etc to mute unplayed strings when recording. But really it's best to sort this out with playing technique and use other muting for that last 5% of clean-ness in the studio.


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[X14Halo]

awesome, thank you!

 

[Audiosprite]

fold a napkin over the unused strings.

 

[prostetnic]

A hair band/tie is one of the best pieces of studio equipment one can buy for under a dollar.

 

[mva801]

Check out this video. That's the technique I use in the studio. (Actually learned it from As I Lay Dying's engineer Daniel.)



You can see how they tape up the unused strings. Also, work on your technique. That has a TON to do with it. Like someone else said, your playing should be clean. The tape will take care of the last 5 or 10% of noise. I don't know how everyone else plays, but I tend to mute a lot with my LEFT hand while palm muting with the right. It takes a lot of practice but a big part of being a good guitar player is being a CLEAN guitar player.

 

[Star Ark]

+1 on the left hand muting

If you are only fretting and playing the highest string your free to mute with your left hand just by the angle of your hand

 

[X14Halo]

Good to know. I just started playing guitar a year ago, so I have a lot to learn!

 

[Damage, Inc.]

As far as the technique goes, learn it like you learn everything else--slowly. Go as slowly as you need to, and play something very simple. Make sure that when there is a rest, you hear absolutely nothing, and don't use a gate to help. With your left hand, you should be able to curve it in such a way that you are simultaneously fretting a note and muting the unplayed strings. Both your hands should be working at muting at any time they're not playing a note.

 

[Aaron Smith]

I prefer using a strip of foam, cut from the sheet that ships in every box of EMG pickups; it is absolutely ideal for tucking under the strings you don't want to use, and then building tunnels over the strings you do want to use. It's pretty ridiculous how well it works actually, there's nothing that could possibly be better.

Of course, I'm talking about during recording, when everything just has to be pristine. Don't practice this way though, because every guitar player should be aware of the excess noise they might be creating while playing a given part, and learning to adjust their technique accordingly to minimize that noise...

 

[Keregioz]

The "ringing" I hear in the clip is not caused because you're not muting the rest of the strings with your hand. I'm willing to bet that you have a tun-o-matic string through body bridge and the ringing you hear is caused by the the strings behind the bridge resonating when you palm mute. You should put some foam to dampen the strings behind the bridge. If you don't have a string through body bridge then it could also be caused by the portion of the strings between the nut and the tuners resonating to the palm muting.

 

[XxSicRokerxX]

what is that sock looking thing wrapped around the top of the neck in that video

 

[locus_coeruleus]

Check out this video. That's the technique I use in the studio. (Actually learned it from As I Lay Dying's engineer Daniel.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXvZ9kiCfz8

You can see how they tape up the unused strings. Also, work on your technique. That has a TON to do with it. Like someone else said, your playing should be clean. The tape will take care of the last 5 or 10% of noise. I don't know how everyone else plays, but I tend to mute a lot with my LEFT hand while palm muting with the right. It takes a lot of practice but a big part of being a good guitar player is being a CLEAN guitar player.

Holy shit, do they mute! I had to watch the video 2 times to realize that they put tape near the bridge too

 

[mva801]

what is that sock looking thing wrapped around the top of the neck in that video

Probably a hair scrunchy or an actual sock. It's just to mute the strings behind the frets he's playing on. Good technique if you're playing sweeps or something, because you can mute the strings behind where you're fretting instead of taping near the pickups. Doesn't work for open notes obviously. The key is to record in small sections and strategically mute for a particular part when you notice extra noise.