My guitar sounds like shit

[cyril_v]

I was in a punk/metal band a few years back and the other guitarist in the band had this picking style. I went to record a little demo for our band at one point and he was on vacation so I analyzed his playing off of a few recordings and videos and tried to nail this style to recreate his sound a bit, and basically it is definitely all about the angle and how he holds the pick. When playing really fast chords it kinda has a weird swirling sound to it which I always thought contrasted well with my playing. This would probably sound pretty sweet for old school black metal playing... I suppose some people wouldn't consider it absolutely perfect technique, but I always liked the sound characteristics of it.

 

[Brandon E.]

I never said there is a proper way to HOLD a plectrum, but you bet your god damn ass there is a right and wrong way to hit the strings.
You can have a slight angle on the pick, but put just a little bit too much of an angle and you will get unwanted scraping/harmonics and you might end up hitting the strings below the one you are trying to play as well.

Devin disagrees

 

[ahjteam]

3:25 forward

 

[Ola Englund]

I play with my pick EXTREMLY angled. Playing straight on doesn't sound badass enough.

Check 0:40 to see

 

[Brandon E.]

no wrong way to pick. To get rid of that squeak I would suggest picking further away from whatever pickup youre using. Sometimes I track a riff and its got something like that before every single note, high pitched squeak, and playing it over the neck pickup gets rid of it

 

[Notuern]

Devin disagrees

You can have a slight angle on the pick, but put just a little bit too much of an angle and you will get unwanted scraping/harmonics and you might end up hitting the strings below the one you are trying to play as well.

I play with my pick EXTREMLY angled. Playing straight on doesn't sound badass enough.

Check 0:40 to see
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyRRfaqhY5g

.. no you dont?
You seem to have a slight angle and allot of tilt when playing rythm, and in the solo-sections its pretty much parallel with the string.

A small angle will make the pick go over the string faster, which means that chords will sound "denser", because you basically get one picking attack instead of one for each string.
But if you angle it to much it will cause scraping noises and it will sound like complete shit, no matter if your name is Devin Townsend or Michael Jackson.

 

[Notuern]

no wrong way to pick. To get rid of that squeak I would suggest picking further away from whatever pickup youre using. Sometimes I track a riff and its got something like that before every single note, high pitched squeak, and playing it over the neck pickup gets rid of it

That pitched squeek is a harmonic due to something hitting or scraping the string.
Its definitely due to faulty picking technique, either a finger is constantly hitting the string after the pick, or there is too much angle causing the harmonics.

If we are to say that there is no wrong way to pick, then i will say that there is no wrong way to hammer on, bend, vibrato, mute, sweep or tap.. no matter how shitty it sounds.

 

[guitarguru777]

Anyway ..... the OP's issue is one of 2 things. hes hitting the strings with his fingers as he picks, or his pickups are too high and causing artificial harmonics as he picks.