Plugged in mess

[Andy W]

Hello all, I practice either on my electric unplugged or my acoustic.Been practicing a little over a year now and making progress.However,I rarely plug in my electric because I get all these overtones and strings ringing out from notes I already played.Really don’t how to explain other than if I could mute everything immediately after I playing it and before next thing would sound a lot cleaner.Very frustrating. Any tips?

[Dave B]

Are your pickups too high and picking up tiny vibrations of the strings? Try lowering them a bit. Typically, I get those “extra” sounds on the acoustic, not the electric. The electric allows me to be sloppy, the acoustic demands better technique. With your situation being the opposite, I’d look at the whole signal chain on the electric.

[San Luis Rey]

It seems like a string muting issue. It is something important that is not mentioned enough. Go to youtube and just search string muting and you will get several hits. Brian has taught it here but I don’t know what lesson.
Mike

Mike

[Richard W]

Yup, agree with Mike. String muting is a really important part of electric guitar technique and it doesn’t get talked about enough in beginning oriented instructional materials. There are definitely some good YouTube’s on the topic. Watch several and you’ll start to hear some consensus opinions on how to approach it.

Andy, the good thing is that you are aware of it and it is bugging you. For some folks, they may go years before they realize it’s a big deal.

[charjo]

Early on I had the misconception that blues and rock players had sloppy technique with their thumbs over the top and fingers almost flat against the strings. I didn’t understand what degree of muting was happening and it how it actually happens in both hands. Of course, that hand position is critical for bends and vibrato as well.
John

[sunjamr]

Or, you could just sell your electric and only play acoustics. Nothing wrong with that.

Sunjamr Steve

[Andy W]

Thanks for the input, will work on muting more. Hopefully in time things will improve or may have to take Steves’ advice. Take care, Andy

[Mark H]

Muting and damping, absolutely. Both hands.

Fretting hand, lift off the fret to shorten a note or notes. You can damp the bass side with your wrapped thumb, or the treble side by lifting off the pressure on a full- or partial chord.

Picking hand, use the fleshy part of your palm near the bridge to dampen it down to a thud.

There are other things you can do but those are a great start.

It’s all about controlling sustain, where you feel it’s desirable, automatically. Practice makes perfect.

[Author]

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