# A Question On Amps



## Laze (Jan 11, 2009)

Oi ~

Something has been bugging me about my guitar playing, it's only a small thing and is most likely one of those issues that you only get during those novice stages of your development. But it's irritating the living tar out of me:

So I'm playing with my amp, and sometimes when I hit a note and move a finger to hit another one the original note will continue to resonate just a little bit meaning that the note will continue to play just a little bit. It's hardly at overpowering levels, but you can most definitely hear it. Unsure what I'm actually doing to cause this; pressing down too hard on the string and when I lift my finger off the force is just enough for it to cause a sound? I dunno...

A few points would be greatly appreciated ^^*


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## Aden (Jan 11, 2009)

Do you have a reverb effect on? Is your distortion/overdrive turned too high? What kind of amp?


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## Laze (Jan 11, 2009)

Aden said:


> Do you have a reverb effect on?


 
Nope.



Aden said:


> Is your distortion/overdrive turned too high?


 
Again, no. I was playing it clean. 



Aden said:


> What kind of amp?


 
Peavy Solo

Personally I think it may be somethign I'm be doing as apposed to the amp. I may need to read up on string muting techniques or something.


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## Aden (Jan 11, 2009)

Laze said:


> Again, no. I was playing it clean.



Have to ask. You know kids these days, what with their overdrive on 10 plus an external distortion pedal because they're so METAL. Off my lawn, etc.



Laze said:


> Personally I think it may be somethign I'm be doing as apposed to the amp. I may need to read up on string muting techniques or something.



Maybe. You may just have to work on releasing the previous note more quickly. But muting is something that's good to be able to do automatically out of muscle memory, so definitely incorporate it into your practice.

So does this note blending thing occur when you, say, hit a new note on the same string? e.g. -----7h8----


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## Laze (Jan 11, 2009)

Aden said:


> Have to ask. You know kids these days, what with their overdrive on 10 plus an external distortion pedal because they're so METAL.


 
Guilty as charged. Hardly _metal_ though. More of a Stoner influence if anything. But I'm still mucking about with tones and different tunings. Reminds me, I need to try and learn something rather bluesy at some point...



Aden said:


> So does this note blending thing occur when you, say, hit a new note on the same string? e.g. -----7h8----


 
It's not really a bending sort of thing, the note from the string I just played will continue to ring out after letting my finger off it a little. I'm hardly knowledgable about this kind of thing as I'm mostly self taught, but I suppose the closest thing I could compare it to would be a hushed pull-off. It only happens on the odd occasion, usually after shifting to a different string. Never happened when I'm playing something on the same string. 

I thought I'd ask as you can hear it resonate a little when I'm plugged into an amp and it really bugs me.

I think I am just being a bit too forceful on the neck actually.


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## Aden (Jan 11, 2009)

So your finger remains on the string for just a bit, just not pushing it down, and it rings out a bit? Sounds like an unintentional harmonic to me. That problem will go away as long as you're conscious of it while playing.

\Muting practice is one of the things that HOLYFUCKGAINTOELEVEN is good for.


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## Ishnuvalok (Jan 15, 2009)

Aden said:


> Have to ask. You know kids these days, what with their overdrive on 10 plus an external distortion pedal because they're so METAL. Off my lawn, etc.



overdrive+external distortion=extremely crappy tone.
But, clean settings with the gain, treb maxed out with just a bit of mids and bass = Heart melting tone.


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## Sedit (Feb 6, 2009)

Ishnuvalok said:


> overdrive+external distortion=extremely crappy tone.
> But, clean settings with the gain, treb maxed out with just a bit of mids and bass = Heart melting tone.



Yeah..I see alot of this "boosting" of late.  Which is funny considering that most high gain amp's made past the mid 90's have way more gain on tap than one really could ever need, even for death metal.  I think it happens because there trying to emulate layered, multi-tracked sounds in real-time....which you CAN do (I do, and I'll get to that in a moment), but not by boosting your gain into oblivion.  In fact, using too much gain, makes the guitar sound smaller in a mix because distorted frequencies don't carry as broadly as clean frequencies.  But they "appear" louder, which tricks many players.  Generally most huge guitar tones found on many modern rock and metal recordings are the result of lower gain settings, stacked upon one another, filling in each others frequency gaps (and this too, can be tricky, cuz if your not careful, you'll run into phase issues where frequencies will cancel one another out, making the sound thinner instead of fuller).  One can achieve fuller tones without using added gain though.  Judicious use of a good parametric or graphic EQ will go a long way in that (after all, alot of the "heavy" comes from how your tone is set, not from how high your gain is...get your tone nice and full, w/ a cutting bite on top, THAN start adding gain to bring out the harmonics and 'hair').  Another good trick is to use a delay pedal, but set the delay REALLY short, like between 30-50ms, than set the repeats real short too, like as low as possible...than adjust effect level to taste.  This is an old studio trick that used to fatten up guitar tones, as it sort of emulates the sound of two players playing the same track at once (this being because, no matter how tightly 2 guitarists are locked in together, there will always be that one who's milli-seconds behind the other in timing.  This cause a phase issue that actually gives the effect of more sonic girth without boosting the shit out of your bass knob!  Try it...it's VERY cool!).  This technique is EXTREMELY effective if you have a Stereo output delay pedal, and can feed the 2 signals to two separate amps.  

Now...another, more unorthodox approach, which I use (Holy shit....I'm revealing one of my tone secrets!), is to have your signal feed 2 seperate pre-amps in parallel, eq-ed differently, and with the gain said to a middle-of-the-road distortion (think Megadeth), than feed them into a "master" eq for final tweaking of the summed signal....from there you go into your power amp (or effects first, if your like me and use rack effects rather than front of amp pedals).  This basically gives you the sound of 2 different amps blended to taste.  Plus, when you do this, you can set your gain lower, so you'll cut through better, but it will still sound like massive, dense wall of guitar while still maintaining note definition.


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