Playing Neatly with High Gain?

andyp

Hi folks... I recently started a thread on tips for playing Stoner Rock, but I think this query is a little more general so I've opted to start another one.

My current excursion into high distortion playing is hellish good fun, but I'm finding moving around the neck with the gain up high like that (Rat pedal, if it helps) is a noisy and messy affair. It's my fingers scratching along the wound strings and coming off the notes / chords that's the issue. Muting with my picking hand doesn't cure this, like it seems to at lower gain (AC/DC type) levels for example. Taking my left hand off and putting it back down, rather than dragging it along the neck doesn't seem to cure it either so I think I've tried left hand muting too, but I'm not convinced I'm doing this right. Listening to bands who play this sort of stuff it sounds much neater than I can get anywhere close to, no ringing out between chords etc. so it must be down to what I'm doing, or not doing.

What am I doing wrong? I've tried slowing down and working at it, but that still has the same issue... just slower. Is there a way to neaten this up?

Thanks.

Andy

webrthomson

It's a sum of three things, right hand muting, left hand muting (of the strings you are not playing) and a very efficient noise gate in the amp's effect loop.

Currently I've moved to Fortin Zuul, but I've had good luck with ISP G-string gates too and even the humble Boss NS2!

andyp

Hmmm. Thanks, a noise gate is something I hadn't even considered. I'll see how I get on with working on my muting, this is something that sounds a good idea anyway to be honest (learning proper muting).

I'm loving this style of music at the moment so I'm more than happy to try and work on this and sort it out.

CarpeDiem

I would focus on the right and left hand muting, and try the noise gate once you've achieved the muting. Personally, I don't get on with noise gates as I've found they dampen the sustain when playing lead. This could just be me, as plenty of metal bands use them for tight riffing!

andyp

Yeah, I agree with that - I feel like learning to play neatly is my main concern first then I can maybe look at a gate later, but I also want to try and keep pedals to a minimum too. I'm not very experienced but I guess I can't really claim to be a beginner now either, so this seems like a good next step to focus on. I hadn't actually thought about the played and non-played strings as separate things, but that has already helped me picture more about what I am trying to do.

Lestratcaster

Look at how you mute the string as in how hard you press down on it. In the past I'd make a bad habit of not pressing correctly so it'd have a ringing harmonic, so stops wouldn't sound tight. I play with a 6505+ head which is renowned for being noisy so its a battle to control all the gain! But over the years my left and right hand muting has improved.

andyp

Thanks, I’ll take a look at that too. Im sure there’s something like that going on that’s nit helping things. It’s pretty tough playing with high(er) gain!

Lestratcaster

Over the years as my playing has got a bit more accurate and tighter I've actually dialled back the gain so there's more truth about my playing, as I can't hide behind gain anymore. Esp live when you don't actually need that much anyway!