# Handling and minimizing acoustic overtones



## Jonathan20022 (Jan 15, 2013)

How do some of you guys do it? Yesterday I broke out my Classical guitar and continued some of my flamenco ideas on it. I noticed that whenever I touch a fret with my left hand before I pick, there's quite a noticeable overtone in ALL the notes. I know there's no perfect way to get rid of it, but I'd like to hear what some of you guys have done.

I thought of purchasing a fretwraps set, although for 22$ I can make myself a velcro strap to use. But either way the over tones are gone as soon as I mute the strings behind my fretting hand.

Technique wise, I have pretty developed muting under control of my right hand. It's just annoying whenever I need the note to ring out.


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## Winspear (Jan 15, 2013)

It's beyond me man. I guess it's all left hand muting!?
How acoustic tap players stop it sounding out of tune is beyond me. I can't bring myself to practice that stuff because it sounds so disgusting acoustically.
btw it's not overtones exactly - it's just the other end of the string, i.e the string doesn't 'know' what side the soundhole is on when you are hammering on.


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## tedtan (Jan 16, 2013)

If you mean the sympathetic vibrations from the open strings then you have to mute them if you don't want to hear them. You can use some type of mute like you mention, or you can mute the strings below (in pitch) the lowest fretted note with your right hand palm like on an electric, and the higher strings with the underside of your fretting fingers. Higher strings can also be muted with the right hand fingertips.

Regarding tapping and legato on an acoustic like EtherealEntity mentions, most of the guys who do that are plugging into an amp/mixing board. And the latest generations of Taylor's ES pickups and Martin's Fishman Aura pickups sound pretty natural; light years beyond the typical piezo sound. (I'm sure other manufacturers are getting good results too, but I'm not familiar enough to comment.) You just have to mute the open strings like you would when tapping on an electric, because the pickup won't sense the other side of the string on fretted notes (same as with an electric).

Honestly, though, most acoustic players I've seen tend to treat the open strings' sympathetic vibrations as a form of "natural" reverb, and they don't typically do anythign to stop it.


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## InfinityCollision (Jan 16, 2013)

EtherealEntity said:


> It's beyond me man. I guess it's all left hand muting!?
> How acoustic tap players stop it sounding out of tune is beyond me. I can't bring myself to practice that stuff because it sounds so disgusting acoustically.
> btw it's not overtones exactly - it's just the other end of the string, i.e the string doesn't 'know' what side the soundhole is on when you are hammering on.



There's really no way to stop the "behind-the-fret" tones from sounding dissonant and out of tune because most of them _are_ out of tune and they're all (off the top of my head) at least moderately dissonant relative to the sounding pitch. All you can really do about it is mute what you can and mic/mix carefully to minimize their presence.


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## Overtone (Jan 16, 2013)

Working on left hand muting is indeed in order. Fretwrap can help too. The other thing is to work with how you are miking things, how the audience hears, you, etc.. Odds are the noise you hear won't bother someone sitting 2 meters from you. With a close mic, especially near the fingerboard you can end up hearing things that even you don't notice when you're playing. So the circumstances dictate a lot... doing tapping on a recording? Don't mic too close to the fingerboard. Playing live without amplification? Don't worry as much.


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## Jonathan20022 (Jan 16, 2013)

EtherealEntity said:


> It's beyond me man. I guess it's all left hand muting!?
> How acoustic tap players stop it sounding out of tune is beyond me. I can't bring myself to practice that stuff because it sounds so disgusting acoustically.
> btw it's not overtones exactly - it's just the other end of the string, i.e the string doesn't 'know' what side the soundhole is on when you are hammering on.



Yeah when I listen to most acoustic players like Andy M., John Gomm, and Mike Dawes. He (Mike) actually uses this sound to his advantage on that track The Impossible. And that totally makes sense, acoustically I just can't unhear the higher note ringing out anymore haha.



tedtan said:


> If you mean the sympathetic vibrations from the open strings then you have to mute them if you don't want to hear them. You can use some type of mute like you mention, or you can mute the strings below (in pitch) the lowest fretted note with your right hand palm like on an electric, and the higher strings with the underside of your fretting fingers. Higher strings can also be muted with the right hand fingertips.
> 
> Regarding tapping and legato on an acoustic like EtherealEntity mentions, most of the guys who do that are plugging into an amp/mixing board. And the latest generations of Taylor's ES pickups and Martin's Fishman Aura pickups sound pretty natural; light years beyond the typical piezo sound. (I'm sure other manufacturers are getting good results too, but I'm not familiar enough to comment.) You just have to mute the open strings like you would when tapping on an electric, because the pickup won't sense the other side of the string on fretted notes (same as with an electric).
> 
> Honestly, though, most acoustic players I've seen tend to treat the open strings' sympathetic vibrations as a form of "natural" reverb, and they don't typically do anythign to stop it.



Thanks for the advice! I'll try that, my issue isn't so much the open strings, but the note being played from my finger to the nut. Since the string is still vibrating on that end so it makes perfect sense. 

I might just make my own velcro strap for my acoustic since on my electrics it's there, but they're always plugged in so it doesn't really matter haha.


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## Jonathan20022 (Jan 16, 2013)

Overtone said:


> Working on left hand muting is indeed in order. Fretwrap can help too. The other thing is to work with how you are miking things, how the audience hears, you, etc.. Odds are the noise you hear won't bother someone sitting 2 meters from you. With a close mic, especially near the fingerboard you can end up hearing things that even you don't notice when you're playing. So the circumstances dictate a lot... doing tapping on a recording? Don't mic too close to the fingerboard. Playing live without amplification? Don't worry as much.



That actually makes a lot of sense, it seems inevitable. I'll try just dealing with it and adjusting my left hand technique. I never noticed it until recently, I wish I hadn't


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## tedtan (Jan 16, 2013)

Yeah man, if you're talking about the note between a fretted note and the nut (when playing acoustically), all you can really do is work on muting with your left hand (e.g., when fretting with your middle finger, mute with your index) or use something to mute the strings. Thicker hair ties work if you are looking for something on the cheap. The only problem with this approach is it cuts off the open strings and harmonics on open strings - not always a problem, but sometimes you want those, too.


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## Jonathan20022 (Jan 16, 2013)

tedtan said:


> Yeah man, if you're talking about the note between a fretted note and the nut (when playing acoustically), all you can really do is work on muting with your left hand (e.g., when fretting with your middle finger, mute with your index) or use something to mute the strings. Thicker hair ties work if you are looking for something on the cheap. The only problem with this approach is it cuts off the open strings and harmonics on open strings - not always a problem, but sometimes you want those, too.



I see, so there's a compromise either way. I might make one that's easier to move around so I can adjust mid song with out having to change stuff around too much.


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## tedtan (Jan 16, 2013)

Unfortunately, you can't have your cake and eat it too, at least when playing acoustically. If you plug in, however, the pickups will only pickup the note you are playing (fret to bridge), not the nut to fret string vibration, so that's the way to go if you can. If not, some type of muting device may be the best option.


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## Jonathan20022 (Jan 16, 2013)

I'll start plugging my acoustic in then, no big deal. I play at home and record at home so it's not inconvenient at all haha. Thanks for the info guys. If anyone has anything else to add, feel free to!


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## Overtone (Jan 21, 2013)

Kenji20022 said:


> That actually makes a lot of sense, it seems inevitable. I'll try just dealing with it and adjusting my left hand technique. I never noticed it until recently, I wish I hadn't



There are a lot of those sounds I've noticed over the last year that are hard to ignore now. Then I recorded my acoustic with a large diaphragm condenser and was blown away by how much stuff there is I'm still not hearing! To get that up close sound on an acoustic you have to play incredibly clean! 

The fretwraps are decent enough to work for those fretting/tapping noise and move over the nut easily when you want them out of the way. The other way to do the tapping is as mentioned above, use the index as a mute. For picked notes it can be good practice for you to work on fretting so lightly that the sound of the string behind your finger is practically inaudible. 

GL! The key is now your ears are open!


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## Jonathan20022 (Jan 23, 2013)

Haha that's the worst part! When you become aware and it's constantly there! I've just learned to deal with it, thankfully my classical has an output so I don't need to record acoustically anytime soon.


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