# Noise when playing with distortion.



## Wiz (Jul 5, 2007)

Here's the deal: I practice most of the time with a clean sound, no distortion and a bit (actually a lot, just cause it's awesome) of reverb and delay. I'm not exactly used to practicing with distortion mostly because it creates a lot of noise (a real mess) when I play and I prefer to hear what exactly I'm playing instead of dealing with it, and also having mainly a jazz background doesn't exactly help with dealing with brutal distortion.

Now the question is: How do I avoid causing total chaos when playing with high gain? It happens mostly when I play something that covers several strings, and my best guess is that the strings I'm not fretting anymore are still partially ringing, and the fact that many of them do it at the same time creates a nasty background noise.

How do you guys avoid it? What kind of exercises do you do to get used to preventing it?


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## OzzyC (Jul 6, 2007)

Simple, play with distortion. It teaches you proper muting.


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## Naren (Jul 6, 2007)

OzzyC said:


> Simple, play with distortion. It teaches you proper muting.



I guess that's how most of us learned. Ever since I first started playing guitar 7 years ago up until this day I've played guitar clean half of the time and distorted half of the time. When I play distorted or clean, my playing is just as clear and noise-free. 

I guess the most important thing is muting. When I play with distortion, I generally play with very high gain and so I have a playing style where I mute with both my left and right hands (the palm of my right hand and the fingers of my left hand). There may be a tutorial on proper muting with both right and left hands, but personally I learned it all through experience. When I had first started playing, I thought, "I don't like all that noise" and so I tried to get rid of it through different methods and that's where my muting techniques started to improve. There is one song that I had for a previous band where I'm playing an arpeggio clean and then later playing it with distortion. If I didn't mute it correctly, it would be really really noisy and messy-sounding, but because of the muting, it sounds just as clear and noise-less as the clean version.

I guess 90% of it is in the technique, but a noise gate could help get rid of minor noise when you're not playing. It might interfere with your sustain if you're trying to hold out sustain for a really long time, though. I have heavy noise gates on both of my rhythm guitar distortions and really light noise gates on my solo/lead channels.


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## Alpo (Jul 6, 2007)

The only way to learn how to play with heavy distortion is to play with heavy distortion. I mute with both hands (the right hand handles the lower strings and the left hand mutes the ones that are physically below the one I'm currently playing). I'd like to think that I've got a pretty decent muting technique, and it didn't come overnight. You just have to stick with it and keep on playing with the gain cranked up. Just make a conscious effort to play as cleanly as possible, and with time it'll become natural.


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## Regor (Jul 6, 2007)

Low Gain - Mute the strings with your hands

High Gain - Mute the strings with your hands, and add a noise gate


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## Alpo (Jul 6, 2007)

Regor said:


> High Gain - Mute the strings with your hands, and add a noise gate



I don't think noise gates are really a necessity. I only use the one in my Toneport because I'm close to all kinds of computer stuff. But I've never felt that I needed one at band practice or anything, and I've often fooled around with Engl's, etc. with the gain maxed (just for fun).


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## newamerikangospel (Jul 6, 2007)

A noise gate gets rid of [EXCESSIVE] noise, not pick noise. Your gate should open up when any type of noise over the floor noise is picked up. The means, running your hand over the strings, or bumping into something with your guitar. 

This is what I call a background technique. Something that cant be taugh. Almost like pick holding. Playing with clean gives articulation on the notes themselves, but allows you to be sloppy with the unfretted choices (how much you can let a string ring, or the movement of your hand). Whereas playing with distortion is almost the opposite. This isn't something that can really be taught, and its something that comes from inexperience (no offense). You will never hear a player have these issues after 10 years, unless they are retarded. Just slow down and make sure you are being aware of your mistakes. When you know about something you can fix it


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## Metal Ken (Jul 6, 2007)

Alpo said:


> I don't think noise gates are really a necessity. I only use the one in my Toneport because I'm close to all kinds of computer stuff. But I've never felt that I needed one at band practice or anything, and I've often fooled around with Engl's, etc. with the gain maxed (just for fun).



They're necessary if your rig feeds back at higher levels. But from a technique standpoint, you shouldnt need one.


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## MF_Kitten (Jul 6, 2007)

i would agree with what others said: you need to learn to mute the strings you son´t use... like when i play, for example, i use the fingers of my left hand to mute the rest of the trings... to elaborate a little: you just let the fingers rest naturally over the strings... so the unused strings always have fingers laying over them, so they dont resonate and ring all the time...

it´s not too hard, you´ll get the hang of it... just start playing with distortion, and keep being annoyed at the noise until you get it right, it´s called Learning By Doing


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## Kakaka (Jul 6, 2007)

Play with heavy distortion the whole time, always with the gain on max.
Then experiment with different picking hand/typing fingers positioning...
I've playing the electric guitar for about 3 months now.

I played the acoustic for 9 and was getting some really cool noise out of it.
When I finally got my first 7 I had this undescribably unpleasant surprise that I would have to start from zero point because I had almost zero skills on string muting since it wasn't heavily needed on the acoustic.

Specially on fast string skipping stuff... can you imagine how messy it would sound having an acoustic player dealing with massively distorted electric guitar? It was just crappy.

I'm reasonably comfortable with it right now, and what I did is just what I told you to.

Noisegates are cool too. But leave'em for an extra cleaness on the future...


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## Wiz (Jul 7, 2007)

The prob is that say I'm playing something on the high E string without touching any other string. D or E will start vibrating pretty audibly. In many cases the low B will start vibrating too, and because it's a 7 string, it'll be pretty damn hard to mute it with the right hand if what you're playing is on the high 3 strings. Maybe you guys just have huge hands 

I definitely noticed how muting with the right hand the strings lower (pitch wise) than the ones I'm playing on helps a lot eliminating the extra noise, but it's still far from perfect. I'll be working on this with time.

What about the thumb part of the hand? Do you use that to mute the lower strings when say, going vertically up a scale?


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## Nomad (Jul 9, 2007)

I'm new here and certainly no expert, but...



Wiz said:


> The prob is that say I'm playing something on the high E string without touching any other string. D or E will start vibrating pretty audibly.





> In many cases the low B will start vibrating too, and because it's a 7 string, it'll be pretty damn hard to mute it with the right hand if what you're playing is on the high 3 strings. Maybe you guys just have huge hands



In both cases I would use right hand palm mute. My hands aren't huge. I suppose the bottom line is us folks that like to play with heavy distortion have to use a different technique than that of other guitar styles.


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## Seedawakener (Jul 9, 2007)

Wiz said:


> The prob is that say I'm playing something on the high E string without touching any other string. D or E will start vibrating pretty audibly. In many cases the low B will start vibrating too, and because it's a 7 string, it'll be pretty damn hard to mute it with the right hand if what you're playing is on the high 3 strings.



Well, that is what you are supposed to do.  

A good exercise would be playing a chromatic 4 notes per string scale ascending to the high E and then going backwards again. Works just as well with any 3 note per string scale too. Anyway, while doing that make sure your right hand follows the movements of your left hand and follows it so that it lies on the string underneath it (pitchwise) all the time. So just play the thing and make sure you mute the string just underneath it as a start. That should do a lot!

For the the higher strings... Try to play with your left hand-fingers pretty straight so that they basicaly lie on top of those strings. I play with a lot of distortion but even though I dont always mute all the lighter strings I feel its fairly noisefree...  Try this exercise, or try to apply the technique to your playing.


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## neon_black88 (Jul 9, 2007)

Man ive never really thought about muting before as part of my technique... ever. I know its happening but it seems so natural, man it would suck to be a ripping player only to try some distorted electric and sounding like a noob. Haha. I cant really give any advice, id say like the other guys its something that cant be taught, it just comes with experience.


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## Seedawakener (Jul 9, 2007)

neon_black88 said:


> Man ive never really thought about muting before as part of my technique... ever. I know its happening but it seems so natural, man it would suck to be a ripping player only to try some distorted electric and sounding like a noob. Haha. I cant really give any advice, id say like the other guys its something that cant be taught, it just comes with experience.



Of course it can be taught!  I know a lot of friends who never mute their strings and it sounds like shit when they are playing. Basically because they dont realize it sounds like shit. But wiz now knows that so he can take action. My guitar teacher gave me that exercise I just showed you and it helped me very fast. It became part of my technique pretty fast and now I dont think of it as it comes automatically.

But remember... you can definatly be taught this...


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## neon_black88 (Jul 9, 2007)

im sorry mabye it can. Its just I dont think ive ever discussed it as a full on technique before, but ofcourse there will be exercises to help improve it and such . Now that I think about it my guitar teacher is a full on jazz/classical guy. Mabye I should try handing him my 7 and get him to play some full on distorted riffage and see what happens  . Haha this has just got me curious.


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## Seedawakener (Jul 9, 2007)

neon_black88 said:


> im sorry mabye it can. Its just I dont think ive ever discussed it as a full on technique before, but ofcourse there will be exercises to help improve it and such . Now that I think about it my guitar teacher is a full on jazz/classical guy. Mabye I should try handing him my 7 and get him to play some full on distorted riffage and see what happens  . Haha this has just got me curious.



Well maybe its not a technique by itself but it becomes part of your picking technique you know. Its on autopilot for me now, probably the same goes for other people too.


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## MF_Kitten (Jul 13, 2007)

i now play really really clean when playing acoustic as well... i always have all the unused strings muted by laying my fingers over them... just resting over them... easy as pie!


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## Crucified (Jul 14, 2007)

Regor said:


> Low Gain - Mute the strings with your hands
> 
> High Gain - Mute the strings with your hands, and add a noise gate



/quoted for truth


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## Jongpil Yun (Jul 17, 2007)

Pick holding definitely CAN be taught. Muting I think is a matter of experience for sure though.


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## Seedawakener (Jul 17, 2007)

Jongpil Yun said:


> Pick holding definitely CAN be taught. Muting I think is a matter of experience for sure though.



OF COURSE IT IS NOT! ... Just practise to mute the strings and you'll teach yourself to do it... What is it with people trying to ignore the fact that this technique can be taught?


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## Jongpil Yun (Jul 18, 2007)

Seedawakener said:


> OF COURSE IT IS NOT! ... Just practise to mute the strings and you'll teach yourself to do it... What is it with people trying to ignore the fact that this technique can be taught?



It can't be taught in the sense that you can't just say, mute the bottom strings with your palm and mute the top strings with your fretting fingers, and everything will be fine, whereas you can say, hold the pick like this, and that's it. It takes a lot of practice and messing around going up and down the strings in different ways to be able to mute consistently with high gain so that you don't have any extraneous noise.


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## Seedawakener (Jul 18, 2007)

Jongpil Yun said:


> It can't be taught in the sense that you can't just say, mute the bottom strings with your palm and mute the top strings with your fretting fingers, and everything will be fine, whereas you can say, hold the pick like this, and that's it. It takes a lot of practice and messing around going up and down the strings in different ways to be able to mute consistently with high gain so that you don't have any extraneous noise.



But still... If someone tells the person in need of muting technique-help to do it a certain way, they do it that way and they practise it and then play and no noise comes out.... Havent they been taught the technique then?


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## auxioluck (Jul 20, 2007)

Keep in mind, most people's palm muting styles are different. Just work with it and find out what feels best for you. It doesn't take long to master.


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