# Pony tail holder around guitar neck?



## jymellis

why do i see some pics and videos of people with hair bands/pony tail holders around the neck of their guitar. its always on the first fret next to the nut.


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## CooleyJr

It cleans tapping/sweeping and overall playing up. As long as you're not using open notes lol. Pretty much its a mute.


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## jymellis

CooleyJr said:


> It cleans tapping/sweeping and overall playing up. As long as you're not using open notes lol. Pretty much its a mute.


 
i may have to try this. since my 10 year hiatus my sweeping is REALLY bad.


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## CooleyJr

Yeah man, It helps when recording if there's a few notes that you cant just get super clean. Then you use the hair tie and BAM! You just nailed it. Kinda cheating but hey. Herman Li speeds up his recordings!


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## jymellis

if you heard my current sweeping you would either tell me to stop or try the pony tail holder lol.


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## Winspear

Baha, when I read the title I thought this was some kind of new crazy kickass invention


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## Bloody_Inferno

CooleyJr said:


> Yeah man, It helps when recording if there's a few notes that you cant just get super clean. Then you use the hair tie and BAM! You just nailed it. Kinda cheating but hey. Herman Li speeds up his recordings!


 
So did Vinnie Vincent, and that was 20 years ago. 

On topic, yes it does help with clean tapping and sweeps. It does muffle the notes a bit, but it's extremely subtle so it's nothing to fret over (unless you're the last producer I worked with who noticed it straight away). 

I have one on all my guitars.


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## meisterjager

lol @ 'pony tail holder'


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## Prydogga

There's been a thread here before about whether using these is cheating, but the thing is, music isn't a competition so who cares. 

Going OT is your avatar a guy about to give a chick a donkey punch?


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## 22km Tombstone

The biggest reason I started doing this was not to clean up lead playing/sweeping (I'm not great at that anyway), but rather to stop any weird ringing out after hard/fast staccato rhythms & especially palm mutes.

Sometimes you get this weird "shhring" sound after a staccato palm muted chord, and although it's not that loud, you can definitely tell it's there. Using the hair band past the nut mutes this.

I guess this doesn't happen with Floyd'ed guitars though?


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## jymellis

Prydogga said:


> Going OT is your avatar a guy about to give a chick a donkey punch?


 
thanx and yes it was, but looks to have been deleted


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## Waelstrum

jymellis said:


> if you heard my current sweeping you would either tell me to stop or try the pony tail holder lol.



It's not cheating to use a string dampener, it's just another way of playing music. Speeding up guitars is only cheating if you claim to be power metal, as apposed to techno.
Back on topic, for ERGs and ERBs, a hair tie might work more like a capo, so that's why I use the Crayola brand string dampener.


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## Prydogga

jymellis said:


> thanx and yes it was, but looks to have been deleted



lol that's win.


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## -mouse-

my dad uses these all the time  he goes to the grocery store and buys them in bulk.


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## Bloody_Inferno

22km Tombstone said:


> The biggest reason I started doing this was not to clean up lead playing/sweeping (I'm not great at that anyway), but rather to stop any weird ringing out after hard/fast staccato rhythms & especially palm mutes.
> 
> Sometimes you get this weird "shhring" sound after a staccato palm muted chord, and although it's not that loud, you can definitely tell it's there. Using the hair band past the nut mutes this.
> 
> I guess this doesn't happen with Floyd'ed guitars though?


 
That's another reason as well. I didn't have one on my Les Paul for a while until I realised the ringing. So I put one on all my non Floyd guitars and it made a difference in tight rhythm playing. Some people go as far as sticking foam on the headstock right next to the nut to dampen the strings. 

Floyds don't have that issue, but I have them on anyway for the initial reason (shred tap sweep). Plus you use them to generate harmonics for some experimental playing too.


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## guitarplayerone

foam under the string tree works much better


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## jjjsssxxx

Some guitars with floyds do have this issue, especially if it has a reverse headstock, making the string length of the low E or B longer between the nut and tuner. Sometimes my RG 7620 will do it on the middle strings too (D and G). Drives me nuts when I'm recording. Hair tie, foam or tape fixes this. I also stick foam in the spring cavity to keep that quiet.


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## reptillion

Waelstrum said:


> It's not cheating to use a string dampener, it's just another way of playing music. Speeding up guitars is only cheating if you claim to be power metal, as apposed to techno.
> Back on topic, for ERGs and ERBs, a hair tie might work more like a capo, so that's why I use the Crayola brand string dampener.



My hair ties are a bit too tight on my universe, so I stole the idea from a friend to use a tshirt tied around the neck, mutes alot better. The only problem its harder to move on and off.


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## Bloody_Inferno

Neal said:


> Some guitars with floyds do have this issue, especially if it has a reverse headstock, making the string length of the low E or B longer between the nut and tuner. Sometimes my RG 7620 will do it on the middle strings too (D and G). Drives me nuts when I'm recording. Hair tie, foam or tape fixes this. I also stick foam in the spring cavity to keep that quiet.


 
Come to think of it, I jam the spring cavity on my guitars (with Tissues) as well, probably why I didn't notice the issue.


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## Metal Ken

Neal said:


> I also stick foam in the spring cavity to keep that quiet.



I used black electrical tape on the springs on my guitars with OFRs and works just as good as foam, but without a bunch of crap in your trem cavity to impede movement.


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## Rocco Ruthless

Metal Ken said:


> I used black electrical tape on the springs on my guitars with OFRs and works just as good as foam, but without a bunch of crap in your trem cavity to impede movement.



This seems to be a good solution as well if you have $10 laying around. (sorry for off topic post)

Noiseless Springs [ANS0001] - $9.95 : FloydUpgrades.com!, Floyd Rose Tremolo Upgrades


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## Origin

Those little ponytail bastards work great, a little cheaper than an NS-2 Suppressor pedal, though I plan on getting one of those too


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## Koshchei

Works like a charm. You can slide a hair elastic down to where you need it to clean up string noise and sympathetic vibration quite nicely. It's not tight enough to mute your strings, only clean up transient noise.


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