Ever Met Anyone Who Makes ALL Guitars Sound Bad?

[katopp]

Ah, some folks here play with bloody coins, because they can't get picks strong enough.

My standard picks are the 0.46 and the 0.60 JDunlop nylons.

 

More important than pick and wotevvah is the angle with which you hit the strings. If you hit them 45 degrees or parallel to the soundboard, that makes a helluva diffrence.

[Queequeg]

Originally appears on Taylor Guitars - Tone page :

 

[blue2blue]

A friend of mine is like this. No joke. He's been playing for a year or two less than me and his gear isn't as good as mine (which isn't saying much), but he's a decent musician. He's got chops, but it's just that every single guitar he plays sounds bad. For a while, I thought his preamp was the issue. His acoustic is pretty cheap and I figured an EQ would make all the difference. He finally bought one and it did a little, but not much. Then, I figured that maybe his guitar was just too much for an EQ pedal to fix. The other day, he borrowed my Ovation for youth group and he sounded pretty bad on that too. After the fact, he came up and asked me if I was aware that my Ovation had a "nasty string buzz." I said no, because it doesn't have a string buzz. Never has. I played a few licks, and it didn't buzz at all. He played a few riffs, to point out the buzz, I guess, and I still didn't hear it . Ever met anyone like this? I'd really like to say something to him, but quite frankly, I don't know why perfectly good guitars just don't get along with him. Any ideas on what the culprit might be? I've always thought that he strums a bit too hard, but I don't know if that's the smoking gun or not.

First... I don't mean to seem pedantic or picky but an acoustic guitar needs an EQ pedal like a fish needs a bicycle.

 

You might make a case that a guitar with a really expensive transduction system can come pretty close to the sound of a miked acoustic, but when it's plugged in, it's an electric, amplified guitar. It's not just semantics. It's a real world, practical difference.

 

 

 

 

 

With regard to the general topic, Q's quote from the Taylor page, immediately above, hits the main points nicely -- particularly with regard to the picking hand technique. Plectrum and finger technique, how and where on the string (near the fretboard, over the hole, near the bridge saddle) you play, the type of pick, the way the pick is held, the place on the pick where the string is struck -- and how it's struck, flat across, edge, point, side, etc -- or the way the fingers are used in finger style, how much flesh, how much nail, how the nails are filed and shaped... )

 

Also, how the guitar is held, over the picking side leg (western or casual style) or between the legs and resting against the chest (3 point, 'classical' style).

 

Also, how the picking arm and hand contact the body of the guitar, which has various damping effects in different places on a hollow body guitar.

 

And, of course, picking hand muting techniques...