Clean The Cars guitar sound

N

natmj

New member
Clean rhythm like The Cars

I've got weak hands, bad technique, and a cheap electric guitar . . . (and those are my strong points with music) . . . I can't figure out which of these is giving me trouble with recording a clean guitar sound.

On stage, it's not a big deal, but in the studio, it's hard for me to get rid of buzzing that occurs when I don't press hard enough on the strings. I'm not sure if that means bad action or bad frets or bad hands or bad technique for me . . . or just my own oversensitivity to my own performance taped. My friends claim not to notice, anway.

I'm pretty sure if I stuck a vice grip on the strings, they would sound crisp, so I imagine that if I had hands like a mountain-climber's, the situation would be better.

I simply can't play through a whole song, let alone verse, without buzzing, even if I push my hardest. And I've been playing and performing for several years. I have the same problem with my acoustic guitar, which is also a poor man's guitar. I really should stop by Guitar Center and see how I do with a high-quality guitar.

Nobody would ever notice on the final version of most songs because there is so much musical activity, but in the quiet parts (think intro to The Cars "My Best Friend's Girlfriend") I have to work hard to kill all buzz.

Any suggestions?
 
Use a synthetic guitar. You can program patches that work with your fortes, vg, you can adjust the sensitivity to suit your picking, or make the sound have no dynamics, no chromatic bendings, etc. There are clean sounds included in the GR-30 series from Roland that might be what you want (you'll need a pickup also).
 
It's a guitar talking to a MIDI pickup. I use Roland's GK-2A, which connects to Roland's GR-3x synth series. It carries the guitar signal and also translates to MIDI. You can mix both tones or play either guitar or synth. So the guitar becomes a MIDI controller, but the response is analog-MIDI, rather than digital-MIDI (on-off), as in keyboard controllers. Thus you have a lot of control over the actual tone production, and can transmit bendings, tremolos, etc. But it's a synthesizer, so you can develop your own sounds and trigger them with the guitar. And since it is a MIDI connector, you can both send input to the computer via MIDI and trigger the synth from the computer, record MIDI as well as record analog. I use a SBLive Platinum for connectivity. And it's the most wonderful instrument you can imagine! In brief: a XXI century instrument.
 
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