Help! High E string keeps ringing

C

canada-paul

New member
The problem:
I try to play metal, you know, with lots of repeated low E palm muting. After playing, oh, lets say the main riff for Metallica's 'For Whom The Bell Tolls', or Megadeth's 'Reckoning Day', if I stop the strings I've been playing on (mostly low EAD, maybe G), I find the high E and B strings are resonating. Loudly enough, in fact, to be heard along side the regular riff (this being the reason I stop playing and investigate). I try to be extremely careful not to touch the strings too much while palm muting, but I'm caught in a catch-22 situation. If I absolutely do not touch the high strings when I palm mute the low stuff (so basically, I try palm muting and lifting my pinkie on my right hand just enough so that EADG get muted but BE don't), the high strings will resonate like crazy (obviously excited by some of the harmonics included in the notes played on the lower strings). If I then try to correct the problem by muting the high strings as well, as my pick hand moves up and down (stopping and starting to mute), even the slightest touch on the high strings as I pull away will cause them to ring slightly. Repeat this procedure 20 times as you chug away at those low power chord movements, and presto, it builds into an annoying 'sloppy' sound.

Has anyone got any ideas? Is it my string gauge? I've experimented with pickup height, and to tell you the truth, it makes very little difference unless I'm right up against the strings or way down into the body of the guitar until I notice a difference. Is it the nut on my neck? Is it my frets? Are there vibrations being passed through somewhere? Or is it simply that I suck and must learn RH and LH muting acrobatics. Are really great players constantly muting strings behind the scenes because this sort of phenomena is normal?

The gear:
I have a Yamaha Pacifica 112, where I've removed the humbucker and single coils and replaced it with one Seymour Duncan Distortion humbucker. The strings are .010 to 0.046, and I've got string saver saddles on it. Besides that and a few cosmetic changes, its fairly normal. The guitar has performed pretty much the same since I got it, when it came with the standard humbucker - single - single configuration and 0.009 to 0.042 strings and regular saddles.

Thanks
 

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Fret hand muting. Let the meatie part of your fingers, close to your palm lay across the strings you don't want to hear. Sort of like a sloppy bar chord.
 
Interesting

I was going through some guitar technique books (Hal Leonard ones I think) written for learning the acoustic, but I played through the exercises with my electric. One of the things they stress is that your fretting fingers should come straight down onto the string, not touching strings on either side. This means that you'd have to fret with the area just on the 'pad-side' of the fingernail.

But a really good bass player I knew awhile ago saw me play once and almost had a heart attack. He stressed that I should play with the strap done up real high so I'm picking around belt level (as opposed to half-way between belt and knee), and I'm fretting just below chin level. This helped out accuracy alot, but another thing he mentioned was muting with the pads under the fingers on the fret hand. I tried this for awhile but eventually gave it up, as it made it very difficult to move down from a higher string, but staying on the same fret (say... 1st note is 8th fret D string, then the next note quickly moves to 8th fret A string). You'd sorta have to shove the finger towards you rather than lift it off.

I'm gonna give this another shot though, thanks Firebird.
 
That thing about using your finger tips is the way clasical and some jazz guitar players do it. I say you should grab that guitar neck like a baseball bat and force it to do your bidding!
 
Sounds like sympathetic resonation to me. They are acting like drone strings and picking up on some of the other frequencies.
 
Played last night and...

I can see the point about leaving a finger draped across a few of the upper strings to stop the ringing. Its not an easy technique to pick up on, though. Basically I'm just trying to lightly touch the highest 2 or 3 strings with my index finger at all times (which is more difficult when that finger must fret something).

I'll have to practice everything half speed until I get the hang of it, but it seems to do the trick.

Oh, and Clive, is this 'sympathetic resonation' due to a mechanical problem in the guitar, or simply the status quo for stringed instruments?

Thanks
 
Clive Hugh said:
Sounds like sympathetic resonation to me. They are acting like drone strings and picking up on some of the other frequencies.
Click to expand...

Yes, but if you mute them they can't resonate.
 
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