Guitar Annoyance

[David Katauskas]

I discovered this myself last week, even though it may already be a common practice. Whenever I was recording my electric guitar, there was a distinct ringing when palm muting. It was driving me nuts. At first, the tremlo springs were suspect...but I put foam on those years ago. So, nope, that wasn't it.

This went on for weeks...trying to determine the reverberating ring after each palm mute. It sounded aweful...then I happened to look at the headstock. You know, that littler area where the strings are 2 to 4 inches long and create that tingy sound? That was it! I put a piece of foam under the strings, and VOILA, no more annoying resonating ringing. It also helps the overall guitar sound significantly.

If this helps only one other person, then my job here is done.

 

[-=¤willhaven¤=-]

Another tip. On my ESP I've got foam in the tremolo spring cavity, but I also took the rubbery plastic from a pack of strings and put that between the foam and the springs. Why? If you dive bomb your tremolo, the foam can get stuck between the springs and cause tuning problems when you release the trem bar.

The plastic sheet keeps anything from getting wedged in the springs, but is also pliable enough to conform to the main tubular shape of the springs and gets compressed by the foam.

I personally don't have any foam on the headstock because its a floyd rose style trem, so the headstock has one of those metal string retainer bars that stops most of the annoying resonance. But, if you wanted you could easily put some foam on the bottom of that bar to make it even quieter.

I've also had low thumping/humming noises caused by a loose pickup. If your pickup is loose and wobbles around, some more foam in the cavity to stop that movement can also help keep your guitar nice and quiet.

Just my two cents on the subject...

 

[David Katauskas]

Yeah, I too have the locking FR trem, but I still got a lot of annoying resonance.
That trick about the plastic wrapping sounds cool...I'll have to try that.

 

[-=¤willhaven¤=-]

Make sure to cut it a little longer than your foam and a little wider than your tremolo cavity. It usually gets pressed into the gaps between the springs and can cause problems if you don't have enough material to work with.

But regardless, the plastic is far less likely to get stuck in the springs and cause a problem than foam would be.