String muting in the studio

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chamelious

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I was wondering how many here have experimented with it, the main example being the hair scrunchie for tapping parts. Going to be recording my amp in a studio soon (normally do stuff at home with a v-amp) so i'd like to get some nice clean tracks quick as poss.

I've seen video footage of bands having muted just the top or bottom 3 strings before, anyone tried this?
 
On our last recording I did the old sock around the neck for solo thing on a couple of songs (obviously where there wasn't open notes in the solos). Can remember taping off unwanted strings with electrical tape at times for rhythm bits, but by and large we just played "normally".

At the end of the day I personally think the squeaks and slightly off hits make a recording sound more alive. A bit of that "dodgy" live character is good for guitars (but not really the case for drums or bass) imo, adds some personality to it. Perfect guitars sound a bit odd to me.
 
I've used a foam block to mute lower strings in order to record some really clean tapping parts, but that's about it. Never tried dampening them all
for a solo--I'm always almost subconsciously rolling off onto open strings.
 
slowmotion said:
On our last recording I did the old sock around the neck for solo thing on a couple of songs (obviously where there wasn't open notes in the solos). Can remember taping off unwanted strings with electrical tape at times for rhythm bits, but by and large we just played "normally".

At the end of the day I personally think the squeaks and slightly off hits make a recording sound more alive. A bit of that "dodgy" live character is good for guitars (but not really the case for drums or bass) imo, adds some personality to it. Perfect guitars sound a bit odd to me.
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Electrical tape that could work cheers dude. I think the level of perfection depends on the genre and band, my band is pretty much metal where perfection is mandatory.
 
I weave a couple rubber bands between the strings when I record pretty much any parts high on the neck where I don't need open strings.
 
When i dub high notes onto something and i know i'm not gonna need any open strings, a bandanna will do. And it looks way cooler than a sock.
 
chamelious said:
... metal where perfection is mandatory.
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:laughings:

Sorry...but that just made me chuckle...that's the last thing I would think metal was trying to be....perfection.
It reminds of that thread not too long ago where the guy was recording his licks one note at time so that they would be perfect.
I just can't think of Sabbath and other early metal bands striving for mandatory perfection. ;)

Maybe for R&B or Jazz.

Like what happens when you miss a note...do they make you play Blues riffs as punishment! :D
 
Rap and Metal and R&B (and other stuff) has become a cookie cut caricature of itself.

Though I would have never expected Metal to become so formulaic, even morose than some MOR Pop/Rock.
It seems just so very calculated these days, down to single notes and whatnot, not to mention to exact tones your guitars must have…
...and then there’s the mandatory perfection. ;)
(Don't take it personally...it just something I've never heard said about Metal before). :D

I guess every genre forms into a mold at some point, and then people just follow the mold until someone breaks it.
 
You're probably just listening to the wrong metal, Miro. ;)



(Listen to it all the way through, if nothing else as a favor tome. It'll surprise you, a couple times, more than likely. Devin's in a realm of his own, stylistically)
 
Maybe I'm just not. ;)

Yeah...that's a different flavor, much more progressive and even Floyd-ish in some ways.

But I do hate the sound of Metal guitars these days (talking about rhythm mostly)....just WAY too overdriven, IMO.
I liked Metal when the guitars still had some Rock tones to them, some definition...but were still heavy/thick...
......now it's just a lot of BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
 
Or even something like this:
[video=youtube;<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="https://www.youtube.com/v/e5VmZK3FcLw&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="https://www.youtube.com/v/e5VmZK3FcLw&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>]video[/video]

More extreme metal needs to be relatively perfect just because of some of the tempos. If the song is skipping along at 220 bpm, you just don't have any room for being sloppy without a major train wreck.
 
Farview said:
If the song is skipping along at 220 bpm, you just don't have any room for being sloppy without a major train wreck.
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If you listen to that song there is very little that is hitting on evey beat of the BPM tempo...actually, much of the instrumentation is playing at a sub-division of the underlying tempo...so it has a much slower flow.

I just don't think tempo has anything to do with it...the need for perfection.
You have the same requirements at 80, 120 or 220 BPM.
I even think slower tempos are harder to keep tight than faster ones.....
 
I wasn't referencing that song as a speed metal tune. I was using that as an example of having to be tight. I've seen them live when someone got lost, the entire song fell apart in a huge train wreck.


Slower songs are a little harder to play, but you have much more leeway because being a little early or late isn't catastrophic.

Being slightly ahead of the beat 120 bpm could translate to a 64th note (62.5 ms) That same 62 ms at 240 is a full 32nd note early. If you are playing 16th note patterns, it's a train wreck.
 
Metal doesn't have to be perfect? Maybe sabbath were sloppy but thats not what metal is now. Lars Ulrich records his drums one rythm/fill at a time, as i lay dyings drums are all sample replaced and locked to the tempo as well i shouldn't imagine. Buzzy distortion tones are usually heard on cheap recordings of unsigned metal bands where they've used horrible solid state amps, proper recordings are done with high volume tube amps, lower gain, more tracks layered up. See anything done by Andy Sneap.

If you've never heard that said about metal, you've not been recording metal bands obviously.
 
chamelious said:
... you've not been recording metal bands obviously.
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Call me lucky. ;)

The last Metallica album sounded like pure shit...audio-wise.
Just a lot of harsh noise...because everything was pushed to the absolute max. BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

But I'm not looking to crack on Metal *music*...
...I just find it rather amusing that Metal has reduced itself to a very calculated *process*, which you refer to as "mandatory perfection".
Guys punching in single notes for their leads, drummers tracking fills one at a time and using triggers of "perfect" samples instead of their drums...etc...etc...etc.
I didn't use to be that way...and it had nothing to do with those earlier bands being "sloppy". Metal came about as an alternative to the formulaic MOR "Rock/Pop"...and now it's more formulaic than some current Rock/Pop music.

These days, a lot of Metal to me is very much like the WWF....just a theatrical show, with costumes, lighting and pyro FX and lots of glitz (though Metal just goes for the "dark" look instead) .
But I guess if that's what people want to see...then it has its place, like any other kind of music/entertainment.

I use to like Metal through the late 70s and early 80s.

YMMV
 
I agree with you 100% about the last metallica album although i suspect the mastering engineer shoulders a lot of the blame for that one.

You seem to be connecting recording process's with song structure and stuff though, bit wierd? The fact that the drummers using a triggered kick doesn't really affect the structure of the song does it? I'm not a metalhead but i think theres good and bad metal out there now, just as there was in the 70's and 80's.
 
chamelious said:
...i think theres good and bad metal out there now, just as there was in the 70's and 80's.
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I don't deny that, and I wasn't trying to debate music tastes specifically, or to say all Metal sucks…not at all. As I mentioned, I liked Metal back in the day when it still had a good deal of classic Rock influences...and there's some stuff these days that's OK...but I honestly don't get into the new, very dark and guttural stuff.

My main point was about implied need for "mandatory perfection" these days in order to achieve the current sound of Metal. IMO, it makes it more about following micro-processes than about the music. But hey, I'm an anal fuck too, and will edit/focus down to pixel level at times.

Metal wasn't always like that...it use to be more raw and IMO more powerful.
I think the more they speed it up and go turbo-high-gain, it actually sounds less powerful....just like the effect of CDs being slammed for max volume, and instead they sound wimpy and nasty.
 
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