Making the solid body guitar sound acoustic with palm-muting.

[brent.h]

..

[pauln]

Yes, it's amazing isn't it. I do muting/damping all the time, but differently.

Palm muting is placing the fleshy underside edge of the hand (the area located below the fourth finger) on the strings near the bridge. To not over dampen the strings you have to be quite close to the bridge.

I do right hand muting but I don't do palm muting for a couple of reasons:

- it forces picking too close to the bridge; although the damping mitigates part of the increased tinny tone when picking there. The optimum quality of string tone comes from initiating the sound at 1/7 its length from a termination (this was discovered by piano makers ages ago regarding the placement of the hammers, it has to do with how the harmonic balance of the string sets up) which on my three pickup guitar means picking just a little in front of the middle pickup (between the mid and neck pickups). A palm mute does not work there (or rather works way too much an cuts the sound).

- my hands learned by themselves a very long time ago how to damp the strings I did not want to sound; both left and right hands conspire together to accomplish this. In addition, my picking hand uses some degree of muting for tone in all sounds I play; chords and series of notes. The fleshy underside edge below the thumb is what I use, and the degree of application is variable but overall very light and subtle. Palm muting proper interferes with the native method my right hand taught itself long ago.

- palm damping is kind of a deliberate decided on or off thing in actual use (I think?) whereas my thumb-base damping is always going on to some degree all by itself.

But that's just me ... more on making solid bodies sound more acoustic:

- use a lighter pick; the main sound of an acoustic or arch top is the sound of the strings "winning" over the pick. That is the sound of minimum anomalies in the string (twang and buzz)... the bigger strings are resistant to these things, but a solid body may be using lighter strings and need a lighter pick to preserve the strings winning over the pick.

- lowering the pickups way down makes the sensed length of the strings longer, the tone more complex, like the effect of the complexity of distances between surfaces inside a hollow body. (Also the reason for the paradox that lowering the middle PU that some people do to get it out of the way for picking results in the tones of the middle combined with either of the others becoming "super quack", for those that have been searching for that.)

[pauln]

I use a Jazz III, 1.14mm. Strings, 10-46 gauge. Are these light enough?

I've moved from 2 to 1 to .88 to .73mm (Nylon), still on 10-46. Some times it feels peculiar to have a Twin up at half volume playing low in a quiet cozy place where the conversation may be the loudest sound. Trio gets to play outside this Saturday!

The change to .73mm was the most impact; I liked it right off and have only grown to like it more. Every once in a while I'll use a 1mm for a minute and wonder, "How I was ever able to play anything with it?"; it's .73 for me now, I'm hooked and happy.

[alltunes]

I've moved from 2 to 1 to .88 to .73mm (Nylon), still on 10-46. Some times it feels peculiar to have a Twin up at half volume playing low in a quiet cozy place where the conversation may be the loudest sound. Trio gets to play outside this Saturday!

The change to .73mm was the most impact; I liked it right off and have only grown to like it more. Every once in a while I'll use a 1mm for a minute and wonder, "How I was ever able to play anything with it?"; it's .73 for me now, I'm hooked and happy.

That was my pick of choice back in the 80’s into the 90’s on rock n roll electric. then I got into flatpicking mandolin and guitar where a thick slab of a pick is de rigueur. I’ve stuck with that out of habit but perhaps I should rethink for electric guitar (11’s) Probably still have some nylon .73s lying around.

[Uffe Steen]

Search Herco picks . They are around. I’ve used and use them still