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Hey Rocka - "touch on guitar" clips

2K views 16 replies 7 participants last post by  Drew 
#1 ·
My calluses are not where they should be at the moment after a week in mexico and there isn't a god damned thing I can do about temperature here in boston in the summer, but this will have to do.

Guitar, straight into my interface, no amp, no effects, no mix, nothing save for normalization and MP3 encoding at 256kbps. Picking strength was as consistent as I could keep it, aside from the trills, which are totally unpicked. I left gear as far out of the equation as possible.

Guessing most of the people here who care enough to listen to this can tell the difference between what's going on here. It also sounds like shit, so there's that, lol. I probably should have picked the first section slower to make it extra clear, but whatever.

https://drewpeterson7.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/rocka_test.mp3

Also, TRY not to rant/have a meltdown, and I have no interest in your $100, this is purely because I DO think someone's touch on the guitar is incredibly important in the production of tone. This stuff isn't even debated in classical and acoustic circles, it's only in the electric world where we think somehow our gear is where all of our tone comes from.
 
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#3 ·
I sworn I would give this up.
But I couldn't fall asleep.
So I got up, and saw you made this thread.
Please read through everything because I think we can learn from each other, okay?

Now, here's the deal;

Yes I absolutely can hear a difference in your clips. And when listening to that; I realized TWO things;

1. Yes, trilling can make an audiable difference depending on callus/non-callus/whatever else material you use (and I will explain WHY a little further down)
2. I based my replies in the previous thread from ANOTHER EXPERIMENT which demonstrates a whole another thing.
<---- that was stupid and I'm sorry for that.

What I did in my previous experiment a few years ago was simply picking the string, and holding the note with different materials (finger/rubber/metal/wood/plastic).

That is a different experiment, exploring a slightly different topic.

Because yes, I WAS WRONG, and I'm HAPPY to admit I'm wrong, I've done this countless times before.
Why hold on to shit religiously? That's not gonna develop yourself as a human being.


I held on to my previous knowledge for the WRONG REASON; I had executed an experiment a few years ago, that demonstrated another factor in guitar tone.

So here's the deal;

YOU ARE 100% RIGHT ON TRILLING BEING AFFECTED BY MATERIAL/AMOUNT OF CALLUS




And WHY?

It's actually simple: you hit the string BEFORE it reaches down to the fret. Therefor you have DIRECT CONTACT with the string, with you finger, or another material.
Because of that, yes, and again YES, the material affects the tone noticably. This is now something we can agree 100% on and I'm happy we can agree on it.

So why was I being ignorant?

As mentioned above; I executed another example a few years ago, that I based my conclusion on. That was ignorant by me.

I have now explained how trilling affects the tone; you have contact with the string BEFORE it reaches the fret. Easy to understand.

Picking an ALREADY FRETTED NOTE is different, and this is what my previous experiment showed;

When a string is already fretted, the material doesn't matter anymore. Now it's only the FRET that matters. If it's a nickle, stainless or whatever material... that's what matters.
Not the material that is actually holding the string down. It has no contact with the audiable part of string, and therefor does not care.
The pick material, the fretmaterial, and the saddle material is what makes it sound the way it does.

I can show here; I alter between different materials holding the string down, and picking as similar as possible I humanly can;




As you can hear, there's no different to care about, at all.
There's a slight "muffled" sound that pops out in the first pick in the second segment of above clips, but that's because I accidently hit the string a little different just.

You would impress A LOT if you could tell which ones was finger, rubber, metal, wood and plastic. I did one of the materials TWO times just to make things more interesting. I didn't use bread because I realize it's better to eat it

Now there's the middle between these; playing tremolo picked runs, yeah, I guess when doing THAT, both factors applies, since the fingers are pushing down the string before it hits the fret, and then in the FRACTION of a millisecond you fret, you attack with your pick... So the initial FRACTION has your "finger tone", and then once it's picked, that goes away into "pick only" factor.

Here's just a unlisted video showing how I did above clips;


I had to be very quiet because my girlfriend is sleeping so I cannot talk too loudly
 
#7 ·
Not the response I expected, at all. :lol:

And WHY?

It's actually simple: you hit the string BEFORE it reaches down to the fret. Therefor you have DIRECT CONTACT with the string, with you finger, or another material.
Because of that, yes, and again YES, the material affects the tone noticably. This is now something we can agree 100% on and I'm happy we can agree on it.
That's my hunch too - that the harder the contact point, the brighter and crisper the attack, because there's less "give" in the initial contact with the string.

FWIW - as a guy who plays primarily legato, I've been aware of this for years and have definitely tried to consciously change how I fret, and I think I do fret a bit more with the tips of my fingers, for note-to-note clarity, than I did two decades ago. Someone like Holdsworth, meanwhile, I'd suspect frets a little closer to the pads, for a more "legato" sound. This stuff is surprisingly hard to change though, and since I was exaggerating in both directions you can kinda see how it was fucking with my muscle control and ability to clearly trill.

The picking, too, is pretty audible to me, pick position and (especially) pick angle. Clean I think you get a "purer" tone with a flat pick angle, but Gilbert picks with a fairly aggressive angle because he likes the rasp it produces, and says it sounds like a cello. This is a little easier to control, but I'm not really aware of any players who consciously change their pick angle for different passages, and again I'll attribute this to the touch on the guitar rather than a playing technique.

Either way though, holding everything as constant as possible, 1) where along the string you pick, 2) the angle you hold the pick at relative to the string, and 3) what part of your finger you fret with all make clear, audible, distinct timbrel differences in the sound of the guitar, and I'd say that absolutely there are contributions to tone that come from your hands and where you default with respect to these motions.
I wouldn't go that far Drew. :lol:

The Strativarious double blind test is a classic that has been done times. Classical guitar definitely has purists who say you have to grow out your finger nails and hone them to a certain shape for proper tone.

There are also a lot of ultra purists on classical stringed instruments who still use gut strings for legitimacy.

Every instrument has a portion of its users who believe stuff like that.

Classical guitars in particular have a huge debate about "Brazillian Rosewood" vs "Plebian Rosewood". Since Rosewood is held in high esteem for bodies, but the stuff that is the "good Rosewood" has been illegal to import for decades.

Electrical guitarists are actually way more lax about woods than other instruments. There are loads of electric guitarists who think all Mahogany comes from the same species of tree and shit like that. Technically, terms like "Rosewood" encompass a huge variety of species that smell like roses when they are cut. Etc.Etc. Electric Guitarists are actually not as picky as other instrumentalists about that shit. They are OK with calling 5 different species of tree "Mahogany".
Oh no, I think you misread me - I'm not saying the instrument is irrelevant, but rather it's widely accepted in the classical world that your touch on the instrument has a huge impact on tone, and that this is something to be consciously cultivated.
 
#6 ·
This stuff isn't even debated in classical and acoustic circles, it's only in the electric world where we think somehow our gear is where all of our tone comes from.
I wouldn't go that far Drew. :lol:

The Strativarious double blind test is a classic that has been done times. Classical guitar definitely has purists who say you have to grow out your finger nails and hone them to a certain shape for proper tone.

There are also a lot of ultra purists on classical stringed instruments who still use gut strings for legitimacy.

Every instrument has a portion of its users who believe stuff like that.

Classical guitars in particular have a huge debate about "Brazillian Rosewood" vs "Plebian Rosewood". Since Rosewood is held in high esteem for bodies, but the stuff that is the "good Rosewood" has been illegal to import for decades.

Electrical guitarists are actually way more lax about woods than other instruments. There are loads of electric guitarists who think all Mahogany comes from the same species of tree and shit like that. Technically, terms like "Rosewood" encompass a huge variety of species that smell like roses when they are cut. Etc.Etc. Electric Guitarists are actually not as picky as other instrumentalists about that shit. They are OK with calling 5 different species of tree "Mahogany".
 
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