Hello everyone, first time poster here. Just got my first electric guitar a few days ago, used to have a semi-broken acoustic years ago. Bought a new Ibanez GSA60 in blue and a used Crate 20 watt with Reverb.
Liking the setup so far, and have been practicing about 2 hours a day. Learned "Horse With No Name", a few intro tunes and have been learning some chords. Couple questions though:
1. My high E string seems to have a lot of "twang" to it, more than any other string, and it sort of stands out a lot. Sounds unballanced. It is in tune, but it still sounds funny. What could be the problem?
2. I have three pickups, and a 5 way switch on my guitar. 2 single coils and one humbucker near the bridge. What is the difference between the 2 single coils? I notice maybe a bit of a different sound between them, but not much.
3. What good it the Humbucker? It definately sounds different, but has a very "twangy" sound to it. Is it supposed to sound that way?
4. Doing the "Horse With No Name" excersize, the instructor says to stop the strings with the palm of your hand after striking them. How do you do this with a pick in your fingers? I have tried to use the fleshy part of my hand, but it doesn't seem right.
Thats it for now, just got a tuner, and a new patch cord, (was using the cruddy one that came with the axe) going to go play. thanks in advance for any help you can give.
Chris
Hi and Welcome
1. if it has the original strings on it sometimes they don't put very high quality ones on. Another thing is the intonation for that string is off. Being the guitar in new and you bought it locally I would take it back and have them check the setup, which includes the intonation.
2. and 3. This could be a rather lengthy discussion. the short version. The humbucker. Really these are two pickups in one casing and rely on the orientations of the pickup magnets and coils to achieve this, and produces bright and focused output, have a certain tone and resonant frequency. more fuller sounding. The single coil will typically have a more trebly output.
4. He maybe talking about palming or damping. yes, you just lightly touch or rest your palm or the edge of hand on the strings just enough to silence them. This is a very important technique to learn, you'll find it used extensively. You could practice strum a chord (anyone) doesn't matter, then stop the strings from sounding by touching them with your picking hand or even relaxing your fretting hand.
Hope this helped.
Joe
Thanks, that did help some. I will probably take the guitar back to have it looked at a bit. That E string haas some issues for sure. Very twangy, loud, and not smooth sounding like the rest of the strings. How would I fix this myself? besides putting new strings on (which I am avoiding, if possible). It really makes everything I play very treble heavy and unballenced.
Welcome to Guitar Noise,
The muting thing?
In that song I use the edge of my picking hand, some others I sometimes just relax my fretting hand, all depends on what I am after.
Not sure about the twangy high e string. Is it possibly a slight buzzing of sorts? Perhaps your action is a bit too low or you have a high fret?
I would definately take it to a shop and have it looked over.
Don't be afraid to change strings. It is something you will have to get used to and will do at least about every other month or less (depending on how much you play and what strings you are using)
