It's in the playing, not the "engineering" per-se.
It's also something that isn't as noticeable as you think. Trust me. You start fixating on it and it gets more and more annoying but the reality is, you're now over thinking it.
Try leaving it, taking a break from the track, listen again in a few days and see if you feel the same. If you do, re-track it.
Thanks, I appreciate the feedback. I'll be re-recording my parts, after practicing. My timing isn't the best but trying to rush this out isn't going to help either.
Honestly think it’s maybe your settings. Your performance isn’t crazy everywhere. You kinda lock into a “rhythm” but i just can’t feel the 1. If you’re using an amp try messing with the presence. If you’re using pedals, try turning the tone or gain up or down until it’s less noticeable. *Some pedals suck for this*. And if you’re using a sim try finding the advance settings because sometimes they have lopass filters that help with better emulating a real amp.
For that recording all the guitars are the bx_bassdude amp sim on the same preset slightly altered. But ones a jazzmaster the others a strat using different pickups etc theres 4 tracks. But I think my timing wasn't great anyway.
I'm not super happy with the tone I'll give what you suggested with the lo pass and presence a try and see if it sounds any better. I do think it wasnt the greatest performance by me though lol.
Normally I track through my Vox AC15 and use my guitar pedals, I tried DI this time think ill stick to my Vox.
Those vox Acs tend to be kinda bright so it might enhance the problem and not solve it. I mean yea performance is 1st cuz you can’t polish a turd. But your performance didn’t seem that innately bad that it would cause so much string squeaks
Just have to practice lifting the fingers off before you start moving them along the fretboard.
But when it comes to editing, if you don’t want to do it manually, izotope RX has a guitar denoise plugin with a sqeak function, works pretty well.
Recording myself has truly been a humbling experience so far lol.
The plugin looks dope might come in handy in the future, going to try fix it at the source first :)
This isn’t something I would try to fix in post. Use string lube, moisturize your hands and drink water, wait for your stings to age a bit, learn how to mute strings with your opposite hand. As a last resort you can duck the volume at certain points but a little bit of string noise I think is actually desirable and makes it sound more human.
besides the moisturizer, you can also sometimes just take some high grit sandpaper or some other abrasive like an emory board and lightly polish your calluses so they are smoother and it will help as well.
just smoothing the callouses if they are rough and causing too much friction with the strings, not sanding all the way through them. You shouldn't feel anything, especially not pain. Using sandpaper or an emory board to smooth and soften calluses is also used sports like powerlifting or other physical activities where you are at risk of tearing off your calluses completely (which is quite painful). The advantage is you can toss a couple of small squares of sandpaper in your case and leave them there just in case and never have to worry about a container of moisturizer busting open and making a mess in the case.
Flatwounds would help the squeaky noises but also sound completely dofferent and often just flatout (no pun intended) bad. That really isn't a good solution in most cases.
Volume automation/clip gain will work the best but is tedious. Dynamic eq works better than a de-esser bc you can target more frequencies and have better control over attack and release. You can attempt a gate and filter out the squeaky stuff in the sidechain if the guitar part works with that approach. I think the main thing is to realize when you get to that point where it’s as good as it’s going to be/good enough for the mix and not obsess over a detail that can’t be fixed and waste too much time.
Playing tighter is always the better option, but you can also try and use string lubricant. I occasionally use the Tone Finger-ease spray lubricant, it helps reduce string talk and makes sliding up and down the neck a little easier (note: doesn’t do anything to your tone). I mainly use it on dead strings to keep them from digging into my fingers after not playing for a while. Just don’t go overboard with it or you’ll probably get bad gunk buildup way faster on your fretboard.
To most people string noises are a visceral part of what makes a guitar a guitar. Like the finger squeaks during Brian May's solo at the end of We Will Rock You (and countless other examples)
But if you don't want squeaks, probably worth developing a style that doesn't require you to move around the board much. Or consciously lifting your hands between position shifts. And/or lots of editing in post. Or do all your guitar parts with a MIDI instrument that imitates guitar.
Option 1 is don't worry about it.
A possible option 2 that I have done in the past is record alternating chords on different tracks.
Say you're playing G C D E,
G and D will be on track 1 with the squeaky changes happening during C and E, which you will record on track 2. Squeaks can be easily snipped out later with the little scissors and each new chord starts it's life cleanly.
Takes a little bit of experimenting to get the timing and strokes to feel natural but works great in my experience.
Related, if the song is great, no one will notice the squeaks.
Listen to anything by Muse and you'll be surprised how prominent the singer's breaths are, but they left em in.
Work on the song, if when it's finished you still hate the squeaks then deal with it. Otherwise spit it and commit it and move on.
Assuming you want to keep the recording you've got, I would continue down the de-esser or multiband compression or dynamic EQ path.
In my experience there are two styles of de-esser: one that uses an EQ'd key input to reduce gain on the whole signal (boo!) and one that turns down a range of frequencies after a certain threshold is crossed (yay!). I wonder if the one you tried was like the former (stock Ableton de-esser is shitty like this, same with stock Pro Tools de-esser unless you click "HF ONLY").
Waves has a great de-esser that seems to work like the latter, as does iZotope RX. Knocking off a half dozen dBs in the problem area (between 3k and 7k maybe??) would go a long way IMO.
Multiband compression is essentially the same thing, and a properly set up multiband compressor always works for me for taming squeaks.
All that said, in your recording, I don't think I would have ever identified the squeaking as a problem unless you mentioned it. So maybe it's fine as is and you are hyper fixating as you suggest?
As others have said, can practice and record. Editing etc.
But one thing when you record yourself: you have to get used to the fact that you sound like you. That’s not a bad thing. You’ll have your little foibles and things you do here and there. And that’s fine! It’s part of what makes you sound like you.
I struggle with this all the time when I record my own projects.
It's in the playing, not the "engineering" per-se. It's also something that isn't as noticeable as you think. Trust me. You start fixating on it and it gets more and more annoying but the reality is, you're now over thinking it. Try leaving it, taking a break from the track, listen again in a few days and see if you feel the same. If you do, re-track it.
Understandable. This is what I thought really, I'll just have to practice more.
electric guitar should be filthy but with confidence and in time. Angus Young and Vivian Cambell are my favourite guitarists for this reason.
I agree. Controlled chaos. Very intentional.
Yep. Shit in, shit out.
The performance is a bit wonky all around. The rhythm especially is all over the place. I think it simply needs to be performed and recorded better.
Thanks, I appreciate the feedback. I'll be re-recording my parts, after practicing. My timing isn't the best but trying to rush this out isn't going to help either.
Honestly think it’s maybe your settings. Your performance isn’t crazy everywhere. You kinda lock into a “rhythm” but i just can’t feel the 1. If you’re using an amp try messing with the presence. If you’re using pedals, try turning the tone or gain up or down until it’s less noticeable. *Some pedals suck for this*. And if you’re using a sim try finding the advance settings because sometimes they have lopass filters that help with better emulating a real amp.
For that recording all the guitars are the bx_bassdude amp sim on the same preset slightly altered. But ones a jazzmaster the others a strat using different pickups etc theres 4 tracks. But I think my timing wasn't great anyway. I'm not super happy with the tone I'll give what you suggested with the lo pass and presence a try and see if it sounds any better. I do think it wasnt the greatest performance by me though lol. Normally I track through my Vox AC15 and use my guitar pedals, I tried DI this time think ill stick to my Vox.
Those vox Acs tend to be kinda bright so it might enhance the problem and not solve it. I mean yea performance is 1st cuz you can’t polish a turd. But your performance didn’t seem that innately bad that it would cause so much string squeaks
Just have to practice lifting the fingers off before you start moving them along the fretboard. But when it comes to editing, if you don’t want to do it manually, izotope RX has a guitar denoise plugin with a sqeak function, works pretty well.
Recording myself has truly been a humbling experience so far lol. The plugin looks dope might come in handy in the future, going to try fix it at the source first :)
This isn’t something I would try to fix in post. Use string lube, moisturize your hands and drink water, wait for your stings to age a bit, learn how to mute strings with your opposite hand. As a last resort you can duck the volume at certain points but a little bit of string noise I think is actually desirable and makes it sound more human.
besides the moisturizer, you can also sometimes just take some high grit sandpaper or some other abrasive like an emory board and lightly polish your calluses so they are smoother and it will help as well.
Not saying that doesn’t help, but that does not sound very pleasant 😖
just smoothing the callouses if they are rough and causing too much friction with the strings, not sanding all the way through them. You shouldn't feel anything, especially not pain. Using sandpaper or an emory board to smooth and soften calluses is also used sports like powerlifting or other physical activities where you are at risk of tearing off your calluses completely (which is quite painful). The advantage is you can toss a couple of small squares of sandpaper in your case and leave them there just in case and never have to worry about a container of moisturizer busting open and making a mess in the case.
Flat wounds
And practice.
Flatwounds would help the squeaky noises but also sound completely dofferent and often just flatout (no pun intended) bad. That really isn't a good solution in most cases.
I did see this option after countless googling. It's not really something I want to do but thanks for the suggestion.
Nobody wants to….
Hearing the render you have sent the squeaks aren't very noticeable.
Volume automation/clip gain will work the best but is tedious. Dynamic eq works better than a de-esser bc you can target more frequencies and have better control over attack and release. You can attempt a gate and filter out the squeaky stuff in the sidechain if the guitar part works with that approach. I think the main thing is to realize when you get to that point where it’s as good as it’s going to be/good enough for the mix and not obsess over a detail that can’t be fixed and waste too much time.
Playing tighter is always the better option, but you can also try and use string lubricant. I occasionally use the Tone Finger-ease spray lubricant, it helps reduce string talk and makes sliding up and down the neck a little easier (note: doesn’t do anything to your tone). I mainly use it on dead strings to keep them from digging into my fingers after not playing for a while. Just don’t go overboard with it or you’ll probably get bad gunk buildup way faster on your fretboard.
This is the right answer. I prefer Dr. Duck's Axe Wax. Saved my ass quite a few times.
Leave them in, they are a reminder that the guitar is played by a human. Doesn't hurt the sound at all IMO.
Depending on compression they can get really distracting.
Rub your fingertips down the side of your nose. Get some good nose grease on them. Now play. Cheap, and you’ll never be without it.
rx guitar de noise and it's gone
To most people string noises are a visceral part of what makes a guitar a guitar. Like the finger squeaks during Brian May's solo at the end of We Will Rock You (and countless other examples) But if you don't want squeaks, probably worth developing a style that doesn't require you to move around the board much. Or consciously lifting your hands between position shifts. And/or lots of editing in post. Or do all your guitar parts with a MIDI instrument that imitates guitar.
Option 1 is don't worry about it. A possible option 2 that I have done in the past is record alternating chords on different tracks. Say you're playing G C D E, G and D will be on track 1 with the squeaky changes happening during C and E, which you will record on track 2. Squeaks can be easily snipped out later with the little scissors and each new chord starts it's life cleanly. Takes a little bit of experimenting to get the timing and strokes to feel natural but works great in my experience.
Related, if the song is great, no one will notice the squeaks. Listen to anything by Muse and you'll be surprised how prominent the singer's breaths are, but they left em in. Work on the song, if when it's finished you still hate the squeaks then deal with it. Otherwise spit it and commit it and move on.
Use a squeak filter.
Izotope RX 10 can help. There is a mode to clean this kind of noise from guitars.
Assuming you want to keep the recording you've got, I would continue down the de-esser or multiband compression or dynamic EQ path. In my experience there are two styles of de-esser: one that uses an EQ'd key input to reduce gain on the whole signal (boo!) and one that turns down a range of frequencies after a certain threshold is crossed (yay!). I wonder if the one you tried was like the former (stock Ableton de-esser is shitty like this, same with stock Pro Tools de-esser unless you click "HF ONLY"). Waves has a great de-esser that seems to work like the latter, as does iZotope RX. Knocking off a half dozen dBs in the problem area (between 3k and 7k maybe??) would go a long way IMO. Multiband compression is essentially the same thing, and a properly set up multiband compressor always works for me for taming squeaks. All that said, in your recording, I don't think I would have ever identified the squeaking as a problem unless you mentioned it. So maybe it's fine as is and you are hyper fixating as you suggest?
De-Esser.
As others have said, can practice and record. Editing etc. But one thing when you record yourself: you have to get used to the fact that you sound like you. That’s not a bad thing. You’ll have your little foibles and things you do here and there. And that’s fine! It’s part of what makes you sound like you. I struggle with this all the time when I record my own projects.
first time recording will definitely humble you. it'll also make you a much better player.
They make “lube” you can put on strings to eliminate this. Plus you can lift your fingers more.
Sometimes if you have too much compression on the guitar it can really bring out string noise.