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SurfGuitar101 Forums » Gear »

Permalink loud harmonics/overtones... part of life? or obnoxious?

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I have a question about jaguar (and other guitar) overtones. My (mim) jaguar has really really loud high overtones. I'd say they are as loud if not louder than the fundamental tone. Pretty obnoxious stuff. At first I thought it was the end of the world and wanted to throw my guitar at the wall, but now i'm hearing these high/piercing overtones on recordings (dick dale, madeira) so i guess they are kinda normal. but mine are... way louder.

To try and make it sounds better i've ducktapped the behind the bridge strings and the beyond the nut strings. I've changed the pickups. Put alittle foam in the trem cavity.

What affects the quality and volume of these overtones? Is it a construction quality issue? Any thoughts about them? Do you ever find yourself distracted by loud overtones? Are some guitars less prone to piercing overtones?

Is there a reason the jaguar has more overtones? Is it the multiple cavities? The trem block?
Cause I love the FEEL of the jaguar, but im not super happy with the overtones Im getting.

Thanks for your thoughts, this has been driving me crazy!

-Pierre
The Obsidians! (Ottawa surf)
The Obsidians debut EP

Could it be your pick-ups are too close to the strings? That's the only thing I can think might be doing that.

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Bad caps in the amp can cause "attonal" harmonics. Have a tech check 'em out.

Maybe "too much" reverb?

el_camello wrote:

jaguar has really really loud high overtones.

Try something like this. It seems to calm down the sympathetic resonance I get with my Jag's B string. Maybe my nut is just not very well made.
image

What kind of amp are you playing through? How old? When were the filter caps changed in it?

can you post a sound file?

Danny Snyder

Latest project - Now That's What I Call SURF
_
"With great reverb comes great responsibility" - Uncle Leo

I'm back playing keys and guitar with Combo Tezeta

I recorded a "worst of" clip. It's really bad on the higher strings and the guitar sounds fine on the lower strings. It's prominent at the start of the note.

It sounds like there is more gain than there actually is, but I'm no recording engineer. These come out with at the same volume ratio-wise with less drive/reverb (even plugged straight into amp).

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HE1UKG03

-Pierre
The Obsidians! (Ottawa surf)
The Obsidians debut EP

It sounds rather like a pinch harmonic, so I think I'd check to see if you have some fret buzz, or nut or bridge problems. And do you still get them if you pick near the 12th fret? (That's kind of an off-the-wall sort of test...)

i get them past the 12th fret and i get it even with super high action. i'm trying to hone in on it acoustically. there is definetely something rattling or resonating at bridge area, which i think might account for a part of the harshness.

that being said i was listening to slacktone and am hearing alot that ringing. maybe that's just the way a jaguar sounds and with that extra push of gain plus hitting hard plus playing on the high strings alot just makes the ringing jump out that much more.

-Pierre
The Obsidians! (Ottawa surf)
The Obsidians debut EP

I just noticed this too on 3 of my guitars. When I let the high e and b ring out on my strat it is pretty bad. The note decays into a resonant harmonic sound. My jazzmaster only does it on the b and it's less noticeable. Still haven't tracked it down, but I'm not giving up yet.

Here are the potential causes that I've found so far.

Improper string angle at the nut or bridge (Need some files to fix this. Some people add string trees. A capo can eliminate this as a possibility)
Uneven saddles (You'll see this on a Strat mostly, one leg won't have equal tension)
Other strings resonating, can also either behind the nut or bridge (Use a sock or rubber band to rule this out)
Tremolo springs sympathetically resonating (See above)
Pickups set too high and magnetically interfering with the strings (set pickups flush to see if this is the cause)
Tension rod in neck could be loose

Let me know what you find out.

The odd overtones or ghost tones you may be hearing are often times related to sympathetic ringing of the strings that are between the bridge and tailpiece anchor. It is annoying on a lot of Jazzmasters, Jaguars and even on my Hallmark Custom 60. I chased this issue for years and finally decided to deal with it by cutting small wedges of black rubber foam and inserting it between the bridge and tremolo unit. I had to work with the thickness a bit to find a happy medium that would kill the ringing yet not affect the tone. A little tweaking and no more annoying overtones. This is often compounded when using light strings on these guitars. More bridge angle by shimming the neck will help but the small foam pads worked wonders to solve it on my guitars.

ed

Traditional........speak softly and play through a big blonde amp. Did I mention that I still like big blonde amps?

Oh yeah, improperly adjusted bridge saddles will vibrate and cause all sorts of havoc. Set them up in a proper arch an then locktite the screws. Both height adjustment screws on JM's and Jag need to equally contact the bridge plate. And it helps to set up the string spacing to encourage all the saddles to rest firmly against each other.

Make that bridge assembly as solid as possible.

ed

Traditional........speak softly and play through a big blonde amp. Did I mention that I still like big blonde amps?

eddiekatcher wrote:

Oh yeah, improperly adjusted bridge saddles will
vibrate and cause all sorts of havoc. Set them up in a
proper arch an then locktite the screws. Both height
adjustment screws on JM's and Jag need to equally
contact the bridge plate. And it helps to set up the
string spacing to encourage all the saddles to rest
firmly against each other.

Make that bridge assembly as solid as possible.

ed

...sounds like you're making the case for Woody's Mastery bridge. Granted it seems to occasionally need a dab of locktite too.

Fady

El Mirage @ ReverbNation

I did some more testing and it seems to be present on most guitars. I have fixed bridge guitar with flat wound 13's and it's definitely doing it on the b string as well, although to a lesser degree. I don't think it can be completely eliminated. A mastery bridge might help some, but it's not going to eliminate it completely. Playing through a lot of reverb certainly emphasizes it. On my Stratocaster it is the most noticable, so I'm going to see what works on that first.

Finally listened to your clip and while I can hear it clearly, it's nowhere near as bad as it is on my Strat.

Last edited: Sep 22, 2011 20:08:43

Call me crazy, but SG101 I was hearing a lot of these (you can tell on my face)while we were playing. I don't know if was the amps or the stage/room. But it isn't the guitar, because I don't hear them when the guys play their amps. And no, they weren't wrong notes (though there were some :)-hey we never practice), since they were lasting the whole song. Some songs were worse than others depending on the key. maybe.
Oh and from watching some of the videos, you can't really hear it out front. But on stage it was weird...

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Last edited: Sep 22, 2011 20:14:15

I am relieved to find out that I am not the only one experiencing a loud B string on my guitar (in my case, a CP Jag w/ Fender vintage pups). I put an .018 wound nickel string on last night, and it took a good chunk of the bite out. Believe it or not, it actually feels pretty good as well.

MooreLoud.com - A tribute to Dick Dale.

el_camello wrote:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HE1UKG03

'Server not found'

(Edit: Oops I've just noticed that this is resurrecting an old thread. Sorry)

He who dies with the most tubes... wins

Surf Daddies

Last edited: Oct 19, 2016 17:07:07

I took it to mean that one string sounded louder than the all other strings when played. Like xdmkii said in this thread, and toddr513 said in another, it's the B string that is really loud compared to the others for some reason. Fortunately, putting on that .018 wound string did reduce the volume to a degree.

MooreLoud.com - A tribute to Dick Dale.

I had the same problem, seems to be typical for stiff flat-wounds. What reduced it (not: solved it) was putting on half-rounds - that balances the dark sound of the flat-wound 3rd string with the comparatively crying brightness of the plain 2nd a bit. In the end, I started actually using the tone pot (at about 6-7) and more important the vol pot (at 9-9.5) - that takes out the biting treble of the bright plain strings quite good, while unfortunately dampening also a bit of the guitar's dynamic. It's not perfect, but it's good enough, and it works.

I can imagine that this problem is not so predominant on a round-wound string set...

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