In the past few years I seem to have become increasing sensitive to the soft squeal that is often produced when a guitarist changes fingering positions. In fact there are some recordings that I used to listen to all the time, but can no longer enjoy due to the frequent recurrence of this sound.
This has caused me to wonder. Is the presence of this sound on a recording a sign of poor technique on the part of the performer, a flaw in the instrument itself, or is there something else at work? Shouldn’t the recording engineers be more vigilant about filtering this out?
For a lot of players that’s part of their style, in effect, it’s like tapping out the rythm with your foot can also be part of your style. For example, the new hit by yet-another-duo something something called “Walking with a Ghost” that gets airplay on the teen alternative stations around here is so full of those squeals its jarring at first, but then sounds ok.
It also depends on the strings as well. I’ve noticed a definitely level in the guitar squeak since I changed my strings from Blue Steel™ to Elixir™ which are coated with GoreTex™. Sure, you could reduce the squeak by lift the fingers completely off the strings but then you’re sacrificing (albeit a little) speed.
Also, the more you think about it, the more you notice it. I’m going to put this as a spoiler so as not to ruin it but:
Listen to Tori Amos, and then listen to Tori Amos and think about breathing into a microphone. It’ll be hard to not hear the breathing all the time after that
A classical guitarist I once knew practiced hard at eliminating that sound from his technique altogether. He was told by his teacher that it was a clear indication of poor technique, so he took it as a challenge. I always thought he went overboard with it, though, and I actually kind of like the sound. I listen to Blackbird, by McCartney, for example, and I can’t imagine the song without those squeaks–they’re almost like grace notes or his personal style. I’ll bet Glynn Johns or whoever was engineering that session could have found a way to get rid of them, and I’ll bet McCartney could have played it cleaner if he’d wanted to, but he didn’t. Could it be that you object to it when a deliberate choice to accentuate the sound has been made?
I know when I’m playing bass I cut the treble back and it eliminates the squeek. It’s a tradeoff sometimes though 'cause maybe sometimes I want to sound trebley. I’m conservative on slides on bass anyway 'cause they can sound a bit cheesy if used too much. On guitar I don’t mind the squeekiness.
The sound doesn’t really come out to much in heavy metal or punk (basically heavily distorted guitar). I’ll have to pay attention next time I’m playing clean to see if I’m bad at it. Don’t know if it’s so much a “poor” technique thing or the style of playing.
I guess there are some things you can have a guitarist be mindful of during recording, like don’t breath so heavily into the microphone or grunt while you’re playing or don’t suck your breath in through your teeth. But having a guitarist change his technique at the point of recording is a pretty tall order and may lead to obsession and a gazillion takes. Also, it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to just dial up the frequency and notch it out without affecting the overall sound when you come across these types of things. I suppose you can attenuate it somewhat but generally you just gotta live with it.
Once in a while I’ll complain about it. My wife doesn’t mind because it means there’s actually a human being playing the instrument.
This “squeak” is not produced when sliding purposefully, but when moving hand positions (usually to make a quick change). The hand slides across the top of the strings without pressing down, which produces the sound in question.
It drives me crazy at times, but other times seems to fit the song. What I like best is when I first notice it in a song I’ve already heard 100 times. The problem is that once you become aware of it, it is hard to not listen for it, as pointed out in stpauler’s spoiler.
‘Poor technique’ is a statement that should be used carefully. There’s technical methods to avoid the sound of shifting along the strings, which some guitarists use, some do not, and some are probably not aware of. But there’s a gazillion things that one style of guitar playing involves (or indeed that of many other instruments) that would be ‘wrong’ in another.
It is almost impossible to avoid this completely playing a flat-top acoustic steel-string guitar.
Classical guitar players are generally much more aware of and trained in technique. However, I heard a musical commentator on NPR not too long ago mentioning that Segovia was not the pinnacle of technique and although you would often hear minor noise (a little squeek here, a string clicking against a fret there), it added warmth and humanity to his music. Matter of opinion.
One of my guitars is an archtop, which I string with flat-wound strings. Instead of he string being wrapped in a round wire, giving it a bumpy surface which is why they squeek, it is wrapped in a flat wire, like a ribbon, giving it a smooth surface. Cuts WAY down on squeeking.
While guitar squeaks and other noises are a part of any recording, I think that the OP may be noticing the modern recording trend of adding vast amounts of compression to every available track, and then super-compressing the final mix to within a single bit of the clip limit. This also explains the increasing audibility of Tori Amos breathing.
For those non-sound engineers dopers
Compression is a technique to reduce the dynamics (difference between soft ff and LOUD pp) in a recording (used to be called Automatic Level Control).
Compressors work by finding the average sound level over a period of time, then using that level to control the gain - decreasing the gain when the sound is loud, and increasing the gain when the sound is soft. A number of parameters control the behaviour of the compressor.
Compression helps ensure that after recording, listeners can hear the quiet bits without being deafened by the loud bits. This is a good thing. However, if the compressor (particularly digital compression) has a very rapid response time, then it may crank up the gain as the player finishes one chord and shifts to the next, catching the squeak in amplified glory. The guitarist probably does not hear this - the human ear performs a much slower compression as it listens. But the Sound Engineer should hear this and do something about it.
The problem is that Record Companies want their track to be noticed, and it will be noticed more if it seems to be louder than the competition. So, modern tracks are compressed more than old ones (in general - not getting into an analog/digital recording technology argument here) so they sound louder. The Engineers make the quieter bits louder, and push the whole volume level up to the max that a CD can support. But the now louder quiet bits include breath, squeaks, clicks, taps etc that would not be heard if they were not compressed into audibility. And because they are behind the guitar/vocal/whatever track, they cannot be edited out.
And we miss out, because we no longer need to train our ears to handle dynamic range - it is all just shoved in at maximum volume.
