slight picking/tone problem

[mole98]

ive been playing Guitar a few years now And have just got into shredding over the past 6 months or so ive proggressed alot through those 6 months and im starting to get the hang of neo-classical malmsteen type stuff atm (can play most of forever is a long time and vengeance). one reocurring problem ive been haveing is when alternate picking really fast on the treble strings i get a cllicking noise caused by the pick i assume, ive tried different types of picks holding them different positions, angles but i just cant get rid of the noise. But if i play the same stuff on a clean tone you can hardly hear the clicking noise at all. i Play a les paul by the way. any tips on what this may be and how to prevent it. also any tips on getting a nice smooth tone out of my les paul and my crappy marshall VS100 amp cause i really cant afford a new one after buying my guitar synth

thanks,
mole

[DemonSorcerer]

Hey...

That isn't a baaaaaad thing...just listen to Paul Gilbert and you'll hear EVERY SINGLE PICKSTROKE in his playing....in fact...that happens because you pluck the string too hard, and that isn't a problem...it's way too difficult to try and get fast alternate picking runs if you pluck the strings too lightly...trust me...

If you still hate the clicking sound, something you can try is....hummm *thinks* maybe you're digging the pick too much into the strings...that is, try pickin' with the very tip of the string...of course, you'll need a pointy, heavy pick...just don't dig the pick in, ok??

David

[TheJeffinator]

I'd say the 3 best ways to reduce the pick noise are to use less gain, pick lighter, and use heavier picks. Malmsteen, who you mentioned, uses signature 1.5mm picks (on that note I ask - who in bloody hell needs a signature *pick*?), and incredibly light strings (8s on the treble E - 8-46 Fender Super Bullets), and he hardly picks at all - if you watch his picking hand *really* close, you can see that he's touching the string pretty lightly. As for less gain, all I need to say is: EVH. He doesn't use as much gain as one would think, but because he plays the way he does it just sounds huge. A lot of bands out there use *waaaaay* less gain than you would think, and after a while, stacking on more gain doesn't help anything out, it just makes you noisier. Trying these three things, you should find that you've got less of a noise problem, and if not feel free to PM me and I'll see what else can be done.

Rock On,
The Jeffinator

[mole98]

thanks guys ive been taking some of your advice and experimenting with pick sizes the one that seems to help the most is a .46 Nylon Jim dunlop for fast lead stuff dont know why i never used to be able to play anything else than acoustiv with them i got some heavier sharp picks 1.5 i think and they work as well. ive also really cut back on my gain sounds alot better as well now thanks again this is a nice forum very friendly :cool: now back to perfecting that sweep picking :p

[TheJeffinator]

.46??? That's really a shocker, but whatever works is cool. I didn't even know they made .46. Thanks for the heads-up. Not that I'll need them, though. Good luck with the sweeps.

Rock On,
The Jeffinator