Practicing Quietly

Lipskimusic

Dear All,

I am looking for a simple solution to practice quietly and I was wondering whether one of you could point me in the right direction. I thought about buying a cheap Richwood Selmer copy and to stuff if with acoustic foam but I was hoping that there was a more elegant solution As you can see I am happy to compromise on sound as long as the feel is similar to the real deal!

Please let me know your thoughts.
Cheers,
Matt

terrassier

AJL does a silent guitare if your feeling flush

Tubaphone

I've had an idea for a while that I think would work, but it would take somebody a bit handier than me to craft something like this. In the banjo world there are very simple mutes that slide over the bridge and effectively deaden the transfer of sound.

The simplest is just a bent piece of brass with some fuzzy stuff glued to the inside. It slips over the bridge as seen in the pics. They are great... they totally kill the sound, making even very loud banjos family and early morning-friendly.

I see no reason why something similar wouldn't work for Selmer style guitars. Something killing vibrations in the bridge ought to deaden the sound quite a bit.

Who here is handy?

GrimfanDjango

I've heard of guys using felt picks for quiet practice. I think Dunlop makes a variety of them.

dennis

When Serge Krief was at my house for a week, he was practicing about 8 hours a day, and he put a sock under the strings between the bridge and the sound hole... Unfortunately, he used his sock, and he used my guitar :-(

Buco

How quietly you need it to be?
Today I pulled out the bridge I'm not using any more, stuck a piece of duct tape under each foot and put a piece over the top of the bridge as well, taped over the soundhole too. That made it pretty dead but it was still louder than say electric guitar. Found out also it's a pretty good cure for natural reverb, sucked it out.

kimmo

The perfect solution: AJL Quiet & Portable. Same dimensions, same strings, same playing feel, same high quality build as the regular AJL gj-guitars, just quiet AND portable:
http://www.ajl-guitars.com/ajlguitars/index.php?id=131#.WXA_2z8UmUk

Bones

What ur spouse/roomies/neighbors don't want to hear you practice Django's Minor Swing solo 3000 times???

JK

I've been banished to one little corner of one room....

Scoredog

My wife may banish me to your room also.

Chiefbigeasy

Experimented a little just for fun. Polish cloth under the strings between the sound hole and the bridge silenced all ringing, but you could still make out notes. This forces you to practice more on percussive aspects like accurate picking, but you'll still be able to work on where you are on the neck. Otherwise, I'd just use an unplugged electric, preferably something more like a jazz guitar vs a Strat.

klaatu

stuart wrote: »

The Yamaha Silent Guitar is a good budget option (under 500) - not a gypsy guitar but not far off.

Here's an upvote for the Yamaha Silent Guitar. I have the nylon string model, and it's great for late night practicing when you don't want to disturb your significant other. Good travel guitar as well. They also make a steel string model, but I like the nylon because I do some classical and flamenco. Or try to, anyway.

Interesting statement from Olli about playing quietly. I took a workshop with John Jorgenson years ago, and he said just the opposite - suggested that you should always practice forcefully to build the habit of playing that way.