extraneous (?) noise from open strings

2tiki

Michael (and anyone else) - when playing some of the unaccompanied pieces (eg parfum) I find that I often get quite a bit of sound from unused open strings - especially on the single string sections. For example, at the end of the piece - when I play the harmonics often there are other open strings ringing too - not loudly but noticeably (especially now I'm trying to record myself). Is this just to be expected, or should I be doing a bit more dampening? What do think Django did?

MichaelHorowitz

what guitar are you playing? Some guitars, especially the Asian ones, are prone to excessive overtone ringing. High end stuff like Dupont, Hahl, etc usually doesn't have that problem.

2tiki

well it is an asian one - so that might explain it. I hadn't thought it might be a characteristic of the guitar itself. Do you now the reason why they do it?

Thanks

MichaelHorowitz

2tiki wrote:

Do you now the reason why they do it?

Inferior woods, poor construction (neck angle, top thickness, top arch), inefficient bridge design, etc. But they don't cost much so it's hard to complain too much.

As far as new guitars go, Duponts are hard to beat for pure dryness. You get a lot of fundamental with little overtone ringing and echo. Maurice has really got that down. Then, when you get into the vintage stuff, they can get ultra dry, with the Busatos being the pinnacle of that sort of sound. Ultra crunchy...that's why Gypsies like 'em.

'm

2tiki

Seems the time has come to upgrade - it's starting to bug me. Now I know what all this talks of dry and wet sounds really means!
Thanks Michael