how do professional guitasists avoid the squeaking sound that during chord changes?
In: 17
They avoid it partially by simply moving their fingers better. Taking them off the strings instead of dragging them.
But a lot of it is just really good equipment. Someone usually operates specialized equipment to manage volume and pitch, and often they also filter out those little imperfections. It sounds complicated, but they just increase the threshold a sound needs to meet before making it to the speakers. Soft sounds like the squeaking of strings or a draft hitting the mic get filtered out.
I play quite a bit but don’t think about this question! For me, I suspect it’s a combination of things.
Squeaking would only happen if I’m sliding my left hand fingers along the string. I only occasionally do that, and when I do it’s with purpose.
Also, my fingertips are awfully tough now. A hard callous. The string doesn’t go far into my skin at all when I press on the string but it would for a new player. That creates much more surface to stick to.
You can get better at moving/lifting your hand to reduce the noise made by it sliding against the strings. Equipment/setting can make a difference but also a lot of the time any noise made when changing positions is just masked by other instruments (Drums/Bass/Vocals ect) as they are louder. Sometimes though (especially on acoustic intruments in a sparse track) it can’t be avoided- give “two hands of a prayer” by Ben Harper a listen. I love the song but there is a bit of noise going on in some of the sections.
1. They have at least a decent level of skill so they effectively change chords without producing unwanted sounds, i.e. they don’t unnecessarily touch and slide over the strings.
2. Studio magic. You can filter noises out with noise gates, you can remove sounds in post-production.
3. Sometimes they don’t avoid the squeaks. If you pay attention to recordings, you might sometimes catch them.
I believe it’s mainly because they don’t drag their figures across the strings they take the pressure off and then move their hand to the new position and then put their figures back on the string and apply pressure.