Mixerboy wrote:
From a recording point of view I'll list some that constantly get the worst results:
Picking too soft
Tuning for the tuners sake: tuning so the tuner goes "green" as opposed to tuning so the guitar is in tune
The problem is not in ho the guitar is tuned really. If the chords are all wonky and the lead is off pitch, that's the guitarist tbh. There is no such thing as perfect tuning on a guitar, by nature of the relative scale a guitar with constantly changing tension etc just doesn't behave like a piano that hits fixed strings.
This has to do with Quinlan's post about pressure on the fretting hand. Take lets say a movable dom7 chord. Play it in one pl#ce on the neck, and slowly increase and decrease pressure on the fretting hand. You will hear it detune by much more than you expect. So each chord for each place on the neck has an ideal amount of pressure per fretted string. Because the higher up the neck you go the less pressure you need to get it clear as a bell and perfectly in tune.
So as a guitarist one has to build awareness of this. Not only that, a fat double stop can easily get a Strat out of tune as it can most guitars, so if you then have to play chords after that the ideal amoint of pressure changes as you now have to compensate for the tuning. Sounds incredible but thats what makes a good live guitarist good eh. And that's what makes a session musician do it in a few takes saving you time and bucks.
As for picking too soft, once again, this is just bad technique on the fretting hand, soft picking is brilliant, it is essential to the sound of many guys Mark Knopfler comes to mind as well as every good blues player ever. Lack of dynamics sucks yeah but in itself picking softly is not a problem as long as the tone is good.
If you watch It Might Get Loud, there is a section where Jack White talks about how his guitars are hardly ever in tune, and how he enjoys fighting it to get it to sound good. "You have to pick a fight with it. You have to pock a fight with it and win."
So out of tune playing equals inexperienced guitarist. As recording engineer you have zero shame and full right to tell the guy to learn to play in tune. Physics dictates that tuning a guitar accurately for every fret is impossible. No matter how you tune it, you are going to play out of tune somewhere on that neck unless you learn to tune with your fretting hand. I am nowhere close to nailing it, I have some comfort zones alright and I can cheat a ripping solo in my little box, but I have mates that DO have this level of control and they are making good money in music and music alone. And that is how you carve a career, you win every argument your instrument throws at you, on the spot, with grace.
