String ‘squeak’

[Redduc]

My new Yamaha NTX1 in Black arrived today and first impressions are inline with expectations! It isn’t the greatest sounding, doesn’t project the best, but it plays nicely, with an action lower than expected and is comfortable to play sitting in an armchair. This is exactly what I wanted, a comfortable armchair noodling guitar. I haven’t tried it plugged in yet, maybe this weekend.

One of my pet peeves is string squeak when sliding on the string. I hate the sound, like finger nails on a chalk board. That dates me!

I’m working on my technique, and it’s getting better, but I’d like to minimize it in every way. I use coated strings on my electric guitars for just this reason.

I see D’Addario make coated strings and also semi polished strings for Nylon String guitars, so I’ll probably try both, but I wonder if anyone has any other recommendations for ‘quiet’ strings?

Thanks

Ian
SoCal

[121]

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[121]

I don't like string squeak either and never had any luck eliminating string squeak with coated or semi-polished strings.
i use Dogal flat wound or Magma ground/polished strings on all my acoustic guitars and they are very effective
eliminating string squeak.
There aren't many choices for these type of strings some brands are not as effective in eliminating string squeak.

I don't play nylon string guitars so I can't recommend any string brands but
these Thomastik-Infeld KR116 Flat Wound Classical Guitar Strings are suppose to reduce or eliminate string squeak.
They are kinda pricey though.

[stringman5]

I use these on my Godin Encore. Perfect for noodling in your armchair. The bass strings are chrome steel flat wound on a nylon core and the treble are plain nylon. They are very quiet acoustically, but sound very nice plugged in as well. Not really "classical" sounding, but good for jazz and contemporary music. Pricey, but lasts forever.

[ceciltguitar]

Best technique to eliminate squeaking is to not slide fingers on strings 4, 5 and 6.

D’Addario EJ51 strings minimize finger squeaks on strings 4, 5 and 6.

There may be other strings that also reduce or eliminate finger squeaks, but those are the only ones that I used for the purpose of eliminating finger squeaks.

[AfterViewer]

Regardless of which stringed instrument you play, sliding from one note or chord pattern to another is the beauty of playing guitar as opposed to keyboard type melody music makers. On some of my guitars I use strings that accentuate the percussive nature of them and I play in style to avoid squeaking by precision fingering. On others, where sliding is highlighted in the style FX, I choose squeak- less strings with a wound 3rd as the LaBella 900B gold plated polished strings with substitute trebles on my classical full size. There is no way you can record just any bright wound strings for sliding/emotive styles and expect to avoid sounding awful. You squeak what you squawk. Bowed instruments require even more concerted effort to avoid unwanted "noise" while performing.

[Redduc]

I have struggled to play my new Yamaha as well as I would like. I have short strong fingers with big fingertip pads. Normally my hard fingertips and a light touch I can play electric or 12 string without muffing the adjacent strings, but the higher action of this guitar made it almost impossible.

The setup from the factory was right about standard, so nothing wrong there. I finally decided to lower the action and see if it improved things, so I took the nut to the garage, where I have a small granite surface plate, and removed 0.040” right across. This will lower the action to 0.12”/0.10”.

Huge improvement! Massive.

I think I could take another 0.010” or maybe even 0.020” without buzz, so I’ll take small steps from here. The nut needs a tune up and there is a bit too much relief, but I’m very hopeful now that with a little careful work this can be the fun little guitar I hoped it would be.

Some new strings will be in order soon, once the mods are close to optimum.

The message? Try you nylon string setup lower and give yourself a break!

Ian
SoCal

[nickv6]

You could try something I have used in the past with a guitar that accentuated squeaks. I bought one of those foam pads with four grades of very fine sandpaper on which ladies buy for nail polishing. I ran the finest side over the top of the strings by just sliding the pad up and down the strings a few times. Solved the problem for me.
Nick

[Redduc]

That’s interesting! I’ll try that before these strings come off.

The coated Elixir strings I use on my electric guitars are fine from a squeak perspective, I’m hoping to find acoustic string that are similar.

Ian