Percussive (left Hand) Muting

Hey shredders,

I'm working on playing the song "the man who sold the world" (nirvana unplugged version) and I noticed in the tab their are sections where the chord being strummed has the symbol 'X' over the chord notes. From what I understand, these notes should be played but with the left hand fingers resting lightly on the strings to produce a percussive effect. This is fairly simple when playing barre chords since all the strings are fretted and you only have to relax the chord, but with open strings its more challenging. If you just relax the open chord, say an A major, when you strum it the open strings ring out and it sounds horrible.

Has anyone come up with a good way to manage this?

Dave

Extracting An Instrument (guitar) From A Song

Hey guys,

Does anyone know if its possible to take a song (from a CD, mp3, etc) and filter out the vocals, drums, bass etc so that you can only hear the lead guitar? It would be cool to do the reverse also, so that only the lead guitar is filtered out so you can practice playing with the rest of the band on the song. I've seen software advertised that can remove the vocals from a song for karaoke purposes but nothing that strips out guitar or other instruments...

Has anybody explored this?

Cheers,

Dave

Beginner Amp Settings

Hey everyone, Riffgiant here.

I've been playing guitar about a month now and I'm still fighting to understand the basics like how to get a decent tone out of my guitar/amp. I listen to Kris jamming on the beginner lessons and I'm trying to get a similar sound so I can compare my technique as I practice and play along. I know I won't be able to match it perfectly, just want to be in the ballpark.

Here's my gear.

Guitar:
Model: Greg Bennet Torino
Details: 2 pickups, 4 knobs on the body (2 volume, 2 tone)

Amp:
Model: Crate GTX15
Details: 2 knobs located together labeled 'gain' and 'level', one knob to control 'clean' volume, 3 eq knobs (low, mid, high) and a knob that adds some built in effects like reverb, delay, chorus, etc.

I'm also trying to understand how to manage the combination of knobs on both the guitar and the amp. For example, I decide I want to increase the volume for a particular exercise, do I pump it on the guitar or just tweak the amp? What's the difference?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Riffgiant