Tapping Question: Volume Difference On High E And B String Options

[311junkie]

Hey guys,

This is my first post on GMC

I have this question that's been bugging me for awhile now and I'm sure that one smart fellows would be able to shed some light on the situation. I've been working a lot on doing hammer-on and pull-off exercises and also doing a fair amount of the beginner tapping exercises.

My problem is that it seems that no matter how hard I press down, I really can't get a good solid tone out of my High E string. However, it's not nearly as hard for me to get the loud and clear tone when doing the tapping on the B string. There's just a huge volume difference between the both the High E and B strings when doing tapping or just hammer-ons/pull-offs in general. Any thoughts or suggestions?

Here's my Gear Specs to help out:

Guitar: Ibanez RG270
Pickups: EMG 60/81 (Bridge pickup selected for tapping)
Strings: .009-.042 D'Addario EXL120's
Pedal: Zoom 606 Multi-Effects pedal
Amp: Line6 Spyder3 15W Practice Amp

I look forward to talking to all you GMC'ers out there. Thanks in advance for the help!

[Batista]

Hey and welcome to GMC, hope you'll enjoy your stay as much as I do

That's how it is for me too sort of, just that it's harder to make sounds out of the B string than the E string, but strangely enough, turn your volume up and it evens out, at last for me.

[Muris Varajic]

You don't have this volume difference when playing picking,legato etc,
only with tapped/right hand notes?
When did you changed your strings last time?

Might be old string,high E suffers the most.

[at lights end]

forgive me if im wrong, but couldn't it also be that the action on your high E string is set too high? making it harder to press down.

[311junkie]

I don't have the problem when I pick the notes, but I definitely notice it when doing legato or tapping exercises where I don't pick any notes. It may likely just be my technique, which is why I'm here to get better! I seem to have less trouble getting a solid sound with the thicker strings on hammer-ons/pull-offs. The high E is the one that I'm struggling with to get a good sound out of it.

I just changed my strings last week, so I think they'd still be ok. Would going up to 10 gauge strings necessarily make getting a sound out of legato and tapping easier?

[Muris Varajic]

I believe 009 or even 008 will be much easier for tapping and legato stuff
tho you might try with 010 as well...

Practice it more,guess it's technique related issue,
and welcome to GMC once more.

[311junkie]

thanks for the feedback guys. I'll keep chugging away at practicing. I have a few more packs of 9 gauge strings to go through, then I might give the 10's a shot anyway

[Muris Varajic]

You're welcome and keep us updated!

[Gerardo Siere]

If you aply to much force on tapping the sounds also is not so good becouse the string hitting the fretting board mkes some kind of rebound and it makes you do the movement twice.
Try this, fret a note with your taping finger and play it whit the other hand, thats the final amount of preasure you need, for plucking the note when tapping you don´t need any extraforce than when you´re playing hammer-ons..
Too high action makes difficult to get nice sound.