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How to Make an Acoustic-Electric Guitar Not Sound Shrill

An acoustic-electric guitar is simply an acoustic guitar with a pickup attached. The battery-powered pickup then transfers the sound to an amplifier, which is usually plugged into the wall. Any normally functioning acoustic-electric should not sound shrill. However, several factors could cause yours to play off-key. The high quality of the majority of pickups and amplifiers makes it difficult to unwillingly distort the sound quality, but the problem is in one of the three pieces of equipment.

Things You'll Need

Guitar tuner
Tinfoil

Instructions

- 1
  Make sure your strings are in tune. Turn on the tuner and play an open string. Adjust the tuning pegs until the needle lines up in the middle or until the light on the tuner turns green.
- 2
  Listen to the unplugged guitar see if a string is hitting a fret. This will create a buzzing sound. If so, unwind the string with the tuning peg and then fold a square of tinfoil. Place the square slightly in front the fret causing the buzzing and then tighten the string. The tinfoil will move over the fret as you wind the string.
- 3
  Check the settings on your amplifier. Turn every knob to medium and see if the quality of the sound changes. Adjust each knob individually while playing to single out any one setting that is causing the sound to be shrill.
- 4
  Avoid using a magnetic pickup. These can throw the sound off and are not as high quality as saddle pickups, which are seated under the guitar saddle that sits on the bridge.
- 5
  Check the batteries on your pickup. Low batteries could cause the sound to become shrill, though that isn't likely. Low batteries would more likely cause the sound to cut in and out.

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