Pick n Pluck foam and tape near bridge

[CommonCourtesy]

I've noticed for bands who play with high gain setups they have some foam stuffed behind the nut underneath the strings, and also some have some gaffer tape stuck underneath the strings just before the tailpiece at the bridge.

Apparently its to stop the 'honk' when hitting chords and stopping, making it more tighter. Should I look at doing this also? I don't use stupid amount of gain but I can relate to the honkiness thing, not that I get it that much. I'm pretty good with muting and feedback control now.

[FELINEGUITARS]

It can really depend upon how long a length of string i behind the nut or saddles.
The longer the string length the worse the problem of unwanted sympathetic resonance can be.
Reverse headstocks are the worst culprits as it results in a low tuned string with enough length to easily be activated by various picked notes/chords/chugs....

[CommonCourtesy]

I think they're ESP and Suhr, for each guitarist I've seen:





I thought the whole taping thing was for recording but these guys use high gain setups I presume.

[Mkjackary]

I personally have never heard about it stopping "honk". I've seen people, and done that myself when you can hear the vibrations below the bridge and above the nut ringing out after you hit a note. This is very noticeable if you have a jazzmaster or other similar guitars, the strings behind the bridge make an audible noise after you stop playing. I have seen this more in the studio than live, but live with high volumes the strings ringing will be amplified, and for a cleaner mix they may feel the need to, especially with high gain.
It is made much worse if string trees aren't used on a non angled headstock as well.
Do it if you feel you need to, I wouldn't myself do it because my idols do, but if you are having issues with the strings behind the nut ringing when you stop strumming then do it. I used the foam from the boxes I got some of my BKPs in.

[CommonCourtesy]

I have noticed that when palm muting then doing stops and pauses there's a sustaining sound even after I've muted the strings. Then I tried putting my fretting hand over the strings on the headstock and the sound wasn't there.

So it is something I need to sort out, not just cos the guitarists in my favourite band do it too. I was just looking at their setups and they use a similar sounding type sound.

The foam from the BKP's is something I didn't think about so thanks for pointing that out! Just need to cut it tot he right measurements to make sure it fights snugly behind the strings.

Thing is with a Les Paul Studio the plate with the name on goes under the strings on the headstock which kinda gets in the way unless I position it a bit higher.