Attack

The first instant of a note, before it settles into a steady pitch and level, where most of the player's dynamic information lives.

The ear uses attack to tell instruments apart: a plucked string and a bowed one can hold the same note, but only one has a sharp click of pick on string. On guitar the attack is shaped by pick material and thickness, how hard and where the string is struck, and how the instrument's top or pickups respond to that first push. It is also what a compressor is usually built to catch, since too much of it makes an amplified guitar sound flat and unnatural.

Example: picking near the bridge gives a brittle, percussive attack, while the same note picked over the twelfth fret comes out soft and hollow.

Attack

See also