Acoustic Versus Electric Instruments
On most acoustic instruments, this means the second note has little sustain. As a result, in acoustic music, pull-offs are primarily used as an embellishment. Performers of plucked instruments tend to use "pull-offs" when playing grace notes, usually in conjunction with multiple hammer-ons and strumming or picking to produce a rapid, rippling effect. In rock and heavy metal music, electric guitars are often performed with overdriven amplifiers and/or guitar effects such as distortion pedals and compression pedals are used, which add substantial sustain to the sound. With this type of electronic gear and a powerful instrument amplifier nearing the threshold of feedback, pull-offs can even be used to play sustained notes.
In a variation of the technique, often called a "flick-off", the pulling-off finger is dragged slightly across the face of the string while performing the pull-off. This results in the string being gently sounded, either by the player's finger callus or by their fretting-finger fingernail. This increases the volume and sustain of the pulled-off note, although the sound of the fretting finger dragging over the string may be audible on both an amplified instrument and on a brightly-strung acoustic instrument.
Read more about this topic: Pull-off, Performance and Effect
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