Today I had my manicure appointment and told my nail tech about what had happened in the studio with my acrylic nails interfering with optimal sound (a phenomenon I am sure also appeared on an earlier recording and, at least to my ears in retrospect, affected airplay for at least one song). To recap, those long, hard nails that weren't actually picking the strings clattered on the pickguard, sounding not unlike gremlins eating Rice Krispies or a microclimate sleet-shower directly in front of the mic. And they made some scraping harmonics as they dragged against the strings as I strummed with a flatpick. I decided that tape on the guitar was no good for the guitar, and that tape on my fingers looked unbelievably dorky and felt rather clunky. What I have on my left (fretting) hand nails, which must be as short as possible, is something my tech calls a "no-chip French manicure." (For the guys, a French manicure--get your minds out of the gutter, fellas--is one in which the nail tips are painted white over a natural or clear polish to mimic the look of perpetually clean shiny natural nails). What makes it non-chip is that it's actually made up of three shades of liquid self-leveling gel that is cured with a UV light but still somewhat breathable and flexible. It is okay for those guitarists with strong natural right hand nails who play nylon strings, but does not (in my tech's opinion) stand up to steel strings. In her experience, not even thin acrylic gels or silk wraps are strong enough. To her chagrin, I told her those lovely long hard acrylics (pink-and-white, also a permanent French manicure) had to go on all except my right thumb and index nails. We soaked them off and she had to trim back the three non-picking nails to just barely past the fingertip to keep them from stressing and tearing--acrylics can weaken the underlying nail bed and she wants me to strengthen those nails so that they can gradually take a bit longer length. We also decided that I need no more than 1/6" on my picking nails, so we trimmed back the thumb and index as well to be closer in length to the other nails. The new, gel-clad nails are still kind of soft, so I'll have to be careful when dishwashing and gardening, perhaps wearing gloves to prevent splitting, tearing and peeling for awhile. But for the first time in years, one of my hands doesn't have freakishly longer nails than the other; and I just tested them out on my guitar. Got plenty of length on the two now-shorter acrylics, the trailing nails no longer clatter nor scrape, and they seem to be holding up okay. I go back for "fills" in two weeks, so we'll see how it goes till then.