Home › Forums › Guitar Techniques and General Discussions › Blues Tone
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April 24, 2010 at 5:22 pm #3724
Hi Brian,
Can you share with us the typical tone settings you have on your amp when using your Telecaster for the Blues Lick lessons? Thanks.
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April 24, 2010 at 9:08 pm #7239
Hey Steve, believe it or not I’m not using an amp at all for these lessons. I’m running everything through a POD XT so it’s pure digital. That being said, I’ve had several people asking about amp / tone settings – so even though I’m not using an amp I’m thinking it might be beneficial to put together a video talking about approximately how much reverb / over drive that I typically use, that way it wouldn’t really matter what amp you were using, you could get something close.
That being said, I typically try and find a clean channel sound and give it a slight (40% or so) amount of overdrive (distortion), but then turn my guitar volume down to around 70 / 80 % – that will give you a nice tone that you can work with .. and you always have room to grow (the extra 20% of volume) if you feel you need a bit more punch. I just make sure that I’m never playing with guitar volume up all the way, you always want to have the capability of pushing a little harder if you need to.
When playing live I’m constantly messing with volume / tone controls to get the sound just right – it’ll never be something that you can just count on always being consistent – that stuff constantly changes. For playing rhythm stuff i’m usually on a middle pickup (on a strat) or between the neck and bridge pickup on a guitar that only has two… for lead stuff it really depends. If you want more bite or twang, switch it to the bridge pickup (but I usually back off the tone a bit so that it isn’t SUPER treble sounding), but typically for a solo I would keep the pickup switch on the neck pickup with the tone all the way up to 10 (or full treble). That creates a very nice warm sound. However if you’re wanting more of a Robert Cray sound (like I used in the Robert Cray lesson), I’m between the neck and the middle pickups (tone at 80%). I love that sound too, very nasal sounding but great for a blues solo.
Most people make the mistake in the beginning of trying to add way too much overdrive to the mix and what you really want is the tone to start breaking up at the point that you’re hitting the strings hard, but not breaking up if you’re playing softly – that will give you a whole spectrum of range.
I realize that getting the right tone can make you want to pull your hair out, but if you keep playing with it… you’ll find the right balance. Also, let me know if there would be interest in me doing a video covering some of this.
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April 25, 2010 at 3:15 pm #7240
Thanks Brian. Really informative and useful stuff.
It would be great if you could do a video on settings, but for now, all this info is great and I’ll certainly experiment as I’ve always had my tone and volume pots on my Tele on full.
Cheers.
P.S. Your lessons are superb! Keep up the great work! :o)
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May 7, 2010 at 6:55 am #7255
I just snagged a used Pocket Pod and thought they worked great. Trying to find a Robert Cray patch to use. I’d been listening to him a lot these days, one deep dude right there..
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May 7, 2010 at 5:25 pm #7258
Cool – I’m a total sucker for gadgets and would love to try one of those pocket pods out. I love the portability of it – in fact a pocket pod and a pignose amp would be an interesting portable electric combination. You probably won’t find a Robert Cray patch because he’s kind of obscure (believe it or not), just try and find a really good bright sounding clean channel and give it about 10-20% overdrive and you should be good. Oh, don’t forget to add a slight bit of reverb as well. They big key to Robert Cray’s sound though is the stratocaster having the pickup selector switch between the bridge and middle pickup.
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May 7, 2010 at 6:30 pm #7260
What I love about the Pocket Pod is that I could hook up a usb connection to my laptop and edit the patches. I have a Fender G-dec but it’s such a pain to adjust the settings or set up a patch. I’ll try the settings you suggested and see if I can come close. Thanks!
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March 25, 2012 at 10:31 pm #7900
@Brian wrote:
That being said, I typically try and find a clean channel sound and give it a slight (40% or so) amount of overdrive (distortion), but then turn my guitar volume down to around 70 / 80 % – that will give you a nice tone that you can work with .. and you always have room to grow (the extra 20% of volume) if you feel you need a bit more punch. I just make sure that I’m never playing with guitar volume up all the way, you always want to have the capability of pushing a little harder if you need to.
+1 Brian. I think many players neglect using their guitar controls and try to do it all with the amp. The controls are there for a purpose. I like to try to find just the point of where clean verges on overdrive and then either use pick attack or just a touch on the guitar volume to push it over. Great advice!
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May 23, 2012 at 10:59 pm #8049
Brian say’s it all here,, if your looking to get great tone, especially with a tube amp. Everything he stated is dead on and how the pro’s do it. You never want to go in full throttle, always leave yourself some room on the volume control. I have played and owned so many amp’s. I mean i have had probably 30 amps in just the last year and I would love a lot of them and hated some. Any way it took my years to figure out what I really wanted was a good clean amp and then push the amp just right to get my saturation. I play blues and classic rock so for what I do it works. Obviously if your playing metal go ahead and bust out the orange and marshall’s etc… But yeah great advice Brian. Wish I had learned this a long time ago, not that I regret getting to play through some amazing amps but that damn g.a.s get’s to ya after awhile.
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May 31, 2012 at 3:44 am #8063
@Tom M wrote:
Brian say’s it all here,, if your looking to get great tone, especially with a tube amp. Everything he stated is dead on and how the pro’s do it. You never want to go in full throttle, always leave yourself some room on the volume control. I have played and owned so many amp’s. I mean i have had probably 30 amps in just the last year and I would love a lot of them and hated some. Any way it took my years to figure out what I really wanted was a good clean amp and then push the amp just right to get my saturation. I play blues and classic rock so for what I do it works. Obviously if your playing metal go ahead and bust out the orange and marshall’s etc… But yeah great advice Brian. Wish I had learned this a long time ago, not that I regret getting to play through some amazing amps but that damn g.a.s get’s to ya after awhile.
30 amps in the last year…. :ohh: …dude that is not GAS that is GTEAMS….(gotta try every amp made syndrome)… 🙂
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