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Hi Brian and the Active Melody Community. As a guitarist that was originally taught a folk style of playing on acoustic guitars I have for many years struggled to grasp how to effectively use electric guitars (which I now own a couple) and to create my own sound using tone, volume on my guitars and amp settings. Watching Brian and others play with such sweet tones I find myself twiddling knobs left right and centre and still failing to create similar warm sounds that appeal to me. Is there suitable instruction somewhere that I can connect with? Sorry if this sounds tad stupid but it’s not for want of trying.
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The million dollar question, Simon, that we all wrestle with. I think I’ve come to accept that there’s a basic tone for blues and rock that Brian describes in some of his earlier lessons. That’s a relatively clean tone that’s on the edge of break up. Meaning that if you pick relatively softly, the tone is pretty clean but if you dig in, you get some distortion. To get a fuller sound it helps to have a slight “slapback” delay, ie. a 70 to 90 millisecond delay that gives a single echo. On top of that I would always add a 3-4/10 reverb. Brian will often try to achieve this with the guitar volume around 7-8 to give some room for dynamics. This seems to be a good setting for an amp before you add pedals. From there you could do all sorts of things to modify the tone. You could fatten the tone further and get sustain with some compression. You could add subtle chorus, tremolo, univibe or phaser effects. You could add a boost for more drive. You could stack overdrive pedals. I think the reason many of us struggle to find that elusive tone is that the YouTubers have their amps cranked up in volume to a “sweet” spot using fancy attenuators or keeping their speaker cabinets in another room. That kind of volume isn’t always possible for most of us. Good luck finding your sound.
John -
Cheers Charjo. That’s very helpful. With my Mexican Strat I presume using the bridge pick up helps create a warmer tone while with my Ibanez semi again using the bridge is also the pickup of choice?
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Do you have a modeling amp? I do, and every so often I sit down with it and re-program the pre-sets just for fun. I set up presets for reverb, tremolo, flanger, phaser, delay, several levels of crunch, and combinations of various effects. That way I can quickly experiment with different effects when I’m working on a song. I also have a fairly good collection of pedals, which I prefer most of the time. Overdrive pedals are meant to be a substitute for cranking up the volume on your amp, so you can get simulated amp distortion at bedroom volume levels. But as Charjo has pointed out, it’s never the same as actually cranking up your amp volume. But it’s fun trying. One of the hardest tones for me to achieve is the tone often used by jazz guitarists. I’m still working on it. Have you tried to find it?
Sunjamr Steve
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As Charjo aptly said, that is the million dollar question. Ask 10 players and you’ll get 12 different answers LOL
My taste for blues tone is pretty much as John mentioned – set the amp so its on the edge of break up so when you dig in, you get some overdrive.
Listen to SRV and that was pretty much his approach to his tone – Strat into a cranked Fender amp with the use of a Tube Screamer to help from time to time
Go across the Big Pond to Northern Ireland and listen to Gary Moore – Gary & SRV were both heavily influenced by the same players as Stevie – the 3 King, Albert, BB & Freddie – but there is a huge difference in their tone.
Gary used a Les Paul with a cranked Marshall amp. Much heavier tone, much more distorted but still considered bluesThe same was true with players like Paul Kossoff, who also used a Les Paul & a cranked Marshall.
It largely comes down to the difference between the American take on Chicago blues or the blues of the British Invasion. The Brits were much more likely to be using Marshall, Vox, Selmer and WEN amps whereas the Americans were mostly using Fender amps in the earlier days, some were using Gibson amps.
What amp are you using and who are your influences that you are wanting to emulate? That will help us to further advise
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Thanks everyone for all the advice above. I do have a couple of modelling amps, I.e Fender Champion and NUX Mighty Air and do play around with differing amps and pedals but as don’t have much electric orientated knowledge I often feel it’s all hit and miss. Until now thanks to all your comments. It’s quite a supportive friendly community here which makes me think I might want to hang around for more than the year I’ve just subscribed to. Look forward to dipping into other topics of conversation.
Cheers everyone. -
TL;DR: You need to establish a baseline. IOW, it really depends on what amp you’re playing through the most ~and~ consider to be your current baseline for great tone. How are you going to zoom-in on a particular sound unless you know what it is?
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Longer version: I relate to your question since I was stuck there for a long period of time. It’s a chicken & egg situation, you haven’t landed on a good amp yet, so how are you going to get on the first rung of the ladder to upgrading it?
What bands do you listen to / what kind of music do you want to play?
What do your musical heroes use?
Answering those questions could guide you on your quest, it did me.Best practices:
Audition amps that are generally rated high enough by the community to use as a place to start for measuring other amps against.
Guitar tone and volume controls should be wide open to start with when trying a new amp. Attenuate them as you go.
It’s the sound as it hits your eardrums you should consider, not the hardware, nor the software.
Go home without it, have a good night’s sleep.
You will know if you can’t live without it the next day, it’s very much like falling in love.
Assuming you buy it get familiar with it; hopefully you will bond with it, if not, sorry about that, try again.
Use it as a baseline when auditioning all other amps, be they tube, digital/smart, or plain vanilla sold state.My subjective advice, focus on decent, maybe legendary, valve amps you can turn-up loud enough to hit their sweet spots. Be sure to budget for some means of attenuating the power before it hits the speaker so as not to piss-off the neighbors and your partner too much.
I’m biased because that’s what worked for me. I use a Fender ’65 Reissue Deluxe Reverb, and a Marshall Power Brake in lieu of a master volume knob.
Its big brother, the Twin Reverb, does have a master volume. But I’d still go for the Deluxe Reverb for what I do and for a sound I love. Plus it doesn’t weigh a ton, or use a lot of power.
I turn the amp up until it breaks-up nicely (around 5+ -ish), then turn the attenuator/master volume down to a reasonable level. That sound was what I was looking for, sweeet upper harmonic distortion. Attenuators suck tone but hey.
Once you have a useable (though not yet perfect, it never will be) rig jump in and check out a lot of other amps. Visit music stores, jam with friends and scope-out their gear. Joining a band is guaranteed to put a lot of urgency onto your quest.
Playing outside or in bigger rooms you need more volume so more power. Unplug the attenuator, plug in some useful pedals. A Tube Screamer TS-808 is a Swiss Army knife in that respect. I try to keep pedals to a minimum; the TS is my desert island guitar pedal. — HTH
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Simon. It can be a maze you disappear into never to return 😁
My advice would to keep it simple. Starting point for me is to get a good “clean” sound..no effects just nice crisp tone. If your Strat has a 5 position switch try 4 (middle and bridge) with tone fully up to 10. On the Fender Champ turn off effects and set your dials to 12 o clock, then adjust them in turn to see what they add (or lose). Once you have a “go to” clean setting you can the play around with different pickups and tone settings and effects. Everyone has their own view but I always think clean as a base is best…good luck and enjoy 😁
TimR
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