By Mike Murphy © 2017 All Rights Reserved.
"To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before". This line from Star Trek can be a great inspirational theme for all us tone seekers. At some point in your career you might come to the realization that in order to distinguish yourself from the other millions of players in our galaxy, you have to sound like you.
This is solely your decision, but if you decide you don't want to sound like anyone else, you must dig a lot deeper into your soul to extract what it is that makes you unique. What is your life about? Your past? Your family? Positive/negative relationships? Upbringing? All these factors play as much if not more of an importance than gear itself to your development as a player. I realize that certain styles of music do not require many or any effects and are unique unto themselves. What I'm talking about here are the seekers/pioneers that want to develop new sounds. A distinguishable, identifiable sound of their own.
Was Jimi Hendrix thinking about what pedal setting he was using when he was playing Machine Gun? When he was crafting this tune? I think not, but he was always searching for new gear, pedals, to express what was inside his soul. This is key. He adjusted the knobs to where it sounded right to him. To get the gear to express his anger, hurt, opinion, disgust of the Vietnam War. I can't think of a single piece of music from a guitar player that paints a more vivid picture. He didn't just stumble upon his tone and effects. He was always exploring new paths and pieces of gear to use in order to say with his guitar what he was feeling inside. What this should reveal to you is that you need to explore both your own mental makeup and the vast array of gear available to you to enable you to express yourself.
I once read "don't let the setting numbers bother you when you are dialing in an amp or effect, just set it to where it sounds right to you". If you let your ears guide you in where you set your amp and/or pedals and guitar, you will have a far greater chance of getting a better tone. This is not to say to literally never look at your settings, but to not let where they end up overly concern you. That said, if you are completely dialing out your mids you will have a problem with your notes cutting through.The point here is to let your ears guide you. To do this you need to develop good listening skills in order to identify what it is that sounds good. Listen to your favourite players and see what gear they are using. Then take that knowledge, expand upon it and inject your own personality into the equation.
First you have to pick the right amp for the job. If you have a 100 watt amp and you are playing a venue where you can't turn it up to get those tubes cooking you will have a hard time getting the amp dialed in. A smaller wattage amp will sound better (and is easier to dial in if you can run it into it's sweet spot) than a 100 watter that you can't turn up because it's too loud for the room/gig. Never underestimate the importance of great cabling either. It can choke a lot of musical frequencies out of your tone. You must get your amp dialed in and then add your effects. There are some great modelling amps in the marketplace and they are designed to operate like tube amps, so you can apply this somewhat to those as well, although this approach deals with tube amps in particular.
Leave all effect pedals off, turn your guitar's volume and tone all the way up and get the power tube section of the amp working first. If the power tubes aren't driven somewhat, you will have a hard time getting a fat tone by just using a pedal to get it. If you have an amp with both master and preamp volume controls, you can use the preamp to add a bit of dirt/ tube saturation to fatten the tone, but you will still need the master up more than the preamp to get the power amp section tubes working to their optimal level. Finding the right combination of master and preamp settings will give you a big tone at a controllable/ reasonable volume. If you listen closely you will find the spot where each dial makes a big difference in your tone. Somewhere in that area is the sweet spot of that particular knob. Once the amp is turned up to where its starting to work, the tubes it will get fatter in tone. Finding the right combination of master and preamp settings will give you a big tone at a controllable/ reasonable volume. If you listen closely you will find the spot where each dial makes a big difference in your tone. Somewhere in that area is the sweet spot of that particular knob. Once the amp is turned up to where its starting to work the tubes it will get fatter in tone. The bottom end will start getting punchy and fill the room more. The highs will smooth out as well. It won't sound as thin as it did when the volume was turned down. That's the power section working. The sweet spot. Dial in your mids so that the notes have some definition and articulation. Scooped mids might sound nice to the untrained ear, but if you do your homework you will find that many of your favourite players use a lot more mids than you think.
Once you have your amp dialed in then set your effects. Too much of any type of effect will kill your tone. Effects should be used like spices or seasoning for your notes. Aside from a poorly dialed in amp or poor sounding guitar, some of the biggest culprits of a muddy or washy tone is from having too much distortion and/or compression coming from a pedal and/or too much delay. Those three problems alone account for most of the poor electric tones I have heard from my experience. There are some great boutique effect builders out there (Chase Bliss Audio to name one), and I find Joel Korte's products to be very transparent and don't colour my amp's tone. Seek these makers out. They are taking the extra time to make their products better in quality and sound than a lot of the makers of the more affordable products.They take the time to hear the subtle but important differences quality parts can make. They place these parts in their products for those of us that have developed our hearing to the point where we can hear those magical differences and are searching for betterment. Try each effect separately. Does it change your tone? Is it transparent? Discover products that keep your amp's tone intact.
Start with compression (if desired) to fatten your clean tone. Dial it in so that it isn't too squashed or your tone will not have much room for dynamic pick attack. It will sound mushy almost to the point where notes have a bit of a lag to them. If you have too much compression your mid frequencies will not cut through and notes will not have any presence to them. If set right, many country players keep their compressor on all the time as a way to fatten their tone and make notes "pop" while keeping high notes from slamming your hearing like a sizzling cast-iron skillet. Many rock and blues players don't use compression as much (if at all), as they use overdrive to fatten their tone. Then set overdrive/distortion (if desired) to taste, keeping in mind to not make the tone too muddy or scooped. Then set chorus, phaser, etc (if desired), then wah (if desired). Lastly, set your delay. If too much level or feedback, your notes will be too washy. Keep in mind that each effect (if on at the same time as the others) will affect the others. Set them individually at first. Then see how they interact with each other in various combinations. You may find certain effects don't sound good with others when used at the same time. I generally use effects that work well with others to keep it easier when stacking them. Again, some of the more affordable brands don't work as well with others. Experiment.
Remember, a great rule of thumb is to set in this order: guitar, amp, then effects last. It's a layering process that you must do. Star Trek's Spock would say "Change Is The Essential Process Of All Existence". You have to decide if you want to be like everyone else (just exisiting) or lead the change to become your own individual player and seek out new tones, effects, etc. that will make you identifiable in this much too common sleepwalking copycat world.
In closing, as a musician I am left to ponder: Is "Space" or "Tone" The Final Frontier? Your Final Frontier?
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