General Tone Tips

[Kamanda~SD]

Turn the Gain down, turn the volume up
Never put you mids below "2"...at least!
"Don't tickle it...Hit the bugger!!!" Malcolm Young
Play like you mean it...it will sound better
Don't be afraid of playing loud.

[matt_transition]

Listen to someone else play your guitar through your rig, (if you wanna risk it), its amazing how different it sounds to when you play it yourself. You might just alter some settings. Obviously the whole Tone In THe Fingers arguement comes into play. Just get them to play basic stuff not intricate things that your personal playing characteristcs would change the sound.

[ericmeyer4]

Find a sound that is sound that you are happy with and that is you AND works in what ever your band situation is. And on that note you dont need to spend a lot of money to have a great sound! (Eddie Van Halen's homemade strat for example) Don't limit your self to one type of guitars, manufacturing brands, amps, fx pedals, ect. There are so many great things out there and its silly to say you can only get a good sound out of a tube amp. True bypass really does help your sound. If your pedals dont have true bypass there are always was around that. From making that way or tb-boxes. What ever it takes to get you your sound do it, but dont get hung up on brands or types. And if you really want a specific type of gear save untill you can afford it because finding a cheaper substitue most likey with be only a temporary fix.

good luck,
edm

[nepalnt21]

buy seymour duncan pickups

[Bludave]

If you have a tube amp, let it warm up.

Great point. I play thru A Super Reverb(1968), and Deluxe(1967) depending..... I find that as the night goes on I can start to roll the volume down. Once the Amp begins to warm up it begins to sing.

When recording I would recommend using heavier strings as well. They give a slightly thicker punchier sound. Of course they have to be comfortable for you to play.

Keep your signal as pure as possible. The less you have in the signal chain the better.

[kmcguitars]

Practice as much as you can WITHOUT A AMP !! This helps you develop
a feel for the natural resonance of the Instrument .This in turn will help
you develop the tone in your hands.(This is what you wanna hear when
you ampilify yourself) Even for pinched harmonices and fast runs it's
good to practice w/o a amp. When you finally do plug in and add some
gain you'll be amazed how the notes jump out/off the fret board.

[mmguz]

More volume= less Trebble needed I think.

[Faraday]

buy seymour duncan pickups

...and melt your Dimarzio's. But seriously, record yourself and analyze on playback. Be critical.

[Kamanda~SD]

^^^ Thats a good one.

[WITH FULL DISTORTION]

-> THIS IS FACT.

-NEVER SCOOP YOUR MIDS!!!(Unless you wann bury your tone )
SCOOPED MIDDLES=FAGGÓT´S TONE
hahahahahaahahahahhahahahahaha


-For an amp to have twice the volume, it needs 10x the wattage (eg. a 50w amp will be twice as loud as a 5w)

-Single-coils buzz (unless they're noiseless ones) and have a thinner sound

-Humbuckers buck the hum (no buzz) and have a big fat tone

[callous_frigid_chill]

For metal, using high output pickups might not sound as good as lower output pups, which tend to have a clear sound.

[Forbes]

IMO the most important part of you tone is your amp, often people can go looking for replacement pickups without really seeing what thier amp can do. Have a session just experimenting with you amp, be radical with the changes you make, sometimes the tone you desire can be found without the need to changing pickups or new pedals. This works the other way too, if you have great guitar and pickups, but only a average amp, don't expect great tone.

[theboatcandream]

I agree about the amp part. A great amp can make a crappy guitar sound amazing.

[DonLduk]

Make sure to have right pickup height. A pickup too high will pierce your ears with it's high frequencies. Forget about inches and stuff, raise/lower using your hearing as a reference.

I was dissapointed with the JB/Jazz set when I set it like it said in the SD manual, it was so harsh I had to stop playing. later I decided to screw the manual and set it with my own taste, and man, now I get that warm humbucker sound I wanted.

[pac112]

use your guitars volume pedal to control distortion, good for cleaning up the sound.

[A Skater]

More volume= less Trebble needed I think.

I agree with him. I was recently playing with my old band for the first time in a while and I have to agree with this. My tone comes from fingers+my vox amp. At low wattage, it might sound too unclear/muddy but once you raise the watts/volume, the treble is just right. For my tone, I follow the basics:

You need a good foundation to make something sound good. Bass>Mids>Treble. Since I have an Invader(which has huge amounts of bass), I have a good amount of bass, maxed out mids, and slightly more treble than bass. That works well for overdriven stuff. For metal, that's another story

[Quencho092]

Thinner strings work well for feel as well as tone. I bumped down from 12's and like my 10's alot better for my strat tone-wise. The 'standard' gauges were named that way for a reason-the frequencies of each note ring out better if the gauge is proper.

Why would somebody use a G string for an E string?

[jimpmiller]

marshall amps are not just OD pedals.

[jacksonknox27]

tune while your tubes are warming up

[nuntius]

Practice as much as you can WITHOUT A AMP !! This helps you develop
a feel for the natural resonance of the Instrument .This in turn will help
you develop the tone in your hands.(This is what you wanna hear when
you ampilify yourself) Even for pinched harmonices and fast runs it's
good to practice w/o a amp. When you finally do plug in and add some
gain you'll be amazed how the notes jump out/off the fret board.

Or use an acoustic.

But if you're gonna bend notes don't use too thick a guage of string, you'll hurt yourself