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General Tone Tips

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  • Re: General Tone Tips

    Don't sound like me! :-D

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    • Re: General Tone Tips

      I can't read all these posts to figure out what folks are already doing... but if it takes my word to push someone over the edge to actually try something then I'll be impressed with myself

      anyway...

      -when stuck in a rut in terms of songwriting or your playing always sounding the same, assume you don't know enough tricks and focus on learning more technique.

      -to get things to pop more easily into your head... try sitting down at a piano, messing around and then translating the sounds and intervals onto the guitar. This'll make you do things more unorthodox... you'll learn what intervals sound good to add onto a chord or in a solo... or try an altered tuning, see where that leads you, and translate it into standard.

      -copy the greats seriously... study people's playing styles and figure out what makes them sound like they do. IE Frusciante using a bunch of laid back bossa nova style chords or scratchy chords on the high strings, weird intervals like 10ths and such, Cantrell playing lots of minor 3rds in solos and box pattern stuff, Deleo using lots of clashing open strings, open chords etc. Steal things, add them to your own style

      -play plugged in and clean. You don't have the response of an amp when playing unplugged, and lots of distortion makes it hard to tell what you're doing, and where you're ****ing things

      -force yourself to play in keys and modes you aren't used to, try to make something good of it. It usually forces you to find something new.

      (I have avatars and sigs turned off. Do you?)

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      • Re: General Tone Tips

        Listen!
        sigpicThere's Only One Way!!!
        Fender American Fat Strat Deluxe, SH-6 Bridge
        '65 Fender Twin Reverb,Modded
        70's Fender VibroChamp,Modded

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        • Re: General Tone Tips

          Originally posted by Guitarist View Post
          A GOOD guitarist can make anything sound GOOD.
          Could he make a washing machine or a toilet sound good? I am very curious.

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          • Re: General Tone Tips

            If your tone is a tad too boomy, try a lighter/thinner pick and vica versa.
            Originally posted by Guitarist
            Honestly, I like Scott's words. "There is a rhythm to life. Ride the waves."

            And keep in mind that while nothing lasts forever, nothing is lost.
            http://soundcloud.com/adrian-czarnecki/tracks

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            • Re: General Tone Tips

              Originally posted by bjeans79 View Post
              Could he make a washing machine or a toilet sound good? I am very curious.
              You should have heard EVH go at it in the washroom . . . really nailed that brown sound. And I hear that SRV used 18 guage paper napkins rather than toilet paper to get his 'authentic/muscular' bathroom sound.
              Join me in the fight against muscular atrophy!

              Originally posted by Douglas Adams
              This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

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              • Re: General Tone Tips

                Originally posted by kmcguitars View Post
                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.
                I'd concur with that. Its good to remember that equipment and settings etc is just an enhancement of what your fingers are doing. The sound is 90% in the hands IMO. Work on phrasing... How you pick, how hard or how soft, what kind of pick you use or if you pick with your fingers, how close to or far away from the bridge you pick, working on bends and vibrato. Those simple techniques are worth spending some time on.

                Its easy to get too hung up on equipment and settings. I'm as guilty of that as anyone. Not that its not important, but it should come second to actual playing style.

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                • Re: General Tone Tips

                  Meh. We could probably argue back and forth on it, but fingers and style account for nuance more than basic tone. Without the right touch you won't go all the way to where you want to be, but you have to be working with the right equipment or you won't get in the ball park.

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                  • Re: General Tone Tips

                    I use 1/4 less gain now. Makes the tone less buzzy and clear.

                    Ok, you have to play better but that's why I'm practising
                    Originally posted by Guitarist
                    Honestly, I like Scott's words. "There is a rhythm to life. Ride the waves."

                    And keep in mind that while nothing lasts forever, nothing is lost.
                    http://soundcloud.com/adrian-czarnecki/tracks

                    Comment


                    • Re: General Tone Tips

                      Well even after over 20 years of playing, I am still trying to log as much time in as possible.
                      Always trying new stuff to play over, otherwise I think that I would be bored to death by now??!

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                      • Re: General Tone Tips

                        Once again..I decrease the gain on my amp..and I'm proud of it :->

                        Don't buy high-output pups
                        Originally posted by Guitarist
                        Honestly, I like Scott's words. "There is a rhythm to life. Ride the waves."

                        And keep in mind that while nothing lasts forever, nothing is lost.
                        http://soundcloud.com/adrian-czarnecki/tracks

                        Comment


                        • Re: General Tone Tips

                          can anybody tell me what the best kind of tubes for a peavey 6505 head would be? i still have the stock ruby reds in mine and i hate them. any suggestions?

                          Comment


                          • Re: General Tone Tips

                            Less gain and more mids, no overly-effected tones, no muddy high-output pickups, low output PAFs and a modern metal amp in the vein of 3NGL and Mesa/Boogie sound better, cause you can crank the amplifier a tad more.

                            Don't cut the bass too much, cause your tone becómes very thin, nor the treble, cause it'll make the sound mushy and not defined.
                            Start equalizer's setting from something like (o'clock) B: 1 M:3 T:1-2 , Of course depends on your amplifiers sound, pickups, guitar, and personal preferences.
                            Remember: Scooped metal sounds heard on albums by for example Metallica are heavily tweaked by a post-preamp equalizer, or at the mix board
                            Try different string cauges, and tunings (and I mean Eb, perhaps even D + dropped C#, -//- D), BUT don't tune too low! Basses are built for low freq. range, and it will only sound mushy if guitar is in the bass-range.
                            Use clean tones (or, even better, slightly crunchy, bluesy, break-up) when practising, so you'll hear your mistakes and become a better player.
                            Use distorted tones (not overly distorted, keep gain under 2 o'clock position) to improve your palm muting and tight rhythms. For solos, don't add more distortion, but mids and (very slightly) volume.
                            And, oh yeah, use good cords and minimal amount of pedals, bad cables and pedals are real tonerobbers.
                            Guitars:
                            http://my.opera.com/KK91/albums/slideshow/?album=969652

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                            • Re: General Tone Tips

                              Advice I have learned:

                              Don't sell your tube head short if you dont like the tone, sometimes putting different tubes in it will give you the tone your looking for.

                              Mixing the Head with different cabs is a good thing, and can give it a better tone.

                              Pedals can be good and bad. They can make a old crappy head sound good, or can make a new head sound bad. Mess with your head first, sometimes you wont even need pedals because the tone your looking for is right in your head, remember that too much is bad.
                              Peavy Valve King head + Peavy 6505 4x12 cab
                              Spider II halfstack
                              Ibanez AXS
                              Epiphone Les Paul Standard Plus Sunburst
                              Schector Omen6 Diamond Series
                              Digitech metal master, digitech RP300
                              Originally posted by Jim Morrison
                              There are things known and there are things unknown, and inbetween them are THE DOORS.

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                              • Re: General Tone Tips

                                Raise the action of your strings. Don't have them so low that the guitar sounds like a box and strings but don't have them so high that you can't play comfortably.

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