CenterStaqeSilver
New member
Re: General Tone Tips
1) Try picking/strumming at various points along the length of the strings, as extra tone control. Towards the bridge is more treble, towards the neck is more bass. But you should also discover some thrilling options just around where the neck joins the body. You'll have to see how this works on open strings as well as adjusting it's position when you fret at various positions along the neck. Right beside the bridge is fine for extreme twang, more like a sound effect for a solo than for regular use, but it's one of many using this trick alone. Try fretting the normal three-finger E-chord and strum right beside the left hand! See!
2) Alternate tunings will affect your perceived tone by accentuating certain combinations of notes. You'll be able to play around with tone there too.
3) Try out the extremes available via your tone controls alone.
4) Dynamics affect tone, so get used to different thicknesses of picks for different effects, different attack angles of the pick, picking with your fingers, partial dampening of the strings with your palm, etc. If you strike a string with the back of your hand, being your fingernails, the tone is harder than if you picked it using your fingertip. So consider the hardness and impact style of the picks, hand features and other things used to contact the strings. Try using a drumstick for a 6-string instant impact chord! Works well if the radius sets the strings close to linear. More curved necks will make that trick sloppy.
5) Experiment with reasonable techniques and insane techniques. You'll learn. What are you using for a slide? Use two picks at once, holding one normally and the other in the next finger, which creates a 12-string effect. Try using fingerpicks of various types, like the banjo-players do. Different thicknesses and different materials with sanded or smooth surfaces. Sanded makes a nice tone! Smooth is fat-producing.
6) Practice your vibrato like it was the only way to save your family's life! Tonal properties can be coaxed out of the strings with vibrato that can't be produced by non-vibrato, tremolo or all the juiced up fine-tuned pickups and effects boxes in the world.
7) For live bands, be sure the house turns down the bass overall, in a carefully selected range, since rooms of all sizes with audiences in them carry bass far better than treble, and MOST pubs and venues have a boosted bass problem that your average attendee on stage or at the perfectly placed engineer's box won't detect. Meanwhile, everyone else takes a bath in very muddy sound and the whole show basically sucks and refunds are in order.
8) If you're using a PA system with a dynamic mic in it, expect to roll off the bass of the mic more than usual to compensate for it's bass-boosting (most stage mics have this hassle), which means, don't expect the guitar's to be tuned through a PA. Stay separate from the mic system.
9) Take up sports instead if the places to play live at in your area aren't yet smoke-free!
1) Try picking/strumming at various points along the length of the strings, as extra tone control. Towards the bridge is more treble, towards the neck is more bass. But you should also discover some thrilling options just around where the neck joins the body. You'll have to see how this works on open strings as well as adjusting it's position when you fret at various positions along the neck. Right beside the bridge is fine for extreme twang, more like a sound effect for a solo than for regular use, but it's one of many using this trick alone. Try fretting the normal three-finger E-chord and strum right beside the left hand! See!
2) Alternate tunings will affect your perceived tone by accentuating certain combinations of notes. You'll be able to play around with tone there too.
3) Try out the extremes available via your tone controls alone.
4) Dynamics affect tone, so get used to different thicknesses of picks for different effects, different attack angles of the pick, picking with your fingers, partial dampening of the strings with your palm, etc. If you strike a string with the back of your hand, being your fingernails, the tone is harder than if you picked it using your fingertip. So consider the hardness and impact style of the picks, hand features and other things used to contact the strings. Try using a drumstick for a 6-string instant impact chord! Works well if the radius sets the strings close to linear. More curved necks will make that trick sloppy.
5) Experiment with reasonable techniques and insane techniques. You'll learn. What are you using for a slide? Use two picks at once, holding one normally and the other in the next finger, which creates a 12-string effect. Try using fingerpicks of various types, like the banjo-players do. Different thicknesses and different materials with sanded or smooth surfaces. Sanded makes a nice tone! Smooth is fat-producing.
6) Practice your vibrato like it was the only way to save your family's life! Tonal properties can be coaxed out of the strings with vibrato that can't be produced by non-vibrato, tremolo or all the juiced up fine-tuned pickups and effects boxes in the world.
7) For live bands, be sure the house turns down the bass overall, in a carefully selected range, since rooms of all sizes with audiences in them carry bass far better than treble, and MOST pubs and venues have a boosted bass problem that your average attendee on stage or at the perfectly placed engineer's box won't detect. Meanwhile, everyone else takes a bath in very muddy sound and the whole show basically sucks and refunds are in order.
8) If you're using a PA system with a dynamic mic in it, expect to roll off the bass of the mic more than usual to compensate for it's bass-boosting (most stage mics have this hassle), which means, don't expect the guitar's to be tuned through a PA. Stay separate from the mic system.
9) Take up sports instead if the places to play live at in your area aren't yet smoke-free!
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 
