How do I become a more traditional player?

[Robert Delahunt]

Re: How do I become a more traditional player?

An update: I've found that I like to have the volume and tone set up to about "5" or so, adjusting amp to sound good, so that I can get louder/quieter/brighter/darker as I need. I greatly prefer using guitar controls to do this, so I sound check my amp to my guitar and then go from there.

I'm a lot happier now that I've gotten more comfortable with my rig. I guess that's what it really was.

Thanks for all the tips everyone! It made a big difference!

 

[JB_From_Hell]

Re: How do I become a more traditional player?

Have you plugged straight in, with your amp running wide open yet?

 

[JohnnyGuitar]

Re: How do I become a more traditional player?

Here's another tip, that most "proper" teachers would tell you to avoid: dig into the strings when you pick, pluck them, pick harder. It will slow you down alright but when old school players wanted to express themselves they made the guitar "feel their pain". Think Albert Collins, think about Buddy Guy in the picks of his solos... playing a fast run this way gets a lot harder (it is still possible) but you'll hear things coming out of your guitar that you have not heard before.

 

[psy]

Re: How do I become a more traditional player?

Hi, one point I would like to add is that you should be able to play and feel comfortable with a sub-perfect tone as well. Apart from that your new sound will probably not work equally well in a band-context, you will hardly ever have that perfect tone on stage. You have to feel comfortable with your playing rather than your tone, then you can deal with these situations without turning up the volume of your amp more and more.

 

[Robert Delahunt]

Re: How do I become a more traditional player?

Have you plugged straight in, with your amp running wide open yet?

Believe it or not, it's too loud for that. Not in my house (my family is almost always home), and not even in practice. Not even when we did that recording. Now I had it at 2, which is pretty loud for what it's worth (since the Pro Junior is a volume/drive knob, which means above 4 is overdrive), but I've not had it wide open yet.

Still, I've played without the pedal a lot.

I am still having a hard time figuring out where I'm going to play it wide open. I could ask my music minister from church if I could borrow the sanctuary some time when they're not using it.... I'll see what I can do about it.

 

[Bludave]

Re: How do I become a more traditional player?

(Warning: long post) I had some questions about how to be more of a "traditional" or "old school" guitar player. I was doing some experimenting tonight....

Usually I have my guitar's volume and tone knobs at 10. Let's use the Stratocaster as an example. Mine's a Lite Ash, so the tone knobs are neck and middle, with bridge being totally without a tone knob. Three true single coils.

I plug into a Boss ME-50 and then into a Fender Pro Junior. Usually the Pro Junior's tone knob is at "12 o'clock" and the Volume is moved to match. The Boss ME-50 knobs for Level are always at "12 o'clock" or lower, and the main output is at "12 o'clock". I did this for the recording session we had, playing around, and when I heard it played back, it sounded WAY too generic for me. Either that or too familiar.

Tonight I tried something totally different. I'm wanting to be more of a "traditional" guitar player, since those guys (Slash being one of the last, at least in my uneducated opinion) get great tone. I set volume and tone knobs on my Strat at all 5's, set the amp volume to a decent level and the tone on the amp until the bridge was almost unbearably bright (but works good for solos ala Boss OD-2 Turbo Overdrive setting). Now, from the guitar, I can increase and decrease neck and middle pickup brightness using the tone knobs, and I have louder and softer using the volume knob on my guitar. Then I pick what distortion or overdrive, tremolo, etc, on the ME-50 based on the voicing of it, not how loud it is.

I was much happier this way. My tone no longer sounded generic, but more "customized."

So my question is: is that the right way to do it? I've never thought to ask how to set amp and guitar knobs before: usually I set 'em all to "12 o'clock" or 50% on the amp and all max on my guitar. How do I become a more traditional player? How do/did those guys get such a unique sound on their rigs? (aside from fingers themselves). This is not a "it's all in the fingers" thread, as I'm leaving that out of the equation for right now. I'm focusing on guitar and amps. How should I do things? How do I get more mojo?

You have what you need. According to your sig,you have a Twin.... Get rid of that ME50 thingy, plug your guitar into a few basic stomp boxes, plug into your Twin and your there. Most signal processors that I have used are very bland and sterile sounding. I think they kill the tone of the amp and the guitar

 

[Robert Delahunt]

Re: How do I become a more traditional player?

You have what you need. According to your sig,you have a Twin.... Get rid of that ME50 thingy, plug your guitar into a few basic stomp boxes, plug into your Twin and your there. Most signal processors that I have used are very bland and sterile sounding. I think they kill the tone of the amp and the guitar

No, I tried that. Against a tube screamer and a fuzz face, the ME-50 was extremely close in sound. I can play without it, sure, but there's no "right" or "wrong" way.

That being said, I'll upgrade to all-analog soon, but I can't afford to right now.

 

[Imp]

Re: How do I become a more traditional player?

course you can - ditch the Me-50 for an afternoon!

try having all the knobs on the tone stack (bass mid treb) on 10, or maybe all on 7. i love the tones im getting with my valve amp since i ditched all the 'it sounds just like the real thing!' crap and listened to my ears.

seriously, nothing hampers your guitar playing like a multieffect unit. both my guitarists now have them and i want to batter the pair of them over the head with them every time i see it coming out the bag :laugh2:

set the volume on the amp high, and the guitar volume low - it's another sound; hendrix used to do it.

 

[Robert Delahunt]

Re: How do I become a more traditional player?

course you can - ditch the Me-50 for an afternoon!

try having all the knobs on the tone stack (bass mid treb) on 10, or maybe all on 7. i love the tones im getting with my valve amp since i ditched all the 'it sounds just like the real thing!' crap and listened to my ears.

seriously, nothing hampers your guitar playing like a multieffect unit. both my guitarists now have them and i want to batter the pair of them over the head with them every time i see it coming out the bag :laugh2:

set the volume on the amp high, and the guitar volume low - it's another sound; hendrix used to do it.

I've already said that I have ditched the ME-50 on several occasions.

 

[Imp]

Re: How do I become a more traditional player?

yeah but saying you can't afford to go all analogue when it's all sitting there suggests you're overestimating how much you need what the ME-50 does!

apart from that, try what i said about having the tone stack knobs all the way up. good luck.

 

[Robert Delahunt]

Re: How do I become a more traditional player?

yeah but saying you can't afford to go all analogue when it's all sitting there suggests you're overestimating how much you need what the ME-50 does!

apart from that, try what i said about having the tone stack knobs all the way up. good luck.

Well church music like I play, in terms of diversity, takes a lot of pedals. I'd need at least a Guv'nor, Tube Screamer, Expandora, Tremolo (amp doesn't have one), two delay pedals set at different values, a noise suppressor, and a wah. That, and to be able to switch from one tone to another on the fly is not possible with all analog pedals, due to the way they sometimes want songs to flow from one into the other.

Then again, I own a multi-effects pedal, have never owned a bunch of analog pedals, and I'm saying I can't do it with that setup when I've never tried it. What I'm saying is I don't know.