Where do I begin?

[rockstar_tom]

Hello, newbie here. I need any advice/pointers that anyone can offer. I am trying to hone my sound. Need some pointers to make my setup sound more professional, I don't really know anything about guitar/amp tone and eq tweaking and have been pointed towards SD pickups as an option. I want to sound **** hot when we play with professional bands.

I play a US standard Strat through a Marshall TSL 602 (2x12 combo). I have a Morley Wah, a Marshall Chorus and Compression and a Boss DD20 delay. I find the clean sound is great but the distortion is really tricky to make it sound powerful.

I want to sound like Oceansize, The Vines, Funeral For A Friend, Lostprophets, Muse, Audioslave to name a few.

I know all these bands have different setups to me, I want to try and take bits from each and make them my own. I suppose the crucial thing is the distortion. At the moment I just use the amps distortion but it just doesnt cut it. So any advice at all would be useful. I have been told to try Hotrails in the Bridge pickup.

Thanks for any help.

 

[greendy123]

Re: Where do I begin?

Could you describe the tone you want from your distortion? Such as tight like metallica, thin/buzzy, full-sounding and stands out clearly in the mix, or thicker/darker sounding. Have you tried other guitars in the amp to see if the tone problem your haveing is the amp or guitar?

 

[Gearjoneser]

Re: Where do I begin?

If you want a big toneful sound that cuts through the mix nicely, put a tremspaced Custom Custom in your strat. If you want the singles to match the output of the humbucker better, 2 Cool Rails will do it.

Then, wait until Duncan releases the new SFX-03 Tube Classic, dual mode overdrive pedal in mid March, and buy that for around $210.

If you do all those things, you'll make your guitar/amp rig twice as versatile and much bigger sounding.