Your Tone - from the ground up, or from the top down?

[sosomething]

An earlier thread got me wondering: how does everyone approach their basic tone shaping?

Do you take things from the ground up, as in running tone-shaping pedals into an amp that may or may not already be distorted, where each component of comp / boost / drive / input combines into the sum total of your tone?

Or do you run from the top down down, i.e. an amp that is already providing close to 100% of your primary sound and bringing it back down with guitar controls, volume pedals, reverse-boosts and the like?

My hunch is that most people kind of organically build their way into the first option (like myself at the moment), but I could be wrong.

 

[Wormhelmet]

Re: Your Tone - from the ground up, or from the top down?

Top down all the way. Sometimes just plug straight into my amps and play. They sound great as is, but a slight boost from an overdrive is nice sometimes, or my eq just nudged a little here or there to top it off is fun.

I love my current amps:

AMT Stonehead (4 channel, dual Master Volumes)
Mahaffay Plexi (one channel, footswitchable high or low gain)
Peavey ValveKing II 20mh (2 channel, but sometimes run AMT SS-20 preamp or AMT D2 preamp into power section)

 

[sosomething]

Re: Your Tone - from the ground up, or from the top down?

I didn't want the post to get too long, but I used to run top-down as well, for years. In fact the only pedal I used at all for the longest time was a tuner. I've gone to a pedalboard ground-up setup more recently just due to a desire for versatility. I needed more low- and mid-gain sounds, and I prefer the sound of my amps with the guitar controls all the way up as opposed to rolling back the guitar volume for a rock rhythm.

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: Your Tone - from the ground up, or from the top down?

Well, I use the clean tone of my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe as my base tone and then add the effects to shape as I prefer (slight overdrive, crunch, high gain)...I mainly use drive pedals with a chorus to flavor. So i will choose the "top down" because I've developed my tone around one specific amp.

 

[GilmourD]

Re: Your Tone - from the ground up, or from the top down?

An earlier thread got me wondering: how does everyone approach their basic tone shaping?

Do you take things from the ground up, as in running tone-shaping pedals into an amp that may or may not already be distorted, where each component of comp / boost / drive / input combines into the sum total of your tone?

Or do you run from the top down down, i.e. an amp that is already providing close to 100% of your primary sound and bringing it back down with guitar controls, volume pedals, reverse-boosts and the like?

My hunch is that most people kind of organically build their way into the first option (like myself at the moment), but I could be wrong.

This is a funny question mainly because I can't answer it with the poll. I don't decline to answer but the other two answers aren't quite right either.

With my band, I run clean and base a lot of my tones on pedals, depending on the songs.

For other situations where I don't need a clean sound I'd run the amp full out.

 

[Hank-]

Re: Your Tone - from the ground up, or from the top down?

I use both ways depending on my needs for certain sounds. I have two OD's now which give me different flavors to work with, I've been wanting to add a comp lately but haven't gotten to it yet. Mostly though i've noticed that it doesn't matter which direction you take as long as you get what you want at the end result, it may involve using both paths sometimes.

 

[JOLLY]

Re: Your Tone - from the ground up, or from the top down?

Top down. While I do run plenty of different pedals, I don't feel that they are by any means what define my sound. They just add a little different spice here and there when it is needed and/or wanted.

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Your Tone - from the ground up, or from the top down?

I guess bottom up. The funny thing is that the best tones I've had are top-down, with a loud amp and good overdrive, rolling off the volume to achieve clean(er) tones. The band I play with now requires too much variation and volume restraint, so my trusty 15W tube combo and a bunch of tone shaping pedals are my bread and butter now.

 

[JeffB]

Re: Your Tone - from the ground up, or from the top down?

Top down. While I do run plenty of different pedals, I don't feel that they are by any means what define my sound. They just add a little different spice here and there when it is needed and/or wanted.

This. I havea few effects for..effect.

 

[SFW]

Re: Your Tone - from the ground up, or from the top down?

For me, the guitar/ amp combo have to be cooking to begin with. That is 95% of my tone. The last 5% is whatever pedal or effect in my G Major 2 I need to convey the desired texture.

 

[allbutromeo]

Re: Your Tone - from the ground up, or from the top down?

Mostly top down, I think? I don't really use the controls in my guitars much, but use multi channel amps set with a edge of breakup cleanish, Mid gain, and high gain channels (if the amp only has two then I go mid gain for channel 2 and use an OD if needed for higher gain).
The only exceptions to this for me would be a single channel amp or one I use as a single (like my HRDX I love the cleans pushed, but hate the drive/more drive). These amps I'll runner the clean channel pushed near breakup and use a Sparkle Drive for my mid gain tone and an OCD running 18v for higher gain sounds.

 

[Securb]

Re: Your Tone - from the ground up, or from the top down?

I am too much all over the map to even answer this questions. Depends on what I am trying to achieve. As big as my pedalboard is most of the time it is just me and a cord.

 

[BriGuy1968]

Re: Your Tone - from the ground up, or from the top down?

I use a POD HD400 for the bulk of my tone and just run into my amp clean. I have to admit, though, that my amp is not the greatest (a ten-year-old Crate FXT65). I've been known to comment that I don't feel like my amp makes that much difference... that I could run direct to the PA without losing much if I wanted to. In some ways I feel like that concept has advantages, but I also have never really seriously tried a nicer amp... probably because I'm afraid it will give me GAS!

 

[Diego]

Re: Your Tone - from the ground up, or from the top down?

I set my amp for moderate breakup, then punch the preamp with whatever I want.
Normally it's overdrives for tight chugga chugga and wanky leads, or clean boosts for distorted grind with a more open top-end response, more dynamics and sludgy bass.
My Zvex Super Duper clone excels at that.

I've never found a sound I liked with most amps fully clean and pedals adding all the dirt.
There's something in the tone I've always felt is missing that way.

 

[Little Pigbacon]

Re: Your Tone - from the ground up, or from the top down?

Ground up. I've always had this bizarre issue where my rig doesn't sound the same to me every time, and I find that having a truckload of tone-shaping pedals helps me bring it back in when it feels off. Sometimes I just find that I need different puzzle pieces to make the same picture. Pedals are at least as important as the amp.

 

[Davii]

Re: Your Tone - from the ground up, or from the top down?

By those descriptions, I'd say top down. In my case, external items would be my multi fx unit, and I tend to look at routing things closer to how I might engineering.

 

[Demanic]

Re: Your Tone - from the ground up, or from the top down?

I try to get the best clean tone I can, just on the edge of breaking up, then add different levels of boost and distortion depending on what I'm trying to achieve.

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk

 

[EDX]

Re: Your Tone - from the ground up, or from the top down?

an extrange mixture of top down and ground up for my clean channel, since it is 90% of my clean tone, then i mess with either adding my wah and/or eq pedals or the knobs on my guitar (h config with a dimebucker, vol, tone, series/parallel, blower switch) this could be done with or without reverb

for my dist, is ground up, i use my gain knob at 6 (an old peavey envoy isn't really so high gain) treble cranked bass cranked to smooth out and and just enough mids to recreate those scooped paf rock tones (mids on most peavey amps warm things up, too much and you will be muddy, 0 and you will sound like zombie bat crap) then i add my eq peddal for a sort of dimebag based of distortion, my od peddal (vol 4, tone 7, drive 6) saturates just enough to get a liquid dist with a hint of fuzz

 

[Lampy H]

Re: Your Tone - from the ground up, or from the top down?

Generally speaking, if an amp can't get at least 90% of the way to what I consider my tone, I'm not interested.

 

[jtougas]

Your Tone - from the ground up, or from the top down?

Alchemy & Psychology - it all depends on what I'm hearing in my head.