Guitarists are tone chasers.
I suppose we can’t help it. After all, it’s very likely that for most of us, the sound of the instrument was a significant part of what drew us to the instrument in the first place. Whether it was the raunchy tones of Stevie Ray Vaughan or the infamous Eddie Van Halen “brown sound,” something we heard clicked with us and is at the heart of driving us forward.
And so for many of us, that means dialing in a sound we are happy with. But it’s not an easy task.
Finding the perfect tone is a never-ending journey
It is exceptionally difficult to find the perfect tone, and I dare say it’s impossible. That’s especially true for those of us who are primarily bedroom players. It’s undoubtedly much easier to dial in a kick-ass tone when you’ve got a producer or a professional sound guy to help and the best in gear at your fingertips. That’s not to say a guy like The Edge doesn’t still work hard on his guitar sound (he probably does), but he has more tools at his disposal than a no-name hobbyist like me.
Not that the impossibility of the quest stops us — far from it! And I personally am still a long way from finding my own ideal tone. But in the spirit of improvement, I want to give you a few tone tips I’ve learned along the way that can at least help you take a few steps down the path toward the perfect tone.
1. Use the volume and tone knobs on your guitar
Those knobs on your guitar aren’t just for show — you can actually use them! It took me way too long to start adjusting the guitar’s controls instead of just leaving them all set to 10.
Those knobs on your guitar aren’t just for show — you can actually use them!
The volume knob, besides just adjusting loudness, can help with tone. You can actually reduce or enhance the amount of distortion in your signal, for instance, just by rolling off or turning up the guitar’s volume. I like to keep my volume set to around 8 for most playing, which then gives me a little extra room to go up or down when I need to.
The tone knob can also be your friend. Again, I use somewhere around 6 or 7 as “home base” and then start to experiment from there. As you roll the knob toward 10, you will bring in more highs, while turning it toward 0 will darken the sound. Different tone knobs produce different results, but the change can be dramatic — and you just might find a sound you like.
2. Don’t scoop the mids
This is guitar newbie 101: turning down the mids on your little practice amp while maxing out the bass and treble. Why do we all do this? Because it sounds good in your bedroom.
But when you graduate to playing in front of people, scooping the mids doesn’t make the transition well. This is because the electric guitar is actually a mid-range instrument. Its sound profile generally sits between the bass and the keyboard.
Set the middle tone knob on your amp a little higher than your bass and treble controls, and see what happens.
So if you want to enhance your tone, a great way to do it is to accentuate the mids instead. Set the middle tone knob on your amp a little higher than your bass and treble controls, and see what happens. Especially as you turn the amp up louder, this one trick could help you develop a more pleasing sound.
3. Try switching from 9s to 10s
Here’s a good trick I discovered that works well when you’re just starting out and still (probably) using cheap gear. I had a very cheap setup at one point — a low-end Epiphone and a small Behringer amp — and this actually worked like a charm.
I simply switched from using nine-gauge strings to using 10-gauge strings.
I’ve noticed this doesn’t provide as drastic results on better gear, but I believe it works because a higher-gauge string means there is physically more metal interacting with the pickup’s magnetic field. For cheap pickups, it seems to make a big difference.
For cheap pickups, using a higher-gauge set of strings seems to make a big difference.
In any case, my tone noticeably improved just by moving up to 10s.
4. Switch to a tube amp
I played on a solid-state amp for over 20 years and always wondered why people said a tube amp was better.
And then I bought a tube amp.
Wow, what a difference! The range of tones available in my tube amp was much greater than my solid state. And for my style of playing (rock and blues), it worked much better for my needs.
The range of tones available in my tube amp was much greater than my solid state. And for my style of playing (rock and blues), it worked much better for my needs.
In particular, the advantage of tube amps, besides having a more well-rounded sound in general IMHO, is that you can set your “clean” sound to just before the amp begins to break up (i.e., sound distorted) — something a solid-state amp can’t do. (They generally have separate clean and dirty channels.) This gives the guitar a nice, rich tone, with just a little bit of dirt if you start strumming a little harder. And if you dial back a little using your guitar’s volume knob, you’ve instantly got a great clean tone.
That’s not to say that there aren’t great solid-state amps out there, and depending on the genre of music you play, a solid-state amp may be the better choice, but personal experience has shown me how much a tube amp can impact your guitar’s tone.
5. Practice, practice, practice
At the end of the day, your unique tone comes from your fingers. Yes, amps and strings definitely contribute, and you can see great improvements with some simple setting adjustments, but the foundation of your sound is you.
Simply put, the more you practice and play, the more you will develop your own, unique tone.
The foundation of your sound is you.
I could pick up your exact rig set to your exact specifications, and I would not sound like you. And likewise, you could pick up my guitar and play into my amp and not sound like me. There is just too much variation in the way we each approach the instrument: how hard we pick, how much vibrato we add, how we mute strings, and the list goes on.
But that’s the wonderful thing about playing guitar — we each have something unique to bring. We all have the freedom to develop our own sound, a sound unlike anyone else in the world.
Hopefully, these tips will help you dial in your unique sound. What other tone tips can you share with us? I’d love to hear them — so let us know in the comments!
Leave a Reply