View Full Version : guitar tones


Isle
11-02-2004, 05:48 AM
i'm shit at finding good settings on my guitar/amp. my tone is fucking awful. any advice for a marshall 50 watt? thanks homeboys.

DeviousJ
11-02-2004, 10:53 AM
50 watt what? What kind of sound are you after? Do you have any pedals?

Not that I have any advice!

GlasgowKiss
11-02-2004, 11:01 AM
Uhm you might be hamstrung by your amp... but anyway...

Use less gain.

Treble controls how cutting the sound is, adjust to taste.

Bass controls how farty the sound is, adjust to taste.

Mids control how much body the sound has, adjust to taste.

You should be doing ok with low gain single coil sounds im guessing? Its hard to get them wrong. Id wager that your problems are with overdriven sounds? Id say invest in a good tight bridge pup for your squirer.

GlasgowKiss
11-02-2004, 11:02 AM
If its actually a 50watt valve amp, then turn the volume to max and adjust gain to taste.

= Tone.

sleeper
11-02-2004, 11:13 AM
Originally posted by Isle
i'm shit at finding good settings on my guitar/amp. my tone is fucking awful. any advice for a marshall 50 watt? thanks homeboys.

my friend has about a 50 watt marshall and, if yours in anything like it, i know what you mean by a shitty tone. its usally way, way to bright sounding. if i were you, just as a tool for all your future guitar playing, id get an equalizer pedal. theyre some of the cheapest pedals out there and mine has proved indespensible. so many times ive turned it off at the end of a jam and realize how shitty and weak the tone was without it. they act as a good volume boosting thing too.

ProgressChrome
11-02-2004, 11:20 AM
I often have my treble at 7, bass at 5, mids at 3

different amps sound different, just mess around, too much mid can often make your tone too boxy and lacking clarify

Isle
11-02-2004, 01:29 PM
thanks guys. guess i'll have to wait til crimbo for the pedals though, heh.

ZackZ
11-02-2004, 02:08 PM
If it's just a regular old 50-watt head and not one of the TSL or DSLs, you'll have to crank it up to 10 to get "good" tone. (see: Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, etc.)

Could be your guitar too. Don't think you mentioned what kind you had.

Rockin' Cherub
11-02-2004, 02:19 PM
btw, any tips against feedback?

GlasgowKiss
11-02-2004, 02:22 PM
Originally posted by Rockin' Cherub
btw, any tips against feedback?

Move around the stage, there will probably be places where you get feedback and places where you dont. Turn down your guitar volume when you aint playing and play harder than the feedback when you are.

GlasgowKiss
11-02-2004, 02:29 PM
Originally posted by Isle
thanks guys. guess i'll have to wait til crimbo for the pedals though, heh.

The amp forms the basis of the sound, if you are getting shit sounds guitar - > amp then most pedals will just make it sound like fat woman on a treadmill.

Get a good 15-30 watt combo before you start on pedals. Check out Laney valve amps or Vox valvetronix amps for good value tone.

Right now im using a Vox Tonelab SE and a Laney LC15R.

Rockin' Cherub
11-02-2004, 02:30 PM
Originally posted by GlasgowKiss


Move around the stage, there will probably be places where you get feedback and places where you dont. Turn down your guitar volume when you aint playing and play harder than the feedback when you are.
are there any pedals or something that remove it?



okay... i'm stupid. :(

GlasgowKiss
11-02-2004, 02:33 PM
Originally posted by Rockin' Cherub

are there any pedals or something that remove it?



okay... i'm stupid. :(

You could get a noise gate and try muting the strings?

GlasgowKiss
11-02-2004, 02:34 PM
You might be able to find the problem frequency and with an Eq pedal and get rid of it.

sleeper
11-02-2004, 02:37 PM
Originally posted by Rockin' Cherub

are there any pedals or something that remove it?



okay... i'm stupid. :(

bad pickups will give you a lot of feedback too. if not feedback, theyll often just hum really loud which is super ugly

GlasgowKiss
11-02-2004, 02:44 PM
Originally posted by sleeper


bad pickups will give you a lot of feedback too. if not feedback, theyll often just hum really loud which is super ugly

Too true.

Isle
11-02-2004, 05:10 PM
thanks for all the info craig

Brandont_h
11-02-2004, 06:26 PM
With my Fender Performer 650 amp (with a 12" speaker. . . speaker size will greatly influence tone), I usually keep the bass around 4, the treble around 8 and the mid around 8 for a nice tone with my squire strat. I don't have my marshall amp here, so I forget what my settings are when I use it.

EXTRAVABONSOR
11-02-2004, 09:32 PM
I don't understand why you would complain about feedback. If i can get get feedback, i embrace it.

sleeper
11-02-2004, 09:35 PM
its not always appropriate though. but playing feedback is a skill in itself. its like learning a new instrument. i love playing feedback because its so intuitive and feel-based, where i am a viking

LittleWing
11-02-2004, 09:35 PM
Originally posted by EXTRAVA******
I don't understand why you would complain about feedback. If i can get get feedback, i embrace it.

EXTRAVABONSOR
11-02-2004, 09:50 PM
Originally posted by sleeper
its not always appropriate though. but playing feedback is a skill in itself. its like learning a new instrument. i love playing feedback because its so intuitive and feel-based, where i am a viking i guess im just really good at it. or it's just always appropriate. then again, i own a strat and anytime i get get a little bit of sustain, i take it, bitch.

sleeper
11-02-2004, 09:58 PM
you ignored me before but ill ask again because im annoying; why dont you post some riff or something in my drum thread?

tear stained glass
11-02-2004, 10:15 PM
i have a dsl 40 watt, and my current settings are:

clean:
gain - 3.75, treble - 4, mids - 9, bass - 6

overdrive 1/2:
gain - 7, volume - 5.5, treble - 10, mids - 6, bass - 3

master:
f/x - 0, reverb - 0, volume - 2

but this is just for practicing in my room. the clean channel sounds pretty big if i just run my ric 360 straight into it, and on the od channel it's fairly garage-y on the more trebly end.

DeviousJ
11-03-2004, 04:25 AM
Originally posted by EXTRAVA******
I don't understand why you would complain about feedback. If i can get get feedback, i embrace it.

Not great if you're playing clean.

I'll seond the EQ shaping too - my amp has a horrible distortion channel, and before I got any pedals I had to live with it. Then I borrowed a wah pedal, rocked it about halfway and the tone completely changed - it was awesome. It can make a huge difference, even with crappy equipment

Isle
11-03-2004, 04:45 AM
Originally posted by sleeper
you ignored me before but ill ask again because im annoying; why dont you post some riff or something in my drum thread?

no recording gear! i would though.

SOnikYouf
11-03-2004, 04:52 AM
y dont u post some more blood ass pickeys again u fucking pervero

Rockin' Cherub
11-03-2004, 03:53 PM
Originally posted by EXTRAVA******
I don't understand why you would complain about feedback. If i can get get feedback, i embrace it.
it's not like i can't stand it or something, i don't even play the guitar, i asked for a friend of mine who has a serious problem with it.

I_was_aborted
11-04-2004, 04:34 PM
People who cut all the mids from their guitar are annoying and have piss poor tone. After all, a guitar is a mid range instrument.

I guess some people just love that Metallica mid-cut sound...but I think its shit and it does nothing but sound muddy as hell when you try to play with that sound loud and live.

I like my mids to be at about 8, treble 6-7 and bass 6-7. Although I am running through a 100w Carvin half stack, all tube with a parametric eq so...yeah.

Those Marshall amps pretty much just sound like shit. I love the Carvin tube series...all the other amps I want I could hardly ever afford.