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Post subject: New guy looking for his tone
Posted: Wed Nov 20, 2013 5:48 pm
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I'm sure the first thing most of you all may think when you see the subject line is "No $hit, join the club", so let me explain. I'm relatively new to guitar and when I do find the occasional sweet spot for that sounds great for certain songs, I'm way off the mark when it comes to others and can't get close. In a generic sense, I'm just confused on where to get started. With so many variable to play with (5 pick ups and 2 tone knobs on my roadhouse strat, as well as settings for bass, treble, mids, reverb, gain and a fat switch on my Blues Jr), is there a better technique to fine tune your sound? For example, should I just keep my guitar knobs at 5:00 and play with amp settings next? Should I keep my amp settings at 5:00 and adjust my one effects pedal next (Boss ds1 distortion)?

Anyway, I know this is a pretty vague question and may be hard to answer. However, the songs I'm playing so far are all over the board within the rock spectrum, so I'm not asking how to sound like a certain band or a certain song. Instead, I'm just curious if there's a better way to start?

Thanks in advance!


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Post subject: Re: New guy looking for his tone
Posted: Wed Nov 20, 2013 6:16 pm
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LouisvilleNoob wrote:
... is there a better technique to fine tune your sound?


Practice.

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Post subject: Re: New guy looking for his tone
Posted: Wed Nov 20, 2013 6:29 pm
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I find these two knobs indispensable for tone shaping......

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Post subject: Re: New guy looking for his tone
Posted: Wed Nov 20, 2013 8:07 pm
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Tone is always in the ear of the listener however the tone of the Blues Jr. suffers a number of ways. One is the size of the cabinet. Another is a mediocre speaker. To hear the difference a speaker can make check out the video. However even with a good speaker you may still want to get a bigger cabinet for it. The small cabinet restricts the Blues Junior to such an extent than a booming cottage industry has grown around trying to overcome it's shortcomings. With a better cabinet and a better speaker you may also want to look into some better tubes. Improving the sound of your amp will improve all of the various tones you plan to use regardless of what pedals or pickups you try. The other thing is to develop your hands. A significant portion of how you sounds comes from the way you touch the guitar. Frank's suggestion of practice, practice, practice is the only way you can work on improving your hands. That's the hard part and some would argue the most beneficial. The easy part is to upgrade your amp. All that requires is a little cash but it can make a difference.

With a Carl's cabinet you also have a couple of very interesting options for speaker size including a single 15 or two 10s.

Carl's Custom Cabinets


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Post subject: Re: New guy looking for his tone
Posted: Wed Nov 20, 2013 8:57 pm
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Now that was fascinating. Personally I much preferred the Celestions to anything else but I thought the base guitar sound for all the tests was pretty horrible!

And BMW, shouldn't you be building your partscaster instead of posting here?

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Post subject: Re: New guy looking for his tone
Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 12:51 am
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I'm still waiting on a couple of things. Sort of at a standstill for now.

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Post subject: Re: New guy looking for his tone
Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 1:27 am
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Hi LouisvilleNoob,

I started out this way: put your tone and volume knobs all the way up on your guitar and start with your bridge pickup (the selector flicked all the way towards the bridge-end of the guitar). Then with your amp, set your bass, mids, treble, and gain to 12 o'clock or 5/10. Then, from this point play with each parameter to hear the differences when you turn up/down the bass and so forth with the rest. I can't quite remember who said this, but this method of tone-searching is akin to cooking--where you add a little salt here, a little pepper there, a little less spice here, etc. Once you find a couple of sounds you like this way, experiment with different pickup positions and different values on your guitar's volume and tone knobs. Hope this helps!


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Post subject: Re: New guy looking for his tone
Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 1:30 am
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GilgaFrank wrote:
LouisvilleNoob wrote:
... is there a better technique to fine tune your sound?


Practice.


+1K !!

I doubt anyone ever simply fiddled with a couple knobs and shouted 'Voila'... there's my sound. If they did, it's not their sound at all since anyone else using the same settings can duplicate it.

The greats sound like themselves, their style and their sound is distinct. You can identify them in just a few bars of hearing them play (even a recording you never heard before).

I've heard several truly proficient guitarists who can replicate the sound of a Hendrix, Clapton or Page with great accuracy. But they always sound like somebody else because they took a 'Monkey Hear - Monkey Do' approach rather than allow their own sound to develop.

It's a process, a journey, not some 'microwave for 30 seconds on High' recipe.

There's only one way to travel this journey and that is to Play, Play, Play and Play. Then, one day, your brain will shout: 'Voila !!'

cheers!

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Post subject: Re: New guy looking for his tone
Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 5:16 am
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LouisvilleNoob wrote:
...settings for bass, treble, mids, reverb, gain and a fat switch on my Blues Jr...


Hi LouisvilleNoob,

Start by setting the BJr Bass to 5, Mid to 3, Treble to 6, Reverb to 1. When ready to play, put the Strat tone controls to 10, adjust volume as desired, then adjust tone as desired (using the amp settings described below).

For cleaner sound from the BJr, put the Master to 12, and turn the Volume to the desired listening level, it will stay very clean up to around 3 or so. For distortion, put the Volume at 12, and turn up the Master to the desired listening level.

When using the BJr set for distortion as described above, turn the volume down on the guitar to clean up the sound a little. Use your distortion pedal with the BJr clean settings to switch from clean to distortion with the pedal. Add Reverb to taste, and the Fat switch as desired for beefier tone. You might have to adjust the Bass a bit depending on whether or not you use the Fat switch. The Fat can be switched with a single button pedal, plugging into the Fat switch jack located next to the speaker jack.

You should be able to cover a lot of different sounds using the settings described here.

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Post subject: Re: New guy looking for his tone
Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 6:54 am
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The secrete to finding your real tone is very simple. Play what your feeling. Let your emotions guide your fingers and hands.


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Post subject: Re: New guy looking for his tone
Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 6:55 am
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Hope you're on good terms with your neighbors. In today's world of tone, the end result often as not demands some head room, which is why they titled the movie "It Might Be Loud"! :wink:

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Post subject: Re: New guy looking for his tone
Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 7:49 am
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shimmilou wrote:
LouisvilleNoob wrote:
...settings for bass, treble, mids, reverb, gain and a fat switch on my Blues Jr...


Hi LouisvilleNoob,

Start by setting the BJr Bass to 5, Mid to 3, Treble to 6, Reverb to 1. When ready to play, put the Strat tone controls to 10, adjust volume as desired, then adjust tone as desired (using the amp settings described below).

For cleaner sound from the BJr, put the Master to 12, and turn the Volume to the desired listening level, it will stay very clean up to around 3 or so. For distortion, put the Volume at 12, and turn up the Master to the desired listening level.

When using the BJr set for distortion as described above, turn the volume down on the guitar to clean up the sound a little. Use your distortion pedal with the BJr clean settings to switch from clean to distortion with the pedal. Add Reverb to taste, and the Fat switch as desired for beefier tone. You might have to adjust the Bass a bit depending on whether or not you use the Fat switch. The Fat can be switched with a single button pedal, plugging into the Fat switch jack located next to the speaker jack.

You should be able to cover a lot of different sounds using the settings described here.



Thank you so much. Your feedback and that from the other poster are exactly what I was looking for. I understand that tone is a journey and not a destination, and I have no problem experimenting along the way. However, I want to make sure I'm going about it the right way. Like a lot of you I'm sure, I'm very ADD/OCD with things so I'm just trying to do the best I can.

Not to muddy the waters any further, but any thoughts on effects pedals that work well with my Strat/BJR combo? I play all rock, albeit from different genres. I have a Boss DS1 which IMO gives a great distortion tone and is not as heavy on the overdrive (if that makes sense). Overall I like the tone it gives me. If I have once complaint it's that I don't get much crunch from it and sometimes the distortion is fuzzier than I'd like ... probably user error. Anyway, I'm still in the phase of wanting to experiment, but I also don't want to send my family into bankruptcy in the process. Just curious if you all have had luck with pedals that are more "universal"?


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Post subject: Re: New guy looking for his tone
Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 8:17 am
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Something I suggest often, with respect to questions of this sort is as follows: Go to the Premier Guitar website's archives and search for the three part series of articles on 'The Psychology of Tone'. It's a must read for questors.

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Post subject: Re: New guy looking for his tone
Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 3:28 pm
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LouisvilleNoob wrote:
...Like a lot of you I'm sure, I'm very ADD/OCD ....any thoughts on effects pedals that work well with my Strat/BJR combo?...


I agree with the "less is more" philosophy. So, when dialing in tone for example, if you want more bass, turn the treble down instead of turning up the bass, etc.

A pedal that is almost always a hit with nearly any amp, and keeping with your self description, pick up an "OCD". I have used an OCD many times, with my BJr and other amps, and it is just plain cool. The OCD, with dials used in their mid-range, will give your sound that little extra "umph" without changing the tone dramatically. The BJr will take just about any pedal that you want to use, and I'm sure that others here have their favorites that they might suggest.

For a tremendous amount of effects variety and amp simulations, try a POD, maybe something from an XT up to an HD 500. The POD can help most any amp sound very close to every sound from AC/DC to ZZ Top. In fact, my POD XT is the only effect that I currently own, and I use OPP when traveling (Other People's Pedals :lol: ).

These days though, I prefer guitar and amp with no effects, and the BJr and a Strat make for a great combination (see my avatar :D ). I bought my BJr for just that purpose, grab and go traveling light and lean. I am not a pro, I just play for fun, but I feel like a pro when I jam with those that are. Everyone that has heard it, without exception, compliments the sound of my BJr, and the sound I get when using friends BJrs. 8)

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