Iāve never been one to āchase tone.ā Very early on my guitar journey when all I had was my single-coil strat-type, I fiddled around with the settings my small practice amp (Fender Champion 20 modeling amp) until I got a tone I was happy with, and havenāt touched it since.
As Iāve mentioned, I recently bought a PRS SE Hollowbody Standard. I absolutely loved how it sounded when I was trying guitars at the shop. But, when I played it through my amp, I was disappointed. It was incredibly loud and harsh. If I backed off the volume knob on the guitar, it just sounded thin and harsh. If I left the guitar volume knob up and backed off the volume on the amp, it was a little better, but I was still unhappy.
Since Iāve never been a tone chaser, I was befuddled about this issue. Then I had a thought. Could it be that the humbucker pickups on the PRS are much āhotterā than the single-coils on my Zelinsky, and what I need to adjust isnāt volume, but gain?
I jumped up, turned on the amp, backed the gain down by about half, plugged in the PRS, and bingo, there was the sound I loved in the store!
Now, to many of you, this might be a āno kiddingā moment, but for me it was huge! And maybe someone else can learn from my ādiscovery.ā
Iām not really into tone chasing, but I do have a ballpark of what I want. I could sorta get close with my Fender champion amp (I had the 40) but all the knob turning in the world would only let me dance around what I wanted. It was never quite there.
I did manage to get what I was after with a Fender Blues Jr. IV amp. It has way fewer knobs and settings and the sound has a depth that the Champ could never quite get.
Thatās supposed to be a wonderful amp, but it has no headphone jack, and I only play through headphones so as not to drive my wife nuts, and with the cost, Iād be wasting its potential.
I thought about the Champion 50XL because of the 12" Celestion speaker (like the Blues Junior) but never did anything about it, and now itās discontinued.
I thought Iād use the headphone and aux jack on my champion but I didnāt end up doing so. One thing I like about the Blues Jr. is that I have finer control over the volume at lower levels. So even though Iām playing without headphones, itās not a big deal. Itās also super responsive to how hard I play the guitar. Moreso than my champion was. So if I play the guitar soft, the amp is quiet without needing to touch the volume knobs. Granted, it would still be too much if I lived in an apartment.
And if I really want to use headphones, I have options. I can plug into my Focusrite AI. Or I can use the little portable NUX amp I bought awhile ago. That little NUX amp is handy. I can take it to an acoustic guitar jam and the volume doesnāt overpower everybody else. Or I have the option to take my electric guitar on road trips. What it lacks in tone it makes up for with its portability.
I do, all the time. I have a Bluetooth dongle in the aux port so I can connect my laptop to play along with songs on YouTube, and I always use headphones.
Anyway, the breakthrough for me was realizing that humbuckers need a lot less gain dialed in to sound good because theyāre higher output than the single coils. Thatās probably old news to many of the community members, but it had to dawn on me. I now know the gain setting for each of my electric guitars.
I have made a couple of presets for the POD; in particular I like the sound of the modelled Fender Princeton and Matchless DC30. However my best move was to add a simple and inexpensive 6-band Joyo equalizer which I use every time Iām not perfectly satisfied with the sound I get, for instance when changing guitars or turning on a mod effect (some audibly interfere with the EQ). So, in my very humble opinion using an external equalizer is a great solution to the sound problems.
All my recent recordings were made using this setup.
I think Iāve been full circle on this journey at least twice already! My amp is a Fender Mustang GTX with all of the amps and pedals built in but for the most part now I pick one of the clean amp models and use one of just a few physical pedals that I have on my pedal board instead.
Iām certainly not knocking multi fx units and the likeā¦ theyāre a very convenient and (mostly) cost effective way of trying a range of different sounds but there does come a point when you need to stop tweaking and actually play! Being realistic, my playing isnāt good enough for it to matter whether any particular setting is at 9.5 vs 9.4 or even 9.0
I fully agree with this and, I suspect, most people who use these units end up with just 2 or 3 patches they use all the time.
And I donāt think thereās any wrong with that: just because thereās dozen of amp models and effects in the unit, thereās no reason you have to always use them all.
I think thatās different than buying an amp with a cabinet and speaker, and then bypassing it. IMO you would be better off with something like a Boss IR-2.
With multifx systems , I would encourage people to explore all of the amp options at least once so they know what is available. I see this as part of developing the 2 or 3 tones you end up using.
And I would recommend people build their own patches to understand how guitar amps work, rather than blindly downloading pre-built patches from a cloud service, or using the factory presets. Doing this will also get you closer to the tones you like.
But, yes, I would expect most people to end up with just 2 or 3 tones. On most of my multifx system, I have a single go-to patch I use 95% of the time.
Way to go Mark!
Glad youāve found your sweet spot!
Iāve found volume controls to be most important as to the tones I want to get too. There seems to be much power of control of tone in just them 2 knobs.
As for your headphone only use. imho, your missing out on some good tones that listening through the amp speaker will yield that headphones just canāt do. For me, thereās much difference in when I have to use headphones vs when I can play live.
If this helps people, they are not Justinās well-behaved students
That said, I donāt even get 5% out of my amplifier and pedals of what I could do with themā¦ too much āfussā and Iām the only one listeningā¦ when I play in front of or in the presence of my wife it is even softer than normal and then such a vox tube amplifier does not achieve clory at all
Nice for you to find it out with such a nice guitar
A sorry Mark for the confusion ( it was meant to be with a big wink)
And now It wouldnāt surprise me if this is not in grade 1 or 2 but in the āexploreā of the site I think now , I started doing this in the beginning and it seems to me as if this is taught in the beginning by Justin ā¦ amp settings and volume buttons on the guitar and so onā¦
Not sure if Iām a tone chaserā¦ but tone/timbre is literally the thing that makes our guitars sound like they do. Itās tone that separates C on a piano from C on an acoustic from C on a Gibson SG with a Marshall stack. Itās worth exploring.
Having a decent modeller with speaker & headphones will allow you to explore tone cheaply and easily. You wouldnāt use all the settings but youād find ones you like.
Iām quite happy now with the sound of my new PRS. Gain on 7 for single-coil, on 4 for the humbuckers gives me a sound Iām happy with on both without changing anything else when I go back and forth between the two guitars. And I play the acoustic with a Fender Acoustasonic 40 amp, so Iām all set now.
So much to choose from and so many dials to play with. I recently got a fender stratocaster with a small amp. Between the guitar and amp, I have a gazillion possible settings to try out. One thing for sure, a setting that works on one song may not work on another. Different tones for different songs basically. I think anyway.
