I love all types of music,but I find at times the guitars I have sound a bit too bright. I have a squire sonic mustang and a Yamaha Pacifica 120. I have tried different settings on my guitars and amp but still donāt get the deep rich tone Iām looking for, Iām thinking of getting the Epiphone SG standard 61,does anyone have any thoughts.
Hi Donald,
Iām not really an expert regarding tweaking an amp, however I would first look at modifying the sound via your amp. I assume your guitars have single coil pickups, ist that correct? If so, it still should be possible to get a āthickerā sound out of these. In order to see what options your amp will give you, what specific kind of amp/model are you using?
Hi Donald,
When you mention a deep rich tone, what exactly do you have in mind? Is it the sound of a specific model of guitar or the guitar part in a song / songs?
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Donald, seeking out new gear for the sound we are striving after has a common name ā¦ GAS.
And it can be an expensive enjoyable hobby for some who collect guitars. An expensive futile chase after the impossible for others.
Or somewhere in between.
Your Sonic Mustang ā¦ is it HH (two humbuckers) or SS (two single coils)?
Your Pacifica has a humbucker in the bridge and two single coils. They are very versatile at getting a range of tones.
What amp is it?
Brightness can be tempered by using various parameters.
Turn the tone setting down on your guitar. And your amp.
Choose a neck or neck + other pickup setting instead of the bridge pickup.
An SG has two humbuckers and can take you to a different place tonally but until / unless you know how to use the volume / control and various dials on your amp you may not get what you want from one of those either.
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The sonic has two single coil pickupās itās not the HH,my amp is the fender LT 25. I have just been doing some practice and decided to explore the Yamaha settings a bit more. I had been using it forgetting to adjust the tone control, however since I adjusted it and switch between the different pickupās I have found the tones are sounding better and not too sharp,so no need to buy another guitar.
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I canāt really explain it,I like the deeper bass sounds without it being a bass guitar if you know what I mean. Instead of the sharp sounds,I have just been practicing and I have discovered a setting that sounds better to me. I had been using my guitar without really adjusting to tone control, only adjusting it on my amp but since I have explored the settings on the Yamaha a bit more,I have found a tone I prefer.
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Hi Donald,
Getting tone is one of the things to learn how to do. A new pice of gear is not usually the answer unless you know your current gear well. Finding out HOW to get your tone is not something that is easily covered with videos because not only is gear such a varied collection, but so is the opinions of āgoodā.
The Pacifica 120 you have has HB pickups in bridge and neck with push-pull splits (@Richard_close2u , I had to look it up 
). You should be able to get the tone you want out of the guitar. I donāt think you have mentioned the amp you have. You should be able to get a pleasant clean sound with either the neck only or the neck+bridge. Sometimes I find the neck-only to be a little muddy sounding.
My SG is the brightest guitar I have. I have had to tame it with turning down the guitar a little and the amp a little. My ear also took some time to get used to this one and I needed to work with it until I knew how to manage the sound - both guitar and amp. This does take time to learn and effort to just fiddle around. I enjoy that when my mind is too tired to practice properly.
What I suggest (without knowing much about your amp or what sound you are really hearing that you want to reduce) would be the following:
- Take note of your impression of your tone when you first sit down to play/practice. Fiddle with your amp settings AFTER your practice, just before stopping for a few hours. This will give your ear time to normalize after your fiddling.
- if you donāt have a known setting you already tuned into to, then if your amp has models, find one that is kind of close to what you want to hear. If you do not have models, then you will want to start with a distortion level appropriate for the thing you want to practice - at this point in your lessons, these are all pretty clean (little nor no crunch). Start with tone knobs at mid position and work from there. Iād set the guitar volume around 70% for now, then set up the amp around that volume level. Guitar tone can start mid as well.
- You may want to play with your split coils a bit at this point. I tended to prefer HB mode on my SG until I got more familiar with my gear. I suggest picking the mode you like and then leaving that for much later in your experimentation. I think split HB donāt tend to sound significantly different until your ear gets some experience.
- Avoid changing too much. This applies to both rotating the knobs too far and for changing all of them at the same time.
- Donāt work on it too long. Your ear will get to where you donāt really know what is an improvement. When you hit this condition, you have worked at it too long. You want to make incremental adjustment until your ear and mind are trained to get you there fast.
other stuff:
- I have had several days where I massaged in a tone over too much time at once and came back to it the following day wondering why I thought it was good. See what you can tolerate, for me it is maybe 10-15 minutes until my ear stops hearing the differences it does when I am fresh.
- You may find that guitar tone has a slow response for a bit, then moves very quickly. Be aware of this and donāt over-adjust in the fast moving area. Play a chord, adjust a little, play a chord, adjust a little, etc. to find that tone edge.
- If you can, turn the up volume up a bit and see if that changes what you hear. I know that some things I want to play just need the volume up a bit over talking level to sound right.
- If you sometimes use headphones, then expect those to sound different than the amp speaker. I now know what to change to adjust for using my headphones - it just took time working with the gear and is a part of learning to play.
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Hi I have been experimenting with the different settings on the Yamaha, the one thing I had always over looked was the tone control on the guitar. I was always adjusting the tone control on the fender LT 25 amp but overlooked the guitar,I have now tried different settings between the pickups and THE guitar tone control and found the type of tone I like. I feel really stupid overlooking something right next to my hand.
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Very easily, and very, very commonly done.
Have fun exploring your newly discovered tones.
Cheers,
Keith
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Hereās a thread with some Community opinions on the importance of guitars on tone
I still believe itās mainly in the āpost-pickupā dept. 
I recently read an interview with Joe Bonamassa. He was asked if he could only have one guitar, what would it be? He said that, surprisingly, since heās most known for playing Les Pauls, if he could only have one guitar it would be a strat, because it was the most versatile, and he could dial in pretty much any sound he wanted.
Hi I have a fender Mustang Lt 25 itās pretty cool I can connect it to my laptop and make my own tone settings, even though thereās over 60 already pre-set. I am thinking of buying the valeton GP 200 to give me even more options,the valeton has drum backing effects so I think my practice sessions will be getting longer.