I am trying to play all the small things by blinkā¦ The gear: Schecter C1, MXR EVH 5150 overdrive pedal. I use the classic rock settings for the gain on this pedal without the boost. set the guitar volume to 10. Set some tone (not so important) as justin guitar recommends.
I see the palm mutting section does not āchuggā unless classic rock gain with max volumeā¦ But then, the riff and the non palm muted strums sound like shit (muddied). I am concerned that the strums are muddiedā¦ Could this be some guitar problem or something else? (This is an used purchaseā¦ I verified tuning and string heigh on it)ā¦ It does not buzz when not adding the switch gain or if volume is lower.
I am confused what is the fixā¦ Justin Guitar recommends max volume and the classical rock setting on the pedal recommended setting is used as MXR recommends.
I guess I could try fiddling more with the gain and the guitar volumeā¦ but suggestions are welcome to save me the visit to the shop.
I remember that itās not easy to dial the tone for this song. I doubt that a setup will make a huge difference for that song. I remember trying many tones and it was giving similar results as you are describing in your second paragraph.
Do you have no āchuggā at all with the palm mutting or some quiet āchuggā with the not muddy tone? If no āchuggā at all, then, try moving your hand position closer to the bridge and apply less pression. And strum harder.
If your āchuggā is quiet, itās most likely normal as itās hard to exactly emulate the tone without the same exact gears as Blink-182. As a reference for āquietā, you could check this AVYP of mine. The āchuggā is there, but itās definitely not thick like the original recording.
I watched @math07ās video and see that the song is pretty much all power chords with a couple muted strums.
I do not think there is anything odd about your guitar. Having the guitar volume at 10 is probably ok, but play with it a little after you try the other things below. I set up for distortion at a guitar volume about 7 or 8 so I have room to move the knob to fine-tune the intensity of the distortion. āSet up for distortionā meaning that I set the amp so it sounds like I want with the guitar at that volume level.
I think your āfixā is likely to be string muting control. A distorted amp setting will sound terribly noisy with more than 1 or 2 notes played at once. You want to make sure your are not strumming more than the three fretted strings, or at least muting the strings not played. Basically, the more distortion, the more noisy additional notes will make the sound. There are exceptions, but this is a good general rule.
By ānotesā, I am counting by lettered note, not individual strings. For instance, a chord with A,C,E (three notes) in it will sound noisy where A,E,A-harmonic (two notes) will sound good.
You can check your sound by simply hitting one chord and see if it sounds right. If not, then see if you have other strings rining out other than the root, 5th, and harmonic of the root (power chord using three strings).
The chugg sound is the distorted muted strum. Adding or removing distortion will increase or lighten the chug sound.
Hi math07, very cool video. It might be that I need to use the thicker pick (1.55mm) and hit harder. I tried various palm mute pressures and positions. The pedal is wierd basically, gain at 10 oāclock is default for classic rock (called overdrive)ā¦ 1 oāoclock gain setting is called classic distortion. These are all good pointsā¦ I will fiddle with the settings some more. I do not get any close to the chug that you are getting unless my gain is upā¦ but I will try some of the suggestions and let you know.
Also, your Shecter guitar may have really hot humbucker pickups / high output pickup. Itās perfect for rock like Blink-182, and some people even play metal with them.
The same preset classic rock would probably feel a lot different on my single coil Strat with low output pickup. So, it may makes sense why you may need to play with the settings on gain and volume on the guitar and the pedal. Maybe the classic rock setting with volume/gain to 7-8 on your guitar will give similar result as my Strat with volume at 10.
What is your OD pedal plugged into? Do you have an amp? Are you using an amp sim?
Itās possible you may need to adjust the height of your pickups. If they are too far away from the strings then you might not be sending enough signal to the pedal to get it to distort.
The sound that you get is highly dependent on the interaction between the Guitar, the OD pedal, and whatever else is in the signal chain.
It is plugged into orange ampā¦ I tried looking at the pickup height (5 mm ā 6mm EMG 85 pickups). I was afraid to put it lower since some people said that it can messup pretty bad when you change itā¦ So I dropped like this output pedal volume at 6 with gain at 10am also tried 1pm. Guitar volume was 8-7 guitar tone was maximum. Orange amp volume was 3am. No settings but clean channel on orange amp.
There was a sweeter spot where it was better to both chug and strumā¦ as I setup above with 7-9 volume on guitarā¦ However, it was still to muddied (albeit better) for strumming (power chord) section. Ironically, if I put it directly through dirty amp channel bypassing the switch with gain on amp around 1 to 3 pmā¦ it gets way cleaner than with the switch involvedā¦ still not very good.
Would raising the emg pickups help? Also, Guitar action is 2.55 mm on 12 lower E. which is standard. I do not have problems with this guitar when not using distortion and then the strumming does not buzz.
So the main problem I am still getting now with both direct amp and pedal is that while it chugs correctly for the palm muttingā¦ I feel that the power chord distorting is still way off and that the specific strums still have muddiness and some extra distortion zzz that should not be there. I did use the sound gate on the switch/pedal as recommended in their settings but did not help. Lowering the output volume of amp helpsā¦ but that would be more like masking the problem.
Also to clarify on pedal: classic rock gain setting == gain 10am, classical distortion === gain 1pm. The āclassicrockā setting is not a knob but the recommendation in the pedal manual. Where it shows how to set up all knobs. I generally also use a bit more bass/treble and drop a bit the mids for rock/punk sounds.
can you post a recording here? It will help to hear what you are dissatisfied with. If it is a video, we can see what your hands are doing.
Also, stop trying to change the guitar. I read that you bought it used, but unless it is obviously really out of spec, action wonāt change anything. For reference my guitars are between 2.2mm and 2.4mm on fret 12, string 6. I like them a bit low, so your 2.55 is just fine.
Your pickups are fine. You mention that you get a good chug.
Tone knobs wonāt likely make much difference.
The recording will be the fastest way to get more than guesses from this forum.
I agree with @sequences It sounds like you have everything set up fine and thereās no need to be making any changes to your pickups.
Playing with distortion can be tricky.
For one, everything that adds gain (or volume) in the signal chain is going to increase the amount of distortion you hear from your amp. Starting with how hard you hit the strings (and how many strings you hit) to the volume knob on your guitar to the gain and volume on your OD pedal to the gain volume on your amp (plus any other things that you might have in your signal chain. You will keep making some tweaks to all of these as you get closer to the sound that you want.
The other thing about playing with distortion is that it is usually accomplished by adding gain to the signal chain which is going to magnify any imperfections in your playing. If you hit too many strings or if you are not muting effectively, distorted tones can sound really bad. Try work on muting strings with your fretting hand to limit unwanted noise. Also, keep working on palm muting with your strumming/picking hand to get that āchuggingā sound youāre looking for. I know that it seems like a lot right now, but it will get better with time and you wonāt have to think about muting at all.
Try here (The chugging seems fineā¦ more like the strumming part it has problem, here doing 553 and 331 non palmuted part of riff ) (look how much muddier it is for me compared to the other cover above):
also jumpshare /IgSPjrOtCoHulv7CNH3J?b=1UKBtSKjxln2i5YkVRai link limit is 2ā¦
some setting screenshotā¦ only changed the gain know between 10am and 1pmā¦
You want to hold your picking hand over the bridge for the muting. lift it a slight amount to get a clear ring. touch it back down to get your chug. Move it forward and backward along the strings to change the amount of muting. Iāll make a video for you if I can it work properly before bed time.
Personally, I would turn down the treble, maybe to 9 oāclock or less. Reduce the bass to 12 and then turn up the mid to 1 or so. And maybe turn down the gain just to make it all a little bit easier to control.
I believe that the clip you are comparing yourself to was recorded directly from the amp digitally. This will give a totally different sound than your amp in the room or the recording youāve done via microphone in your room.
But the biggest thing you can do is to continue to work on muting with both your fretting and strumming hands. Playing with high gain is hard. At first. And then suddenly it all works. Keep at it and you will get it.
Here is a minimal example of what I was suggesting with the muting. this is just through a Helix LT with just the amp and a small amount of reverb. The other blocks are off. āMandarin Rockerā is an Orange Rockverb 100 model.
I also think I heard in your video, strings not held well enough by your fretting hand, but hard to tell without seeing it.
I had the guitar a little higher volume than I really intended but this should help with something to compare to. The higher volume makes it a bit harsh sounding.
Wait ā¦ no but the riff itself is not palm muted as evidenced in the tab (or at least what tab says). What I was doing was the part of the riff which is not palm mutedā¦ Am I also supposed to alt mute the riff? Or are the strums mostly muted when playing with distortion? I did not see it for the other guys that did the riff. Is it not the same as in accoustic?
The strings are well pressed. Without the gain it is strumming fine without buzz or muteā¦ I also ensured I am not pressing the other lower strings.
Hey rider I will try to cookup the tone a bit moreā¦ but at this point I might get it into shop if nothingā¦ Recorded using phone samsungā¦ not real instrument micā¦
True, but your palm and picking need to be set better. I have slid my palm across positions on the bridge to give you some idea of the way it changes the sound. Muting is based on the riff, so use āwhat you hearā I think is the easiest guide. My goal is to help you get familiar with how to make a variety of sounds, then you use the one that sounds right for the job.
I mute a strum if needed. I think I let it ring and muted so you could hear. Note that I have E,A,D strings ringing and the G,B,e muted.
Note how my picking hand was not floating above the guitar like yours. I also had a more firm grip on my pick. That grip was not hold it in place, but to get a solid, aggressive pluck on the strings.
You need to mute these. I do it with my first finger for the E or A power chord which I play single-finger. For anything else, I tend to play it 2-finger where finger 3 or 4 is muting the adjacent string, and finger 1 is again muting the other two.
If you do not mute these, there will be several cases where you get āsympathetic ringingā. This is strong when the open string is a harmonic (even multiple) of a fretted note you are playing. It will be weak when a harmonic of the open string is also a harmonic of the played note or at least very close in pitch. This is also a part of your extra noise! Sympathetic ringing is worst when you are playing a harmonic of an open string, for instance playing an E on string 4 and leaving the open E unmuted.
Also, @Rider2040ās thought to reduce the gain a bit is probably a good one. It will clean the harshness you are hearing and let you get your hands figured out a little easier. I have also found that most distortion on songs is not as heavily set as I originally thought. If in doubt, lighten the gain a bit and it will probably sound closer to what you are trying to get.
Sorry - I canāt really help with electric guitar tone and pedal stuff, but that song sounds like so much fun to play - now Iāll have to learn this too
Andā¦ Joe, somehow I can play the other videos, but on yours, I only see the static image and an animated loading circle that never ends loadingā¦
That video service didnāt deliver anything I could watch directly either. I needed to download it and play from there. I remember a button or pull-down somewhere in the tab that let me do that.
