SG John
Ambassador of Cool Guitars and Amps.
This past Friday night, we had a birthday bash for the bass player I normally play with. He turned 50, and we had a fun jam with some of his other musician friends I had never met before. As were jamming, some different discussions came and went as we were playing. Since it was a surprise party, his wife did not tell me to bring my guitar. But she did mention it to one of the other guys it would be OK to bring one. I wish I brought some stuff along to make it more fun.
As we were playing, and swapping gear, the only amp we could use was my '64 Fender Bandmaster that I was storing there. I had all my Marshall, Hiwatt, and DST stuff at my house because we haven't been playing much. It was soon after that Tom actually made reference to my playing style as opposed to the other guy's. He is from a slightly different camp regarding controls as I am, as I'm slightly older (and it seems to be a thing where younger players don't seem to use volume knobs on guitars. I could be wrong). His guitar volume was immediately set to ten, then he tweek'd my amp to get it where he liked it. When I played it (it was a Mex. Fender Strat with various Duncan Humbuckers with inconsistent height adjustments), I rolled the volume down to seven, and made all the adjustments to the amp as I liked it. I got the best sounds out of the neck pick up.
So as we were playing, My friend Tom kept mentioning to his friend about how I always use my controls, and I'm more of a "finesse" player looking for the right sounds for songs. I was happy to hear that he noticed I do that, and that he was emphasizing that to his friend. I know that for me, it was a direct result of always playing in a three piece original band, and having to always provide very colorful palettes to make the songs work. As I was later thinking about it, I was also thinking about how different discussions around the forums float about different sounds, tones, changing pickups, capacitors, tubes, tone stack capacitors, and other stuff.
As I was thinking of that stuff, I was wondering how other people attack their initial frame of reference. I was taught in the late seventies that you set the guitar volume about 6-7 on the neck pickup, and the tone about 8-9. Then you get the amp at the volume you like. After you bring each amp tone pot to where you have that noticeable hump in the sound. After that, you fine tune the amp's tone pots a bit. Once you've done that, you have a smokin' guitar sound, that you can roll up the volume and get some bite. You can also roll back to five, and not lose any power but clean the sound up real nice. When you flick the selector switch to the neck pickup, you get a nice, nasty bite to it.
Is that still a common frame of reference for players? I often hear of no one ever taking their guitar volume off of 10. Also, more people are reliant on pedals, or modules or other modeling type stuff.
So, as a fun point of discussion, where are you in the spectrum? What is your starting point? I know there are a couple of guys here in the same frame of mind as me. I'd also like to know how other folks are setting up their volume and tone stages from the guitar to the amp, pre-pedal wise to reach Nirvana.
As we were playing, and swapping gear, the only amp we could use was my '64 Fender Bandmaster that I was storing there. I had all my Marshall, Hiwatt, and DST stuff at my house because we haven't been playing much. It was soon after that Tom actually made reference to my playing style as opposed to the other guy's. He is from a slightly different camp regarding controls as I am, as I'm slightly older (and it seems to be a thing where younger players don't seem to use volume knobs on guitars. I could be wrong). His guitar volume was immediately set to ten, then he tweek'd my amp to get it where he liked it. When I played it (it was a Mex. Fender Strat with various Duncan Humbuckers with inconsistent height adjustments), I rolled the volume down to seven, and made all the adjustments to the amp as I liked it. I got the best sounds out of the neck pick up.
So as we were playing, My friend Tom kept mentioning to his friend about how I always use my controls, and I'm more of a "finesse" player looking for the right sounds for songs. I was happy to hear that he noticed I do that, and that he was emphasizing that to his friend. I know that for me, it was a direct result of always playing in a three piece original band, and having to always provide very colorful palettes to make the songs work. As I was later thinking about it, I was also thinking about how different discussions around the forums float about different sounds, tones, changing pickups, capacitors, tubes, tone stack capacitors, and other stuff.
As I was thinking of that stuff, I was wondering how other people attack their initial frame of reference. I was taught in the late seventies that you set the guitar volume about 6-7 on the neck pickup, and the tone about 8-9. Then you get the amp at the volume you like. After you bring each amp tone pot to where you have that noticeable hump in the sound. After that, you fine tune the amp's tone pots a bit. Once you've done that, you have a smokin' guitar sound, that you can roll up the volume and get some bite. You can also roll back to five, and not lose any power but clean the sound up real nice. When you flick the selector switch to the neck pickup, you get a nice, nasty bite to it.
Is that still a common frame of reference for players? I often hear of no one ever taking their guitar volume off of 10. Also, more people are reliant on pedals, or modules or other modeling type stuff.
So, as a fun point of discussion, where are you in the spectrum? What is your starting point? I know there are a couple of guys here in the same frame of mind as me. I'd also like to know how other folks are setting up their volume and tone stages from the guitar to the amp, pre-pedal wise to reach Nirvana.
