A crash course in getting the sound of a guitarist you love. Not in depth and not for the advanced guitarist. This covers how to get most of the way there with gain, pickup and guitar choice. Link to part 2 - • Guitar and Amp, How to...
I have been playing guitar for 50+ years and whether you're a beginner, intermediate or professional good information is always valid. I think you explained it very well.
@@rodnyg7952 completely agree. This vid is beginner stuff for people who are a way off being able to. But yeah personally I wouldn't take the time beyond what I've done in this vid to try and sound like others
The component that affects tone the absolute most, even more than the guitar and pickups, is the speaker. It’s just that barely anyone ever gets to do a comparison between different speakers, so no one realizes.
You want to sound like another guitarist simple. Learn their licks and learn them phrase by phrase, every little accent of that guitarists language. A lot of people say they play cover songs note for note and... They don't. Being close isn't enough. Once you have that part down dialing in a tone is easy...
Great discussion, and I love that you focussed on the basics of what is a subjective black hole. 100% agree on starting with getting the gain right and working with your pickups and volume. The only thing I'd add is that you can sound good with any gear, one just needs to be prepared to invest the time it takes to experiment with and learn the nuances of said gear.
Absolutely right 👍. And the other thing obviously is you are only as good as your fingers let you be. Guys like Angus and Hendrix require a certain way of hitting the strings.
Personally the best thing I ever did gear wise after years of tone hunting and doing alot of wild stuff... I got rid of nearly all my amps and guitars, then .. I got both a Fender and a Marshall flavor SANSAMPS, a Nashville S-S-S Tele, and few really good pedals (Xotic EP boost, Klon Clone - Soul Food, TC Electronics Plethora, Xotic Super Clean, Clyde Wha, and a Fuzz Face. With that combination I can consistently get great tone across multiple genres. I no longer have any desire to get any new gear and am in a VERY happy place. I favor classic rock, R&B, and texas blues type tones mind you. Highly, highly, recommend sansamps - I actually prefer them over real tube amps. And speakers you are outputting to matter GREATLY - very often that is all that is missing.
I'm jamming a bugera V5 with a couple modifications. This tiny awesome amp makes any other guitar sound just like mine. Hint hint. Look up the 2 simple modifications. Simple stuff
You're right that most of the musicians don't use as much distortion as many people believe. Having a good clean sound is important and color that with edge of breakup is how it's done. Metal not included.
1 thing most ppl dont think about is the sound board eq makes, or whether the signal went through any outboard gear like compressors or preamps etc, not to mention the sound layering adds as well as the sound the tape machine adds, the eqing during mixing and mastering etc. Ppl waste so much time and money on buying crap chasing a tone that they couldve gotten years ago, they just dont know or realize how the tone is shaped not to mention to anyone whos never recorded, an amp tone that sounds amazing in the room to you may sound like shit or not fit in with the band or recording. Its all a piece of the puzzle, get close with using the right guitar/pickups and amp and the most important part CAB/IR. In my experience, which is high gain, cabs make the most drastic differences.
Yep, you're spot on. Even live the sound guy will EQ it, and then you have the room shape etc. The artist themselves don't entirely ever sound the same as the record. I think what most people are thinking of when they want the basic sound is gain and pickup choice.
To be fair, people ask questions like "how to sound like ____ " because they're beginners and need somewhere to start. A lot of answers online are just snobby wankers "tone is in the fingers", "just Marshall into Les Paul", or talk like they crank 100W heads at home on the regular lol. The right way to effectively relay this kind of information is truly to separately discuss preamp/power gain, EQ, delay, reverb characteristics of a certain tone with specific parameters. I'm a very visual person so when I first started, what finally unlocked my understanding of tone shaping is getting a graphic EQ pedal
@@jonlewis63 I started with the Boss GE-7 and turned up +15 dB one frequency at a time and got a better reference point to understand what i was hearing. THEN the usual B/M/T EQ knobs also became much more usable to my ears.
@@andreasfetzer7559 No dude... You can only manipulate so much with your fingers. No amount of aggressive attack will push a Fender amp into plexiland... nor does any degree consistent picking provide the same sustain a compressor does, etc... It's not a helpful advice for people learning tone shaping. People ask questions like that because they want to know how the signal chain can be manipulated and what results come of it. Understanding the physics of the gear (pickups, amp, speakers) gets you most of the way there and technique provides the rest of differentiation.
The only thing you'll be missing is the power amp gain in that situation. You can still get a great sound, just without the oomph that a cranked power amp ads
All I can says is this: I have a Marshal 50w Super Lead which is I think earlier than 1978 'cos I bought it in Jan 1980 and it was pretty beat up then, lol, but it has only two jack inputs, one marked "high" and one marked "low". I have also lost only one of the knob covers over the years, not three like yours has. Other than that it's identical. The thing sounds incredible but I haven't heard it for maybe 10 years. To get it to sound right it's just too bloody loud. I got a Kemper around then, later an Axe-fx III which is much better and knocks the spots off the Kemper. Cubase and my monitors love my Axe-fx. One day my daughter will maybe sell my super lead for a small fortune after I get round to getting it properly ship shape and Bristol fashion before I croak. As if 🙃. Yeah, I get folk playing old covers want to chase original tones but to me there only three rules: 1. The only thing that really matters in rock 'n roll is the singer and the song. 2. The tone minutiae of the guitars (or any other instruments) in any song is close to irrelevant. All that matters is how well and sympathetically the parts are played and most importantly how well the song is sung. 3. If you think you've got the right amount of gain (or delay, reverb, chorus etc) you've got at least twice as much as you need. Every single guitar part of every classic rock record you've ever heard outside outright metal stuff and overblown leads is actually somewhere between virtually clean and edge of breakup even if if it doesn't sound like that on the record. Halve everything answering to the description of "gain" and "effect" FTW.
yep, you're right. Personally I'm not a chaser of other peoples tones. If I was doing a cover gig I would just have a good clean and a good drive and yep, the singer matters sooo much more. There are those out there though who love to try and get as close as they can and good luck to em.
@@nedludd3641 I'm assuming boost acts like a boost pedal, which increases the volume of the signal going in which will drive the tubes harder and create distortion. Couldn't say for sure without seeing your amp. Have a fiddle and see what it does
I disagree. EQ is the BIGGEST factor IF you use processors. If you use ONLY an amp and no pedals or processors yes you can do a lot more with the gains. Very few people these days use only a tube amp. I use an old crate g 600 head I got in a good will store for $34, a Peavy tx 810 bass cab I rewired after my last gig playing bass before I got hurt at work and a Digitech RP 500. The EQ in that unit alone is the best thing I have ever used and its so easy to recreate anyones sound with any guitar and any pick up. I also think by experimenting and finding other players tones and signature sounds you have a broader understanding OF SOUND and therefore makes it easy to dial in what you hear as your own sound in your head at any given moment. Finally using a processor you only need step on a switch and you have easily changed your sound perfectly without having to stop playing or fiddle with the amp. Over all this video is a pretty good example how to use only an amp but it also highlights the setbacks in sound shape. So you have shown both sides of the coin in a good and helpful manor. Well done sir.
Much appreciated, and thanks for your input! Very helpful and hopefully people read it. The video is actually just aimed at tube amps, I probably could have made that clearer. Yeah the processors are a whole other world too.
@@RizHallowes Oh its obvious you were talking just tube amps to me. It is just this day and age specially younger people are not going for the big stacks like us old dudes did back in the 70's and 80's. I do miss my 100 watt Marshall Plexi with the pre amp mod I had back in 83-86 when I was on board Nimitz. I got in trouble a few times for cranking it up loud enough submarines with our task group could hear it.
@@borgonianevolution haha, yeah I couldn't imagine surviving without my attenuator. Yeah there is definitely a lot to cover out there with the processors. I might have to sell a few of my 20 odd amps to get one 😆
@@RizHallowes Be sure to test them out before making a decision. So many people hype up a lot of stuff for sponsors or because they are trying to get one. The most important section isnt the modeling or amp / cab sims. Anyone can toss a recorded copy of crap and name it something. Its how well you can manipulate them is what makes a great processor or a polished 💩 with some super star endorsement.
So the guys in a cover band when you play you go from one song to the next you don’t have time to make adjustments to your amp. Like hold on mates let me adjust the EQ on my amp for the next song? 😆 maybe have time to switch guitars? yeah I don’t know the purpose of this video, bro! Just tell the guy to get a quad cortex or Helix or something.
@@RizHallowes I hear you man props to you for making the video. But we’ve all been in cover bands, and our amp settings pretty much stay the same from one song to the next. We get those tones from pedals not amp settings. Anyway, cheers.
@@ThomasBN4G Absolutely, I am exactly the same. I would get one close enough tone and go for it. This video is more for those who are new to it all and really want to get close. For me, a Marshall on 6 will cover pretty much the lot 😇
Fingers and speakers are 80% the rest American or British amp & les Paul or strat & yes obviously best to try to find ur tone then to copy cause well 🤔 & Marshall EQ pretty useless!
"Hey I can teach you how to get any sound you want! 🤓 First step ☝️: go to the nearest store and spend $20K on a Gibson Les Paul and a '78 Marshall Super Lead"
A $500 import guitar (or less used) with two humbuckers and a fixed bridge plus a $1,000 used quality tube amp will be just as good. If I'm wrong... then replace your pickups and change your speakers to different ones that you like.... then you'll find that I'm right. Oh you want a boost pedal and an overdrive too. BD-2 Blues Driver for a little extra edge on the chords and a SD-1 Super Overdrive for leads if you are on a budget. Got an effects loop? Buy a delay pedal too. DONE! Go practice!!!
