Tone: More Gain/ Less Gain
Cosmin Lupu
Jul 5 2011, 08:39 PM
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Because the Mozart Rocks! gig is coming, I was working on a crunchy tone with enough gain to help me 'tie' notes but clean enough so it should respond accurately to finger picking and such techniques.

Because of this, I got an idea to ask if you guys like working with the gain so that you may be able to get the best out of your lead tone, or you just crank it up to 10 so the walls are coming down biggrin.gif?

Do you find it difficult to control a tone with less gain?

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This post has been edited by Cosmin Lupu: Jul 5 2011, 08:40 PM
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SirJamsalot
Jul 5 2011, 09:12 PM
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QUOTE (Cosmin Lupu @ Jul 5 2011, 12:39 PM) *
Because the Mozart Rocks! gig is coming, I was working on a crunchy tone with enough gain to help me 'tie' notes but clean enough so it should respond accurately to finger picking and such techniques.

Because of this, I got an idea to ask if you guys like working with the gain so that you may be able to get the best out of your lead tone, or you just crank it up to 10 so the walls are coming down biggrin.gif?

Do you find it difficult to control a tone with less gain?


Crank it to 11 - lean hard on the neck pickup, add a little reverb / delay to taste and hold no prisoners! That's coming from someone who loves the organic sound of a tube amplifier pushed hard though smile.gif

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Gabriel Leopardi
Jul 6 2011, 06:25 AM
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I prefer to set the amp in 7 and add a compressor/sustainer. I used the Route 66 Comp and it really worked for this. I could get a clean sound with a lot of sustain.

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Bluesberry
Jul 6 2011, 06:29 AM
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QUOTE (Cosmin Lupu @ Jul 5 2011, 10:39 PM) *
Do you find it difficult to control a tone with less gain?

I find it difficult to control the tone with more gain. biggrin.gif Low gain helps me bring out the dynamics in playing, especially with fingerpicking.

Tho I like to play with gain knob at 10 too, especially the shred stuff. It's easier to make the guitar really scream if you've got loads of gain. Though everything depends on the type of music I'm playing... with (neo)classical stuff it's good to have a high-gain tone. smile.gif

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Cosmin Lupu
Jul 6 2011, 11:36 AM
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QUOTE (Kristian Hyvarinen @ Jul 6 2011, 05:29 AM) *
I find it difficult to control the tone with more gain. biggrin.gif Low gain helps me bring out the dynamics in playing, especially with fingerpicking.

Tho I like to play with gain knob at 10 too, especially the shred stuff. It's easier to make the guitar really scream if you've got loads of gain. Though everything depends on the type of music I'm playing... with (neo)classical stuff it's good to have a high-gain tone. smile.gif


The sides are equal from what I've encountered till now biggrin.gif

Well, there are people who feel very good when using a high gain tone, because they have the certainty of being able to play fluidly and thus, this feeling makes them play surprisingly clean and with a huge dose of attitude.

And then, there's the other side, those who are very aware of the sensibilities of a guitar tone and can play around with their instrument a lot because they master it in every aspect. For them, too much gain only makes things dirtier than needed.

I know a lot from both categories biggrin.gif i tend to lean towards both, depending on the context smile.gif

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noztnac
Jul 6 2011, 12:09 PM
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QUOTE (Kristian Hyvarinen @ Jul 6 2011, 05:29 AM) *
I find it difficult to control the tone with more gain. biggrin.gif Low gain helps me bring out the dynamics in playing, especially with fingerpicking.

Tho I like to play with gain knob at 10 too, especially the shred stuff. It's easier to make the guitar really scream if you've got loads of gain. Though everything depends on the type of music I'm playing... with (neo)classical stuff it's good to have a high-gain tone. smile.gif


I'm not sure I agree with that. The best Yngwie tone was when he was with Alcatrazz and that is much lower gain than he uses these days. George Bellas also plays with fairly low gain. For neoclassical stuff I think it is important to hear notes distinctly from each other. Too much gain at high speeds and the scales turn into a mushy blur.

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Bluesberry
Jul 6 2011, 12:34 PM
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A good point and I don't really disagree - though I do think that it's important to shred with so good a muting, legato and picking technique that the notes are distinct and clear no matter how much gain there was - if it's a blur, I'd rather lower the speed. But not that I disagree.

I'm also not sure about what we mean with low or high gain, by low I mean a level of distortion which is almost clean if not picked hard. By high I mean a sound such as Yngwie's or Mr. Lavendell's in his Neoclassical lessons. smile.gif

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Ben Higgins
Jul 6 2011, 01:27 PM
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I think a good measure for lead guitar and gain would be to have as much gain as you need to allow yourself to do what you want but no more. Any excess frequncies and noise are just that: excess..

However, for rhythm playing.. I kind of like the over the top, tear your face off approach that Metallica had on the Ride The Lightning album.. distgustingly distorted !! biggrin.gif

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Bluesberry
Jul 6 2011, 01:55 PM
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QUOTE (Ben Higgins @ Jul 6 2011, 03:27 PM) *
I think a good measure for lead guitar and gain would be to have as much gain as you need to allow yourself to do what you want but no more. Any excess frequncies and noise are just that: excess..

This is an excellent point - though I'd like to point out a handy method to bring out hi-gain sounds even if most of the song was played with less distortion - the volume knob of your guitar. I myself use it a lot, and even though I have noticed that no matter how low I turn the knob, with high gain the tone tends to get a bit muddier, it is nevertheless a very useful tool to achieve both the effects of high and low gain. smile.gif

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This post has been edited by Kristian Hyvarinen: Jul 6 2011, 01:56 PM
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Ivan Milenkovic
Jul 6 2011, 08:45 PM
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I tend to use volume knob a lot, and it depends on the song. For super clean, there is footswitch, but if a whole song is on overdrive, I tend to lower down volume when on verse, higher up on chorus and solos and so. Thing of routine.

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