How to find your lead guitar tone

For Lead guitarists it is all about three things… tone, tone, and tone

There are three hardware choice to achieving a great tone. depending on the scenario

• Amplifier
• Studio modelers
• Pedals

Pedal Tone

We all love watching the pedal show on YouTube presented by the guys at Andertons music (who I can recommend in the UK). I wonder, are they are selling pedals or perhaps they are selling dreams?

However, such is the nature of the beast that what you hear on your TV speakers is only indicative of what the pedal sounds like. You can only ever use their deliberations to pre-vet your choices.

Never, ever, buy a pedal without actually playing it

Pedals come in two basic flavours

• Multi – multiple effects - that are mostly adequate
• Dedicated – one effect only - that is usually, but not necessarily, superior

Advice for buying a guitar pedal

Ideally audition a pedal with your own guitar and your own amplifier - that's the only way to get an accurate idea of what it sounds like.

There's a radio show called Desert Island Discs where celebrities choose which 10 records that they would take with them if they were stranded on a desert island. What about a version for guitarists? Which pedal would you take? Leave a comment below.

Note: No two guitarists would agree on the same list of pedals - that should tell you something!

My choice of desert island pedal is easy because my philosophy is KISS (keep it simple stupid). I only need one pedal, an Over Drive pedal.

An Over Drive pedal simply punches you through the mix when you solo. It’s not just level (volume) most of them add an (adjustable) degree of tone, perhaps a smidge of compression. The one I use is a Strymon Sunset. It was coincidentally the most expensive one in the shop but as I concentrate all my tone in this one pedal, I thought it was worth the investment.

Yes, I need a reverb, but I don't need a pedal for that. For live work I have reverb built-in to my amp that is more than adequate. For studio work I have excellent digital reverb in my DAW’s recording software (Cubase).

Here's another piece of extremely important advice - never buy an amplifier that doesn't have reverb built in

The general rule of buying pedals is that the more you spend the better they sound. Some guitarists spend thousands on rack-mounted effect's but unless you have just taken the lead guitar slot from David Gilmour in Pink Floyd that is overkill.

My observation of multi pedals is that none of them do everything but all of them have one sound that's the others don't.

So why do I believe you do not need $1000 pedal board? Well, I bought them also you don't need to. Most of them get used so infrequently they can be discarded.

There are awesome pedals with great sounds when you play them with no other instruments. Unless you are in a band that features you so prominently, they either won't get used or they are so subtle they get lost in the mix.

My general rule of spending more is better has exceptions. I have a Digitech pedal that I bought for £70 over 10 years ago which has everything I beginner could once and a couple of sounds that I value.

Studio Tone

You can mike up your amplifier in the studio and recreate your live sound, but mostly I record in a bedroom in my house so that is not very practical.

I prefer to D.I. (Direct Inject) into my DAW interface. I appreciate that terminology deserves a bit of an explanation, but it is beyond the scope of this blog post. Suffice it to say my guitar is plugged straight into my recording software in my PC.

There are usually virtual instruments built in to you're recording software, but they are usually rubbish. To get the tone that I like there is another piece of third party software. I use the go-to software found in all reputable studios worldwide called Scuffham S-Gear. I stress that they have not sponsored me, and I parted with my own money for S-gear - and what a good investment it was.

This approach in the studio is superior to miking up your amp because you are stuck with just that one sound. With Direct injection and S-gear you can change the tone later by applying a different pre-set and remixing.

Here's a track using their pre-set

Live Tone

Valve amps are best, they give the warmest tone – and are louder than their digital counterparts rated at the same watts.

Don’t bother with ‘modelling’ amps or amps with multiple effects built in. All you need is reverb, and a separate control to dive the pre-amp.

You just need a really clean sound, but if the amp’s overdriven tone is good, all the better.

Jeff Beck once said…

I don’t understand why some people will only accept a guitar if it has an instantly recognizable guitar sound. Finding ways to use the same guitar people have been using for 50 years to make sounds that no one has heard before is truly what gets me off.

Conclusion

To get a great tone use pedals, leverage amplifier tone, or use software in your DAW.