This is actually how I learned to play right out of the gate. My uncle was my first guitar hero and teacher. He gave me a very small amp and said it would only sound good if it was turned almost all the way up. Basically he said every amp has it's sweet spot and once you find it set it there and use your guitar and your picking for everything after that. He also said if I didn't want my Mom constantly yelling at me to turn it down, I better learn to play soft and learn to play actual songs.
I am a complete newbie/beginner...5 months into my journey. I hated they way I sounded...kinda like 2 cats fighting in a tin can. Guitar all the way up and amp turned WAY down (turned up amp = really mad wife). So I tried this today during my practice routine...turn the guitar down a bit, play softly but with the amp turned up pretty loud...what a HUGE difference in tone! THANKS RHETT and TIM...wow!
62 years young, and emersing myself in the L.A. music scene since the early 70's, Rhett and Tim Pierce still school me every time I watch their videos. You're both a blessing to me. As you said Rhett. What a free goldmine of knowledge from amazing guitar masters like you and Tim. Kurtiss L. (CJ)
Same sort of concept: I used to hate the boss DS-1 pedal, but I figured out if I turn my strat volume down to about 7, then turn the level up on the pedal. You can achieve a clean tone with light picking, then a heavier dist on hard strumming. Good stuff!
Vintage DS-1: $250+ on eBay. New DS-1, exact same design: $55 on Amazon That said: while your post is not off target, there’s significant difference between pedal distortion and tube amp drive. There’s just nothing like a tube amp cranked up.
@@Gk2003m either way it's still the same idea, though. It's basically just leaving yourself some headroom to play with. You don't get as much dynamics when *everything* is already cranked. Yes, even with solid state distortion pedals and amps, no tubes at all in the whole chain, you can have that "clean to dirty sweep" and get a heavy, rich, saturated tone a lot easier than most people realize. Almost everyone starts dialing in their rig with the guitar's volume and tone maxed, and they've got nowhere to go from there, and then they spend yearrrrrrrs buying different amps and overdrives and boosts to get that little extra.
never been good at that whole picking softly on high volumes thing. What I've often found though is that having the volume of the guitar at like 5 or something instead of at 10 and then turning up the master volume of the amp really helps to get a bigger feeling sound without actually being much louder. there's a lot of "tone" often trapped in that master knob when it's set to bedroom levels at about 2-3 with a dimed pre amp.
@@gibfen1235 all of his videos have misleading titles & he rarely says anything profound in any of them, but they're usually quite entertaining anyways! This is Not meant to be disrespectful
The reason why is because you lose Bass and Resonance when the master is turned down. While it is true that tone is defined in the preamp, It's power and projection is the master. In other words the true force of your EQ is in the Master.
You also have the capability to give yourself a boost and/or some extra grit with just a little pinky roll. Almost all guitarists start dialing in their amp with the instrument's volume (and tone) maxed... and they've got nowhere to go from there. Then they spend the next 20 years buying four hundred different boost and overdrive pedals... 🤣
Tim is 100% on this! There is a very colorful dynamic range and bloom to turning your amp up and the guitar volume down, something ive noticed by chance but never into philosophy!
Rhett, I appreciate you taking your time to pay forward to us parlor players what Tim Pierce has shared with you. I try to incorporate what you, Tim, Rick Beato and others put out there for us. Thank you for the effort you make to spread the wealth to all of us who love making music. God Bless...
Something helpful I learned from owning guitars with single coils in the bridge (Les Paul Jr, Telecaster, etc) is that the volume and tone knobs have their own sweet spots when you play with high gain/distortion. Having your amp in its sweet spot is great for how it reacts to your playing, but not every guitar's pickups sound the best at full blast.
Its crazy that you're sharing this a day after I noticed this myself....entirely on accident. I bought a Greer 5E3 a while back and its just a MASSIVE 15 watts, and I love the way a Tweed Deluxe style amp sounds when its in that big bloomy sweet spot, but its just too damn loud to play in the house, so I started messing around with touch and the guitars volume knob a lot more, and it's crazy how much more harmonic content comes through those speakers when you understand this idea. Its like....I see it has having a 500 horsepower engine in your car...but youre not going to just floor it all the damn time right? When you finesse that gas pedal (touch dynamics) you have all the get-up-and-go you could ever need, just by controlling your dynamic. Dig in, and get big, or keep it soft and enjoy the feeling you're creating. Jimmy Page NAILS this concept on songs like "Since I've Been Loving You", for a killer example. Great video Rhett!
@@RiggsTaylor of course it's fun to lean into it! But sometimes it's just as much fun to take a slow and sweet ride man! Time and place for everything.
Wow, that's what scares me about buying a new tube amp. I'm currently running an orange crush 20 rt and it is PLENTY loud. The one amp I've been drawn towards is the PRS MT15. I live in maryland and I am a PRS fanboy and have met Paul (great man) and been to the factory. Here's one thing that draws me off the amp. Its not 15 watts!! Its more of a 30 watt amp because they basically put the Archon in a lunchbox head. I was watching I think a Philip McKnight video and he went to the factory and was talking with some amp builders and they were saying in maybe 30-45 minutes they could make the amp go from 15 to 50 watts. Its a beast of an amp and has crazy amounts of distortion. Plus it has a great clean channel. Personally if they put a reverb in it I would've gotten it last year. I am looking at a sonzera as well, those look fairly good. I just need an all around amp that can do jazz to djent and everything in between.
Some amps are now coming out with two “volume knobs” so you can overpower the amp but control the volume output so you can still get that sound without the volume turned all the way up. I’m pretty sure the boss katana is one of the first to do this but I could be wrong.
As someone with a healthy dose of disdain for the tone of pedals for any distortion, favoring instead the natural clipping of the tube amp exclusively, I finally understand how to use them together with (not instead of) the amp. That tubby bottom end breakup of cleanish tones is no longer a challenge. Pristine clean and searing overdrive were always my strength, middle ground my weakness. Thanks to great people like Rhett and Tim a whole new world of delicious tone is now at my fingertips.
The format of this video is fantastic. The interview with TP balances perfectly with your comments / hands-on. Please do more of these. "Finding your tone" is a great subject.
I think that the muting the strings tip is soooo important. When I'm playing lazy I usually am not muting very well and I sound like crap. Just putting in a little bit of effort to mute strings while playing does so much to make you sound professional!
Rhett man, I came across your videos via brother Rick Beato. I have been playing guitar and pedal steel for 37 and 20 years respectively would you believe I have never tried what you and Tim are talking about here? Crazy! Your videos are extremely high quality and inspiring, and you sound really great on the instrument. Thank you for sharing what you know - I am gonna try it on a session later this week. Look forward to hearing how it works on steel as well as 6 string!
I’ve been doing this for a while almost by accident, as I have a fairly loud valve amp in an apartment block. I realised recently that I do exactly what Tim described, and I do often receive good comments on my tone (this does not necessarily apply to my talent level lol). It became very evident when I had a friend over, handed him my guitar without changing any settings, and he almost blew the windows out on his first chord and lead notes - he plays smaller amps, hard, in a detached house and doesn’t have to worry about volume. Tone not as fat though. Great video Rhett.
I’ve heard about this concept for years but never really understood the “calculus” of it. You and Tim are an incredible pair. Thanks for this one. Amazing stuff!
Great video! It's a shame that more people don't know this concept. I play an Esquire straight into a Carr Rambler cranked to 10 and simply use my guitar's controls and my playing dynamics to get everything I need. I may not turn my guitar volume to 10 for an entire gig, but that power and extra gain is there when I need it. I find that I get the same effects mentioned by Tim when I roll back or play softly, but I still have that extra power in reserve.
In my circle growing up a long time ago we all played big amps and no one ever talked about this stuff. Young players today are so lucky to have this channel.
Short Comment: I thought I knew a secret! ...Long Comment: I got an Orange Rocker 32 and was looking for solutions to attenuate it due to living in an apartment and I went with the JHS Little Black Amp Box (which goes in the send and return) and it’s amazing! That combined with the upgrades to my Fender Jazzmaster (put V-Mod pickups in, changed the pots from 1meg to 250K, and a Mastery bridge) made me fall in love with my Jazzmaster and guitar in general all over again.
I was told when I was first starting out by my local guitar shop sage that all you need is a Princeton Reverb, volume, treble, and bass on 5 and learn right hand dynamics. A few years later I was able to pick one up and I’ll never go back.
Pretty much everything live from Jimi Hendrix is a master class on this subject. He'd have it right "on the edge" of distortion, and as a result, he'd get such amazing bell tones along with some serious punishing distortion depending entirely on his picking. That's where I learned about doing this, so it's nice to see it dissected more technically here.
YES! My Les Paul basically lives on 5 where I have the amp set to just a touch over break up. Go down to 3 for slight clean up, or up to 7 for some more crunch, and I still have room for more if needed.
I think this is all spot on. Something else to keep in mind is that when you play with softer dynamics, the signal out of the guitar changes substantially. Beyond the amp characteristics, which are obviously important, the signal out of the instrument is arguably more important. Add on top of that the interaction between the guitar and the amp, and it becomes obvious quickly how this becomes a whole new kind of instrument in the hands of a skilled player.
I particularly loved the fact precious information comes at reach for the beginner , being very friendly for those , and always useful even for experienced players. Coming from two of my favorite Artists is just the cherry on the cake. Keep always honest and upfront Rhett , thank you!
I set my rig with the idea of "amp volume up/guitar volume down." I typically will do it with an EQ pedal more than the guitar volume, so the loss of treble when lowering the guitar volume isn't an issue, and I can adjust it for different guitars with different output levels.
Flubbyness as a lot to do with the general EQ and Bass level. You might notice that at high volume the power amp distortion is tighter and the sound is more punchy with the bass knob set lower.
This is how I try to set up my amps, i didn't know that this was really a "thing" and always wondered how the guys with what I thought was great tone achieved it. You're right, the internet is a gold mine of guitar knowledge. Used to be if you wanted to know anything you'd either have to scour guitar mags or just know somebody that was an experienced player willing to give advice.
As a drummer who has been noodling aimlessly on guitar for the past 20 years, your channel has been a goldmine of information, inspiration, and direction. I've been watching your videos nonstop at work everyday and just can't wait to come home each night to dive into guitar and exploring my gear. I've also learned about some legendary and informative guitarist, namely Tim Pierce, through your channel. I cannot wait to live in a house where I am able to crank my Fender Deluxe amp and finding that sweet spot! Thank you for all the inspiration Rhett, I truly appreciate it!!!
Here's a fun fact. Some guy who knew Jimi Hendrix said to him, 'wanna try out my guitar and amp?' and Jimi starts getting all those classic Jimi tones and sounds out of this guy's set up, he asks him, how are you doing that?, Jimi says 'here, look' and he had the amp all the way up, and the volume knob on the guitar all the way down.
I read about this in an interview with a blues guitarist(who I can't remember) in Guitar Player magazine years ago. He said basically boost your amp and control your volume from the guitar. I tried it then, and just couldn't get it. This episode helped. Thanks.
For drop tuned metal we tend to run the power amp pretty low. We don't want any power amp breakup or anything like that. Usually I'll use the master to dial in cab resonance, if there is no resonance control.
I heard Jimi Hendrix did this all the time in the studio. Marshall plexi on 10, guitar volume on 2. This is why low wattage tube amps are selling like crazy, getting that sweet spot without blowing your ears out
Having only just acquired a tube amp in my later years I've started messing with my instrument controls. Watching this makes me want to dive further down that rabbit hole. Thanks so much for the inspiration.
I've said this many times, but tone is so important to getting really motivated to playing guitar. The sounds you get are really pivotal to moving people with music! Awesome work man!
I think this holds true the more experience you have. I find it difficult to get into any kind of zone playing in the bedroom now, it's just not the same.
Dude i've learned more from your videos than any other channel. Thanks for keeping it real and being a huge help to all the guys trying to up their guitar game!
While I don’t really think this is exactly anything “new”, it occurred to me that this was the kind of thing learned from other musician’s and that this was the first time I had seen someone put something like this online. Good job!
Very good, Rhett. This is how I have run my amps for over 40 years. An attenuator is also helpful for small performance spaces to just take the volume down a notch and keep everyone happy. My first attenuator was a Tom Scholtz power soak in 1982 for my 50 watt JCM 800 and Hiwatt Custom 50 DR505 (my favourite amp I've ever owned or played). I'm using a TwoNotes Reload for attenuation, nowadays. Very transparent. Crank that thang, Rhett....
what he calls the amp "falling apart" @ 12:47 is just what I call a beautiful blues burn. sticky and dripping. visions of a cowboy wandering the desert. and I love it.
N. J. Sonye I know and played some gigs with Elliott, and that info is correct. I always thought it was a small Fender amp just dimed but no. He had “that guitar” with him, a ‘62 or ‘63 Strat with a PAF humbucker in the neck position. He said he turned up the amp and worked the guitar volume to where he liked the sound. The SVT was the only amp avail- able at the time so he just went with it. Fun fact: That solo was the second take, with no edits. Apparently, they all felt the first one was even better (hard to imagine) but the engineer didn’t record that one. He thought it was just a run through. After that, Becker and Fagen had engineers record everything, just in case. Elliott is a master guitarist and a very sweet person, in case anyone cares about that stuff.
Larry Power yes , a friend of mine played some drums with Elliot a couple of years ago. He lives in London ( or did then) not that far from me. Always loved his playing , really wonderful 💫
Tim mentions Daniel Lanois as a key user of this technique - and he's right. Lanois gets killer tones and dynamics using this. If you've never heard Lanois, do yourself a favour and listen to his album Acadie as well as the 2014 Premier Guitar Rig Rundown in which Lanois goes into depth on his use of the loud amp, gentle picking technique both on pedal steel and regular guitar.
I have a little Kalamazoo Model 1 that was my very first amp purchased. It has been my go-to tone monster. It's the best $50 I ever spent on gear. That single EL84 in a class A circuit is warm and sweet everywhere and it loves to be set at 12:00 on both knobs (volume and tone/on-off) So many great recordings have been done with this type of amp and its AL-NI-CO speaker throws the theoretical 5-7 watts so hard at the back wall that I have gigged beside players with 50 watt Peavey tube amps. On stage I struggled to hear myself but at the back of the room it was my guitar that stood out. Magic. AND I can have it in the sweet spot without getting yelled at from a different floor! Power amps working in the golden zone just do magic.
Dude... love your vids. However, this is now the second ‘amp setting’ video you’ve done where you haven’t talked about where you are setting your guitar volumes and tone. If you are cranking up the volume on the amp, where are you setting your guitar? Are you backing it way off or are you only playing quieter? In my world I have 3 dials to play with, guitar volume, preamp volume, and master volume. Can you add / talk about the guitar volume and how it plays into this type of setting? Thanks for all you do. I am learning a ton, just want to lear a little more.
I always have guitar controls on 10, because if you don't have a treble bleed in your guitar, you're losing high end when turing down your guitar vol. If you have a treble bleed, just turn the guitar vol to 10, set the preamp to the maximum amount of gain you'll need for the song and set the master as high as you want it to be. Then you can use the guitar volume to control your gain.
@@patricksommer3971 The Treble Bleed. I think it's an underrated little electronic device. Gonna ask my Guitarbuilder to install one in my Custom Shop Fender Strat.
@@patricksommer3971 well, it's not a genuine Fender Custom Shop. That guy made the guitar using original Fender parts. Japanese Single Coils from the 90's, Tele neck and the rest new parts. The body treated with an aging process. I bought the beauty.
@@patricksommer3971 Yes. most passive guitar volume knobs will bleed some treble, but that's easily fixed with a voltmeter, a soldering iron and a custom resistor or two. Consult a qualified tech, though because the fix is different, depending on your axe's pickups and control circuit.
I started getting massive tone and this is just exploring the gear I have. (I collect pedals so that is a large contribution to a lot of my tone.) ‘84 Les Paul > Boss Katana 50 On a 1-10: • Gain at 2 • Master at 10 • Guitar at 10 • Pre amp is my volume. • MXR 10-Band at the end with same settings. Chain: Tuner > EHX Octavix > JHS Haunting Mids > Revv G3 > EarthQuaker Hoof > JHS Double Barrel > JHS 3 OD > Walrus Julia > TC Sky Surfer > MXR 10-EQ
This is the exact opposite approach that I use. I feel that attack is always fighting tone and body. I have an extremely heavy right hand(picking hand). I fight that by not cranking amp and playing lightly but by turning down the tone knob and playing heavy. The tone knob is a balancing act between tone and pick attack. That’s how I roll.
The result is more compression (via transformer and speaker EM link) and a little more gain (via output tubes). The same can be achieved by carefully adding clean OD and a light compression, if you require lower noise floor. Your method is easier to get, but the results can be identical if one knows what to do. It can even be achieved with some solid state amps, if OD and compressor is good enough. Thanks for the hint !
There is another factor not mentioned here, that I've experienced: playing relatively loud and with the guitar close to the speaker(s) cab, there is a controllable amount of feedback that generally increases sustain.
"Turning your amp up and turning your guitar down". Then the conversation instantly became about playing loud but gently. Then gain staging. I was expecting to hear something about Miller capacitance, the real reason to turn your amp up. ;-)
@@silvanolapenna2510 At 7:00, I was sure he was going to talk about the impedance curve of the speaker interacting with the gain of the power amp at different frequencies, making a touch responsive EQ curve...but no. Then later on he gets the gain staging backwards, you set the preamp gain BEFORE the master volume, so you know what kind of signal you're sending into the power amp. Still, they at least get some great guitar tones, even if they don't really understand how they've done it!
this guy has such great vibes and attitude . so positive ................ and its not fake or forced . really a pleasure to watch . he feels like watching townsends .
I'm a trombonist, not a guitarist, but I really enjoy playing with a guitarist who knows how to control their sound. It's a different discussion, but IMHO worth pointing out that there are times (although more rare for some than for others) when you want to go in the opposite direction: not much tone and a lot of articulation. The quintessential example would be a classic Freddie Green quarter-note pulse appropriate for some forms of jazz swing. That style is all about rhythmic placement in the pulse and articulation, and definitely not using a tone that may interfere with other instruments in the same register as where the guitar places their voicings. Playing with a guitarist who knows how to switch approaches where appropriate is just lovely.
@Nothing Noone Um no... We're not. Actually takes a hell of a lot more skill to play guitar then brass and woodwind. I know... I play both guitar and sax. And I accomplished what he was saying with my amp turned up, and mixed turned to living room volume. He's right. Big fat superb tone and no more room volume then I had before. You see... we're smart enough to do that, whereas you couldn't even imagine it being anything but LOUD. You just displayed a lack of vision, and lack respect for fellow musicians. Just in case you didn't know.... You Just Got Served. So go blow it out your trombone. Fucking troll. Why you even here? Just to be a dick? Mission accomplished, now crawl away simpleton.
I encountered a reverse situation a couple of years ago. A trumpet player sat in with our church band and did an excellent job of controlling his column and played very tastefully.
I've been a professional trombone and guitar player and honestly , guitar players in general don't get dynamics the way orchestral players do. Hopefully lots of people watch this video
@@Bigandrewm I know. You think tone is something it's not. You dont seem to know what tone is. Tone does not interfere with other instruments. Volume might, but tone does not. Every instrument has some kind of tone. If you put a band, or an orchestra together then you have to make sure all the instruments selected work together. And they will. Big Band music had it all. Arrowsmith used big band music in there tone filled hard rock and made one of there best songs ever. If you think a great guitar tone is responsible for interfering with other instruments I have to question if you even plan an instrument at all. Maybe you do, alone in the house, and just speculate everything else. I don't know, but you are so far off it's not even funny. Or maybe you should just tell your tech to turn the guitarist down on the mixer, or turn the rest up. Has nothing to do with tone.
My amp is designed off the circuit of an old Marshall JTM with the jumped channels. My guitar is a modded Ernie Ball Music Man Albert Lee Signature with very hot pups. I dime the volume and tone controls on my amp then back off my volume and tone in my guitar to between 3 and 6 (my guitar is equipped with an extremely effective treble bleed circuit, so it actually gets brighter when the volume is backed down). While playing within that threshold of signal output I play hard or soft to control how clean or overdriven my sound is. But here's my favorite part; when I'm digging in at around 5 or 6 on the volume the sound is classic/hard rock, with a nudge to full volume the sound turns straight up heavy metal: No pedal needed for boosts or heavy distortion.
I've witnessed James Burton up close do this with a Fender twin, full up, the rest controlled from the guitar, and man can he get a big tone out of a Tele!!!
Well I learned from stage sound technicians that we have to "awake speakers up" first and then start tuning the pre amp volume. I found quiurious in very stadium or indoors small gigs, that every time the sound gets started to make sound cheq they pump up the volume fully loud till almost crank the speakers. First I thought that it was by chance, or randomly missing control by someone liveing the volume up and then the technician turns it lower... BUT NOT. That is to "awake the speakers..." to "shake them" to make them fully vibrate and so then they can have a serious sound responding that will be like what we are going to hear during the show as everything that vibrates and makes sound gets hot as a human body doing gym. So what we have to do it's 1. turning GAIN and VOLUME up fully. 2. Strumming a full power chord. 3. Let it ring. 4. Start to look after which volume we find the amplifier sounds better. Hopefully I was clear. Cheers... Martin from Argentina by the way.
While some amps don't like it, over the years I've used a Peavey, a Fender and now a Mesa V combo and have always had the outputs (master volume) at or near max without issue. Re. pedals- To my ear, most pedals shrink the sound.
Excellent. The different characteristics of preamp distortion and power tube distortion is quite noticeable. So many high gain players use primarily buzzy preamp distortion. The ideal is a blend of both, with emphasis on power tubes. Rectifier tube brings sag/compression. A point you didn’t discuss, although I thoroughly understand why you focused on touch/pick attack, is the use of guitar volume. So much of what overdrive and distortion pedals do is emulate what used to be done with only touch, guitar volume, and having the amp dialed in as you discuss. Great topic.
This is helpful depending on the style of playing you do, example. You can’t get an aggressive tone if you don’t play aggressively and if you are after that effect playing rock or metal music then you need to have your amp set at a lower volume so it doesn’t flubb out on you and muddy everything up
When I watch an RS video, I feel like I’m just hanging out with my friend who is a really good guitar player. He is just humble and cool to be around. I hope that I really do get to meet Rhett someday.
WOW... best tip EVER I started this video 2 hours ago. I paused it to turn up my amp and see how it sounds. Holy shit! Never knew it could sound so good. 1985 Peavey backstage. Turned up to half way between 6 and 7. Piped through a Peavey 150 watt mixer in to a 4x12 stack and a bad monkey peddle. (Turned the bad monkey up some too.) Even with the mixer turned down to living room volume, since the backstage is turned up you still get big fat tone I didn't have before. This thing really sounds good. Can't wait to see what my other guitars produce now! 1.5 years in to it and now starting to sound like a guitarist...THANKS!
Honestly, this is great advice and all, but... man, your "anemic" tones sound so good to me, just sparkly and clean. I know it's not as full and rich as the wide-open sounds, I'm sure a lot of it is just my taste (and UA-cam compression). But to your point, even with the Line 6 Spider 3 amps my friends and I had growing up, we figured out there was a sweet spot in the volume, just a bit past halfway up, where the amps really opened up and came alive. We always said that was when VTEC kicked in.
My first amplifier was a little AC4 that had been on the line a year before i got it. I remember very distinctly my dad saying son, this is a tube amp, if you want gain play hard and turn ur guitar up, you want clean, turn your guitar down and play soft. I really do believe it's helped me develop a sense of dynamics early on
This way of playing with the touch sensitivity was always natural to me. I’ve always played that way and never thought about it. Funny thing one day I handed my guitar to my nephew who doesn’t know how to play. He stuck a not and immediately stopped. He looked at me and said damn I didn’t realize how light you were playing. I just started laughing, but Pete Thorn is who showed me how to dial in an amp. Thanks for all your great videos. I love your channel.
Wow, actually really impressed by this, turned the master volume up and ive now managed to dial in a tone i was looking for. running an overdrive pedal in the front of a clean tone really improves the head room and clarity especially with reverb. Thanks!!! keen for the live show on Oct 10th!
Since Tim talked about this years ago, i've been cranking every amp i've owned. My little mobile jamming set up right now is: Highway One Fender HSS or Charvel San Dimas to Boss OD-3 ( and other pedals) - into Old 70's Roland Cube ( The Orange One) 1976 2 x 12 Univox cab. Gain Cranked (9) and Master Volume between 6-8. AMAZING and PUNCHY TRANSITOR TONE for BIG ROCK! Yes it applies to Transistor amps too!! Rawk on!
When you can say, "I'm just gonna call up Tim Pierce," you know you're on the right track. Bravo, dude, and thanks for expanding on Tim's pointer. My neighbors will surely enjoy my explorations into my amp's sweet spot. 😂
Turning up the volume on a non-master-volume amp--the volume control is between the preamp and the power amp. So turning up the volume on a typical Fender or old Marshall doesn't push the preamp harder. Only when you add a pedal in front (like Tim was talking about--a clean or clean-ish boost) do you cook the preamp more. IOW, the preamp gain is fixed on these old amps.
One of the sources of harmonics is the speaker shaking the tubes. The three note "NBC Chime" was originally created by the radio broadcaster reaching over and tapping three of the preamp tubes with his pencil. Sound waves hitting the tube causes the interior components to vibrate , you get small changes in distance between the gate, emitter and collector plates. This creates secondary and tertiary resonances. Its why the tubes are close to the speaker and sideways to it (to catch the sound waves) You want to shake them hard enough to create resonances , but too hard creates distortion and a squealing type of sound. (You start hearing the glass tube ringing) So tube amps usually have a sweet spot that could make a banjo sound like a cello.
I suspect the tube tapping tone tale is an urban legend, but there's some truth in that microphonics were a big part of Jimi's sound."Getting the tubes to ring" was absolutely NOT an aim of early amp designers who were concerned with eliminating microphonic feedback, not encouraging it; even building the amp into a separate cab so it didn't have to be vibrated by the speakers, as in a combo.
'The three note "NBC Chime" was originally created by the radio broadcaster reaching over and tapping three of the preamp tubes with his pencil.' Urban legend - the original NBC chime was seven notes long and was most likely created using a small handheld chime.
Great stuff... Goes with the saying, "know your gear!" And "tone is in the hands!" Phil X shared relevant insights. He was in the studio struggling with the rig. The engineer made some gear suggestion and he said it was okay, he just needed to have a "talk with his hands."
Since most guitars lose a lot of dynamics when not set to 10 on the volume control, I'm thinking you should run the amp in the sweet spot, guitar on 10, and put a volume pedal in between to limit overall volume.
I learned a lot of this actually by watching all the old school guys play. Most only played 1 channel amps using the volume and tone controls to get what they wanted. I still play this way today
I've done this with my acoustic guitar setup for the last couple yrs. I use a small mixer and send the signal to F O H. Also use a BBE mini sonic stomp and a AKG wireless bug system. Very little guitar volume and use F O H sound . Guitar sounds like miked acoustic and I walk around. Been doing this in worship for a couple yrs now.
The first thing I thought of when you guys were talking about loud amp, but soft touch - Little Wing covered by SRV. You can hear him using that soft and hard touch to make the voice of his guitar sweet or fuzzy. This is one of my favorite things to do with single coil pickups through some low watt power amp. Crank it up!
For practicing, I find that anything more powerful than three watts is total overkill. Just get a Pignose, dime it, and use the knobs on your guitar to control the sound. Fifty watts and two twelves is okay for gigs, but for practicing it's like rabbit hunting with a howitzer.
Thank you for this reminder! I kind of always knew this but I have been stuck in a tone rut lately and after watching this I realised my amp was way to low causing anaemic tone. Cranked to the sweet spot and everything’s back on point. Cheers
@William Harvey I do work for *a* government, but I'm talking about the classic Orange OR120 from the early 70s. It has an almost fuzzed out overdrive. It's a perfect tone for stoner rock and doom metal. Tune low, play slow.
The best, single, easily seen, heard, and understood example of this that I always send people to is SRV playing Lenny, live at the el Mocambo. It's a masterclass in touch dynamic, as well as pickup selection and volume and tone knob usage. And it's easy to see and hear, so it makes understanding quite simple.
Absolutely agree with this. Stevie was really a master of this even though he's known for his ferocity. Another example is Riviera Paradise. I can't help but wonder what he would be playing in his sobriety and "maturity" if he hadn't tragically left us.
You and Tim Pierce are at the top of my all time guitarists that I take what you say as gospel. It's awesome to see both of you working together. I love our UA-cam Guitar community.
Thanks for putting those tips out there Rhet...Roger Mayer did a lot of tweeking to Jimi's gear but it was Jimi who when playing the bigger venues had all the speakers changed to bass spec for a wider dynamic to his sound. As Roger says....everything was at 10 then Jimi had sooooo much sustain and punch WHEN needed. I love the Rainbow Bridge album sound.
Absolutely true, but I feel however that in explaining this phenomena you omitted something that plays in my view an essential role in all this, and this is acoustical feedback. Tim Pierce hints at it, but the fact is at high volume the speaker is "exciting" the body of the guitar and that is what makes the note "bloom". Although I am a trained recordist mixer mastering engineer with some acoustical studies, I did plays guitar for many years and never forgot this incredible sensation playing as a student through a very loud amp : it was as the instruments between my hand had "come alive" and completely changed feel and sound. If you try this in a studio where you lockup your amp and listen through headphones, you will miss half the benefit. I think the Les Paul gets its reputation from the particular way it comes alive under those circumstances, with much of this acoustical/vibration feedback feeding the body of the note, where some other designs will rather boost some higher overtones. Anyway keep on the good work spreading knowledge and experience with great talent !
Tim's cabinets are in an isolation room in his garage below, and he generally plays though his in-ear monitors (which you saw him insert towards the end of this interview). Yes, it's a different sensation when you can feel the guitar in the room, for sure, but this isn't what Tim's experiencing. The acoustic feedback, btw, is a large part of Ted Nugent's tone -- go watch the Stranglehold live video on UA-cam, you see he actually spend a fair amount of time during the solo killing the feedback that naturally comes from his notorious stage levels (no one could ever figure out how he was able to play a Byrdland live without it howling the whole time).
This is great stuff. I would love to see a discussion of this extended to the modeler realm. For example, how does this translate to Helix (gains, channel volume master volume)? Would you consider a 'part two' of this for those of us who don't have the luxury of playing through physical tubes?
Loved this vid. For decades I played and set up my amps pretty as you guys demonstrated works best; sweet spot on the amp (yes, every amp has only one) and I varied the output of my guitar signal to the amp depending upon how I wanted it to sound. The only thing I did differently was that I used a very good volume pedal full time to vary the guitar’s output signal rather than varying the pressure of my right hand. I used pedals after the boosters for more distortion when I wanted it. I didn’t like pushing my amp too hard for the reasons you explained. Also, pushing amps too hard makes them get very hot and kills everything in them pretty quickly. Unless you’re a big rock star with the kind of money and/or free samples that goes with that, you want to preserve your equipment as much as possible. Recently, I found another way to get the sound you were demonstrating, but with any amp, no matter the wattage at virtually any volume from roaring to super quiet. I thought about just what is happening at the amp’s sweet spot and as it became clear to me I realized that all of that could be done with the subtle and intelligent use of good pedals. First, with my guitar’s volume and tone controls all the way up, I set the amp volume to just “on”, making a nice but anemic sound. Tone controls are set according to the guitar and what I want to sound like at the moment, usually pretty flat. Second, the guitar is first plugged into a compressor set at moderate compression maintaining good attack, which goes into a second compressor, also at moderate compression which re-compresses what comes from the first one (McGuinn told me about that trick). I use two different brands and types to obtain more harmonic content and to better control the total compression. This emulates the amp’s natural compression when it’s at its sweet spot but actually sounds better to me. Also, I can control just how much compression I want, which I can’t do with just the amp. Third, to emulate the amp's wide open pre-amp at its sweet spot it all goes into a booster set at a clean boost. I use a Xotic EP (Echoplex pre-amp clone) set moderately. That goes into a second booster, also set clean. For the second one, I use a Nocturne Atomic Brain (Space Echo preamp clone). If I want more harmonic distortion I can raise the gain on both or either of the boosters. It’s very versatile this way. By now the sound is very like the amp at its sweet spot. I control the overall volume and tone with a Tech 21 Q-Strip which can increase or attenuate the volume without altering the tone. The Q-Strip is, of course, also great for infinitely shaping the tone between enormous parameters. Additional distortion and effects down the chain (except for a Catalinbread Belle Epoch Deluxe just after the boosters) work just fine and I think all of the pedals actually sound better because they don’t have to compete with the amp’s turned-up pre-amp. Sorry I went on so long, but I want to share what I discovered with you and your viewers. Cheers, mate.
My idea of what makes a great tone, has nothing to do with a single universal great tone. There's so many tones I love from many guitarists. I always go for a tone that compliments my playing style. Not every tone works right for every type of music. I'm always messing with the knobs. I never leave my amp alone, but I always sound like myself.
Looks like I've been doing it right pretty much the whole time. Just nice to hear some affirmation. Once I was able to play through two good quality tube amps in stereo on a regular basis, my compressor pedal came off my main board, and I was able to fully bask in the gloriousness of saturated EL84s on the left and 6L6s on the right. Also Tim is so great. You can tell he's having so much fun everytime he plays. You both have such a love for the craft. Thanks for the great content!
I was literally about to write a comment about how Lanois does exactly this when Tim suddenly blurted out "Now Daniel Lanois was the king of doing this". Spot on.
This is actually how I learned to play right out of the gate. My uncle was my first guitar hero and teacher. He gave me a very small amp and said it would only sound good if it was turned almost all the way up. Basically he said every amp has it's sweet spot and once you find it set it there and use your guitar and your picking for everything after that. He also said if I didn't want my Mom constantly yelling at me to turn it down, I better learn to play soft and learn to play actual songs.
Smart uncle.
Unparalleled advice
Good stuff...... nails it.
Should have more likes
@@jayandgem what?
I am a complete newbie/beginner...5 months into my journey. I hated they way I sounded...kinda like 2 cats fighting in a tin can. Guitar all the way up and amp turned WAY down (turned up amp = really mad wife). So I tried this today during my practice routine...turn the guitar down a bit, play softly but with the amp turned up pretty loud...what a HUGE difference in tone! THANKS RHETT and TIM...wow!
62 years young, and emersing myself in the L.A. music scene since the early 70's, Rhett and Tim Pierce still school me every time I watch their videos. You're both a blessing to me. As you said Rhett. What a free goldmine of knowledge from amazing guitar masters like you and Tim.
Kurtiss L. (CJ)
Awesome post
10:55 Before; anemic tone
11:36 Output tubes dialed
11:55 Preamp tubes dialed
12:46 Output tubes excessively driven
Same sort of concept: I used to hate the boss DS-1 pedal, but I figured out if I turn my strat volume down to about 7, then turn the level up on the pedal. You can achieve a clean tone with light picking, then a heavier dist on hard strumming. Good stuff!
Vintage DS-1: $250+ on eBay. New DS-1, exact same design: $55 on Amazon
That said: while your post is not off target, there’s significant difference between pedal distortion and tube amp drive. There’s just nothing like a tube amp cranked up.
@@Gk2003m either way it's still the same idea, though. It's basically just leaving yourself some headroom to play with. You don't get as much dynamics when *everything* is already cranked. Yes, even with solid state distortion pedals and amps, no tubes at all in the whole chain, you can have that "clean to dirty sweep" and get a heavy, rich, saturated tone a lot easier than most people realize.
Almost everyone starts dialing in their rig with the guitar's volume and tone maxed, and they've got nowhere to go from there, and then they spend yearrrrrrrs buying different amps and overdrives and boosts to get that little extra.
@@dogslobbergardens-hv2wf I have both tube and SS amps. The principle does work on both, but the result on my tube amps is definitely ’richer’.
never been good at that whole picking softly on high volumes thing.
What I've often found though is that having the volume of the guitar at like 5 or something instead of at 10 and then turning up the master volume of the amp really helps to get a bigger feeling sound without actually being much louder.
there's a lot of "tone" often trapped in that master knob when it's set to bedroom levels at about 2-3 with a dimed pre amp.
This user comment is the one line answer to what this long and confusing video was supposed to be like. Emma, thanks for the simple clarification!
@@gibfen1235 all of his videos have misleading titles & he rarely says anything profound in any of them, but they're usually quite entertaining anyways!
This is Not meant to be disrespectful
The reason why is because you lose Bass and Resonance when the master is turned down. While it is true that tone is defined in the preamp, It's power and projection is the master. In other words the true force of your EQ is in the Master.
You also have the capability to give yourself a boost and/or some extra grit with just a little pinky roll. Almost all guitarists start dialing in their amp with the instrument's volume (and tone) maxed... and they've got nowhere to go from there.
Then they spend the next 20 years buying four hundred different boost and overdrive pedals... 🤣
I could never figure out why my sound was so lackluster. It almost doesn’t matter what you play when you don’t have good tone. This helped so much.
Mark Knofler does this flawlessly on Brothers in Arms.
Tim is 100% on this! There is a very colorful dynamic range and bloom to turning your amp up and the guitar volume down, something ive noticed by chance but never into philosophy!
Tim is a total class act. Wonderful stuff.
My recipe for perfect tone: Squier Bullet -> Boss Metalzone -> Katana 50 (any setting) -> slaved into a 68 Bassman
how the cavemen did it :)
@@brodyh2895 KISS: Keep It Simple, Shredder!
Ridiculous unless butterscratch
@@jacksolomon451 It's Ford Fiesta red :(
A bullet 😂
Rhett, I appreciate you taking your time to pay forward to us parlor players what Tim Pierce has shared with you. I try to incorporate what you, Tim, Rick Beato and others put out there for us. Thank you for the effort you make to spread the wealth to all of us who love making music. God Bless...
Something helpful I learned from owning guitars with single coils in the bridge (Les Paul Jr, Telecaster, etc) is that the volume and tone knobs have their own sweet spots when you play with high gain/distortion. Having your amp in its sweet spot is great for how it reacts to your playing, but not every guitar's pickups sound the best at full blast.
Tim Pierce!!!! Awesome. Thanks for following up and having Tim on. And keep up the great videos.
Its crazy that you're sharing this a day after I noticed this myself....entirely on accident. I bought a Greer 5E3 a while back and its just a MASSIVE 15 watts, and I love the way a Tweed Deluxe style amp sounds when its in that big bloomy sweet spot, but its just too damn loud to play in the house, so I started messing around with touch and the guitars volume knob a lot more, and it's crazy how much more harmonic content comes through those speakers when you understand this idea. Its like....I see it has having a 500 horsepower engine in your car...but youre not going to just floor it all the damn time right? When you finesse that gas pedal (touch dynamics) you have all the get-up-and-go you could ever need, just by controlling your dynamic. Dig in, and get big, or keep it soft and enjoy the feeling you're creating. Jimmy Page NAILS this concept on songs like "Since I've Been Loving You", for a killer example. Great video Rhett!
The horsepower analogy is great- well said!
@@RiggsTaylor of course it's fun to lean into it! But sometimes it's just as much fun to take a slow and sweet ride man! Time and place for everything.
I was actually reminded of Page while Rhett was demoing this idea.
Page is a genius.
Wow, that's what scares me about buying a new tube amp. I'm currently running an orange crush 20 rt and it is PLENTY loud. The one amp I've been drawn towards is the PRS MT15. I live in maryland and I am a PRS fanboy and have met Paul (great man) and been to the factory. Here's one thing that draws me off the amp. Its not 15 watts!! Its more of a 30 watt amp because they basically put the Archon in a lunchbox head. I was watching I think a Philip McKnight video and he went to the factory and was talking with some amp builders and they were saying in maybe 30-45 minutes they could make the amp go from 15 to 50 watts. Its a beast of an amp and has crazy amounts of distortion. Plus it has a great clean channel. Personally if they put a reverb in it I would've gotten it last year. I am looking at a sonzera as well, those look fairly good. I just need an all around amp that can do jazz to djent and everything in between.
5E3 amps are an instrument themselves. What an experience of an amp.
My neighbors are going to love me trying this out. :[]
My neighbours dont need to step up, my family will have already thrown me out before my neighbours get barely inconvenienced
ya i felt your pain plenty
Yeah, me too. Especially with my blues deluxe reissue
I love you trying it out
Some amps are now coming out with two “volume knobs” so you can overpower the amp but control the volume output so you can still get that sound without the volume turned all the way up. I’m pretty sure the boss katana is one of the first to do this but I could be wrong.
As someone with a healthy dose of disdain for the tone of pedals for any distortion, favoring instead the natural clipping of the tube amp exclusively, I finally understand how to use them together with (not instead of) the amp. That tubby bottom end breakup of cleanish tones is no longer a challenge. Pristine clean and searing overdrive were always my strength, middle ground my weakness. Thanks to great people like Rhett and Tim a whole new world of delicious tone is now at my fingertips.
The format of this video is fantastic. The interview with TP balances perfectly with your comments / hands-on.
Please do more of these. "Finding your tone" is a great subject.
I think that the muting the strings tip is soooo important. When I'm playing lazy I usually am not muting very well and I sound like crap. Just putting in a little bit of effort to mute strings while playing does so much to make you sound professional!
Rhett man, I came across your videos via brother Rick Beato. I have been playing guitar and pedal steel for 37 and 20 years respectively would you believe I have never tried what you and Tim are talking about here? Crazy! Your videos are extremely high quality and inspiring, and you sound really great on the instrument. Thank you for sharing what you know - I am gonna try it on a session later this week. Look forward to hearing how it works on steel as well as 6 string!
I’ve been doing this for a while almost by accident, as I have a fairly loud valve amp in an apartment block. I realised recently that I do exactly what Tim described, and I do often receive good comments on my tone (this does not necessarily apply to my talent level lol). It became very evident when I had a friend over, handed him my guitar without changing any settings, and he almost blew the windows out on his first chord and lead notes - he plays smaller amps, hard, in a detached house and doesn’t have to worry about volume. Tone not as fat though. Great video Rhett.
I’ve heard about this concept for years but never really understood the “calculus” of it. You and Tim are an incredible pair. Thanks for this one. Amazing stuff!
Great video! It's a shame that more people don't know this concept. I play an Esquire straight into a Carr Rambler cranked to 10 and simply use my guitar's controls and my playing dynamics to get everything I need. I may not turn my guitar volume to 10 for an entire gig, but that power and extra gain is there when I need it. I find that I get the same effects mentioned by Tim when I roll back or play softly, but I still have that extra power in reserve.
In my circle growing up a long time ago we all played big amps and no one ever talked about this stuff. Young players today are so lucky to have this channel.
Short Comment: I thought I knew a secret! ...Long Comment: I got an Orange Rocker 32 and was looking for solutions to attenuate it due to living in an apartment and I went with the JHS Little Black Amp Box (which goes in the send and return) and it’s amazing! That combined with the upgrades to my Fender Jazzmaster (put V-Mod pickups in, changed the pots from 1meg to 250K, and a Mastery bridge) made me fall in love with my Jazzmaster and guitar in general all over again.
I was told when I was first starting out by my local guitar shop sage that all you need is a Princeton Reverb, volume, treble, and bass on 5 and learn right hand dynamics. A few years later I was able to pick one up and I’ll never go back.
i want a princeton so bad, but i use a twin right now cause me and my friend play drums sooo loud
Pretty much everything live from Jimi Hendrix is a master class on this subject. He'd have it right "on the edge" of distortion, and as a result, he'd get such amazing bell tones along with some serious punishing distortion depending entirely on his picking. That's where I learned about doing this, so it's nice to see it dissected more technically here.
YES! My Les Paul basically lives on 5 where I have the amp set to just a touch over break up. Go down to 3 for slight clean up, or up to 7 for some more crunch, and I still have room for more if needed.
Tom Bukovac (Uncle Larry) talks about strumming softly and how he learnt thats how Angus Young achieves his massive sound
I love how you make me think about my playing in such subtle ways.
After every video I just pick my guitar up and find out something new.
Many thanks!
I think this is all spot on. Something else to keep in mind is that when you play with softer dynamics, the signal out of the guitar changes substantially. Beyond the amp characteristics, which are obviously important, the signal out of the instrument is arguably more important. Add on top of that the interaction between the guitar and the amp, and it becomes obvious quickly how this becomes a whole new kind of instrument in the hands of a skilled player.
I particularly loved the fact precious information comes at reach for the beginner , being very friendly for those , and always useful even for experienced players. Coming from two of my favorite Artists is just the cherry on the cake. Keep always honest and upfront Rhett , thank you!
I set my rig with the idea of "amp volume up/guitar volume down." I typically will do it with an EQ pedal more than the guitar volume, so the loss of treble when lowering the guitar volume isn't an issue, and I can adjust it for different guitars with different output levels.
Flubbyness as a lot to do with the general EQ and Bass level. You might notice that at high volume the power amp distortion is tighter and the sound is more punchy with the bass knob set lower.
This is how I try to set up my amps, i didn't know that this was really a "thing" and always wondered how the guys with what I thought was great tone achieved it. You're right, the internet is a gold mine of guitar knowledge. Used to be if you wanted to know anything you'd either have to scour guitar mags or just know somebody that was an experienced player willing to give advice.
truly amazin, the interwebs 🙃
What about solid states amp ? The same thing ?
As a drummer who has been noodling aimlessly on guitar for the past 20 years, your channel has been a goldmine of information, inspiration, and direction. I've been watching your videos nonstop at work everyday and just can't wait to come home each night to dive into guitar and exploring my gear. I've also learned about some legendary and informative guitarist, namely Tim Pierce, through your channel. I cannot wait to live in a house where I am able to crank my Fender Deluxe amp and finding that sweet spot! Thank you for all the inspiration Rhett, I truly appreciate it!!!
Here's a fun fact. Some guy who knew Jimi Hendrix said to him, 'wanna try out my guitar and amp?' and Jimi starts getting all those classic Jimi tones and sounds out of this guy's set up, he asks him, how are you doing that?, Jimi says 'here, look' and he had the amp all the way up, and the volume knob on the guitar all the way down.
A good player knows how to get his guitar to sing, a great player knows how to get his amp to sing 🙏
@@builderphill1361 So true, in actuality you are playing both the amplifier and the guitar together.
That’s how I used to run my AC30! Low input normal channel gunned with my guitar volume on like 2-3
I'm a beginner (playing for 7 months) and just recently figured this out.
@@ricksanchezito8972 Out of interest , how did you figure this out ?
I read about this in an interview with a blues guitarist(who I can't remember) in Guitar Player magazine years ago. He said basically boost your amp and control your volume from the guitar. I tried it then, and just couldn't get it. This episode helped. Thanks.
For drop tuned metal we tend to run the power amp pretty low. We don't want any power amp breakup or anything like that. Usually I'll use the master to dial in cab resonance, if there is no resonance control.
thanks but as a noob I am not familiar with some of those term, will have to look them up
I heard Jimi Hendrix did this all the time in the studio. Marshall plexi on 10, guitar volume on 2.
This is why low wattage tube amps are selling like crazy, getting that sweet spot without blowing your ears out
Billy Gibbons is a good example of this technique. He used 7 gauge strings on his guitars with a light touch and got massive sounds and tone.
Having only just acquired a tube amp in my later years I've started messing with my instrument controls. Watching this makes me want to dive further down that rabbit hole. Thanks so much for the inspiration.
I've said this many times, but tone is so important to getting really motivated to playing guitar. The sounds you get are really pivotal to moving people with music! Awesome work man!
Man this is so true!
@@Wh33lsofFortune Yeah!
I think we all know what you're saying but you've put it perfectly into words.
So true
I think this holds true the more experience you have. I find it difficult to get into any kind of zone playing in the bedroom now, it's just not the same.
Dude i've learned more from your videos than any other channel. Thanks for keeping it real and being a huge help to all the guys trying to up their guitar game!
While I don’t really think this is exactly anything “new”, it occurred to me that this was the kind of thing learned from other musician’s and that this was the first time I had seen someone put something like this online. Good job!
Very good, Rhett. This is how I have run my amps for over 40 years. An attenuator is also helpful for small performance spaces to just take the volume down a notch and keep everyone happy. My first attenuator was a Tom Scholtz power soak in 1982 for my 50 watt JCM 800 and Hiwatt Custom 50 DR505 (my favourite amp I've ever owned or played). I'm using a TwoNotes Reload for attenuation, nowadays. Very transparent. Crank that thang, Rhett....
what he calls the amp "falling apart" @ 12:47 is just what I call a beautiful blues burn. sticky and dripping. visions of a cowboy wandering the desert. and I love it.
Beauty of subjectivity
Elliott Randall says the rig he used on “Reelin’ in the Years” was an Ampeg SVT! A 300 watt bass amp!
I had one back in the late 70 early 80 run one of those old fuzz pedals with the two big round wheels on the sides you could feel the wind.
Didn't the Stones use SVTs in 70s same as Ron Wood in the Faces. It's the same tone.
N. J. Sonye I know and played some gigs with Elliott, and that info is correct. I always thought it was a small Fender
amp just dimed but no. He had “that guitar” with him, a ‘62 or ‘63 Strat with a PAF humbucker in the neck position. He
said he turned up the amp and worked the guitar volume to where he liked the sound. The SVT was the only amp avail-
able at the time so he just went with it. Fun fact: That solo was the second take, with no edits. Apparently, they all
felt the first one was even better (hard to imagine) but the engineer didn’t record that one. He thought it was just a run
through. After that, Becker and Fagen had engineers record everything, just in case. Elliott is a master guitarist and a
very sweet person, in case anyone cares about that stuff.
Larry Power what a great bunch of NYC studio players in the 70s
Larry Power yes , a friend of mine played some drums with Elliot a couple of years ago. He lives in London ( or did then) not that far from me. Always loved his playing , really wonderful 💫
Tim mentions Daniel Lanois as a key user of this technique - and he's right. Lanois gets killer tones and dynamics using this. If you've never heard Lanois, do yourself a favour and listen to his album Acadie as well as the 2014 Premier Guitar Rig Rundown in which Lanois goes into depth on his use of the loud amp, gentle picking technique both on pedal steel and regular guitar.
I have a little Kalamazoo Model 1 that was my very first amp purchased. It has been my go-to tone monster. It's the best $50 I ever spent on gear. That single EL84 in a class A circuit is warm and sweet everywhere and it loves to be set at 12:00 on both knobs (volume and tone/on-off) So many great recordings have been done with this type of amp and its AL-NI-CO speaker throws the theoretical 5-7 watts so hard at the back wall that I have gigged beside players with 50 watt Peavey tube amps. On stage I struggled to hear myself but at the back of the room it was my guitar that stood out. Magic. AND I can have it in the sweet spot without getting yelled at from a different floor! Power amps working in the golden zone just do magic.
Dude... love your vids. However, this is now the second ‘amp setting’ video you’ve done where you haven’t talked about where you are setting your guitar volumes and tone. If you are cranking up the volume on the amp, where are you setting your guitar? Are you backing it way off or are you only playing quieter? In my world I have 3 dials to play with, guitar volume, preamp volume, and master volume. Can you add / talk about the guitar volume and how it plays into this type of setting? Thanks for all you do. I am learning a ton, just want to lear a little more.
I always have guitar controls on 10, because if you don't have a treble bleed in your guitar, you're losing high end when turing down your guitar vol.
If you have a treble bleed, just turn the guitar vol to 10, set the preamp to the maximum amount of gain you'll need for the song and set the master as high as you want it to be.
Then you can use the guitar volume to control your gain.
@@patricksommer3971 The Treble Bleed. I think it's an underrated little electronic device. Gonna ask my Guitarbuilder to install one in my Custom Shop Fender Strat.
@@olafnelsonduerksen9676 A Custom Shop Strat doesn't have one?
@@patricksommer3971 well, it's not a genuine Fender Custom Shop. That guy made the guitar using original Fender parts. Japanese Single Coils from the 90's, Tele neck and the rest new parts. The body treated with an aging process. I bought the beauty.
@@patricksommer3971 Yes. most passive guitar volume knobs will bleed some treble, but that's easily fixed with a voltmeter, a soldering iron and a custom resistor or two. Consult a qualified tech, though because the fix is different, depending on your axe's pickups and control circuit.
I started getting massive tone and this is just exploring the gear I have. (I collect pedals so that is a large contribution to a lot of my tone.)
‘84 Les Paul > Boss Katana 50
On a 1-10:
• Gain at 2
• Master at 10
• Guitar at 10
• Pre amp is my volume.
• MXR 10-Band at the end with same settings.
Chain:
Tuner > EHX Octavix > JHS Haunting Mids > Revv G3 > EarthQuaker Hoof > JHS Double Barrel > JHS 3 OD > Walrus Julia > TC Sky Surfer > MXR 10-EQ
This is the exact opposite approach that I use. I feel that attack is always fighting tone and body. I have an extremely heavy right hand(picking hand). I fight that by not cranking amp and playing lightly but by turning down the tone knob and playing heavy. The tone knob is a balancing act between tone and pick attack. That’s how I roll.
The result is more compression (via transformer and speaker EM link) and a little more gain (via output tubes). The same can be achieved by carefully adding clean OD and a light compression, if you require lower noise floor. Your method is easier to get, but the results can be identical if one knows what to do. It can even be achieved with some solid state amps, if OD and compressor is good enough.
Thanks for the hint !
There is another factor not mentioned here, that I've experienced: playing relatively loud and with the guitar close to the speaker(s) cab, there is a controllable amount of feedback that generally increases sustain.
you see that feedback from your housemates when they cover their ears and run
I love that he mentioned Daniel Lanois. Also another player w/ a similar technique is Alan Sparhawk from the band Low.
"Turning your amp up and turning your guitar down". Then the conversation instantly became about playing loud but gently. Then gain staging. I was expecting to hear something about Miller capacitance, the real reason to turn your amp up. ;-)
Exactly... We're you and I the only ones seeing this?
@@silvanolapenna2510 At 7:00, I was sure he was going to talk about the impedance curve of the speaker interacting with the gain of the power amp at different frequencies, making a touch responsive EQ curve...but no. Then later on he gets the gain staging backwards, you set the preamp gain BEFORE the master volume, so you know what kind of signal you're sending into the power amp. Still, they at least get some great guitar tones, even if they don't really understand how they've done it!
this guy has such great vibes and attitude . so positive ................ and its not fake or forced . really a pleasure to watch . he feels like watching townsends .
I'm a trombonist, not a guitarist, but I really enjoy playing with a guitarist who knows how to control their sound. It's a different discussion, but IMHO worth pointing out that there are times (although more rare for some than for others) when you want to go in the opposite direction: not much tone and a lot of articulation. The quintessential example would be a classic Freddie Green quarter-note pulse appropriate for some forms of jazz swing. That style is all about rhythmic placement in the pulse and articulation, and definitely not using a tone that may interfere with other instruments in the same register as where the guitar places their voicings. Playing with a guitarist who knows how to switch approaches where appropriate is just lovely.
@Nothing Noone Um no... We're not. Actually takes a hell of a lot more skill to play guitar then brass and woodwind. I know... I play both guitar and sax. And I accomplished what he was saying with my amp turned up, and mixed turned to living room volume. He's right. Big fat superb tone and no more room volume then I had before. You see... we're smart enough to do that, whereas you couldn't even imagine it being anything but LOUD. You just displayed a lack of vision, and lack respect for fellow musicians.
Just in case you didn't know.... You Just Got Served.
So go blow it out your trombone. Fucking troll. Why you even here? Just to be a dick? Mission accomplished, now crawl away simpleton.
I encountered a reverse situation a couple of years ago. A trumpet player sat in with our church band and did an excellent job of controlling his column and played very tastefully.
I've been a professional trombone and guitar player and honestly , guitar players in general don't get dynamics the way orchestral players do. Hopefully lots of people watch this video
Just to be clear: the subject of the video and my reply here is about tone, not volume. Related, but different.
@@Bigandrewm I know. You think tone is something it's not. You dont seem to know what tone is. Tone does not interfere with other instruments. Volume might, but tone does not. Every instrument has some kind of tone. If you put a band, or an orchestra together then you have to make sure all the instruments selected work together. And they will. Big Band music had it all. Arrowsmith used big band music in there tone filled hard rock and made one of there best songs ever.
If you think a great guitar tone is responsible for interfering with other instruments I have to question if you even plan an instrument at all. Maybe you do, alone in the house, and just speculate everything else. I don't know, but you are so far off it's not even funny. Or maybe you should just tell your tech to turn the guitarist down on the mixer, or turn the rest up. Has nothing to do with tone.
My amp is designed off the circuit of an old Marshall JTM with the jumped channels. My guitar is a modded Ernie Ball Music Man Albert Lee Signature with very hot pups.
I dime the volume and tone controls on my amp then back off my volume and tone in my guitar to between 3 and 6 (my guitar is equipped with an extremely effective treble bleed circuit, so it actually gets brighter when the volume is backed down). While playing within that threshold of signal output I play hard or soft to control how clean or overdriven my sound is. But here's my favorite part; when I'm digging in at around 5 or 6 on the volume the sound is classic/hard rock, with a nudge to full volume the sound turns straight up heavy metal: No pedal needed for boosts or heavy distortion.
I've witnessed James Burton up close do this with a Fender twin, full up, the rest controlled from the guitar, and man can he get a big tone out of a Tele!!!
Well I learned from stage sound technicians that we have to "awake speakers up" first and then start tuning the pre amp volume. I found quiurious in very stadium or indoors small gigs, that every time the sound gets started to make sound cheq they pump up the volume fully loud till almost crank the speakers. First I thought that it was by chance, or randomly missing control by someone liveing the volume up and then the technician turns it lower... BUT NOT. That is to "awake the speakers..." to "shake them" to make them fully vibrate and so then they can have a serious sound responding that will be like what we are going to hear during the show as everything that vibrates and makes sound gets hot as a human body doing gym.
So what we have to do it's 1. turning GAIN and VOLUME up fully. 2. Strumming a full power chord. 3. Let it ring. 4. Start to look after which volume we find the amplifier sounds better.
Hopefully I was clear. Cheers... Martin from Argentina by the way.
While some amps don't like it, over the years I've used a Peavey, a Fender and now a Mesa V combo and have always had the outputs (master volume) at or near max without issue.
Re. pedals- To my ear, most pedals shrink the sound.
Excellent. The different characteristics of preamp distortion and power tube distortion is quite noticeable. So many high gain players use primarily buzzy preamp distortion. The ideal is a blend of both, with emphasis on power tubes. Rectifier tube brings sag/compression. A point you didn’t discuss, although I thoroughly understand why you focused on touch/pick attack, is the use of guitar volume. So much of what overdrive and distortion pedals do is emulate what used to be done with only touch, guitar volume, and having the amp dialed in as you discuss. Great topic.
This is helpful depending on the style of playing you do, example. You can’t get an aggressive tone if you don’t play aggressively and if you are after that effect playing rock or metal music then you need to have your amp set at a lower volume so it doesn’t flubb out on you and muddy everything up
When I watch an RS video, I feel like I’m just hanging out with my friend who is a really good guitar player. He is just humble and cool to be around. I hope that I really do get to meet Rhett someday.
The muting advice yall gave is second nature for us slide players. Muting is everything but damn this was a great video.
WOW... best tip EVER
I started this video 2 hours ago. I paused it to turn up my amp and see how it sounds. Holy shit! Never knew it could sound so good.
1985 Peavey backstage. Turned up to half way between 6 and 7. Piped through a Peavey 150 watt mixer in to a 4x12 stack and a bad monkey peddle. (Turned the bad monkey up some too.)
Even with the mixer turned down to living room volume, since the backstage is turned up you still get big fat tone I didn't have before. This thing really sounds good. Can't wait to see what my other guitars produce now!
1.5 years in to it and now starting to sound like a guitarist...THANKS!
Honestly, this is great advice and all, but... man, your "anemic" tones sound so good to me, just sparkly and clean. I know it's not as full and rich as the wide-open sounds, I'm sure a lot of it is just my taste (and UA-cam compression). But to your point, even with the Line 6 Spider 3 amps my friends and I had growing up, we figured out there was a sweet spot in the volume, just a bit past halfway up, where the amps really opened up and came alive. We always said that was when VTEC kicked in.
My first amplifier was a little AC4 that had been on the line a year before i got it. I remember very distinctly my dad saying son, this is a tube amp, if you want gain play hard and turn ur guitar up, you want clean, turn your guitar down and play soft. I really do believe it's helped me develop a sense of dynamics early on
I think the real paradox is how to get great tone without annoying the neighbours and getting a noise complaint. People live in tiny flats.
This way of playing with the touch sensitivity was always natural to me. I’ve always played that way and never thought about it. Funny thing one day I handed my guitar to my nephew who doesn’t know how to play. He stuck a not and immediately stopped. He looked at me and said damn I didn’t realize how light you were playing. I just started laughing, but Pete Thorn is who showed me how to dial in an amp. Thanks for all your great videos. I love your channel.
Wow, actually really impressed by this, turned the master volume up and ive now managed to dial in a tone i was looking for. running an overdrive pedal in the front of a clean tone really improves the head room and clarity especially with reverb. Thanks!!! keen for the live show on Oct 10th!
Since Tim talked about this years ago, i've been cranking every amp i've owned. My little mobile jamming set up right now is: Highway One Fender HSS or Charvel San Dimas to Boss OD-3 ( and other pedals) - into Old 70's Roland Cube ( The Orange One) 1976 2 x 12 Univox cab. Gain Cranked (9) and Master Volume between 6-8. AMAZING and PUNCHY TRANSITOR TONE for BIG ROCK! Yes it applies to Transistor amps too!! Rawk on!
When you can say, "I'm just gonna call up Tim Pierce," you know you're on the right track. Bravo, dude, and thanks for expanding on Tim's pointer. My neighbors will surely enjoy my explorations into my amp's sweet spot. 😂
I saw that and was like, "Wha....? Do ALL these UA-cam guys know each other? :D
Turning up the volume on a non-master-volume amp--the volume control is between the preamp and the power amp. So turning up the volume on a typical Fender or old Marshall doesn't push the preamp harder. Only when you add a pedal in front (like Tim was talking about--a clean or clean-ish boost) do you cook the preamp more. IOW, the preamp gain is fixed on these old amps.
One of the sources of harmonics is the speaker shaking the tubes.
The three note "NBC Chime" was originally created by the radio broadcaster reaching over and tapping three of the preamp tubes with his pencil.
Sound waves hitting the tube causes the interior components to vibrate , you get small changes in distance between the gate, emitter and collector plates.
This creates secondary and tertiary resonances.
Its why the tubes are close to the speaker and sideways to it (to catch the sound waves)
You want to shake them hard enough to create resonances , but too hard creates distortion and a squealing type of sound.
(You start hearing the glass tube ringing)
So tube amps usually have a sweet spot that could make a banjo sound like a cello.
I suspect the tube tapping tone tale is an urban legend, but there's some truth in that microphonics were a big part of Jimi's sound."Getting the tubes to ring" was absolutely NOT an aim of early amp designers who were concerned with eliminating microphonic feedback, not encouraging it; even building the amp into a separate cab so it didn't have to be vibrated by the speakers, as in a combo.
'The three note "NBC Chime" was originally created by the radio broadcaster reaching over and tapping three of the preamp tubes with his pencil.'
Urban legend - the original NBC chime was seven notes long and was most likely created using a small handheld chime.
Great stuff... Goes with the saying, "know your gear!" And "tone is in the hands!" Phil X shared relevant insights. He was in the studio struggling with the rig. The engineer made some gear suggestion and he said it was okay, he just needed to have a "talk with his hands."
Since most guitars lose a lot of dynamics when not set to 10 on the volume control, I'm thinking you should run the amp in the sweet spot, guitar on 10, and put a volume pedal in between to limit overall volume.
Still a volume pot :)
I learned a lot of this actually by watching all the old school guys play. Most only played 1 channel amps using the volume and tone controls to get what they wanted. I still play this way today
The amateur engineer in me really enjoyed seeing the amp opened up and talking about what's in it.
I've done this with my acoustic guitar setup for the last couple yrs. I use a small mixer and send the signal to F O H. Also use a BBE mini sonic stomp and a AKG wireless bug system. Very little guitar volume and use F O H sound . Guitar sounds like miked acoustic and I walk around. Been doing this in worship for a couple yrs now.
This video is fantastic and timely: a dude I work with just bought his first tube amp and I am definitely going to show this to him. Awesome info.
The first thing I thought of when you guys were talking about loud amp, but soft touch - Little Wing covered by SRV. You can hear him using that soft and hard touch to make the voice of his guitar sweet or fuzzy. This is one of my favorite things to do with single coil pickups through some low watt power amp. Crank it up!
For practicing, I find that anything more powerful than three watts is total overkill. Just get a Pignose, dime it, and use the knobs on your guitar to control the sound. Fifty watts and two twelves is okay for gigs, but for practicing it's like rabbit hunting with a howitzer.
Thank you for this reminder! I kind of always knew this but I have been stuck in a tone rut lately and after watching this I realised my amp was way to low causing anaemic tone. Cranked to the sweet spot and everything’s back on point. Cheers
"Gross and flubby" perfect spot for Doom metal.... love that squished attack of a dimed OR120.
@William Harvey I do work for *a* government, but I'm talking about the classic Orange OR120 from the early 70s. It has an almost fuzzed out overdrive. It's a perfect tone for stoner rock and doom metal. Tune low, play slow.
The best, single, easily seen, heard, and understood example of this that I always send people to is SRV playing Lenny, live at the el Mocambo. It's a masterclass in touch dynamic, as well as pickup selection and volume and tone knob usage. And it's easy to see and hear, so it makes understanding quite simple.
Absolutely agree with this. Stevie was really a master of this even though he's known for his ferocity. Another example is Riviera Paradise. I can't help but wonder what he would be playing in his sobriety and "maturity" if he hadn't tragically left us.
You and Tim Pierce are at the top of my all time guitarists that I take what you say as gospel. It's awesome to see both of you working together. I love our UA-cam Guitar community.
Thanks for putting those tips out there Rhet...Roger Mayer did a lot of tweeking to Jimi's gear but it was Jimi who when playing the bigger venues had all the speakers changed to bass spec for a wider dynamic to his sound.
As Roger says....everything was at 10 then Jimi had sooooo much sustain and punch WHEN needed.
I love the Rainbow Bridge album sound.
Rainbow bridge is unbelievable.
I have. Chatted to Roger a fair bit in years gone by , and you are quite right💫
'Greg's guitars' guy, does it Great, with light touch, Heavy pick. Does Ez loop percussion, with that pick HAND.
I’ve slowly been learning to play more “touch sensitive” but this really made everything click!!! Thanks so much for what you do :)
Absolutely true, but I feel however that in explaining this phenomena you omitted something that plays in my view an essential role in all this, and this is acoustical feedback. Tim Pierce hints at it, but the fact is at high volume the speaker is "exciting" the body of the guitar and that is what makes the note "bloom". Although I am a trained recordist mixer mastering engineer with some acoustical studies, I did plays guitar for many years and never forgot this incredible sensation playing as a student through a very loud amp : it was as the instruments between my hand had "come alive" and completely changed feel and sound. If you try this in a studio where you lockup your amp and listen through headphones, you will miss half the benefit. I think the Les Paul gets its reputation from the particular way it comes alive under those circumstances, with much of this acoustical/vibration feedback feeding the body of the note, where some other designs will rather boost some higher overtones. Anyway keep on the good work spreading knowledge and experience with great talent !
Tim's cabinets are in an isolation room in his garage below, and he generally plays though his in-ear monitors (which you saw him insert towards the end of this interview). Yes, it's a different sensation when you can feel the guitar in the room, for sure, but this isn't what Tim's experiencing.
The acoustic feedback, btw, is a large part of Ted Nugent's tone -- go watch the Stranglehold live video on UA-cam, you see he actually spend a fair amount of time during the solo killing the feedback that naturally comes from his notorious stage levels (no one could ever figure out how he was able to play a Byrdland live without it howling the whole time).
This is why I want a Hiwatt. I always was amazed by Pete Townshend’s ability to go from sounding very clean to explosive simply using his hands.
This is great stuff. I would love to see a discussion of this extended to the modeler realm. For example, how does this translate to Helix (gains, channel volume master volume)? Would you consider a 'part two' of this for those of us who don't have the luxury of playing through physical tubes?
+1 to this. I'd love to see you dialing in a couple of the amps on the Helix the same way Rhett.
Omg. Please make a video on this!
+1
Good question +1
+3
Loved this vid. For decades I played and set up my amps pretty as you guys demonstrated works best; sweet spot on the amp (yes, every amp has only one) and I varied the output of my guitar signal to the amp depending upon how I wanted it to sound. The only thing I did differently was that I used a very good volume pedal full time to vary the guitar’s output signal rather than varying the pressure of my right hand. I used pedals after the boosters for more distortion when I wanted it.
I didn’t like pushing my amp too hard for the reasons you explained. Also, pushing amps too hard makes them get very hot and kills everything in them pretty quickly. Unless you’re a big rock star with the kind of money and/or free samples that goes with that, you want to preserve your equipment as much as possible.
Recently, I found another way to get the sound you were demonstrating, but with any amp, no matter the wattage at virtually any volume from roaring to super quiet. I thought about just what is happening at the amp’s sweet spot and as it became clear to me I realized that all of that could be done with the subtle and intelligent use of good pedals.
First, with my guitar’s volume and tone controls all the way up, I set the amp volume to just “on”, making a nice but anemic sound. Tone controls are set according to the guitar and what I want to sound like at the moment, usually pretty flat.
Second, the guitar is first plugged into a compressor set at moderate compression maintaining good attack, which goes into a second compressor, also at moderate compression which re-compresses what comes from the first one (McGuinn told me about that trick). I use two different brands and types to obtain more harmonic content and to better control the total compression. This emulates the amp’s natural compression when it’s at its sweet spot but actually sounds better to me. Also, I can control just how much compression I want, which I can’t do with just the amp.
Third, to emulate the amp's wide open pre-amp at its sweet spot it all goes into a booster set at a clean boost. I use a Xotic EP (Echoplex pre-amp clone) set moderately. That goes into a second booster, also set clean. For the second one, I use a Nocturne Atomic Brain (Space Echo preamp clone). If I want more harmonic distortion I can raise the gain on both or either of the boosters. It’s very versatile this way.
By now the sound is very like the amp at its sweet spot. I control the overall volume and tone with a Tech 21 Q-Strip which can increase or attenuate the volume without altering the tone. The Q-Strip is, of course, also great for infinitely shaping the tone between enormous parameters.
Additional distortion and effects down the chain (except for a Catalinbread Belle Epoch Deluxe just after the boosters) work just fine and I think all of the pedals actually sound better because they don’t have to compete with the amp’s turned-up pre-amp.
Sorry I went on so long, but I want to share what I discovered with you and your viewers.
Cheers, mate.
My idea of what makes a great tone, has nothing to do with a single universal great tone. There's so many tones I love from many guitarists. I always go for a tone that compliments my playing style. Not every tone works right for every type of music. I'm always messing with the knobs. I never leave my amp alone, but I always sound like myself.
Looks like I've been doing it right pretty much the whole time. Just nice to hear some affirmation. Once I was able to play through two good quality tube amps in stereo on a regular basis, my compressor pedal came off my main board, and I was able to fully bask in the gloriousness of saturated EL84s on the left and 6L6s on the right.
Also Tim is so great. You can tell he's having so much fun everytime he plays. You both have such a love for the craft. Thanks for the great content!
I was literally about to write a comment about how Lanois does exactly this when Tim suddenly blurted out "Now Daniel Lanois was the king of doing this". Spot on.