Tone is in the Knobs?

[b0b]

I jam regularly with a friend of mine who plays an MSA S-12 through a modern Fender amp. He was having a hard time getting a tone he liked, so he asked me to dial it in while he played. I did, and he was pleased with the result.

Along comes the next jam session, and I noticed something. I was having a hard time telling his notes from my own! I'm playing a Desert Rose S-8 through a Mesa/Boogie amp - very different from his setup.

This gets me thinking. A lot of what we call "tone" is in the guitar, in the hands, in the pickup, in the amp or in the speaker. But maybe the biggest part of it is in how we set the knobs.

I think I'm safe saying that, because Bobbe Seymour doesn't read this part of the Forum.

[Ben Jones]

Someone in that fender amp book, I think it was Albert Collins, said something like "I keep all my knobs on ten, except bass and middle, I dont use those." He DOES have a distinctive tone.

do black knobs have better tone? bakelite knobs? chickenheads maybe?

[b0b]

I always start with bass on ten, and then add treble and middle until it sounds good. I think I learned it from a Jerry Byrd quote somewhere.

[Mike Schwartzman]

This gets me thinking. A lot of what we call "tone" is in the guitar, in the hands, in the pickup, in the amp or in the speaker. But maybe the biggest part of it is in how we set the knobs.

Why not bOb? Even if the knobs aren't the biggest factor...they may be the easiest to change. Afterall, knobs are meant to be turned . So why not eliminate the easiest thing, and if you still don't like your tone...well, you know where we will go on that topic.

[Ben Jones]

some folks mod their amps to remove the tone stack. there are guitar pots you can buy that will eliminate the tone pot from the circuit when turned all the way up.

so some argue that the tone knob actualy kills yout tone...haha.

I think the amp mods result in signifcant gain increases, the guitar pot mods I assume result in less tone suckage and therefor slight gain increases.
modern pedal steels dont usually have tone knobs.

I kind of both like and dislike this.
I like the tone knob on the old fenders with the BIG knob for boowah'in, but I also like the idea of one less pot in my circuit. Ive playing an old emmons at a friends house and I find the tone knob a useless tone sucking distraction on it. sounds better with that knob shut off. No doubt other emmons users will come along now to say how essential that tone knob is to their sound...but for me, knob stays off(it has a toggle on/off switch).

[Len Amaral]

I use to use a lot of bass but over the years I have been using way less adding a bit more mid with the same presence and treble. The overall tone seems to project better. IMO!

Lenny

[Clete Ritta]

...A lot of what we call "tone" is in the guitar, in the hands, in the pickup, in the amp or in the speaker. But maybe the biggest part of it is in how we set the knobs....

I agree that a large part of "tone" is indeed in the way the knobs are set!
Tone is in the hand that turns the knobs (and then picks, usually) heh.

[Larry Bell]

Georg brings up an interesting point. I'll go at it from a slightly different angle -- and a very different approach from b0b's 'start with bass at 10' idea. There is no right or wrong process. The objective is to get your rig sounding as good as possible in multiple environments.

I've noticed that MANY people who play out for money have no clue how to set EQ. This goes for PA and instrument amps alike. THE SECRET is to start out FLAT and just tweak A LITTLE AT A TIME. 3dB is a BIG cut or boost. Start by adding as little as possible.

Most who play gigs today have to move around from venue to venue a lot. There aren't many house gigs left, as far as I can tell. HOWEVER, a lot of bands and musicians move to a new room with everything set just like the last one. That's NOT a good starting point, either for the PA or instruments. Start out FLAT and tweak in small increments then listen carefully. You bought that guitar and that amp because you like their sound. Extremes of EQ cover up the native sound of the instrument/amp. Let their natural sound shine through.

The only rule is "twist 'em knobs until it sounds good", but getting a good sound quickly requires a bit of a procedure. An old guitar player I knew in the 60s in Nashville always got great tone. I've used his procedure ever since. (He also advocated carrying a .357 Magnum in the back of your amp, but I never adopted that principle)

Back then all the amps were much simpler -- often only treble and bass. He would start with all knobs on 0, then add bass until it got what he called 'woofy', then back off a bit. Once the bass sounded good he would add treble until it was what he called 'crispy' -- TOO much treble -- then back off a bit. Same would go for mids if the amp had a midrange control -- most in the 60s didn't. The idea is to listen for how the amp settings interact with the room you're playing in and make them work together.

It's interesting to see how many put stock in someone else's amp settings. Those settings were only good for ONE ROOM, ONE GUITAR, ONE RIG, ONE PLAYER'S HANDS. If you're not playing that same room using that equipment it may not produce a good sound. Your ear is the final arbiter.

There is nothing sacred about those knob positions you wrote down when you saw Hughey or Emmons play 30 years ago. If it sounds good it is good.

[Danny Hullihen]

bump

[b0b]

Larry, I think you are right when talking about amps that have a "flat response" center position on the knobs. The center is a good place to start.

Jerry Byrd usually played through a Fender Twin Reverb. I use a low-powered Mesa/Boogie which has similar controls. On these amps, there is no "flat response" setting. Anything you do will color the tone in one way or another.

That's as it should be, IMHO. I've never liked the flat response sound of any guitar run directly into a mixing board. To me, the amp is part of the instrument.

[Clete Ritta]

As a recording engineer for a good number of years, I adhere to Larrys comments. This is especially true when working on a mixing console as well as a guitar amp. For instance, your amp is dialed in (let's say b0b has the bass up full and a little mid and treble the way he likes it). The amp is miced (or miked when using a mikrophone?). The mixing console channel eq at flat is where one would start when mixing it in with the other sounds. Theres an inverse effect with eq as well. I often like to remove frequency with eq rather than boost. One good way to hone in on frequency is with mid shift. Boost your mid and sweep frequency as you play (or listen), finding the really harsh element of the spectrum. Then dial that mid tone out till it sounds just right. Every rig is different, and venues and ears change, which is why starting flat is always a good constant to begin with.
In the studio, it was just called "normalizing", setting everything back to detent 0 and unity gain then. Not to be confused with a patchbay thats normalled, or normalization as its known today which is a fancy word for volume adjustment.

Clete

[Ben Jones]

the tone stacks in various amps are pretty different. I'd want to know how my tone stack operated first before applying any system straight across the board. For example on some amps the tone knob simply cuts bass as you turn it clockwise, it does not add treble, on other amps, mid knob value is actually a pretty severe midrange hump, etc

http://amps.zugster.net/articles/tone-stacks

[Steve Ahola]

the tone stacks in various amps are pretty different. I'd want to know how my tone stack operated first before applying any system straight across the board. For example on some amps the tone knob simply cuts bass as you turn it clockwise, it does not add treble, on other amps, mid knob value is actually a pretty severe midrange hump, etc

http://amps.zugster.net/articles/tone-stacks

Good point! With the Fender blackface/early silverface amps the tone stacks were very similar, but quite different from their brownface amps and tweed amps.

Even if the amps were the same the tone controls could have a different effect depending on the speaker and cabinet used as well as the brand of tubes.

And that doesn't even touch the modern amps which have redefined the tone stack or the earlier amps like Premier or Magnatone.

As for bypassing the tone stack on a blackface design, it eliminates the typical 20dB signal loss from the tone stack. But there is still an inherent non-adjustable "tone control" set by the values of the coupling caps and grid loads and other resistors used. I find that bypassing the tone stack gives a tweed deluxe vibe to the amp, as well as increasing the gain considerably. But I think what works best is a control that gradually bypasses the tone stack by routing the signal through a coupling cap and a potentiometer. For a different kind of boost, the early Mesa Boogie amps had a switch which would disconnect the "tail" of the tone stack from ground. You can replace the switch with a potentiometer to be able to adjust the boost.

With all of that being said, when I walk up to a Fender blackface amp I almost always set the controls to 7-4-7...

Steve Ahola

www.blueguitar.org

P.S. On a similar note I've been playing electric guitar for 45 years but it is only in the last 10 years that I started to use the controls on my guitars at all. I used to keep them all set to 10 and did not realize how much you could improve the tone by backing them off a bit.

It was only a few years ago that I learned that most Tele players (besides Albert Collins ) would always have both of the controls turned back a bit. In fact I think that the reason that Fender never stopped putting knurled knobs on their Teles because the idea was that each guitarist would dial in both of the controls until they got the sound that they wanted without having to deal with numbers.

[Shaun Swanson]

It's all in the knobs!

[Frank Harris]

Yes Most of it is in the knob adjustments and the rest is in your touch and equipment used.

[Daniele Gilioli]

Hello, I think you are right saying that Amp is a part of the instrument. In almost 30 years I Plugged my Stratocaster in several amps, and found really different tone. That's why a lot of new PRO effect models include a lot of Amps modeling sets, to be choosed an then Equalized. (obvioulsy the tone are simulated..but the base concept is the same) IMO.
However I'm courious to find in the next future a good amp for my first William PSG I've ordered. Any suggestion ?

[Larry Behm]

B0b now you are talking.

Larry Behm