The Great Tone Journey (Cont)

It's been a long time since I've written about my Hunt For Tone. I know, you've been missing it.

I'm after tones that make me want to play more notes because the sound is pleasing. I'm not after the Beano tone (really). I have no desire to sound like Dave Gilmour (honestly Guv). I have accepted that in my bedroom, I must temper my ambitions. Also the one benefit of being an amateur is that one can sound like oneself. It's the pros who need to be able to sound like other people.

None of this applies to using a DAW and its effects and plug-ins. I'm still using old-school things like amplifiers and digital pedals. And guitars. With strings.

None of the Guitar Tubers who talk about tone come right out and say that at bedroom volumes (less than around 75dB at one metre from the speaker) it is simply not possible to get crunchy, drive-y, distortion-y tones. Those come from valve amps, the valves need to be driven, and that produces serious amounts of dB's.

Pedals will not do the trick. I have tried every effect in my trusty Helix HX Effects, and while they get close if the humidity and air temperature is just right, none quite get the full-bodied sound we are looking for.

My Paranormal Telecaster has been the single most significant learning experience in the whole search. Single coils don't lose tone as the volume goes down, and don't gain it appreciably as the volume goes up. There's a change, but it's not from WOW to OH-UH. That's what happens with the humbuckers on my McCarty 594 SE. At 8 and above, the sound is all there. At 7 or below it goes flubby, rubbery - the strings feel like rubber bands under my fingers, which is totally a psychological effect, but we're talking about psychology here. Unless I use a fuzz pedal, when it's all just fine at 5 - and that's with the fuzz level control turned down a lot.

So I've learned to separate the effects of twiddling the humbucker volumes from twiddling the effect controls. I set the effect up with the Tele (single coils), and then check it on the McCarty (humbuckers). As long as the humbuckers are 8 or more, it usually works.

The EQ is the final part of the chain, and that is there to correct for the Katana, not the guitars. I listened over a pair of Sennheiser HD 580s' recently and needed to adjust the EQ for the entirely different frequency response.

The signal chain is now: guitar -> HX Effects -> Scarlett 2i2 input -> speaker output -> Katana Power Amp In (with laptop USB in for recording and power). The Katana is now really a monitor, and putting the 2i2 in the chain means I can use its speaker output control as another gain stage. It's at 9 o'clock for the McCarty and 12 o'clock for the Tele. Means I don't have to faff with the rest of the controls when switching guitars.

The basic clean chain is: LA Compressor -> '63 Spring reverb -> EQ. Modulations and delays go between the compressor and the reverb. I'm using Optical Vibrato, Grey Flanger, Ampeg Liquidator and Script Phaser. There's a Drive setup which has a Top Secret OD and a Teemah! OD set to alternate at the push of a stomp button. It kinda works, but if my ears are sharp, the drives can seem fizzy. (Yes, I have taken some Gain out to ease that.)

This changes slightly and sometimes a lot every day, but it is a darn sight more stable a set-up than it used to be, when I'd get something I thought was amazing at 20:00 in the evening, and found truly wince-worthy at 09:30 the next morning. The settings work for both guitars, though the ODs sound different when hit by humbuckers or by single-coils.