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Make Use Of Your Guitar’s Volume and Tone Knobs
By andy | July 27, 2007
Are you one of those who crank your guitar’s tone knobs to 10 and adjust your volume knob to a comfortable level and be done with it? Haven’t you seen artists performing on stage who keeps fiddling with their guitar’s knobs from time to time? What are they doing? Well, let’s explore the possibilities of what your guitar’s knobs can do to your sound by understanding and applying the very basics of it!
Firstly, your guitar’s volume knob gives you the ability to shape your sound besides providing the volume. One thing I like to do is to put a overdrive pedal (homemade of course) and play it at a low volume during vocal bits and crank it up high when it’s the chorus or guitar solo. Notice what happens when you do this. With an overdrive pedal on and playing it at a low volume, the sound is rather clean sounding. This makes it great for accompanying singers when you don’t want to stand out too much. With the volume knob crank up, the sound changes to a driving tone, perfect for those guitar solos and choruses.
Now the tone knobs. Cranking them up to the max only leaves you a tone sounding thin and twangy. Mix and match your guitar tone knobs! They can make all the difference! To get a jazz tone, roll back your tone knobs. (Read "Get That Jazz Sound") You can and should apply the same concept as the volume knob to the verse and chorus/guitar solo of songs. During the verse, depending on the kind of music, you can either roll back/front the tone knobs to match your music. The same goes for the chorus.
With these new found knowledge and without having to spend a single cent on anything, you can create many possibilities simply with your guitar volume and tone knobs. Have Fun!
Topics: Guitar Tone |