Guitar Amp Controls

Factual Questions
1

OK, i searched the archive (and the web) for a while, and I still can’t really find out how to work the controls for the amp. How do I make the highest strings squeal more? Any other neat tricks? Any tips you can give me on working my amp would be greatly appreciated - i just got an amp for my birthday.

Type: Fender, Princeton Chorus (about 7 years old i believe)

Controls:
Normal: Volume, Treble, Mid, Bass, Reverb
Overdrive: Gain, Limiter, Presence, Volume
Chorus: Rate, Depth (the chorus is broken, but i was told I probably wouldn’t use it much anyways)

Thanks for your help, and if I somehow missed a thread on this subject, sorry.

2

If you want a good squeal and by that I’m assuming you mean a screeching harmonic on the higher-strings…a typical death-metal sound you want as much gain as you can get on the overdrive.

A good general setting for an overdriven metal guitar is to crank the bass, cut the midrange completely, and set the treble at about 3.4s of its positive value.

In General heavy bass will give you a boomier, punchier sound.

Cutting the mid-range will make the basses sound lower and the highs sound higher, boosting it will even out your sound a little.

Feedback is almost always in the midrange…when its not its usually in the bass.

3

I’m not really sure what you mean by squeal. Are you talking about heavy distortion with alot of sustain and some feedback thrown in? In anycase, if you want to punch up your “high strings,” turn up the treble (or lower the mid and bass), turn off/down your limiter, and turn up the presence. If your using distortion (overdrive) turn up the gain. How long have you been playing guitar for, what kind of music do you play, and what kind of sound are you looking for? Whatever you do, turn off the fricking reverb - what a god awful effect.

4

I haven’t even been playing a year yet. I got a start kit from amazon.com, and the amp was pretty basic, but the distortion was really bad. I found that turning down the limiter was what got me what i wanted. I pretty much play parts of songs i like… System of a Down is my favorite band, so I try to play some of their stuff.
Anyways, can anyone explain exactly what the Reverb, Gain, Limiter, and Presence do/are good for? Any other tips are appreciated.

5

Go Kid Charlemagne - I agree with all points (especially the reverb - I use barely any if any at all).

And Meros, while yes, cutting midrange is a signature of a lot of metal (“scooped mids” being all the rage from Metallica on, a lot of that had to do with limitations of the amp - e.g., trying to limit feedback while cranking distortion. Different amps react differently to leaving mids up while cranking distortion. Why am I mentioning this? Because mids really add to a person’s tone and PetW if you can, really try to get them as high as possible when you adjust other settings - depending on the type of playing you want to pursue, they completely change your tone…

6

WordMan

When I stopped playing metal I learned the importance of the mids. I’m assuming from his desire to “squeal” that he is trying for a metal sound by the definitions of the metal guitarist community.

Limiting amps de behave differently but it has been my experience, even when using a limiter that to get the desirable palm-mute “crunch” and still have the soaring highs of the lead sound you do need to cut the mid at least a small amount.

If my interpretations of the OP’s desire was wrong then I will think up a different scheme.

7

Reverb - Controls the mix of the straight and “reverbed” signals

Gain - Controls the amount of amplification and distortion

Limiter & Presence are simply additional tone controls that adjust different characteristics of the signal. Since each setup is different, there’s no one magic setting. You just have to experiment, adjusting the controls until the sound most resembles what your after.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that the amp will make you sound better. Good guitar players sound like themselves even unplugged. I have a friend that spent tons of money on a Line 6 amp that emulated every amp known to man (almost). He still doesn’t sound good.

Some controls may be more subtle and not have much of an effect (no pun intended) when the amp is being overdriven and the sound is distorted. Try a nice clean tone and you will learn all the nuances of the different controls.

I hope I don’t sound condescending, I don’t mean to.

MC$E

(who hasn’t picked up his guitar in waaay too long :frowning: )

8

Alright, thanks everyone for the advice! I’m just screwing around with the guitar right now, just having fun with it, but i’ll probably start taking lessons pretty soon.

9

Go for maximum sustain with a good bit of distortion. Keep your guitar’s volume and tone controls maxed. Bump your amp’s treble up to 9 or 10 and work with its gain to produce somewhat clean yet well overdriven sound.

Finally, the “stuck pig squeal” you’re looking for does not necessarily come from the amp settings.

Are you familiar with how to obtain harmonic notes from your strings? Start at the octave fret (halfway up the fretboard, look for two pearl dots on the neck) and just barely touch the string with your fretting hand. Now pick the string and try to get a clear, double frequency note. You are canceling the fundamental wavelength of the vibrating string and extracting the next order harmonic. The standard harmonic sequence is:

1/1 = fundamental note (i.e., open string)

1/2 = Octave harmonic (½ wavelength = 2X pitch)

1/3 = Harmonic at 3X pitch (single pearl dot on neck)

1/4 = Harmonic at 4X pitch (single pearl dot on neck)

and so on.

There are many other less-voiced harmonics on the strings. Once you have the volume up, try gently damping the high E string in the region of the first two frets. You can obtain 1/16 harmonics and more from this region. It requires skill and practice to extract these notes on a routine basis, but it can be done. Try approaching your high E from the side of the neck instead of from directly above the string. Touch the side of the neck and then gently squeeze your finger until the flesh of your fingertip begins to overlap the neck and starts touching the string. You’ll need to move around a little until you find the “sweet spots” for those notes that will have all the dogs in your neighborhood going, “Huh?”

Listen to “Brush With the Blues” by Jeff Beck and you’ll hear him sticking the pig with regularity. Play “Cliffs of Dover” by Eric Johnson for some more of the same. Those insanely high notes, usually sung by castrato canaries, are played in this manner. Similar ultrahigh notes can be extracted by “burying” the pick in your right hand’s grip and allowing the flesh of your fingers holding the pick to contact the strings while playing. This is an even more difficult technique commonly used by ZZ Topp and many other rockers.

10

If your amp has a gain knob then it also has a volume control.

The gain control is part of a two-stage amplification rig. It allows you to first overdrive the input as it reaches the amp and then (using the volume control) boost the amplified signal to the desired level. This permits a “warm” overdrive sound without rattling the windows too much.

11

ah ok, if Zenster is right about what you mean by “squeal,” (and I think he is) then your looking to do pinch (aka false) harmonics, not natural harmonics. It’s a sream/squeal achieved by picking with the very tip of the pick at a more oblique angle (think cutting into the string with the pick) and muting the string with the side of your thumb as you follow throught the stroke. This type of note is virutally always bended which makes it “scream.” Very hard to describe how to do. This guy describes it pretty well:

http://www.tabcrawler.com/articles.php?action=readarticle&articleid=88

Also, just do search for pinch harmonics but you really have to just keep trying to get that sound and when you do get it, duplicate whatever you just did until you can repeat it. Refine from there.

12

I wondered while I was reading down through the thread if anyone was going to mention harmonics in obtaining the ‘squeal’ effect over trying to get it with just amp settings. Nice quick harmonics lesson ** Zenster ** and ** KidCharlemagne **.

13

Have you tried turning it up to 11?

Sorry, I had to throw that out…

MtM

14

“Pinch” or “squeal” harmonics. OK, here’s how they work [picks up guitar, watches picking hand]:

First, you have to hold the pick against the side of your first finger. If you’re holding it with the tip of your first finger and the tip of your thumb, this isn’t going to work. Put the flat of your thumb against the side of your first finger (it’s the natural place your thumb hits)–slide the pick in between.

Now…there’s maybe a 1/2 inch or less of the pick sticking out. When you’re playing regular notes, your thumb is straight–the 1st joint is almost locked flat.

When you want that extra SQUEAL, you stick out the first knuckle of your thumb just a bit–flex your thumb–which also shortens up the picking part of the pick a little. Now when you pick the note, the knuckle of your thumb will just barely touch the string right after you pick it.

As someone said–you have to be in the right spot…on my guitar there’s a spot right over the back edge (away from the neck) of the neck pickup and another just about 1/2 way between the pickups.

Once you do it, you’ll know it. Then do it a million times so you know exactly how and then practice so you can switch back and forth between regular and squeal easily. Then try it in different keys–the spot will change.

If you’re just looking for tone, that will depend on what style you’re playing and what part you’re playing. Lead is different from rhythm. Lead in any sort of rock setting will mean:

Treble 10
Mid 5-10
Bass 0
Presence 5-10

I wouldn’t use a lot of bass for playing lead–but I’m an old guy, you might not want to take my advice on that.

Someone said the Limiter is a tone control–that’s wrong. A limiter shuts down the volume peaks (“limits” the volume–duh), which might sound like a bad thing, but really it means that the rest of the note will sustain longer because the volume is evened out. So if you want those notes to hang on longer, turn the limiter up to 10!

Chorus is a vibrato-ish (“waver” or “wobble”) effect. You won’t miss it. Some day you’ll want some reverb and/or echo on your lead sound but don’t worry about that now!

Someday you’ll have a real man’s amp, with knobs that go to 11, or if you’re lucky, to 20!!! :slight_smile:

Princeton is a fine amp, by the way. You’re lucky to be starting with that. Some beginner’s amps sound like crap no matter where you set the knobs.

15

Too verbose, do ya think?

16

It sounds like you want to get pick harmonics. It’s pretty hard to explain, you just have to find that perfectly executed “pinch” between the thumb and the pick. it’s one of those things you just have to mess with until you get it, but once you get it you, you got it.

As for the basic metal sound, I concur with cranking the gain and scooping the mids.

17

Some things never change. I’ve been playing electric guitar for over 30 years. We all want to learn the tricks before actually learning to play. I get pinch harmonics with no pick. My thumb and index finger look as if there’s a pick there though.

Lessons from a good teacher will be far more valuble than learning how to get sounds and distorted tones. Do yourself a favor.

18

Since nobody mentioned it, for squealing leads, if your guitar has more than one pickup, switch to the one closest to the bridge (more harmonics there).

19
      • In the schematic I found, the Princeton Chorus Stereo is shown as a solid-state amp. I am informed both by guitar players IRL and tube geeks online that if you want that overdrive sound, you need a tube amp that you can actually overdrive. Electronically speaking, how do you overdrive a transistor, anyway?
        …
        The stereo tube amp I am bulding isn’t together yet, so I don’t know myself.
        ~
20

It sounds like those your were speaking to were differentiating between distortion and overdrive. The two terms are seperated by musicians and lumped together by retailers of solid state amps :P. Tubes will naturally “distort” the sound when the outputs are “overdriven.” Solid state amps artificially manufacturer overdrive by clipping the signal on purpose. The clipping process by tubes is smooth and maintains a signal closer to the original. Solid state distortion, like on the Princeton Chorus, just clips the tops of the waves right off. Harsh and cold vs. smoky and warm. Nowadays, distortion pedal makers try to model the smooth clipping of overdriven tubes through solid state electronics but there’s still a lot of difference between tubes and solid state.