I just watched a very long Youtube video with a guy talking about the proper way to set up your amp. He really focused a lot about how everyone doesn't keep their volume and tone knobs turned all the way up at all times, but should, he really criticized using the knobs because they kill your tone. He says you should leave them alone and make your adjustments on the amp. Me personally I like using the knobs to get the tone I want. Just curious what you guys do.
Guitars volume and tone knobs
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Markedman
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I'm all over my volume knob constantly, every song, not so much the tone knobs, although I do turn the tone down on the neck pick-up on certain songs. My "clean" is most guitarists "driven" sound so without a volume knob, I wouldn't have any clean. I just posted a video of me playing "Come On (Part 2)" in the "tones and rigs" section so you can hear my tone there if you want. The guitar's volume knob is the only way for me and my style of playing to control the amp, I play with a lot of gain on purpose to get feedback so I need to turn down the guitar or it would just freak out on me if I just left the volume all the way up. My pinky is on the volume knob all night, all the time. I guess if you play real clean all night without any dynamics, you would not have to fiddle around with the useless volume knob or silly tone thingies.
No rules! Most of the time my tone and volume knobs are at 10 but for cleans depending on what I want I'll roll the volume back a little. The tone knob I don't really ever mess with, in humbucker guitars I leave it out when I wire them up. Look at people like David Gilmour, Hendrix, John Frusciante, they're constantly messing with the volume knob, doesn't seem to kill their tone imo. Look at slash, he played a single channel amp for most of his career, just switched to the neck pickup with the volume rolled back for his cleans.
The Mark III manual specifically cites rolling back the volume knob as a way to clean up a dirty channel.
It's a fairly well-known tactic and I think one would be foolish to not include it in one's toolkit. If you can dial in your amp so that you don't need to, great, but it certainly doesn't hurt at all.
I like to roll back the volume on my neck pickup so that all I have to do is flip the pickup selector switch to go from grainy bridge to clean rhythm.
It's a fairly well-known tactic and I think one would be foolish to not include it in one's toolkit. If you can dial in your amp so that you don't need to, great, but it certainly doesn't hurt at all.
I like to roll back the volume on my neck pickup so that all I have to do is flip the pickup selector switch to go from grainy bridge to clean rhythm.
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That's one way to go about it- especially if your amp is not very dynamic. You're missing out on a lot of tones (that you may or may not like) if you don't use the guitar's knobs, though.
That's rediculous, I use mine all the time. If the volume & tone are not needed, believe me that the manufacturer would not put them in to start with.Seanboy said:
Got a link to that video?
Dom
dodger916
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+1. To be blunt, it's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard in the realm of electric guitar! There are endless tonal nuances to be gained by tweaking guitar pots, especially with a Les Paul-style set up. And we Mesa players know all about tweaking...domct203 said:
dodger916
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Here's what Walter Trout has to say about using guitar pots:
"I can also tell you that when you buy a mark 4, or any amp new, you get a manual with it, and it has suggested settings for different kinds of music. For Country music set it like this, for Rock music set it like this, and I have my boogie set for Death Metal!!! (laughter) So it’s as overdriven as I can get it, but I control the amount of sustain and distortion by using the volume on the guitar. For instance, when I’m playing the rhythm part on Faithful I have the guitar on like, one, and if you do that you get a very clean, but a kinda beefy clean sound and you can control the amount of sustain and everything by where you set the volume on the guitar. If you set the guitar on five or six you can get a pretty Marshally, bluesy, sound that’s not too overdriven, and between about six and ten, the sky’s the limit."
http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=67021&start=15
"I can also tell you that when you buy a mark 4, or any amp new, you get a manual with it, and it has suggested settings for different kinds of music. For Country music set it like this, for Rock music set it like this, and I have my boogie set for Death Metal!!! (laughter) So it’s as overdriven as I can get it, but I control the amount of sustain and distortion by using the volume on the guitar. For instance, when I’m playing the rhythm part on Faithful I have the guitar on like, one, and if you do that you get a very clean, but a kinda beefy clean sound and you can control the amount of sustain and everything by where you set the volume on the guitar. If you set the guitar on five or six you can get a pretty Marshally, bluesy, sound that’s not too overdriven, and between about six and ten, the sky’s the limit."
http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=67021&start=15
