Get Dirty
As you can see and hear, distortion
comes in many colors, with various
shades and hues within those colors. For a
more in-depth look, check out my book
All
About Effects (street $14.99,
halleonard.com).
Experimenting with different ways of
dirtying up your sound is one of the most
exciting and fun things about playing electric
guitar. Using the various types of stompboxes
and approaches described here, you can elicit
a wealth of harmonics and overtones—from
sweet, singing sustain to chopped-off dissonant
clang—from your guitars. Your mission—
should you choose to accept it—is to
make music with these marvelous tones.
10 Tips For Great Gritty Tone
There are even more ways to get crazy, beautiful, off-the-wall tones than there
are distortion, overdrive, and fuzz pedals on the market. After all, every knob
tweak and playing technique alters the sound of these pedals immensely—to say
nothing of the rest of the rig they’re plugged into. That said, these 10 approaches
never fail to yield great results.
1. Increase your impedance. Using a speaker cabinet with a greater impedance
than that of your amp
(for example, a 4 Ω head
with an 8 Ω cabinet) can
yield the same effects
as an attenuator.
2. Don’t forget that
less can be more.
Distortion acts as compression,
so the more
gain you use the more
it will flatten the dynamics
of your playing. It
will also wash out your
sound and sink you into
the mix. You might think
you sound awesome, but
all the audience will hear
is a muffled roar.
3. Don’t obsess
too much over
germanium. While
germanium fuzzes have
come a long way in
terms of consistently
sounding good, they
don’t all sound exactly
the same—even the
same models from the
same company. If you
have a chance to try a
couple, do so. If you
don’t hold an audition,
but simply buy one and
it sounds good, be glad.
Don’t obsess that there
might be a better one
out there.
4. Pair a germanium fuzz with an overdrive. If you want the sound of a germanium
boost at unity gain, try
running it in front of an
overdrive pedal with the
overdrive’s Drive control
set low and its output
set below your clean
amp volume.
5. Cascading overdrives
adds up to
distortion. You might
find that cascading
overdrives—running
more than one in a
row—provides a more
desirable sound than
a distortion pedal. By
sending the slightly
overdriven signal of one
pedal into a second
pedal set for a moderate
amount of grit, you can
achieve more distortion
while maintaining an
openness that is sometimes
lost with a single
highly distorted pedal.
6. Make sure your
distortion pedal
has level-boost capabilities.
You won’t want
to use too much, but a
little is essential to keep
a high-gain sound from
disappearing in the mix.
7. Simple is best for the blues. For an authentic old-blues sound, a small combo and—at most—a clean boost are sufficient.
If
you want a more modern
blues tone, overdrive or
certain fuzz boxes will
keep essential blues
dynamics more intact
than a distortion pedal.
8. Order matters.
Some fuzz units
need to be first in your
pedalboard’s chain in
order to work properly
with guitar volumes and
wah-wahs. Further, every
distortion effect will have
a different character if
it’s placed, say, before
a wah than it will if it
comes somewhere else
in the chain.
9. Don’t forget your
Tone knob. Rolling
it off is often the most
effective way to tame
fuzz fizz and make it
more adaptable to different
songs and feels.
10. Summon a
sitar. Selecting
your bridge pickup and
rolling down your Volume
while using an octave
fuzz pedal can create a
cool sitar sound—who
would’ve thought?