Advice needed WRT bandmate's tone

[gtone]

Just starting up with a new band project with what seems to be cool bunch of guys I'm unfamiliar with. Don't know where it's going yet, but it definitely has promise although we're in very early stages of feeling each other out yet.

Guy putting the project together is the de facto bandleader, chief songwriter, singer and second guitarist, seems nice but his agenda is clearly in advancing his material first/foremost. I don't have a problem with that and have told him so as songs are decent and somewhat enjoyable to play. The problem is that he's pretty new to guitar (long-time bassist for a local blues/rock outfit) and is making some classic rookie mistakes tone-wise. Dude uses far too much gain and effects for everything he plays resulting in a wall of sludge that just sounds shitty and gets buried in the mix and of course (sigh), reaches for more volume to compensate, which just multiplies the suck factor...

Having brought me in as a more experienced guitar player to play lead and help him collaborate on the song-writing and arrangements (his stated objectives, not mine...), I'm left wondering how best to broach this subject, if at all. Maybe I should just play it cool for awhile and see if it resolves itself.

If I seem a little lost here - I am. I only came across this once before and the situation resolved itself quite nicely over time. I'm grateful to be involved in something promising notwithstanding his dismal tone. After all, opportunities for playing out are getting scarcer locally. Other than doing rehearsals with a local trio's bassist/drummer to keep up their chops between gigs, about all I have going on these days is dragging my sorry butt down to sit in with jam sessions/open mic nights.

So - what would you do under the circumstances?

[sixesandsevens]

Just talk it out in terms of your own experience... Use "I" language, like "Something I noticed when I started to listen back to recordings of myself is ... Blah blah." Then take a minute and show him with your rig, esp. if you acknowledge that more gain often FEELS better, but it doesn't sound better.

You can link him to some blog post by one of his heroes saying less gain works better too. If his hero hasn't posted it yet, send his hero email and explain the situation and I'm sure he'll post a two liner on Facebook about it. It's 2014 and I'm sure he'd do you a 30 second favor.

In the event that Guthrie Govan is his hero, he already put that into one of his creative guitar books.

[BTMN]

Covertly check out his amp settings and then talk about balancing the two guitars out in the mix rather than competing for sonic space. What does it sound like on a playback? if you have not maybe record some jams and listen back over a cool down drink and even be a little self critical just to get a conversation going.

One friend just let me tweak the dials for him when he got a new amp. After I was done he actually said why didn't I do that sooner. You never know what kind of reaction you will get.

[cynic]

I'd just shoot straight with the guy. I can't imagine anyone new to guitar being so attached to their tone that they wouldn't love to hear some advice on making it better.

Besides...you guys aren't allowed to get mad!

[marcnorth]

I would probably ride it out for a little while to see where it's going. BTMN is right on with the way to approach the situation if it doesn't change.

[gtone]

Some great input here - many thanks guys. Can always count on the HFC for some no BS collective wisdom. This place rocks!!

[crunchee]

Two words: 'record' and 'playback', like BTMN said. If that doesn't help, nothing will.

[gtone]

Two words: 'record' and 'playback'. If that doesn't help, nothing will.

Yep, I'm going to bring my Zoom out to the next session and maybe we can get some time to review the results afterwards over some beers. We've dashed off quickly afterwards before with everyone so damn busy it seems.

I suspect the problem lies in his learning guitar at home playing alone. Guitar tones that "work" well at home routinely don't sound good in a full band mix. He's uploaded some demoes online with simple drum tracks/bass lines, so possibly that's why he thinks he needs such a thick stew of effects/gain. His stuff is all blues/blues-rock, so certainly doesn't warrant the tons of saturated gain he slathers on. I can't rule out that he might be compensating a bit for his playing with all the distortion, consciously or not.

[The Shark]

Recording practices is invaluable. Tell him the truth. Let him hear it. If he's mostly the rhythm player, he has to understand that clarity and crunch are his best friends. Tell him the challenge for him is to become the best rhythm player he can. As a former bass player, he should understand over-playing crowds the mix. Good luck.

[cmatthes]

If his tone sucks that badly, just make him ditch the Heritage (or Carvin) he's playing.

:D

[Lloyd H.]

Two words: 'record' and 'playback'. If that doesn't help, nothing will.

Yep, I'm going to bring my Zoom out to the next session and maybe we can get some time to review the results afterwards over some beers. We've dashed off quickly afterwards before with everyone so damn busy it seems.

I suspect the problem lies in his learning guitar at home playing alone. Guitar tones that "work" well at home routinely don't sound good in a full band mix. He's uploaded some demoes online with simple drum tracks/bass lines, so possibly that's why he thinks he needs such a thick stew of effects/gain. His stuff is all blues/blues-rock, so certainly doesn't warrant the tons of saturated gain he slathers on. I can't rule out that he might be compensating a bit for his playing with all the distortion, consciously or not.

Not knowing the people involved at all, it's difficult to say. I would say that your assessment is most likely spot on. If he's open to improving the music/the band, it shouldn't be a hard sell if presented constructively. Maybe framing it in the context of his songs being diluted/muddied up, sometimes less is more approach?

[gtone]

If his tone sucks that badly, just make him ditch the Heritage (or Carvin) he's playing.

:D

Not his guitar really - he plays a Gibson LP Goldtop. Suspect a good chunk of the problem is with his signal chain - a ten pedal board wired in series routed thru a generic multi-effects pedal into a SS Marshall combo (MG50 or some such). Yikes!

[cmatthes]

Just because it sounds good through headphones in the bedroom or basement does not mean that'll translate well at gig volumes/with a band!

[MCChris]

a ten pedal board wired in series routed thru a generic multi-effects pedal into a SS Marshall combo (MG50 or some such)

Ghastly.

[bcsride]

"I can't imagine anyone new to guitar being so attached to their tone that they wouldn't love to hear some advice on making it better."

What?

[dragan]

what everyone else said, try and get him to realize on his own ( with a little help) , that that much distortion is a crutch that make his at home alone playing easier to sound good but has no definition and cannot be heard / mixed at all in a live setting without being too loud for his function in the band .

[Jason01]

Help him out, I would gladly accept advice from more experienced players even to this day. Its funny that you mention the gain thing. My last band kept making that same mistake although it was the other people in the band that kept saying it needed more gain. I'm glad to see my argument was valid. Gains good but without note definition its just noise.

[Lloyd H.]

Not his guitar really - he plays a Gibson LP Goldtop. Suspect a good chunk of the problem is with his signal chain - a ten pedal board wired in series routed thru a generic multi-effects pedal into a SS Marshall combo (MG50 or some such). Yikes!

Dude... that's just igganance. Let him listen to Larry Carlton's work on the Royal Scam - Kid Charlemagne. He was playing with an ES 335 plugged straight in to a Tweed Fender Deluxe (single 12"). No effects whatsoever.

[Studio Custom]

Tell him with two players, he needs to reduce is gain so the both parts can be heard clearly.

[JohnnyB]

If his tone sucks that badly, just make him ditch the Heritage (or Carvin) he's playing.

:D

Not his guitar really - he plays a Gibson LP Goldtop. Suspect a good chunk of the problem is with his signal chain - a ten pedal board wired in series routed thru a generic multi-effects pedal into a SS Marshall combo (MG50 or some such). Yikes!

I'm glad you listed his signal chain, because that much tone suckage is at the root of the problem. Ten pedals in series flattens the dynamic range and adds to the noise floor. He may think that raising the gain will help, but it just makes it worse. The multi-effects pedal makes it even more worser because it digitizes that noisy flattened signal, runs it through digital effects, and then converts it back into an analog signal just before feeding the amp.

He needs to learn to walk before he runs--learn the basics of rhythm guitar coordinated with his singing before he messes with the signal for special effect. If he hides behind the processors he may never learn to play well.

[kenjones]

My old band had a keyboard player who wanted to play guitar on a few songs. He wasn't playing through any pedals, but no matter what amp he played through his tone always sounded like a Scholz Rockman. His guitar was some low-end Ibanez RG. I suggested that too much gain muddied up the mix. He asked me to adjust the controls on the amp (one of mine) he was playing through but we just could not get that guitar to sound decent (to my ears anyway). The whole process just pissed him off because he though it sounded fine and could not understand why I couldn't simply just adjust the controls on the amp to get it to sound the way I wanted. But then again, equipment isn't always the problem. Bad tone often comes from bad technique.

[rugby1970]

This topic hits close to home. I my last band we had two guitars: me on true electric guitar and the other guy on 6 or 12 string acoustics with sound hole pickups playing direct through the PA and just some light reverb via the board. It was an interesting arrangement. First, I'm not that good of a guitar player, having come to this late in life, and I know it. So I tend to play at lower volumes. The bass player kept telling me to turn up the volume which I did. I also used 3 to 5 pedals to get different tones (reverb, trem, medium distortion) as I thought our sound needed it since mine was the only true electric guitar. Finally, the bass player blasted me for using pedals at all - it was ugly and messy after that.

So, my advice is to tread lightly. You seem to be competing for a shared sonic space, in my case there was a wide open canvas and it still turned out badly.

[Jakeboy]

If his tone sucks that badly, just make him ditch the Heritage (or Carvin) he's playing.

:D

That is just funny......

[Jakeboy]

If his tone sucks that badly, just make him ditch the Heritage (or Carvin) he's playing.

:D

Not his guitar really - he plays a Gibson LP Goldtop. Suspect a good chunk of the problem is with his signal chain - a ten pedal board wired in series routed thru a generic multi-effects pedal into a SS Marshall combo (MG50 or some such). Yikes!

I'm glad you listed his signal chain, because that much tone suckage is at the root of the problem. Ten pedals in series flattens the dynamic range and adds to the noise floor. He may think that raising the gain will help, but it just makes it worse. The multi-effects pedal makes it even more worser because it digitizes that noisy flattened signal, runs it through digital effects, and then converts it back into an analog signal just before feeding the amp.

He needs to learn to walk before he runs--learn the basics of rhythm guitar coordinated with his singing before he messes with the signal for special effect. If he hides behind the processors he may never learn to play well.

Good advice here.

[bcsride]

This topic hits close to home for me too. ‘Cause I’m that bass player turned front man to promote his own songs now playing guitar with bad tone. Ha!!!!!!

But, no one in my project has complained about my tone. I use two OD pedals, but not at the a same time. I use some chorus sometimes and some phaser very rarely. No verb (I like it dry to cut through) and no delay (at least not on any of our songs yet). All pedals analog except the delay. Gain in front of the map. Wet through the effects loop. Mostly a Hamer Studio GT P90. EQ is mostly flat. I set up the EQ and guitar clean to sound like I want. Then, bring in the OD and adjust the EQ on the OD pedals to work with the OD and pickups selected.

And, my two cents on my tone. It is fantastic. It is clanky crunch. I play mostly chords and some finger style. Blends with the bass player in a fantastic way. It ain’t sweet - but it isn’t supposed to be - its power pop.

It sounds great loud (though the amp is still clean) through my Mesa Express 5:50 with 2X10s. It sounded great through my Peavey Delta Blues. It sounded great through my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. Those are all tube amps with 10, 15, and 12 speakers respectively (I think).

It sounds like poop through my little Peavey modeling SS amp (I forget what it is) 8 in. speaker. Note, everything is in front of the practice amp as it has no effects loop. But, that ain’t the problem. I can get some good sounds out of that Peavey practice amp - but only clean ones. The dirt either from pedals or the emulator on the amps sound bad to me. It might be the speaker. It might be the output transformer. I don’t know. But it matters.