PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
No piece of gear is an island – and only by understanding how guitars, pedals and amps interact can we achieve the tones we most desire in a consistent way. So, how do you bring it all together? Dan Steinhardt of TheGigRig and That Pedal Show explains…
Now that we’ve examined the core tonal qualities we’re trying to influence – and looked at how hardware choices such as pickups and strings can help fine-tune our playing experience – it’s time to demonstrate how we can use that knowledge to craft stunningly effective sounds in the real world.
With that in mind, we’ve joined Daniel Steinhardt, the tone maven behind TheGigRig, who crafts pro pedalboards for the likes of Vai and Radiohead and co-hosts That Pedal Show. With Dan to guide us, we’ve picked out some classic tonal scenarios – from ultra-clean jazz tones to metal sounds slathered in gain – so we can examine how intelligent gear choices and smart settings can help us achieve the best possible results in each case.
In order to understand the key principles at work in each case, we’ve restricted ourselves to one guitar, one amp and one drive pedal in each of our fictional scenarios. We hope this offers a clear foundation that can be built upon with further embellishments and additions once the core principles are established. Of course, our example rigs are not the only bits of kit you could use – similar guitars, amps and effects that suit the general requirements of the scenario could just as easily be substituted in most cases. Also, we aren’t saying these rigs are the only routes to the target tone – just some highly effective starting points. In the final analysis there are no absolute rules, so never dismiss finding what’s right for you by experimentation as well.
But before we get into the nitty gritty, Dan has one important piece of advice to offer…
“A few years ago I was in a real rut with my guitar playing. I realised I just wasn’t listening to music the same way. I’d been so focused in such a narrow area of tone and that sort of stuff, and I remember taking a week off and just putting albums back on again and spending a week just listening to music, because this stuff comes down to being informed and is all about context.
“We’re creating music,” he reminds us. “So why not start by listening to stuff you love objectively, going, ‘Okay, is that a warm tone, is it really bright and spanky, are they somewhere in the middle?’”
With your tonal imagination refreshed and reconnected to what matters, it’s time to examine the building blocks of some classic sounds most players will turn to at some point in their playing careers.
“A few years ago I was in a real rut with my guitar playing, so I took a week off and spent it listening to albums”
“We’re creating music, so start by listening to stuff you love and asking, ‘Is that a warm tone? Is it really bright and spanky?’”