Pedal Settings

[Daulton1]

I have a boss ds-1 distortion. It's one of my absolute favorite distortion pedals. At which o clock should I set the tone, level and the distortion nob to combine tue sounds of journey, styx, reo speedwagon, foreigner and kansas?

[t_e_l_e]

it all depends which amp you feed, with which guitar and with which pickups, every combination of them will sound different and require (slightly) different settings on your pedal

[WRGKMC]

Tele is right.

You're mainly talking about gain and EQ settings of a pedal.

 

Every set of pickups output a different signal strength. Humbuckers typically tend to have a much stronger output signal then single coils. You'd need to gain the single coils up higher then double coil humbuckers. The pickup height is also a huge factor as are the string type you use. Even your pick gauge light vs heavy can change the output.

 

The number or winds on a pickup will also affect the frequency output. A vintage would Fender pickup will have a much broader output with increased high frequencies compared to a hot wound humbucker which will have boosted mids and reduced highs. The instrument itself, the wood type and again the string type and pick used will affect the tone.

 

After that, different amps will have different tone stacks (EQ and gain ranges) as well as the speaker and cab. A big cab will tend to have more bass then a small open backed cab.

 

Add to this if you're comparing your sound to a recording, you have to factor in all the entire recording chain at the time they made the recording. What those bands used then may be totally different from what they use today/ Not only the guitars, pedals amps and players, but the studio, the mics, the recording console, the recorder, the people who mixed and mastered the recordings, on and on. The original guitar may have been super clean and by the time it got burned to vinyl had dozens of layers of processing.

 

The only suggestion you can use is to study the specific gear used when they made those recording and then use your ears when dialing up the best tones. Chances are allot of their older recordings may have been made without the kinds of pedals or amps you think they used and changed on a yearly basis as the bands became famous and could afford better gear. I've seen countless bands they switch gear during a tour because its cheaper to rent the gear from a sound company then it is to haul it around the world.

[1001gear]

Picking dynamics factor in big time. Not just the p/f of it but the different attacks and resultant timbres. Typically you find a zone that sounds about right but when you play the tune it's all wrong.

[WRGKMC]

Picking dynamics factor in big time. Not just the p/f of it but the different attacks and resultant timbres. Typically you find a zone that sounds about right but when you play the tune it's all wrong.

 

A good rule of thumb for drive pedals is to dial up the gain then turn the guitar volume down two or three numbers (1/4 to 1/3 down) The gain should decrease and give you a fairly clean tone at that point. This is how most guitars plugged into a cranked tube amp react and produce the most ideal levels of drive vs tone. If the sound is still distorted you're likely using too much drive.

 

Using too much drive playing live can be a big problem. You'll easily wind up being masked by the drummers cymbals or simply wind up sounding like a blur of white noise in the background. The 1/4 to 1/3 cleanup trick insures you'll have a good range of drive levels to work with yet maintain a presence on stage so you'll be able to cut through the mix at louder volumes and be heard clearly on stage.

 

Of course the pickup and pot type will be factors here too. High gain pickups or 1 meg pots may not clean up until turned down past 50%. By that point you're likely producing mud tones. having high gain pickups and high gain pickups kind of defeats the purpose of using them. The whole reason for using high gain pickups is to get drive from an amp head, not a pedal. I like using different gain pedals so I can get a variety of saturated tones so I stick with vintage wound pickups which not only clean up when turned down but they have a broader frequency response which combats the tone loss as you turn down.

 

Hot pickups can be a one trick pony if they don't match an amp head well. Most classic amps tone stacks are designed for getting the most frequency control from a certain impedance range. Once you get up above 10K the EQ ranges can be dismal.

 

Of course theres nothing wrong with the overuse of drive and you surely want to test the limits of any pedal you own, but you'll find most famous artists use less drive then you think both recording and live. Its simply a recording has several layers of added compression when mixing and mastering which make the instruments sound like they have allot more gain then they do, but its actually an aural illusion. Guitars that stand out in mixes and sound really big usually have a 50/50 mix if drive vs gain. As drive increases, the instrument sounds smaller and smaller.