How to get great clean tone for electric guitar
Let's talk about clean tone and how to get it right the first time.
Getting a good clean sound out of a guitar is actually not that hard to get, but it has to be approached in a specific way.
Step 1. Use the bridge pickup
Easy to do. Switch your guitar to use the bridge side pickup. You do this because to get the most treble tone. Later on you can experiment with other pickup positions, but for now, switch to bridge.
Step 2. Compression
Most guitar players simply think "turning off everything" is the only way to clean tone. It isn't. Compression is necessary. You can do this with a BOSS CS-3, the (much) more affordable Behringer CS400 or use a muilti-effects unit like the DigiTech RP360 that I use.
No matter what style of music you play, if you're going clean, compression is mandatory. Why? Three reasons.
First, it evens out the string volume so the wound strings don't "boom" over the plain strings.
Second, it makes every note heard clearly no matter where you are on the fretboard.
Third, it allows you to play softer so you're not getting fret buzz all over the place. When playing with an overdrive or distortion effect, that masks just about all the fret buzz. But when playing clean, all the buzz is heard. And no matter what guitar you play or how perfectly set it up it is, there will be times you will hear small amounts of fret buzz when playing clean. The simple solution around that? Play softer. The way to bring up the quiet notes when playing softer? Use compression. Problem solved.
Step 3. Purposely use a tone that's slightly broken up
If you have ever played guitar through an amplifier cabinet that uses Celestion speakers, you know that there is no way to get 100% crystal clear clean tone through those. And the reason for that is that Celestions naturally break up and distort the more they're driven. This can easily be heard when playing live with a band when the amp has to be turned up to be heard.
As a side note, this is a big reason why there are many guitar players who prefer bass amps such as a 100-watt Fender Rumble (which by the way can be had up to 500 watts if you want something that really thunders). If you play a lot of clean tone stuff, it's typically true the bass amp will serve you a lot better...
BUT...
...there is something pretty cool about the sound of a broken-up Celestion when played clean.
My sound isn't 100% clean. I purposely use an amp model out of my DigiTech RP360 that isn't crystal clear in its sound, and in fact has slight distortion to it with some treble cutoff. That kind of tone is similar to a guitar amp played clean at a medium volume using Celestion speakers.
In the end, a slightly broken up clean tone sounds "more real". There are many hit songs from the late '70s that have that broken up Celestion tone to it. Three examples are Back on the Chain Gang by The Pretenders, Roxanne by The Police and My Sharona by The Knack.
Step 4. Washy chorus
Not required, but it helps for one simple reason. It helps make chords sound more in-tune.
As all guitar players know, the enemy when playing clean is that G string. How you tune that G when playing clean determines which chords sound in-tune and which sound out-of-tune.
The standard advice given is to purposely tune the G string 15 cents flat. This is a very slight detune of the G and you need a tuner that can display cents such as the tried-and-true Korg GA-1.
However, even with that G tuned to 15 cents flat, there are some chords that will still sound slightly out-of-tune...
...which is where washy chorus comes in. The chorus effect liberally applied will mask that slightly-out G string.
Step 5. Multi-tap delay
When I want to go no-reverb that still sounds like reverb, I use a specific delay type.
The RP360 I use has many delay effects in it, and one of them is 2-tap. This style of delay uses repeats at varying rates. This means that instead of a sound repeated at a rate of every X milliseconds, it introduces differing rates. Think of it the same way as if you chained two delay pedals together with one set at 400ms at 50% volume and the next one set to 600ms at 25% volume. The end result of this is a "dreamy" style delay that sounds like a reverberation effect but is in fact all delay.
If using pedals, the easiest way to get multi-tap without breaking the bank is just use two. My recommendation here is to get two smaller pedals with a lot of range. The Tom'sline digital delay is the best solution here. Chain a pair of those together and it's easy to get multi-tap goodness.
Single pedal offerings for multi-tap aren't cheap. Far from it, actually. And they're complicated. The Pigtronix Echolution, while a very cool pedal, is really expensive, not user-friendly at all and outright intimidating. I'd recommend the the RP360 over the Echolution any day of the week. Even if you use the RP360 for delay and nothing else, it's way cheaper and easier to use.
Clean is not really clean?
For electric guitar tone, total absolute clean tone actually doesn't sound that good. It is OK to dress up the sound with compression, very light overdrive (broken up tone,) chorus and delay.
Remember that the only guitar that absolutely sounds right 100% clean is, of course, acoustic. For electric, yes you have to apply some effects to get the clean tone sounding right, and it's not a sin to do so.
The worst guitar color of all time
There are some guitar finishes that look just plain bad...
...and this one is the worst, the Fender Jim Root Telecaster. This guitar at the time I write this is the ugliest guitar made because of its white finish.
Now bear in mind the white on the JR Tele isn't just any white. It's flat white, meaning it has no gloss, no sheen and has the appearance of being unfinished in the worst possible way.
The reason people hate white guitars is the same reason people hate white rental cars. It looks lifeless, dull, boring and cheap. It doesn't matter how well-made the instrument is. Stark, bright white, especially a flat white, is literally the worst possible color one could choose to put on a guitar.
History time!
The reason almost zero white vintage electric guitars exist is because they looked horrific on television. In the black-and-white days of TV, white guitars would always "wash out" when filmed, hence the reason Gibson came up with the color TV Yellow which on camera would look white but in reality was a yellow finish.
And guess what? Stark white guitars even today still look terrible when filmed with HD cameras. There is simply no way to make a bright white guitar look good.
"But the JR Tele is a tool guitar!"
So what? It's still fugly.
Back in the day, the #1 finish Fender used on their solid-body electrics was sunburst. This was chosen not only because it was cheap to apply but it also gave the guitar a woody look to it. Sunburst isn't a solid finish so you can see the nice wood grain come through and it just works.
Gibson did the same thing by offering a ton of their guitars in sunburst as well, with the difference being there was more red in the finish (hence Heritage Cherry Sunburst).
Both companies avoided white like the plague. This isn't to say there aren't a few examples of vintage white electrics, but it was never stark white. Olympic White has some blue in it, Arctic White has yellow in it and so on.
Avoid bright white guitars, and especially avoid the Jim Root Telecaster in that finish because it's the worst.
On a final note, the JR Tele is one of the few electrics I've ever known that actually looks worse in person compared to online photos like the 7UP Green Clapton Stratocaster. Yes, it's that bad.
Best Christmas guitar gifts for 2017
It's no surprise at all that almost all the best seller guitar gifts this year are on the low-priced end of the spectrum.
Why are lower-priced guitars selling better? It's not just because of price. Build quality has increased tremendously across the board compared to 10 years ago. The only time you get something truly bad is if the guitar is a toy. None of what's listed below are toys. And with that said, here are the hot guitar gifts for 2017.
This bundle includes a gig bag, tuner, extra pack of strings, strap, picks, polishing cloth and an instructional DVD. The guitar itself is Fender's FA-100 model. You can get just the guitar to shave off a few bucks, but if giving the gift to a total beginner who has never played guitar before, giving the bundle is better and doesn't cost that much more. The price is already cheap as it is.
This full-size acoustic sells for well under $100 new and easily beats the price at guitar stores considering the shipping is free. It's very highly rated as a genuinely good acoustic guitar by those who have bought it.
Simply put, this is as cheap as you can get while still getting a good acoustic guitar. Anything cheaper than this goes into "toy that will break in a week" territory.
Hinkler EBB Electric Blues Box Slide Guitar Kit
This is a very simple guitar, but it's fun and has genuine character to it. Even if it's never played, it would still look cool hanging on a wall. This is traditionally known as a cigar box guitar.
Squier Bullet Strat HSS Hard Tail
The Hard Tail Bullet Strat was introduced this year, and many are flocking to it because a lot of players consider it the easier guitar to deal with since it has no tremolo system. This guitar has sold well since its introduction and continues to do so.
Squier Vintage Modified '70s Stratocaster
The '70s look for guitars is definitely the "in" thing at the moment, but aside from that, some players genuinely like an all-black Strat with the all-maple neck. This guitar definitely delivers that. Compared to the Bullet Strat HSS Hard Tail seen above, this is a traditional SSS with the tremolo system.
I was genuinely surprised to see this one make the list, but upon closer examination I was able to see why. This guitar is just plain gorgeous, has set-neck construction, 24.75" scale, jumbo frets, thin "U" shape neck, and most importantly, also comes in a lefty version. A lot of guitar companies ignore lefty players. LTD did not.
This guitar is best for players that prefer a "fast" thin neck on a guitar that turns heads, sounds great and plays great. This is a mid-priced guitar but is arguably better than anything Epiphone could offer, and at a cheaper price.
Also be sure to see the Lemon Drop finish option. Very cool looking.
What does a Fender Greasebucket tone circuit actually do?
I received an email asking what this specific circuit does and am answering it with an article on the subject.
The Fender American Special Stratocaster features the Fender Greasebucket tone circuit. This is something Fender introduced back in 2005 and was originally featured in Highway One models along with a few offerings from the custom shop.
A regular tone circuit in a Strat is a 250K potentiometer with .022 orange drop capacitor.
A Greasebucket tone circuit is also a 250K potentiometer with .022 capacitor, but with 4.7K resistor and .1uf capacitor.
With the regular 250K, as the tone is rolled off, there is an increase in bass frequency. And as you roll the tone knob back and forth, a "wow" or "wah" sound is heard.
With the Greasebucket tone circuit, as the tone is rolled off, bass frequency isn't increased. And as you roll the tone knob back and forth, less "wow" or "wah" is heard.
How does Greasebucket benefit the player?
The idea with the Greasebucket tone circuit is keep the bass EQ "flat" so as the tone is rolled off, bass boom isn't added in, thereby making the tone control on the Stratocaster guitar more usable...
...depending on application, which is something a lot of people seem to gloss over.
Typically, where the Greasebucket tone circuit works best is with effects in use such as overdrive, distortion, chorus, delay and so on. If you're the type of player that uses a lot of effects, Greasebucket is your friend. Having a tone circuit that allows you to shape the tone to an almost surgical level is nice to have.
Where Greasebucket does not work well is when going after vintage style Strat tones. An example of this is using the third pickup position (middle pickup) and then rolling the tone down to 5. With regular Strat wiring, more bass frequency will be heard. If that is the kind of Strat sound you're used to, then you will not get along with the Greasebucket circuit because that increased bass will simply not be there.
So in the end, if you're a Stratocaster player that actually uses the tone control and want something more effects-friendly, then yes, Greasebucket works great and that is its best application. But if you never use the tone control and/or prefer a Strat with more traditional wiring, Greasebucket really won't do anything for you.
And yes, there are wiring kits available to mod your own guitar to have the circuit.
Is the neck pickup on a Telecaster worthless?
It's time to talk about the mini single-coil in the Fender Telecaster.
The traditional pickup layout on a Telecaster is an overwound single-coil pickup in the rear and a mini single-coil (often mistakenly identified as a lipstick pickup but it's not) in the front. And more often than not, the rear pickup is trebly and twangy while the front pickup is quieter and has noticeably less treble response compared to the rear.
Whether it's a cheap Squier Affinity Telecaster, a midgrade Fender Standard Telecaster, or the more expensive Fender American Special Telecaster, if the guitar has the the overwound/mini pickup layout, that front mini pickup is usually a bit on the quiet side.
Is this normal? More often than not, yes it is.
If you take a look at replacement front pickups for the Telecaster by Seymour Duncan, you'll notice immediately that nearly all of them are low-output by design with emphasis on the bass frequency. Such examples are the Alnico II Pro Tele and Antiquity Tele.
Seymour Duncan does make a high-output front mini, the appropriately named Hot Tele pickup. And from DiMarzio there is the Twang King DP172...
...but is installing a high-output, high-treble front pickup in a Telecaster a good idea?
I personally wouldn't do it because it ends up being a bit of a clacky mess where tone is concerned.
If I really wanted a high-output front pickup in a Telecaster, I'd go S/H or HH. An example of S/H is Fender Classic Series '72 Telecaster Custom or Squier Vintage Modified Telecaster Custom. An example of HH is Fender Standard Telecaster HH or the Squier Vintage Modified '72 Telecaster Thinline.
Is there an easy and cheap way to get more treble response out of the Telecaster front pickup?
Yes. Use a pick that is thin celluloid, thin nylon or anything that is thin and has some flap to it.
Using a thin pick that flaps will make your strings "ping" more, and yes it really does work to get greater treble response out of the Telecaster front pickup since the guitar already rings and twangs by design.
I would try using a thin pick first before doing anything else. Sometimes a change of pick is all you need to get the sound you want out of your guitar.
So is the front pickup on the Telecaster worthless?
Obviously not...
...but I can understand the argument from those who say the Fender Esquire and Gibson Les Paul Junior, both of which traditionally have just one single-coil rear pickup, is all anyone ever needs out of an electric guitar.
I wouldn't even own a Telecaster if it didn't have a front pickup. While I can see the value of guitar minimalism, I do actually use the front single regularly. Going without it would not make me a happy camper, so I'm glad it's there.
Do I feel the need to have greater output and treble out of the front pickup? No. All I did was adjust a few presets on my RP360, grab a thin pick when I need a little extra treble and that's pretty much it.
I've found that the lower output of the front single is actually better for both chording and soloing. Strings are heard more and pick strike heard less, both of which are very good things.