Tips & Tricks

Ten Tips to Trick Tone

I was sitting in with a band recently, when the drummer suddenly stopped playing, peered through his cymbals and asked me how I was getting all my different sounds. He was confused because I wasn't stepping on any effects pedals, yet still getting a ton of different tones out of my guitar.

Here are some tips to broaden your soundscape...drop me a line with any that I missed. I'll discuss the details of each in a separate article:

1. Vary your picking style. Don't just use alternating picking (up-down-up-down) or just all down picking, mix it up.



2. In the same vein, don't just use your pick alone. Throw in some fingers. Use a hybrid picking where you use your pick on one note and your index and ring fingers for the next.



3. Use your thumb. It gives a beautiful, lush, warm tone. Completely different than a pick. Try it out on some sliding octaves and it will sound like a Wes Montgomery or George Benson lick. Throw that into the middle of a fast 64th note solo, and watch people raise their eyebrows. Whoa!



4. Use the fleshy part of your fingers in conjunction with the pick to get an altogether different sound than just the pick plastic.



5. Use pinch harmonics to create some squeals and squeaks on some notes in your solos. They draw a lot of attention. Just don't over do it. A couple of times is great, a lot of times is irritating.


Okay, so besides just varying the way you use your fingers, let's get a tiny bit mechanical:


6. Drop your wang bar a bit before you hit a note, and relax it back to center for the real note. It creates a nice swooping effect.



7. Hold your wang bar in your fingers as you pick so that each note warbles, a la Joe Satriani.



8. Move your pick up and down the strings between the pickups to get a variety of tones. Warmer towards the neck, more bite towards the bridge. And completely different depending on which pickup you have selected. I constantly move my pick this way so as to get the right tone for the right note. It never stays in the same place for long.



9. Change your pickup selector switch during different parts of your playing. Not just solos, but during rhythm parts too. It will change the complexity of whatever you are playing.



10. Use your volume knob to "swell" into a note or chord. Turn it completely off, pick your note, and then turn up the volume. It sounds very string-like and very beautiful.

There you go. Ten quick ways to completely vary your tone without ever stomping on an effects box or touching your amp. Experiment with these ideas one at a time while you are noodling with some friends or put on a jam track and just start playing. You will quickly hear what a difference it makes to use some of these techniques, and they will become an integral part of your playing. Then, the next time another player stops you and asks you how you get such a creative tone, you can go, "Dude, I'm a pro. This is how a pro sounds!"