Achieving the ideal tone from an amp or guitar is a matter of choice of cool pedalboards, as well as some considerations regarding its configuration and style to interpret. In general, the best set-ups go hand in hand with some musical trends, and a little about it will be known below.

Best Guitar Tone

You hear people talk about the “tone” that a guitarist achieves during their performance, this refers to the balance between effects, sustain, cleanliness, and saturation in the sound of their instrument. In some cases its sound is heard to be “natural”, and all this is easily misunderstood.

While each guitarist wants to achieve their own nuanced sound, this will only be possible after the result of a wide variety of factors, among which the following stand out:

• Playing technique.
• Type of tuning and gauge of strings on the guitar.
• Quality and type of microphones in the instrument.
• Gain applied by the amplifier.
• Effect chain settings.
• Musical style.

Although there are many factors that determine the “aesthetics” of the instrument’s tone, it is worth spending a couple of hours on each one, since the best guitarists have undoubtedly done it and have found very good results.

The best way will be “trial and error”, and given the great variety of types of effects, styles, guitarists, and sounds, it is expected that the simple process of finding an appropriate sound will take a few weeks.

There are some data that serve as a good starting point for the process to be easy and even fun.

Guitar Tone and Volume Pots

The guitars have a volume and tone control, this allows you to control the instrument’s presence sound more than any tone pedals guitar, a useful trick to get some extra shine is to adjust the effects chain by setting the instrument’s pitch to the middle, this means that when accentuation is required, control is at hand with a quick twist of the wrist.

Volume adjustment can also mean a subtle play of dynamics and saturation in the amp, like a Tremolo effect. Amplifiers (especially vacuum tubes) have a particular saturation that responds to these increases in volume with a harmonic that is highly valued by ballad and jazz music performers.

Guitar Tone on Bass

The vintage guitar pedals stand out for eliminating the dull sound of the instrument, and of the amplifier by highlighting the bass-mid tones, something that with good control means very good presence without harming the timbre of other instruments such as the bass.

Even though it may not seem like it, some frequencies in the sound of a guitar can be controlled and deliver very good fidelity to other instruments as a whole, this is a technique applied in rhythmic styles in which each chord must be perceived without overlapping others.

Guitar Tone for Funk

Styles like Funk require a very warm and saturated guitar, something that adds energy and rhythm. In general, the interpreters must sacrifice “cleanliness” in their execution in order to deliver highly modulated and atmospheric sounds.

Guitar Tone for Jazz

Jazz will undoubtedly be the emblematic style for vintage pedals, where everything takes place, and the guitarist needs a lot of sustain, brightness, and saturation, everything with a natural tone that stands out with each note under ascents and descents of intensity and neatness. Perhaps this is where any selection is put to test, not to mention that different guitars and tunings are required, something always out of the ordinary.