Cry Baby: The Pedal That Changed The World

Very cool documentary...

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

Or see it here in one part.

Sound Better for Free (or next to nothing) - Tip #1

There are many ways of improving your sound. Not the least of which is buying all new gear. But before you rush out to "Gear R Us" and max out all you creditcards, including the gas card, I'd like to touch on some ways to do it for free or for pocket change.

Increase Your String Gauge
The next time you're going to music store to buy a set of strings, buy a heavier set.  Heavier strings sound better.  They provide more mass or more tone and they tend to ring longer.  If you're playing your electric with 8's or 9's try bumping up to 9's or 10's.

Stevie Ray Vaughn sometimes used heavy-gauged strings as thick as .013-.060.  You'd be hard pressed to argue than SRV wasn't a tone king.  Now to be fare I have to tell you he did detune his guitar a half-step to Eb-Ab-Db-Gb-Bb-Eb, making minor 3rd bends almost doable.

Now if after years of playing with 9's that set of 10's just feels way too heavy, then try a set of 9.5's.  You can find them if you look.  You could use that as a transition set.  Or you could use a "light top heavy bottom" set to transition.  One trick I did recently was when I ordered my last guitar, I had it strung up with heavier strings then I normally would've used, but now I've only known that guitar to feel that way.  In essence I fooled myself.  I play that guitar all the time and it sounds great.

For some reason like Starbucks' "tall", "grande", "venti", nomenclature for string manufacturers is "extra light" means light, "light" means medium, and "medium" means heavy.

Acoustic players could switch from "extra lights" to "lights" or from "lights" to "mediums".  There is an even more dramatic metamorphosis with acoustic guitars when you increase the string gauge.  With both acoustic and electrics it's a workout at first but later pays in "tonal dividends".

Acoustic strings -
Elixir Strings Acoustic Guitar Strings, 6 String, Light POLYWEB Coating
Elixir Strings Acoustic Guitar Strings, 6-String, Medium NANOWEB Coating
Ernie Ball 2003 Earthwood 80/20 Bronze Acoustic String Set, Medium Light (12 - 54)
Ernie Ball 2004 Earthwood 80/20 Bronze Acoustic String Set, Light (11 - 52)

Electric strings -
Elixir Strings Electric Guitar Strings, 6-String, Light NANOWEB Coating
Elixir Strings Electric Guitar Strings, 6-String, Medium NANOWEB Coating
Ernie Ball Regular Slinky String Set (10 - 46)
Ernie Ball 2627 Ernie Ball, Beefy Slinky String Set (11 - 54)

Sound Better for Free (or next to nothing) - Tip #4

Spend Time with Your Gear

Don't just expect to be able to plug in and play.  Whether you have a twenty space rack full of effects and preamps or a simple amp with just a few knobs, you get the most out of your gear when you spend time with it.

Once a student brought over a new amp he'd received for Christmas.  He complained that it didn't "rock" and that he thought he was going to have to buy a distortion pedal.  Within two minutes I had four different sounds dialed into his amp; a clean, a crunchy, a saturated (lots of distortion) and a surf tone (lots of reverb) all within the confines of a fifteen watt practice amp.

Start with the amplifier

One of my amps is a one-channel Matchless Clubman 35 head, because the entire signal path is analog (not digital) and it has tube preamp and power amp stages, it is very reactive.  Meaning I can dial up a heavily distorted sound on the amp and by tweaking the volume knob on my guitar get a clean tone (by turning almost all of the way down), a crunch tone (midway) and a heavily distorted tone (volume all the up). All that without having to jump on pedals or program anything.  Try this with your amp.  If you have an amp with a master volume control (meaning a preamp knob and a master volume knob), turn up the preamp volume close to ten while keeping your master volume below ear bleed levels.  Now turn down your guitar and listen, is it cleaner?  Turn your guitar up about half way, is it getting crunchy? Lastly crank it, is it screaming?  Some amps will do this, particularly high end tube amps.  Overall volume shouldn't change very much when you do this.  Twiddling with your guitars volume control can bring forth an entire rainbow of tones through an amp with just the right "mojo".

Effects

Stomp boxes, do-it-all floor units or rack mounted units each provide their own complications.  I'm not big on reading manuals.  I'm a kind of fidget-with-it-until-I've-painted-myself-into-a-corner kind of guy.  Then I break out the manual.  I learn fastest when I experiment.  But chances are with the complex sound modeling effects of today none of us are getting the most out of our gear.  I do know however when the tone isn't happening.  That's when I go to work. Youtube can be a valuable resource.  Learn from the successes of others.  Though good tone doesn't always translate from gear to laptop mic to internet to youtube to internet to laptop speakers.

Some units have headphone outputs.  Don't use them unless you're programming late at night or just familiarizing yourself with the parameters.  Headphones are not real world.  If you're EQing, your ears are receiving the sound quite artificially, play through an amp, however quietly, for the best results.

Rarely have I brought something home that didn't need major tweaking. Years ago a major manufacturer (who will remain nameless) gave me a multi effects/preamp unit to use and abuse.  I could not find in its 200+ patches one slightly crunchy tone (a la SRV).  I had to create one from the ground up!  In fact all the patches I use have had adjustments made. Some slight, most major overhauls.  But ultimately, to my ears, the thing sounds killer now.