This guide will show you how to get the most out of your amp by showing you how to become an expert in your guitar amp’s settings.
This guide is so important because of something I see too often as a guitar teacher. I often see students ‘upgrading’ their amps because they’re not happy with the tone their current amp produces. It normally happens like this:
This has happened to quite a few of my students over the years. Before we dig into guitar amp settings and how to dial in a great tone on any guitar amp, let’s look at what’s the problem is and how you can avoid it:
Best Acoustic Guitar Amps 2023
If you want to play a certain style, people will start suggesting different guitar amps to suit that style. While those suggestions
So if you have amp X and somebody tells you amp Y is great for the style you want to play, you will start doubting amp X
If you’re not sure what type of guitar amp is right for you, read through my Guide on Types of Guitar Amps.
Acoustic Pickups & How To Make Them Sound Their Best
The salesperson at the guitar shop (or any other experienced guitarist) knows how to dial in good tones with almost any amp
One of my students bought an unsuitable amp (in my opinion) on the spot because the guitar salesperson dialed in a great tone at the shop. An experienced guitarist can make almost any amp sound great just like an advanced guitarist can make acheap guitar sound far better than it is.
So if you go to the guitar shop in search of an amp, be aware that it’s very easy for the salesperson to make one amp sound better than another.
Mixing Acoustic Guitars Live
It’s also worth mentioning that there are many tricks some salespeople will use to make one amp sound superior to another. For example, having one amp slightly louder than another amp can be all it takes to make that person believe that the louder amp is superior. This is used often in the hi-fi and home theater industry – to make a more expensive unit sound better they simply raise the volume slightly.
Getting frustrated at your gear because you can’t reproduce a tone you hear in a song is a common problem most beginners and intermediate guitarists experience.
I’ve heard of beginners buying $2000+ amp stacks because they thought that buying high-priced gear will give them great tone. That’s what the amp makers want you to believe! This guide will steer you away from that line of thinking.
Ways To Get Acoustic Guitar Sounds From Electric Guitars
One reason why I created this guide is that I saw how many websites list different guitar amp settings or presets. You will see a lot of websites list guitar amp presets like:
The major problem with guitar amp presets is that every guitar amp is different so the presets are useless. If you lined up 10 different guitar amps and set them all with the exact same preset, each one would still sound completely different.
Read the comments on those websites and you will see countless people complaining that they followed the advice and it didn’t give them the tone they wanted.
Iconic Guitar Tones
The goal of this guide is to teach you to use your ears and figure out the right preset for any situation on your own. If you follow the advice in this guide you will never need to look up another guitar amp settings preset again.
The main lesson here is that guitar amp settings presets don’t teach you how to use your guitar amp or how to dial in good tones.
Let’s start by getting a general feel for the typical controls on guitar amps. The three examples below are very different from each other, but you will notice some similarities in the controls.
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There are countless other amps out there with different controls, so the three below will give you a good idea of what to expect.
The Fender Mustang I shown above is a digital modeling amp which is why the section on the right of the above photo is so different from traditional guitar amp controls. A lot of modern combo amps have some effects built-in and many give the option to save different presets.
This amp gives a wide range of channel options and models different types of amps which is becoming more and more common with combo amps.
Best Acoustic Amp?
The Marshall MG15DFX above is an example of a small combo amp with a fewbuilt-in effects. It’s also simpler than the Mustang I shown earlier. Here are the main controls worth mentioning:
The below amp is a Peavey 6505+ head unit. While it might look daunting compared to the above examples, when you look closer it becomes clear that this amp is actually pretty basic.
The unit has two channels with independent controls. So while it looks like a lot of knobs, it’s only because each channel has dedicated controls rather than master controls. This means you can set different EQ settings for the ‘Rhythm’ or ‘Lead’ channels. Here are the main controls:
Best Acoustic Guitar Amps 2023: Let Your Acoustic Guitar Tone Shine
That’s what this guide will focus on and by the end, you will be able to tweak these controls on any amp to produce the tone you want. Your amp may have more or fewer controls than the examples above, but the main features to pay attention to is gain, EQ, and volume.
Think of those controls as the core of your tone. Other features such as inbuilt effects are something you consider later on.
Let’s start with the most basic thing you can do with your guitar amp: getting a clean tone. This is a good starting point as it will get you comfortable with how the gain, EQ, and volume controls all contribute to your overall tone. It will also emphasize the importance of pickup selection.
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Many modern amps will have multiple channels so select a clean channel to get you started. If your amp has multiple clean channels (eg: a digital modelling amp with a few different clean options), pick any for now.
At this point, all you want is a very clean and dry sound without any effects. Turn off any compressors, boosters, delay, reverb or anything else that might be on. When you play your guitar it should sound dry without any hint of effects or any grit or distortion.
You apply any effects. Quite often people start with effects (eg: delay) on and it distracts them from first setting up a good clean tone. So start with everything else off.
Guitar Amps And Pa Systems For The Acoustic Guitarist
On a lot of digital amps, the clean setting may be a preset with some effects built-in. So even if you have an option for clean, double check to make sure all the effects are turned off.
As explained earlier, every amp is different, but with most amps this should be a neutral setting for EQ. Using this as your starting point will give you a feel for your amp’s natural tone before you start tweaking it. Set your amp’s EQ knobs to look similar to below:
Starting with your EQ as flat as possible allows you to get a good feel for the natural sound of your amp. You can always tweak the EQ later on, so even if you don’t like what you hear now, it’s good to get a basic starting point.
These Are The Amp Settings I Use For Earlier Modest Mouse. I Also Recommend Using The Bd 2 And Set Level/gain At 12:00 And Tone At 2:00. Depending On Your Amp And Guitar
With some amps, if you roll the gain knob to zero it cuts the signal. Keep the gain low enough that you can still hear your guitar and adjust the volume up or down to bring it to a comfortable level.
When you hit a chord hard you shouldn’t hear any type of distortion at all and it should die off naturally. If you do hear a bit of grit or breakup in your tone, back the gain off.
You probably won’t like the sound of a very dry amp, but don’t worry. This is just to give you a baseline. You will be able to roll the gain back in later to find the tone you’re after.
How To Record Your Electric Guitar
Spend at least a minute jamming then change to a different pickup. Spend at least a minute on each pickup combination to get a feel for how each pickup sounds. Don’t worry if the tone sounds bad as you will soon tweak it to your liking.
This is an important step so don’t skip ahead to making adjustments yet! Learning how to think critically about your tone before you make adjustments is how you will get a good tone in the end. Randomly tweaking knobs or adding in stompboxes won’t teach you to control your tone.
At first, it will be hard to describe what you like/dislike about your tone. Here are some basic examples of what you might be thinking:
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Over time you will be able to get more specific about what you like/dislike about your tone so spend a few minutes now trying to describe your tone.
The previous step is so important because you need to first know what you don’t like about your tone before you make any changes. Tweaking knobs without a specific goal won’t help you get a good tone.
At first, you may not know how to fix a problem such
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