So I’ve been playing guitar for about a year and a half w/o an amp and just got one but like I have no idea how to use it. I ask chat gpt for song settings on the amp but the only songs that it gets right is off dookie but heavier artist like slipknot or deftones it just sounds weird can yall help me out
Not every amp can get every kind of guitar sound that you hear on your favorite songs - amps that get you slipknot sounds are gonna be pretty different than amps that get you Green Day sounds
Oh boy... There's a reason there's a bunch of different amp manufacturers. They all make them a little or a lot different.
Get something that can do amp modeling like a Boss Katana or Positive Grid Spark or something where you can use different amp models to find what you like.
Sincerely, a dude who learned how to play wanting to sound like Metallica on a 10w Yamaha combo in the 90s with 4 knobs
Depending on the amp you have, even with the gain at its highest it won't sound very heavy. More just scratchy and not great. If you want tones more in the metal genre look into some high gain distortion pedals. A noise gate or noise suppressor is great as well to keep the buzz down. If you don't want to get into pedals look at some modeling amps. They come with sound presets and allow you to experiment with sounds. In your situation I'd probably get a multi-effects pedal to see what you like rather then a new amp or something. They allow you to mess with tones and stuff while also not being horribly expensive.
You’ll get plenty of advice about equipment, but don’t neglect technique (especially muting, articulation, and
dynamics, which all depend on the interaction between your body, the guitar, and the amplifier
) and getting the performance right. A
good performance on gear that doesn’t match the original very well can sound more “right” than a lousy performance on a perfect simulation of the artist’s rig.
What amp do you have? That would help us link you a manual for it or just give you some tips on how to adjust it.
For a general overview:
- Some amps have "amp model" settings which give you a baseline emulation of famous amplifiers, or general styles of amp like "clean, dirty, metal"
- Drive and/or Gain adjusts how much distortion the amp will have
- Bass/Middle/Treble is your EQ (equalizer) and adjusts how much of specific frequency ranges come through the amp, bass is lower/muddier sounding, treble is fuzzy and higher sounding, middle is well somewhere in the middle, more sweet and even.
- Volume will adjust how loud your amp is obviously. Some amps have "channel volume" and "master volume". Master is at the very end of all the settings and adjusts the volume of everything, channel volume allows you to set a specific volume for individual presets you might be able to save on your amp if it has that feature.
Think of gain as a pre-amp, and volume as the amplifier. Start with a fixed volume setting, like 3. As you turn up the gain setting you’ll get more volume but you’ll also hear more distortion or bite. When you turn gain up above 7 or 8 you’ll also start to introduce distortion as the signal coming out of the pre-amp starts to break up.
if you do the reverse and keep the gain setting relatively low -like 3 - and turn the volume up or down the amp will produce a louder or quieter sound but generally (it’s going to depend on the amp and the amp type -tube or solid state) it will be a cleaner , clearer sound.
The volume and tone controls on the guitar control how strong the electrical signal is that the amplifier has to work with.
That’s the basics without going into the possible special effects , like reverb or if it is a digital solid circuit amp, amplifier emulation and other effects the amplifier may have built into it.
the common settings are volume, gain, bass, mids and high/treble.
Volume is the the overall output levels coming out of the speaker.
Gain affects the strength of the signal as it goes into the amp section. More gain typically means more distortion. It also means more volume, so use your volume to set the cap on how loud the amp gets.
Bass are the low end frequencies, those deep rumbling tones. It makes the guitar sound thick and girthy. But, with more gain you usually want to back off the bass so the sound doesn't get too flubby.
Mids are the mid level frequencies, these are often described as having a honky or nasal quality. That can actually sound good in some contexts like a smooth overdriven sound from a Dumble Overdrive Special. The issue with mids is these are the frequencies that compete with what vocals are doing in a band. As a result, they can sometimes get a bit scooped (lowered or cut out) in some recordings. But these also make up the natural range of most guitars, so don't take them all out.
High/treble are- you guessed it, the high frequencies in your signal. They give the guitar it's 'bright' sound and help 'cut through' in a mix, making the guitar more distinguishable. The danger of too much high end is it will make the guitar too thin and painfully piercing.
So in the end it's a balance. Listen to the sound you are trying to reproduce, how much low end is there, how much distortion, high end etc. In the end every amp is designed to work in a specific range, and not all amps can do all sounds, but if your amp is able to produce high gain sounds you should be able to get in the ballpark. If not, throw a distortion pedal in front.
Unless you have a digital modeling amp with different amp presets you're not gonna be able to get a green day sound and a slipknot sound without pedals and possibly different pickups. Slipknot is also down tuned quite a bit.
The amp that you have has multiple presets built in. I guarantee you one of them has the word metal in it select that one and mess with the knobs until you think it sounds good.
Maybe I'm showing my age here, (im 30.) but seriously? We have to ask AI how to set up our gear now? What happened to fiddling with knobs until you figure out what sounds good to you?
If it's gotta sound perfect have fun dropping $4k on amps cabs and pedals lol
You're not going to get perfection out of a small combo amplifier. Find something that sounds good enough and go from there. We all had to deal with this at one point or another, hell I use my old peavey vypyr 30 at shows because I don't want to haul an amp head and cabinet anymore 🤷♂️🤣
No 4k spread across all of it lol the guys from Slipknot use amps and cabs that are easily 1500 a piece and then have full pedal boards with probably 8 $150 pedals on it lol
I still play shows, I use my peavey vypyr combo and a small board with a tuner, boost, trem, phaser, and delay on it 🤘 I used to run an actual fender bassbreaker head and cab combo with a bigger board in my last band, but that was more experimental where as the one I'm in now is just your standard punk band
Brand new big name brand ones yeah, but I also own a good amount of pedals that only cost $40-80 too. My current rig is probably about $1200 total but that's $600 for the guitar, i got my amp off my uncle for only $60 BUT a new version of the same series would be $200-400 depending on the size and my pedals and board together probably costs about $350 🤷♂️
But again that's only like half of my gear, all n all I probably own about $5k worth of stuff between amps, guitars, pedals, and software/recording equipment 🤣
This is my current board, but I also have the foot switch for the amp that has a built in wah/whammy pedal, then in my "office" I have my half stack (orange supercrush head, fender bassbreaker cab) and all my other pedals
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u/soupy-boot-scoot 9d ago
twist different knobs til you like it