The three key elements to a great rock guitar tone.

I guess I was fortunate, seeing as I spent a small fortune on equipment that didn’t do what it promised in the adverts. The pure heart stopping distortion that the ART SGX 2000 advert promised it would deliver, turned out to be the one purchase that would teach me the hard way to getting the sound I wanted.

The situation is no different nowadays, guitar effects processors consistently disappoint me at first, only to wow me later when I’ve learned their secret.

I think it’s a given that most guitar effects processors are mediocre at best when you listen to the factory presets.

The first key to great rock guitar tone.

You have to plug a decent guitar in first, it’s just an unavoidable fact, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m just going to assume that you’ve got that sorted out.

The first key element is the basic distortion characteristics. A sound might be thin and uneventful, but if the underlying tone has the right character, it can be made into something great.

To illustrate this point, I’ve got a no-name brand overdrive-distortion pedal that was recommended by a friend.

It’s called a Ken Multi multiple effects MME-7. See, I told you it was a no-name brand. This thing has the right tonal character but sounds terrible through the wrong amplifier.

This is because many amplifiers are missing the other two key ingredients to a great rock tone.

So that basically for me, is the first step towards your dream rock guitar sound – A great sounding guitar into something that distorts the signal the right way.

The tricky thing here is that it’s difficult to determine if step one is correct until you’ve got steps two and three down.

How to eq a good rock guitar sound.

There are two main frequencies that I look at when trying to get the right distorted tone. These are the bass and upper midrange frequencies.

Maybe you’ve experienced this before, where you get a great sound on your amplifier, then take the same amp to a friends place only to find that for some strange reason it just doesn’t sound right anymore.

Chances are that it’s an open back combo, but not necessarily. The only difference is that it’s in a different room, and each room has a different frequency response.

If I’m using a guitar amp with an open back speaker cabinet, I like to have the amplifier set up close to a wall for added bass. Depending on the speaker though, this isn’t always needed.

If you have a good amp with great distortion then you don’t need to worry too much about frequencies and tweaking, but if your amplifier has one of those horrible fuzzy distortions that don’t sound like the tube amp it’s supposed to emulate, then here are the critical areas you need to look at.

Does your guitar amp have an effects loop?

If so you’re in luck, cos now all you need is a small graphic eq. One of those regular 10 band eq pedals will do the trick, but you can also try a 7 band graphic for this.

The 10 band graphic I would recommend is the MXR M108 10-Band Graphic Equalizer Pedal seeing as it’s the one I’ve used myself, and has all the right frequencies.

Bass frequency: Here I tend to favor the frequencies around 100 hz . I find 250 hz sometimes makes things sound a bit too boxy, but it’s always an option to add just a little, depending on the sound that’s already coming out.

Upper midrange: The crucial frequency here is 4 khz. If the sound is too fuzzy, I take down everything above 5 khz, and I mean right down. I replace whatever high end is missing with 4 khz.

If the sound gets too piercing, easing back on the 4k and adding back a bit of the top end frequencies can help balance things out again.

These are basic principles that work, whether you’re playing through a guitar amp or recording direct.