4 Quick Ways to Craft Unique Tones Boston MA

Guitarists often spend entire careers discovering, developing, and refining “their” sound. It’s a noble quest. But sometimes a track may require something out-of-the-ordinary to bring it to life, and that extremely personal tone you worked so hard to make your own may not cut it. Time to step into the great unknown. Here are four swift and relatively painless schemes for leaving the familiar behind.

SWITCH GUITARS

Sounds simple—dumb, even. So why don’t more players move out of their comfort zones, leave their favorite guitar in its case, and try something strange? And I don’t just mean trading a Les Paul for a Strat, or vice versa. Borrow anything that tosses you into a different creative space: big hollow bodies, cheapo planks with sky scraper high actions, dobros, acoustic-electrics, kiddie models, and so on. And while you’re at it, don’t leave the instrument’s Volume and Tone controls cranked. Experiment with the subtle colors available by rocking those knobs back and forth. Ever see Jeff Beck or Les Paul weave their magic? They are continually switching between pickups, adjusting volume levels, and playing with Tone controls. There’s a reason for all those manipulations—different tones happen.

DO IT ALL WRONG

A Shure SM57 placed right against the speaker grille is a time-honored and trusted method for miking an amp. But if you need a very different timbre, don’t just jettison the tried and-true, do something downright stupid. Position a mic behind the amp—even if it’s a closed-back cabinet. Heck, lay the cabinet down so that the speakers are firing into the floor, and drop a mic beside it. Buy a $29 microphone from an electronics store (I’ve found some beauties at Radio Shack throughout the years),and position it off-axis to the speaker cone. Throw the amp in a coat closet, a bathtub or shower, or even in your car (if your garage is close enough to your studio space), and toss the mic in the dumbest place imaginable (a coat pocket, gaffer’s taped to a faucet, under the passenger seat, etc.). Seek any option that may surprise you with something ghastly, bizarre, or even oddly useful.

GO REALLY SMALL

Small wattage amps are all the rage right now—and Jimmy Page used them to great effect on the early Led Zeppelin albums—but I’m talking about downsizing to micro levels. Danelectro, Marshall, Fender, Dean Markley, and others make mini powered (1 watt or less) amps for solo practice and mobile rockin’, as well as for looking cool on your desk. These petite ravers can sound gloriously ratty when pushed to the limit, so plunk down a mic in front of one. Whatever you do, it will sound nothing like it would if you had plugged into a pro-quality tube or modeling amp, and that can be a good thing. In addition, because these amps are so small, you can toss them into freezers, car trunks, garbage pails, coolers, ventilation shafts, and other sick environments to achieve the double bonus of a weird tone captured in a truly bizarro sonic space.

ABUSE YOUR TOOLS

While many guitarists feverishly promotetheir creativity, let’s fa...

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