8 Ways to Pristine Clean Tones Washington DC

Guitarists talk a lot about recording killer distortion tones, but sometimes go kind of silent on the subject of achieving great clean sounds. Is the quest for clean so obvious that tips and suggestions are as welcome as a field mouse swimming in your Captain Crunch? I don’t think so. You see, crafting great clean tones can be just as difficult—and no less rewarding—than dialing in the holy grunge. Here are eight tips that point the way to cleaner, meaner, and more freshly scrubbed guitar sounds.

Honor Your Friend

Clean sounds don’t start at the amp, they start at your instrument. So if you’re one of those players who never clean their guitar or wipe down the neck, chances are there is enough mung and drool glued to the bottom of your strings and fretboard to make the back pickup of a Strat sound like a Tal Farlow album being played underwater. Cut those gruesome wires off, and clean the frets and fret board with the appropriate cleaning products. Then, put on a nice shiny set of your favorite strings—my experience is that a .010set or larger produces the best clean sound—at least two days prior to recording.

Go Direct

The path to a time-honored clean sound is to simply plug your guitar into a direct box and into your audio interface or mixer. Your sound should be round and full and innocent of any overdrive. Some cagey engineers add a bit of twinkle and snap to the direct sound by positioning a mic near the fret board of the electric guitar to capture some unamplified string attack. Recordists desiring a bit of goop in their direct tones can switch out a conventional direct box for a tube direct box that adds a touch of preamp tube bluster.

Take the Low Road

If your amp has two inputs, the “low” input should operate at a lower gain compared to the “high “input. Conventional wisdom dictates that less gain equals more clean, so let’s not argue with conventional wisdom. Plug into the lowest-gain channel so that your amp isn’t predisposed to producing growl, grit, and overdrive.

Exercise Balance

Everyone should know that, when using amps (or amp emulations) with master volumes, cranking the preamp gain and backing off the Master knob will only get you dirty. But how many players actually experiment with the levels of the preamp and master levels so that they work to bring out the hippest clean sound from your guitar? The lesson is simple: Spin those knobs until you’re bathed in the cleanest tone your amp and guitar can muster. If you want a chime-y tone with just a hint of grizzled sizzle, turn up the master volume to the point where the sound starts to distort, and then back off the volume until the tone is cooked to near-pristine perfection.

Think Subtractive

Depending on your amp or plug-in, boosting EQ can sometimes get you into trouble when creating clean sounds, because the frequency boosts may add just enough edginess to sully your shine. I like to cut midrange frequencies with extreme prejudice, and then back off the bass, as well. If boosting treble adds some harmonic shimmer without introducing spittle,...

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