Rock Tone: Setups

Description

This is a slight variation on our first setup. The key ingredient change in this setup is the three single coil pickup combination on the Strat guitar. This part of the guitar's setup gives the guitar a "cleaner" sound to some degree. This is, to some degree, the guitar responsible for reshaping the rock landscape in Hendrix's tidal wave of sound. He accomplished bell-like tones and crushing distortion with the addition of a few pedals.

Here the guitar is turned all the way up. It will clean up as well if the guitar is turned down. The amp has to be turned up to at least 6 to get this break up. We have it there in this lesson to get a natural overdrive. However, if you want more overdrive just turn the amp up a bit. You see Hendrix do this live on video many times with a similar setup. Amp Lows are set to 3 and the Highs are at 7-8. The Strat tends to have more of a high end than most guitars.

If you want more bite or punch, add an overdrive pedal. It will thicken the sound or put a slight edge on it if you add it correctly.