Dialing in Distortion Tone
The most important part of getting a rock guitar tone is achieving the right distortion that you want. This certainly depends on the amp (or stompbox) you are using; however, I want to stress how to tweak different distortion tones from the same device. Dialing in the desired distortion is often nowhere near as simple as turning the "drive" or "gain" parameter until the sound is as saturated as you like. A typical guitar rig will involve 4 main possible distortion stages - stomp box, pre-amp, power amp, and speaker, and you generally use one as your "main" distortion stage. However, any stage being pushed to breakup will distort in a certain way depending on the nature of the signal sent to it. This section mostly discusses what ways to expect a stage to breakup and how to alter the signal before reaching that stage to get the distortion you want.
The output of each distortion stage also depends on the waveform of the signal fed into it. Even if we were to EQ a guitar, banjo, violin, and piano signal to have roughly the same frequency response, the distortion produced by any particular distortion stage would have drastically different tones. For guitar, this is helpful, because we can alter a guitar signal before it hits a distortion stage, by using EQ, other distortion effects, modulation effects such as phasers, chorus, or flanger, time-effects such as reverb or delays, filter effects such as synths, and pitch effects such as octavers. This is a lot of ground to cover, so I'm not getting into it here, other than touching upon using multiple layers of distortion.
While most devices can be tweaked to provide a wide range of distortion tones as identified below, each amp or distortion pedal has a relatively similar response or signature characteristic that is difficult to dial out and difficult to emulate on other gear. In other words, a Marshall will still sound Marshall-y with a Tube Screamer in front, but you can hear that there's a Tube Screamer in front. Similarly, you can't make a Marshall sound like a Mesa/Boogie just by putting some EQ on the incoming tone. Consider pre-EQ'ing more of a fine-tuning process, even though in some instances you are drastically altering the tone. You want to start by choosing the right amp or distortion effect. This requires seeing the potential in an amp even if you think it initially sounds "off". You have to ask yourself questions like, "What if it sounded less muddy?" or "What if I could get the grittiness out the tone?"
Contents
Types of Distortion
I like to lump distortion tones into 3 broad categories. This is a bit different than the distortion pedal types listed earlier. Distortion pedals tend to be designed to distort only a certain way. This is more about how tube overdrive can be tweaked to sound different ways. While pedals also have flexibility, they tend to get quite nasty outside their "comfort zone", while tubes are a bit more versatile. That's not to say that tubes trump solid state pedals outright - in fact, they can be combined to get the best of both worlds as seen below.
Also, tubes are not universal - some amps can be dialed in for nice-sounding distortion in one (or two) type(s) below, but not the others. And this is not about distortion levels - there can be mild distortion or extra-saturated distortion in any of the types below.
Leads higher up the fretboard tend to sound nice on all kinds of distortion, although the response or "feel" can vary significantly.
Fuzz
Fuzz sounds are marked by an emphasis on distorted bass frequencies. The tone is rumbly (or muddy) and tends to turn to complete mush whenever intervals beyond perfect 4ths or 5ths (or chords) are played. When transitioning between two notes with slight overlap, the notes sound almost like they are fighting each other. The response is quite loose, making it difficult to play fast passages clearly, especially in lower registers. Palm mutes are particularly muddy, with the percussive attack extremely muffled and tone rather noisy.
Crunch
Crunch has an emphasis on midrange frequencies distortion. It can sound a lot like a vintage-style overdrive (although depending on the amp or pedal model, it may be much smoother and cleaner). This is often the default type of distortion that an amp will provide, requiring a boost or pre-EQ to dial in others. The attack retains most of its dynamics, being able to hear accents and strums. Lower registers can get a little rough and loose, but it's generally clear enough for rock riffing. Chords can get a little nasty, but come through well enough as long as they aren't too complex. Palm mutes are clear but rather percussive, sounding similar to how a clean tone sounds on palm mutes.
Note: "Crunch" has many contexts, such as the common name for an amp channel with mild/medium distortion and emphasis on attack, as well as the upper-midrange/treble bite that occurs as distortion onsets. This is not what I'm talking about here, although there can be some overlap between the two concepts.
Metal
Metal is based on distorted treble frequencies over others. The bass comes through clean and tight, only compressed, while the high-end is filled with saturated, harmonic overtones. Notes and power chords in riffs have a tight response - all the notes can be fairly clearly distinguished, even when playing at fast tempos. Chords have most notes come through well enough to be distinguished, but can get too harsh and noisy for bigger chords. Palm mutes sound thick and rattle the walls, while having the signature djent sound in the upper mids and highs, emphasizing each stroke.
Pre-EQ
The simplest way to experience the different types of distortion mentioned above is to take a relatively balanced sounding distortion from a tube pre-amp that has a bit of all the aspects described above, then use a parametric or graphic EQ in front the amp to boost a hump in the frequency spectrum. Sweep the center frequency of the boost - as you sweep from low to high, you'll hear the distortion turn from fuzzy to crunchy to metallic. Pre-EQ can be used to crudely change the overall nature of the distortion as such. This is exactly what most of the more-famous "boost" pedals do.
I find EQ gives you more control, though. Rather than aim for a general distortion type, I like to use EQ to fine-tune the distortion tone, focusing in not only the sweet spot of the spectrum but also trimming frequencies here and there to avoid any nastiness. For a metal tone, I will find the exact spot in the low end where the bass gets farty and dial it back just enough to clean it up. If there's some raspy noisiness in the high end, I'll trim or dial it back so it blends into the rest of the tone. I may dial down some mids to make the tone more djenty and less percussive, or the opposite to sweeten it up.
This chart sums up how the tone will likely sound if the given frequency is the peak (loudest) part of the signal before distortion, as well as what will happen if those frequencies are overly deficient. Generally, you want all the frequencies to be balanced, but emphasize a peak for the tone you want. Your peak can span several of these zones, however. Or your signal could be relatively flat for a more even distortion.
| Freq (Hz) | Peak | Lacking |
|---|---|---|
| 0-150 | Muddy | Thin |
| 150-250 | Fuzzy | Thin |
| 250-500 | Creamy | Cold |
| 500-1000 | Flat* | Tinny |
| 1000-2000 | Djenty | Buzzy |
| 2000-4000 | Crispy | Sterile |
| 4000+ | Gritty | Smooth |
For Pre-EQ, usually there's no need to make high-amplitude, narrow-width cuts/boosts - they tend to sound bad. I like wider, somewhat-subtle cuts/boosts. The first thing I'll adjust is bass. If the distortion is a bit too rough and has a muddy, low-end breakup, I like to reduce bass. I like to use a low sheft, with about -2 db and start with frequency around 300 Hz. This should mildly clean up the low end. Then I reduce the gain further and try to notice when the bass gets totally clear and tight. You don't want to cut too much or you lose tone. Then I start to reduce the frequency, trying to see where I get the most punch without losing tightness. Usually this is around 150 Hz, but it depends.
You can do the same thing for the highs but in reverse. Do a high shelf +4 db boost and slowly move the frequency downwards from 5 kHz to around 1 kHz. You should find a sweet spot that adds extra harmonic richness to the tone but isn't too sharp and harsh.
You can also use parametric bands. Some suggestions are to cut around 500-800 Hz - this should make the distortion a little rougher, but too much will make the mids too weak. Or boost around 1 kHz to 1.5 kHz. This gives the tone a Tube Screamer-like effect, getting a bit more djent to the tone, but can sound a bit like a cocked wah pedal if overdone. You can also try the exact reverse to getter a smoother, creamy, liquid-lead tone.
I don't have a preference of parametric EQ vs. graphic EQ here. Usually you can make settings on either one for the exact same effect, because I'm not doing any narrow or extreme boosts/cuts. I just find it generally easier to find the sweet spots using a parametric EQ - trying to adjust the graphic means moving more sliders (or turning more knobs), but it does have the advantage that you can visually see how you're impacting the signal.
Boosts
Boosts generally do exactly what I describe above: emphasize a peak frequency range to focus the distortion. They are often used for metal to "tighten up" an amp by boosting the upper-midrange and treble frequencies, while often dialing back the muddier bass frequencies.
Additionally, however, boosts can add their own tone, adding compression, touches of distortion, certain resonances, or other weird stuff. Most players will tell you there's a bit of magic or mojo in their preferred boosts. Personally, I usually prefer straight up EQ and would prefer to change the amp (model) for the mojo. I find some boosts can "wash out" the signal a bit. But of course it depends on your preference and the actual pedal/device being used. The only way to really tell is to experiment.
Boost pedals often use solid-state clipping that behaves differently from typical tube distortion. It often reacts more quickly, allowing peaks during the pick attack to distort with little compression but without distorting the sustain of the note(s). The distortion is hard-clipping, that can sound buzzy or harsh, adding lots of harmonics all the way to very high frequencies. Some feature asymmetrical clipping which emphasizes certain harmonics in different ways than tube distortion. While these kinds of solid-state clipping may sound terrible on its own, running it into a distorting tube amp can tame the harshness and create a pleasing sound, where the attack on notes gets more emphasis, almost becoming quite noisy or "swishy". This is particularly evident on palm mutes, giving them a "djent" sound rather than a percussive one, while their sustain produces a "chunk" as the tube distortion compresses the sustained low frequency sound. For more see Mixing Multiple Distortions below.
The standard for boosts is the Ibanez Tube Screamer; however, due to the variety of both the number of "Tube Screamer" product lines and variances in components used over the years, I think a more accurate standard is the Maxon OD808. Maxon actually produced the original Tube Screamer for Ibanez and claims its OD808 is true to the original circuit. Another that seems to get lots of praise is the MXR Zakk Wylde Overdrive, as well as the Maxon OD820. While I haven't used these myself, I have lots of awesome profiles on my Kemper where they were part of the profiled signal chain.
Another type of boost used more in classic rock and sometimes for leads is a cocked wah - this clearly emphasizes a specific frequency range for the amp to distort, moreso than a typical boost pedal or pre-EQ settings. You'll have to find the right wah and the right position for the sweet spot to emerge.
Some pedals are purely called boosters, or treble boosters. These are more common in vintage rigs, used to overdrive amps with a rather bright tone. I tend to find they can overemphasize treble for modern purposes; however, they are simpler to use.
Mixing Multiple Distortions
The key to a great distortion tone involves mixing multiple gain stages to a get a rich distortion throughout the frequency spectrum without the signal turning into a noisy, chaotic mess. Modern high-gain amps have been hip to this technique since the late 70's, using multiple distorted pre-amp tubes in series (aka cascading gain stages). These use different biases or frequency treatments between stages to layer the distortion in a controlled manner, where each one adds to the tone rather than mucks it up.
This can also be taken further by using mild solid-state distortion from a boost/overdrive pedal to distort just the peaks in a very harmonic-rich or asymmetric manner, gaining a more noticeable difference in tone on the pick attack. See Boosts higher on this page.
However, there are cases where we want to utilize different methods of distortion other than overdriving preamp tubes. This can be quite difficult, as mixing distortion can often result in lots of noise, squeals, harshness, and rough edges. Here's some general rules:
- Only one distortion stage should be heavily distorted at most. Generally, its best to mix two or three mild distortions to get one big distortion tone. When using one saturated gain stage, any others should be very mild. Otherwise, you will get a mushy, noisy tone.
- The big advantage is to mix different types of distortion. Chaining several similar distortions is likely to get a similar tone as just one of them, but with less control and more noise. You can often get a better tone simply by turning up the gain on just one distortion stage and removing the others.
- If you are using a distortion pedal for your main distortion, you may still have to use a bit of gain on your amp to give it enough juice to sound right, or enough to sound like its signature sound. This may involve pushing it slightly into distortion. If this results in too much distortion, try turning the drive on the distortion pedal down until you find the right balance.
- Many boost/overdrive pedals will distort peaks during pick attack even with their Drive/Distortion setting at minimum.
Pre-Amp and Power Amp
Power amps are usually difficult to drive into heavy distortion and distort in a rough, somewhat nasty manner. Sometimes this is all you need to give your tone that edge that a smoother preamp doesn't provide. Unfortunately, it can be very difficult to control, requiring loud volumes to achieve. Many modern amps feature low or half volume switches, which allow you to drive the power tubes harder without getting deafening volumes.
Also, distortion is frequency response dependent, but you don't have much wiggle room here. If you use the pre-amp's EQ or an EQ in the effects loop after the pre-amp distortion to prep the signal for power amp distortion, you may get the distortion tone you want, but the frequency response after the power amp may need some EQ tweaks. Yet it's impossible to EQ after the power amp and before the speakers. You can EQ post-mic'ing, but this won't help for practice and many gigging applications, and you may have to rely on the house sound-man to do it for you where there may be differences of opinion in what constitutes a good tone. However, this doesn't matter if it's all emulated in a modeler, which is a big benefit of such devices.
Power amp distortion can be affected by the type of tubes as well as how they are biased; however this can be very difficult to A/B and experiment with. Thus, a lot of these kind of tweaks rely on word of mouth, and there are tons of rumors about such modifications famous players performed on their amps. Hot biasing tubes can also decrease their life-span, leading to practical issues doing so. However, some amps, like the Mesa/Boogie Road King allow a lot of options in this regard...but it comes with a heftier price tag.
Distortion Pedal and Amp
Another, easier way to get more prominence to the pick attack into the tone is to use the distortion from a pedal. These are typically solid state, featuring hard-clipping of asymmetric distortion (even if the design downplays its harsher nature) as opposed to the soft-clipping of tubes. They also tend to clip faster and with less compression, so they affect peaks without affecting sustained notes. The more popular way to do this is by turning up the gain on the pedal until it gets a mild crunch, then add amp distortion until saturation. Often, such pedals will distort peaks even with minimum Drive/Distortion settings.
You can also get a very nasty distortion by using a fuzz distortion into a distorting amp. Fuzz distortion behaves very differently from typical tube distortion, and blending each at roughly the same amounts will get an interesting behavior to notes, if not a completely new distortion sound.
Multiple Distortion Pedals
This is usually a recipe for disaster, but sometimes you want that kind of out-of-control tone. Multiple pedals works ok here because they typically have less resonance and a tighter response than tube distortion. Thus, you can contrast the crazy distortion with dynamic control and mutes. You usually want to mix a fuzz pedal with a distortion, both with medium (crunch-level) distortion.
Compression vs. Distortion
Clipping typically introduces compression, leading many to fail to think of the two as different phenomenon. Rather than simply turning up the gain until you get a thick saturated tone, you may prefer using a compressor to thicken up the tone, using only enough distortion to get a little harmonic richness and crunch to the tone. This allows you to retain clarity in your playing and improve signal-to-noise ratio. It also lets your dynamics have more influence over tone, where accents will push the amp into distortion, while softer playing will be clean. But the compression keeps the levels of even the soft playing more audible, giving your notes more sustain.
Most place their compressor before their distortion. Since distortion introduces compression, you have to expect that and use a milder compressor setting or a larger Attack setting than you would on a pure clean tone. The compression will also add more balance to the frequency response, giving you less control over your distortion. This can be remedied by placing a boost or EQ after the compressor.
You can also try using the compressor after the distortion, but I find this tends to over-emphasize distortion in attack and sounds a bit artificial. Of course, this is a bit different when adding a limiter in the DAW, which is also post-distortion compression. That tends to help achieve loudness in a mix but isn't quite what I'm talking about here, which is a larger compression used to thicken up the entire guitar tone rather than tame peaks. Even so, a mild compression can work well.
Battling Harshness or Thin-ness
Even when following all of the above advice, you may find the distortion is still too harsh or thin. The first place to look is the cab. Closed back cabs tend to have more bass and low-end resonance that thickens up the tone. Another place to look is post-distortion EQ. Distortion by nature adds high-frequency overtones - if they run amuck, the tone will be harsh - try reducing presence (3+ kHz) or adding a low-pass filter. Be sure to naturally roll off the highs, and don't kill them - just de-emphasize them relative to the rest of the tone. This is particularly important as you increase volume to gig levels.
Finally, reverb is not your enemy. It doesn't matter if you are the most metal guitarist on the planet; reverb is necessary to make any tone sound more natural and pleasing. That doesn't mean you need some cave-like ambiance on a djenty rhythm tone. Normally you are playing in a room, which will have natural ambiance, no matter how much dampening material it has. But if you are using headphones or right in front your cabinet, things tend to sound more harsh. A reverb effect at around 8-12% mix can make a huge difference. A very mild pre-delay (5-20 ms) opens it up a little more. And if your reverb has a dampening control (or is designed to dampen (dull) the reverb as it persists), you can get away with larger mix and decay time parameters without making the reverb take over the tone. Lead tones can always sound nasal or harsh without any reverb or delay - I consider one or both absolutely essential for a great lead tone.
One final thought: a single guitar tone isn't going to sound like a double or quad-tracked stereo guitar tone in a mix. Layering guitars and adding space between them really helps to thicken up the tone. They each fill the gaps between any crackles or buzziness any one track has, as well as getting a 3-D effect from the stereo space that makes them sound fuller and richer. Similarly, bass guitar can make up for low-end (particularly the very low end), cymbals typically cover up guitar high-end, and bass drums add attack that guitars lack. Distorted guitar is primarily a midrange-oriented and low-dynamic-range instrument. Now, that doesn't mean you should settle for a crappy tone just because a lot of it will be covered up or enhanced by other players or studio wizards - just don't build yourself up for expectations that are impossible to meet.
Some other pointers:
- Some amps, typically older ones, can sound downright nasty when fed a large amount of treble. Even modern amps might sound a little nasty when boosted with too much bite. Don't feel like you are compromising backing off the treble on a boost pedal or pre-EQ. This is particularly evident with the Tube Screamer - 100% Tone might make low E riffing sound good, but chords and leads suffer. A lower Tone setting still emphasizes mids and makes for a boosted tone without high-end harshness. Adding a little pedal distortion can get back the bite to low note riffing without harsh sustained chords or leads.
- Pedals will often distort even at low Drive/Distortion settings. Try backing off of the pedal distortion and using more amp distortion.
- Just because your amp says it has tube-like distortion doesn't mean it actually distorts anything like a tube amp. Tubes are effectively a dead technology for their original pure amplification purposes, but there is a reason they are still very popular for music, particularly guitar amplifiers designed to distort.
- Just because an amp is a tube amp doesn't mean its distortion will be smooth and pleasing. Design matters.
- Even further, the individual tubes matter. Tubes can burn out or become microphonic and lead to all kinds of issues. Consider retubing or seeing a tech to get an inspection.
- A used amp may have been modified by a previous owner. Just because your amp is a popular brand doesn't mean it's going to operate exactly like every other one.
- The same goes for pedals, guitar electronics, and cables. Incorrect tone knob capacitor values can lead to all kinds of issues. Bad solder joints can lead to poor signal transmission. Bad cables or guitar shielding can introduce lots of interference and hiss into the tone, or even fixed frequency squealing.