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Getting that "The War on Drugs" guitar tone (self.guitars)

submitted 2 years ago by TheFarm to c/guitars

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Hey,

So I've been working on recording a song and I am trying to get a solo tone similar to the kind of long, sustained, gain-y yet clean sound that The War on Drugs tends to use.

Any suggestions? I'm mostly recording direct input through my pedal board into a tascam sound card. I've fiddled around with my overdrive pedal (Soul Food) but the tone gets too distorted and muddy to give that clean sustain.

Is it time to get a sustain pedal? Apologies in advance if what I'm asking about gear doesn't make much sense..

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[–] MiddleWeigh 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

I don't know the specific tone, so it'll be hard to give specifics, but i know the band a bit and ill tell you what id do: a compressor, and a low to mid gain drive first. You can do a TON with these. Add in a tiny bit of modulation, like chorus, a little reverb and your pretty set. Depending on the tone, there might be some delay, I'd personally opt for the delay over chorus or other modulation at first. Its a staple. Your pretty much covered with these, and in varying amounts will at least be able to approximate almost anything.

If you post the song or smth maybe we could help a tiny bit more with if you wanna get into the weeds (:

[–] TheFarm 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Hey man, thanks for the detailed reply! I'm trying to land a lead tone something like this song, starting around 20 sec (https://youtu.be/LS_20S2J8SQ)

I'm going to give some compression and a bit of drive a try this weekend. I think this song in particular seems to have a bit of chorus on it too, from what I can hear. And definitely some delay/reverb.

[–] MiddleWeigh 2 points 2 years ago

I think I hear a slow phaser too. That or slow flanger.

You can't go wrong with going comp, drive, chorus, delay, reverb. These will give a broad palate to work with.

Then slowly add your phaser/flanger next. Fuzz if you like fuzz.

As far as pedal specifics, I am relatively new to pedals, I have tried educating myself, but can only really speak to what I've owned or played myself yknow.

For overdrive I would sat start with the cheap clones of the main drive circuits and see what you like. (Tubescreamer, klon, blues driver, blues breaker, rat, timmy) they are all mostly based off these circuits. See what you like. It sounded like that song had a mid eq hump, so maybe tubescreamer or klone would work. Not sure. I have a blues breaker and love it. There may have been some fuzz on that too. Not sure sorry.

Compressor. I'd start with one w a blend knob. I have the wampler ego. You mess with the blend knob and you can tell what it's actually doing yknow. It's a very subtle effect ftmp, for dynamics. And sometimes people can't get the hang of them. The blend knob will help.

There are a bunch of really staple bread and butter pedals that I can recommend. Mxr phaser 90/45, mxr carbon copy delay, boss dd8, oceans 11 reverb, rv6 reverb. They get reccd often and you prob can't go wrong yknow.

Sorry I can't be of more use, feel free to ask though.