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How do you get a good tone with plugins? (self.guitars)

submitted 1 year ago by Hazzardis to c/guitars

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I've been learning for the past 6 months or so, but I've only really played using Neural DSP and nothing else. I have no idea how to adjust amp/effect settings to make a good tone, with either analogue or simulated equipment, so I mostly just use the presets. I usually am playing through Archtypes Cory Wong, Plini, or Gojira. I've searched for tutorials but usually they just explain what every knob/setting does, they don't really explain how to make it sound good lol. Any points in the right direction would be much appreciated =)

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[–] roostopher 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As a general suggestion, tones people (me for sure included) sculpt when playing by themselves tend to make things sound muddy when playing with other instruments due to overlapping frequencies. To combat this, dial back the highs and especially the lows. It'll sound kind of thin on its own, but that's what the other instruments are for.

A good way to figure out how to come up with your own tones is to pick a few presets in one of the Neural Archetypes that you really like and a few that you don't like. Try to find the commonalities between them. Just as examples, maybe the ones you like have a lot of gain or highs and maybe the ones you don't all have a flanger on them.

A "good" sound is entirely subjective and dependent on the genre you're playing. Can you give some examples of sounds you're trying to create?

[–] Hazzardis 3 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the tips! I play with backing tracks a lot and what you said about sounding muddy with other instruments makes so much sense. I mostly like using clean tones with compression and reverb that arent too bright/twangy but also still able to be piercing, if that makes sense. Usually using neck single coil, humbucker bridge, or neck + middle in series. I also like playing with high gain tones but a big problem I've been having is that with high gain my pick attack is just obnoxiously chirpy, no matter how hard I pick. Thought it was a technique thing but I can't seem to make it go away no matter how lightly I pick, then I thought the pickups might be too high but I've had the same problem with 4 different guitars, so I'm flummoxed