I am running a dr. distorto through an early 90's Ampeg VH-140c solid state head and use a Jackson and my lead tone at louder volumes is really terrible. I write my leads acoustic and they seem good and than when playing with drums my lead tone is horrible making my solos worse than I originally thought. I play a mix of death and trash metal and am wondering how to get good lead tone and also how to get my amp to sound like it does at lower volumes when cranked. I like my tone around 1,2 volume and when playing with drums in a smaller room have to have the amp around 5. Regardless having a nice guitar it does not actually really matter.
Lead tone.
- Thread starter CF87
- Start date
shredtastical
SUX!
- Jul 23, 2007
- 1,620
- 0
- 36
I think its mostly to do with EQ, imo.
the smiley eq (10 bass, 0 mids, 10 treble) sounds good at low volume, but I find i rather like something more around 10 mids, 6-8 treble, 6-8 bass (you have to use your ear and screw around). I find it cuts through the drums more, without overpowering them.
also, if i read correctly, you're running through a half stack? a good amp should be able to hold its own by itself. try setting your stompbox for more of an overdrive setting (3-4 gain) and EQing it to sound similar to your amp's dry tone, and just turning it off until you solo. usually i find that riffing with too much gain just sounds muddy. However, i'm running through my Marshall JVM 410H, and just due to the quality of the sound I leave it dry on the OD 2 channel max gain all the time.
