Setting Up The Knobs Of Your Amp

If you do read my post in the past, I mentioned about getting an amp with a reverb in it. It is a cool feature for every guitarist, especially to those starting out.

Greater sound can motivate a beginner to practice more. I'm not saying that you, beginners out there, should get a better, expensive gear in order to motivate yourself, but the most basic thing that you can do when going to purchase an amp is to get an amp that has reverb in it. A reverb is all it takes to shape your tone beautifully when starting out.

Usually, a practice amp has about 5 knobs or lesser, depending on what type of amp that you have. They are: Volume, Bass, Mid, Treble, Reverb

Let's look at all the individual knobs:

Volume: This is to adjust the sound to make it sound louder or softer.

Bass: To adjust the low frequency sound

Mid: To adjust the clarity of the sound

Treble: To adjust the high frequency sound

Reverb (sometimes in an on/off button instead of knob) : Reverb is a feature that lets your guitar sound like you are playing in a hall.. So the reverb knob adjusts the 'hall sound'

So how to set a better tone? Depends. I usually set everything to neutral zone. You have to check your own amp first. If let's say your knobs max level is 10, then i would put it at 5.

For the Mid knob, some like more clarity while others like their sound to be dirty. So if you want a more dirtier sound, lower down your mids to say, level 3 or so.

Knowing Notes On The Fretboard

Knowing the fretboard note is important in guitaring because of many things. Say for example, you wanna learn a song that requires you to play lots of power chords. It is a form of pattern that are used, especially in rock music, to create a rockish, heavy, chords. Hence, the Power Chord name. Since power chords uses a same kinda fingering pattern on every note, all you need to know is where the notes are, usually notes that are from the two thickest strings.

That is just one of the applications for the importance of knowing notes on the fretboard. Other applications include guitar soloing.

So how do we know which note is which in a fretboard? Simple. We look at the tuning configuration first. Please note that the following examples are done with standard tuning.

In a standard tuning, the 6th string (the thickest string) is tuned to E in open string (no strings pressed down). Then the second thickest is A, followed by D, G, B and finally, the thinnest string of a standard guitar, tuned at E.

For example, if you want to know where is F on the thickest string, we know that the open string is the note E. If we press a finger on the first fret, we know that we are actually pressing the F note because we are actually pressing 1 note higher by doing so. If we press our finger at the second fret, then we are actually pressing on the F# note. Hence and so forth. Thus from there, we are able to derive all the notes that are found on the thickest string (sixth string).

So how do we able to know the notes on other strings? We have to first know the tuning for the string in an open position. If you are looking for a note on the fifth fret on the 5th string, you have to know that the open note for the fifth string is an A note. Thus, if you do the same concept as taught on the 5th paragraph, you will realize that the note on the fifth fret, second string is actually a D note. Do the same if you are looking for a note on a certain frets of the fretboard on different strings.

Thus, that is how you are able to find the name of the notes on the fretboard. Hope you get the picture now.

Pick Up Selectors

From my previous entry, pickups plays an important role in shaping the tone of the guitar. This entry is purely just general knowledge for beginners to guide them a bit about tone choices. Below is a picture of where the pickups and pickup selector (pickup switch) are usually placed.

Fig. A: Pickups and Pickup Selector

From the picture, the guitar has 2 Pickups. Such guitar typically has only 3 selectors to let the guitarist choose which kinds of tones that he/she wants. The bridge pickup (the one further away from the neck) has more bite on the sound produced. So the sound is usually suitable for playing rock/metal songs. The neck pickup (the one nearer to the neck) usually has more warmth, great for mellow, ballad, clean songs.

If you put your selector to the centre, you'll be combining both pickup sound, thus producing a different sound from both of them altogether.

Some guitars have about 3 pickups while some even have 4 pickups on it. Guitars that have 3 pickups usually have 5 selectors. That is because they can combine and form 2 more different pickup sound. So guitars like that have more tone choices.

I think that's about it for guitar pickups. Hope you guys are well informed about this.