PlayKillerGuitar.com Blog

Everybody has their own idea of what the “ultimate sound” for their style of playing is, but few of us ever can really dial into exactly what we want. Some of us like a smooth overdriven sound, some wanna sound like Van Halen, some people like a ratty ear piercing sound and still others prefer a classic bluesy tube tone. Whatever your taste in tone, we all have pretty much one thing in common. It’s hard to tweak in the exact sound that we want with what we got.

We usually beat ourselves up jumping back and forth between tweaking our pedals and then tweaking the amp tones, then back to the pedal in an endless and frustrating quest to get a good sound.

Many factors come into play when it comes to tone. For one, just the acoustics of the room can dramatically affect your sound. You might have a great sound at home in your music room, but take your amp somewhere else and all of a sudden it sounds like crap. What’s up with that?!

Personally, what works best for me in getting the right tone is simply using a multi-effects pedal. I use the Digitech RP-200 pedal. I found it in a music store for a couple hundred bucks a couple years ago and have been lovin’ it ever since. The other really cool feature is that it has a built in drum machine (pretty standard anymore :P) so I can jam some cool riffs, licks, etc and practice my timing at the same time.

The secret to tweaking the right sound without driving yourself crazy is to set all your tone levels on your amp to a flat 0 setting. On most amps, this is in the center position. So, in my case I would set the Bass, Treble and Midrange to 0 and Reverb to 0. It’s also a good idea to move back the gain for your overdrive too if you have two volume knobs.

Now, I’ll proceed to tweak my settings entirely inside the multi-effects pedal. Set my amp settings, EQ tone, reverb, compressor, noise gate, delay, etc. You may even find a preset that is perfect for your sound. The idea is to get as close as you can with your sound. Once you get in the ball park with your sound, then save it. Now you can tweak the tone knobs on your amp to enhance and fine tune your sound to just the way you want it.

By doing it this way, you can normally find the sound you like without beating your head against the wall for hours. The other advantage is that by tweaking your sound completely inside the pedal first, you already have the sound you want regardless of the acoustics of different rooms. All you have to do from there is to adjust the tone settings on the Amp when in a different room to compensate for the different acoustics.

Getting the right sound doesn’t have to be a chore. Usually keeping it simple is the best solution. No need to have a thousand different gadgets, funky pickups, and the higest priced amp on the market just for a good sound. By shaving off the excess, you might be surprised with what you end up with.

It’s finally here! The Mister Crowley tutorial has been released this week. The original plan was to have it ready by the end of April, but because of technical problems, combined with the fact that I’m a bit of a perfectionist, it took longer than I expected to get it finished.
Now I’m convinced that I have a kick-butt tutorial to offer that I’m sure you’ll really benefit from.:D

This tutorial covers the two solos from the Live verision (Tribute album) plus I added in the Interlude which comes just before the second solo.
Sections 1 thru 5 cover the first solo, and 6-13 cover the second solo, and there is an “Interlude” button for the interlude, which I also step you through in sections as we go along, to make it as easy as possible to learn.

One thing I added on this one is a “page over” button in section 13, because there is more tablature than fits in the window, so now you can click the “next page” button to continue with the tab without affecting the video. From a programming standpoint, it was a pretty cool trick.

As in the “Eruption” tutorial, I included a seperate pdf file containing the full tablature to the complete song, which of course, includes all the rhythm and fills as well. If you ever appreciated Randy Rhoads’s amazing guitar compositions, and want to add Mr. Crowley to your list of great guitar accomplishments, then your time has finally come. No more excuses, get it now!

The Mr. Crowley tutorial is almost ready for release and it is looking good for this weekend! (April 29th or 30th). If you’d like to be the first on the block to get it, then now is a good time to sign up for our newsletter!

How often do you practice guitar? Once a day? Every couple days? , weeks?, never?
If you’re “between bands” or just play for your own personal enjoyment, it’s easy
lose interest in any serious practicing. Sometimes it’s just more fun to play the
stuff you know. 

Did you ever just jam on songs that you enjoy, but haven’t really listened to in
months just to realize how far off track you’ve gotten when you do listen to them?
I’ve done that and you think “what the heck man?!”

Without keeping on top of your game you tend to develop bad habits so
gradually that you don’t even realize that it’s happening.

Losing that tightness in your chops and technique can happen in the same way.
Taking a few minutes to work on the basics will keep you in top form all the time.
Being a martial artist, I know that even a black belt master must continue to practice
the basics to stay in top form.

Organizing your practice time is important. Create a routine where you will
practice certain things at each interval and stick to it. It’s easy to get yourself
on a tangent and screw around until you realize it’s past midnight and you really
haven’t accomplished a thing. Now you’re tired, and are ready to hang it up for
the day. What a putz!

Every one has their own schedules, some people set aside an hour, some several.
Whatever your time frame, divide it into useful parts. For example if you practice
for 90 minutes a day, then you could start out the first 20 minutes working on
scales and arpeggios. Then set aside 20 minutes for rhythm playing, maybe another 20
minutes listening to a song and figuring out the chords (ear training). Maybe the
last 30 minutes jamming some rhythm, lead or both to a metronome or
drum machine, which is not only fun, it’s a great way to develop your timing.

If you suddenly find yourself short on time because of a busy schedule, just
pick one aspect and practice it. Maybe scales & appregios one day, rhythm the next,
timing the next, etc. A little of something is better than nothing, and sometimes
it works out better in the long run anyway.

Practice is essential to every guitar player. No one ever “arrives” beyond the need
to practice. Anyone who believes that will soon find themselves left behind.
No matter how good you get, there is always someone out there that can kick
your guitar playing butt. Now go practice! hehe