Struggling to control strat volume in a band

[frankhond]

20+ years experience playing acoustic, alone or with other acoustics. Got a covid strat and now when pandemic is over, joined a funk/rnb/soul band. Need some advice from more experienced electric players.

Right now I play mostly clean or edge of breakup rhythm guitar. Say a song varies between funky chord fragments, single note bubble parts, and some more muscular country arpeggios. How do you control volume and tone in this setting? Ride the volume dial throughout the song? Set it to something and control the pick attack? Step on a pedal?

[Dru Edwards]

Using your guitar's volume knob will help. Compression may help sooth out those high peaks as well or boost the lower volumes but it may, or may not, be what you're looking for. On its own I don't think it will solve your problem but it could help when used in conjunction with the volume knob and a pedal.

Another option is to get a volume pedal of some sort. I've had an MXR Micro Amp pedal in the amp's Effects Loop for over 10 years and it does an amazing job. If you put it in front of the amp though it might just add more gain rather than volume.

[rmp]

as mentioned a compressor would help a clean boost pedal maybe would too

[Paleolith54]

Originally Posted by frankhond

20+ years experience playing acoustic, alone or with other acoustics. Got a covid strat and now when pandemic is over, joined a funk/rnb/soul band. Need some advice from more experienced electric players.

Right now I play mostly clean or edge of breakup rhythm guitar. Say a song varies between funky chord fragments, single note bubble parts, and some more muscular country arpeggios. How do you control volume and tone in this setting? Ride the volume dial throughout the song? Set it to something and control the pick attack? Step on a pedal?

For what you describe, I'd say two things.

1. Volume and tone knobs.

2. You probably need to do less than you think, especially with the tone knob.

And be sure to set the amp in such a way that these adjustments will actually matter.

[Dru Edwards]

One more thing, you can control the volume simply by how hard you strum/pick/dig in, as long as you don't have too much gain on the amp.

[FrankHudson]

Yes, you can use a variation of attack and yes the volume knob can be used. I assume those two things have occurred to you and been tried without a "Aha! that'll do it." response, even though you ask about them.

It could be that you are just needing to come to grips with your electric setup and how manage it's dynamics.

All that said, you could try a compressor. They sometimes get knocks as "a crutch" or "they ruin your dynamics" but the right one set the right way can do tricks that are hard to do with just the volume knob or "it's in the hands" skills.

I have a Boss CP1-X on my board right now (and another compressor too, but that second one's used in more specified ways, like with my electric 12-string) and I found it fairly easy to get dialed in.

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by FrankHudson

Yes, you can use a variation of attack and yes, the volume knob can be used. I assume those two things have occurred to you and been tried without an "Aha! that'll do it." response, even though you ask about them.

It could be that you are just needing to come to grips with your electric setup and how to manage its dynamics...

That's exactly how we in-the trenches, church-basement/school-gym/legion-hall road warriors did it in the days before push-a-button/press-a-pedal instant tonal gratification...

It's called "woodshedding" - and it still works...

[frankhond]

Lots of great input, thank you all! Yes it’s about figuring it out, and before breaking out the pedals I want to grok the guitar and amp… reading this I’m wondering if I have been setting the amp too quiet. I’ll try next rehearsal to set it way louder than I think it should be and play softly.

[TiffanyGuitar]

All of this is great advice. My one addition - don't be afraid to turn the amp up louder than you need and use the volume controls on the guitar. You often see really good players adjust the volume and tone knobs slightly as needed while playing to change the amount of sound, drive, etc. Don't go back and forth fiddling with the amp volume - use the guitar.

[Bob Womack]

Be aware of one thing: a Strat has a tremendous amount of attack energy available. It is sort of uniquely qualified to deliver what is known as "ice-pick," that is a sharp blast of high frequency overtones right at the instant of attack. To control that on strategy is to work with the tone control to reduce the spike. The other method is to control the spike via compression. compression is available by two methods: use of a compressor pedal and by running an amp near the breakup point so that the headroom limits of the amp compress that for you. To do that, you need to select an amp that has just a little less power that is possible to deliver clean power when the band is cooking. Of course, that method prevents you from having a clean sound. But those are your options: high threshold compression, doing basically what is called "limiting," or distortion.

Bob

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by frankhond

…reading this I’m wondering if I have been setting the amp too quiet. I’ll try next rehearsal to set it way louder than I think it should be and play softly.

You might also want to play with pick thickness and right-hand technique - as with an acoustic guitar, try to develop sufficient control of dynamics to keep your use of the guitar's volume/tone knobs to a minimum...

[FrankHudson]

Amp volume up, guitar volume down for quieter passages, and picking dynamics is an Old School technique that still can work. Worth trying.

With traditionally wired Strats I often use the middle pickup as a secret weapon not just because it is wired to the tone control and the bridge PU isn't, but because it gives a nice sound it's string location position.

I understand any desire to keep it simple and skip pedals. I had my "guitar-cord-amp" era and enjoyed it, and reserve the right to return to that at will. But the sound of a Strat with compression is a valid sound at really works in some contexts and for some players.

[Scott of the Sa]

Sometimes less is more.
Some times you do not need to play 6 note chords when 3 notes will do.
It is OK to not play on some parts and let other instruments shine.
You will figure out what works best.
I would try and stay away from pedals and lots of adjustments and adjust your right hand technique. I tend to play electric like an acoustic, and I do not have to. Also when playing with a band you do not have to carry the whole song.

[frankhond]

At the rehearsal space there are Peavey classic 30 and Fender hotrod deluxe amps. So this time I plugged straight into the hotrod, added some mids, set the volume to what I thought it should be. Then I forced myself to increase volume 20% more.

Much better! The hotrod has way more headroom and I could get a usable dynamic range by dialing down the guitar slightly and pick softer/harder. I got good funky whacka whacka on the mid pickup, rockabilly with mid and bridge, and some soft chords with mid and neck. So that problem is solved, just need to shed some more with this amp at volume.

I also totally see the problem several of you mentioned, the hotrod has great clean tone but it’s a bit sterile, and there was a bit of an ice pick issue when picking hard. I ordered a keeley compressor plus, we see how it goes.

[pf400]

Do you get comments from bandmates about this ? An EQ pedal, boost pedals, many types of effect pedals actually, have volume/tone controls. with its volume control, could help. Or have a second guitar at hand. Or hire a sound man equipped with a board.