GIGGING & RECORDING > TONE TIPS FROM THE ROAD
TONE-SCULPTING BACKLINE GEAR BY PAUL “TFO” ALLEN
“Ididn’t play well because my guitar setup felt
weird.” “I was having an off
night because the rental amp
didn’t sound good.” I hear these
excuses far too often. As a player, it’s your responsibility to be
on top of your gear, and in the
professional world, it’s crucial
to know how to deal with such
issues. Like it or not, it is up
to you to know how to get the
most out of any guitar or amp
you come across. The two most
common brands of amps I find
on stages full of backline gear
are Fenders and Mesa/Boogies.
Lets begin with some tips on
settings for these amps.
The first thing I do on a
Dual Rectifier is turn off the
bass on my rhythm channel.
The majority of the gigs I do
require a crunch sound that has
a little bit of dirt on the attack
and a clean bloom. Removing
the bass allows this to happen
on a Dual Rectifier because
the low-end rumble is dialed
out. Next, I dedicate a separate
channel on the Dual Rectifier
for solos. Unlike the rhythm
channel, I add a considerable
amount of bass for lead sounds.
Solos involve a lot of single-note phrases, so the bass adds
support and body to the tone.
On Fender amps, especially
blackface and silverface models, the first thing I do is turn
off the treble and the bright
switch. From there, I will add
treble back in, little by little as
needed. Taking the treble out of
the equation and pushing the
volume makes blackfaces break
up in an organic way. Blackface
and silverface Fenders can be
bright to begin with, so turning
off the treble is not as radical a
move as you might think.
With other amps I’m less
familiar with, I’ll start with
everything at 9 o’clock, except
the master volume, which I usu-
ally run pretty hot. From there,
I’ll give each knob a full sweep
and listen for the evenness of
the tone pots. I look for the
spot where the knob really kicks
in and evaluate where it stops
making a difference. A lot of
tone pots don’t sound very dif-
ferent beyond a certain point. If
an amp is still lacking a needed
frequency, I’ll turn to my Line 6
M9 to beef up the tone.
Top: A Line 6 James
Tyler Variax and two
Mesa/Boogie Dual
Rectifiers going
through a pair of
2x12 Mesa Rectifier
cabs loaded with Celestion Vintage 30s.
Bottom: A travel-friendly Line 6 M9
rests against a Mesa/
Boogie Big Foot footswitch that provides
channel switching
and solo boosts.
tension, but the DSP in the guitar’s electronics instantly converts the strings’ amplified pitch
based on the setting I choose.
Because the guitar always
remains in standard tuning, I
don’t have to worry about the
neck flexing and the intonation
getting out of whack. Great!
Many modern electric gui-
tars, like the Variax and the
PRS Hollowbody series, are
outfitted with piezo pickups
and other forms of acoustic
simulators. Whenever I use an
electric guitar’s piezo pickup or
the Variax’s acoustic settings,
I run the guitar into an A/B
box. This allows me to split
the “acoustic” sounds into a DI
that goes straight through the
PA, and run the electric output
into my amp. Acoustic model-
ing typically doesn’t sound very
good through an amp that’s
dialed in for electric tones, so
using an A/B box is a good way
to have the acoustic tones run
down a separate line.
PAUL “TFO” ALLEN
is a multi-instrumentalist
who has worked with Big
& Rich, Adele, Sebastian
Bach, 112, Jake Owen,
Larry the Cable Guy, and
many others. He also
has his own project called Ten Finger
Orchestra, and can be reached at tenfin-
gerorchestra@yahoo.com.
36 PREMIER GUITAR MAY 2011
premierguitar.com
