How to avoid "Woolliness" of tone

D

DionRusheGuitar

Member
Hey guys

So I'm currently trying to dial in a nice, mildly overdriven Scofield-esque fusion/bluesy tone.

Question: would you run a drive pedal into a clean amp or use amp gain? And which models would you use?

I've experimented a bunch with both and just can't seem to get that nice, defined tone and it sounds very "woolly" and "flabby".

I'm using a Strat currently.

Thanks for the help!
 
To me, amp gain almost always sounds better than pedals unless you are specifically going for a fuzz tone or something like that. Overly wooly and flabby tones are usually from pushing too much bass into the amp. Use the Cut switch in the amp block to shave off the sub lows at the amp's input. You can also use the Low Cut Freq parameter in the advanced parameters of the amp block to dial in a specific low frequency cutoff point. If the tone is then too thin, you can add bass back with the graphic EQ in the amp block. It is post gain and will not add flabbiness the way the tone stack sometimes can. That is also the same reason why putting something like a tube screamer in front of an amp will often tighten up the flab. Many drive pedals like tube screamers have pretty strong bass cuts. Use pre-gain EQ to shape the texture of the amp's breakup (wooly, fuzzy, fizzy, crackly, farty, raspy, whatever) and use post-gain EQ to shape the overall tone of the amp (balance of lows to mids to highs).
 
Same advice I always give: use a filter block after the amp and cab to find the problem frequencies, then adjust the amp knobs/EQ block accordingly.

If you still have trouble, consider cutting all the low end (bass 0, depth 0) and use a little EQ before/after to slowly bring in only the bass frequencies you like- to achieve a full sound without the flubbiness.

Good luck!
 
Try the ac30, thats what scofield mostly plays. He switched to telecaster newly but his unieque tone was coming from his bridge humbucker....he is one of the few jazz players who uses bridge pick up. Though with a strat bridge will sound too thin....i dont know if its the right guitar to chase scofield tone.

And i think you can get close either way, with or without drive. You can turn up the input trim to get more drive bumping the bass and darkening the whole tone....and for IR use the alnico blues ones to get that scofield bite.
 
I tend to get that sort of tone with my Suhr s4 in the #2 position into a train wreck with my favorite cab "fractal green back I believe" It's not exact but defiantly has that wooly flavor when you dig in. I set the wrecker gain to clean up well by picking strength. Having said that I was not trying to cop another's tone but my own tone. This tone I have coped lol is like Schofield on his album ago go. Sort of.....maybe....


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Scofield has often used a Rat pedal with the gain at zero or a tiny bit above with the volume of the pedal set to boost the level of the guitar just a little into the amp so that the amp's gain response is more juicy and touch sensitive.
 
DionRusheGuitar said:
Hey guys

So I'm currently trying to dial in a nice, mildly overdriven Scofield-esque fusion/bluesy tone.

Question: would you run a drive pedal into a clean amp or use amp gain? And which models would you use?

I've experimented a bunch with both and just can't seem to get that nice, defined tone and it sounds very "woolly" and "flabby".

I'm using a Strat currently.

Thanks for the help!
Click to expand...

pre distortion bass eq. try the bass cut switch first.
 
Cut the negative feedback.

[Edit]: That's backwards. Increasing negative feedback seems to give a tighter, less woolly distortion to me.
 
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