simulating a guitar volume knob roll off.

pauliusmm

pauliusmm

Fractal Fanatic
I was never a guitar volume knob guy, but today i was messing with some nice dirty patch and it was an Eureka moment for me.
When rolling the volume down i got a smooth and fat clean tone with just a touch of breakup.
I tried placing filter block before amp with ~-30 dB level cut where i get similar gain, but the tone is different, not as good as rolling off volume on guitar.
So maybe there are some tips to get the same fat clean tone with a volume way up? Maybe a tonematch?

And how many of you work your volume knob on a guitar these days?
Seems to me like a tricky part to get it back and forth to a perfect spot if you want to use one patch for clean and dirty. It is particularly hard to get to a clean spot, and it can interfere with your playing. I mean that time you should be playing - you are trying to find your clean tone with a volume pot.
 
Hi
Any amp that you can max the master (Plexi, Trainwreck etc) will turn your volume knob into a gain control.

Modern high gain amps that rely on pre-amp distortion will not work well. They stay dirty as you turn down.

Just set for loud solo sound with the master right up and as you turn down the sound cleans up especially if you can switch to single coils or splits.

I play the whole gig on one sound ranging from funk to classic searing (not metal) solo sound.

Hope this is of interest?
 
I would rarely use the vol knob, except as a quick way to lower my volume, for example at the end of a solo if I was somewhere else on the stage.

But now I've really gotten into using the volume for recording and loving getting that fat kind of sound. Haven't tried it live yet because I haven't been out in about a year ;-)
 
Keep in mind that using the volume pot on your guitar will darken the tone a bit as well (unless you have treble bleeds installed), which also contributes to the tone you're getting.
 
I pretty much got the opposite results, where lowering guitar volume still sounded pretty bright in a good way, and using a filter to simulate volume rolloff was darker and not so "alive".
I think my Suhr has a treble bleed circuit though.
 
To address the OPs question--I do this quite a bit with my tube amps using an EQ pedal. I need 'immediate' access to this 'clean channel' for many songs which makes reaching down and spinning a knob on my guitar unrealistic. The HBE Paul Gilbert Detox EQ is designed for this and keeps the high end intact.
 
In my template preset, I attach modifiers to gain, master, and level and attach to an expression pedal. I attempt to adjust values so that the pedal takes me from cleanish crunch to hi-gain values for the applicable amp. Works ok but I wish I could put mods on BMT to simulate tone change as well.
 
pauliusmm said:
So basically eq pedal should work in the same way with Axe. Will have to try this.
Click to expand...

Give it a try!!! you may get that sound or even a better then.

Would be cool to have a dedicated potentiometer effect, audio taper, linear tapered, based on different pot brands, with customisable treble bleeds etc... all f that has a huge impact in the way we interact with the amp.
 
There are some easy techniques where you can roll the volume without moving your hand or changing your picking position. For me it's just a simple "Hang loose" type hand position where you straighten your pinky and pull forward a hair to roll the vol knob when needed. A bit of practice and doing it is without effort. Not all guitars are considerate of this when they layout the vol knob location, but most are. you will also have swells readily available when doing this. Not a fit for all players, but adds simple effort free techniques. The add varying pressure of your palm on top of a trem bridge if a trem equipped guitar (me = PRS C24 - trem arm removed) and you can add palm trem too as long as you are non-blocked.

I couldn't imaging having to think about it and using a pedal or switch for this. give it a month or two and it will feel so stupid simple that anything else would be 'effort".

IMHO
 
I've leaned to use the volume and tone controls quite a bit lately. It is a key component of getting good tones and playing with dynamics and is a skill that takes time to work into your playing. On several of my guitars the tone actually sounds a lot better with the volume knob turned down just a tad. I rarely play with eve thing on 10 now. If you watch players that have a lot of feel you will see them use the controls quite a bit. The knobs are there for a reason! Check out Jeff Beck for a good example.
 
kerrlehr said:
There are some easy techniques where you can roll the volume without moving your hand or changing your picking position. For me it's just a simple "Hang loose" type hand position where you straighten your pinky and pull forward a hair to roll the vol knob when needed. A bit of practice and doing it is without effort. Not all guitars are considerate of this when they layout the vol knob location, but most are. you will also have swells readily available when doing this. Not a fit for all players, but adds simple effort free techniques. The add varying pressure of your palm on top of a trem bridge if a trem equipped guitar (me = PRS C24 - trem arm removed) and you can add palm trem too as long as you are non-blocked.

I couldn't imaging having to think about it and using a pedal or switch for this. give it a month or two and it will feel so stupid simple that anything else would be 'effort".

IMHO
Click to expand...

Not all of us play the same music--your technique works well for you but it wouldn't work at all with the very time sensitive changes I need to make live. Not to mention some of the guitars I use have volume knobs about 12/18" away from my pick hand (Gibson EDS1275).

Guitar volume usage is a strange topic that always seems to bring out unusually strong opinions. Bottom line, there are many many ways to skin a cat...and not all cats are alike.
 
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