Using your guitar volume knob?

This is a guitar playing STYLE question rather than an Axe-FX question.

I was like you in most of my playing...dime it all, tweak and don't worry about it.
Very true!
I think we were ALL like that, 'dime it' when we started, ESPECIALLY those of us who cut our teeth on 80's solid state amps (I'm glaring at my 80's Crate combo as I type this).

I don't remember exactly when I started using my guitar controls, I know it was way before all this information was readily available online, but I DO remember all of a sudden how it 'clicked' and subsequently the finish around my knobs began to be a lot more worn as a result.
 
A few years ago (back when I was using the AXE FX Standard), we had a brief power outage on stage that fried my foot controller. For whatever reason, when it switched back on the controller would just cycle randomly thru the different patches-- rendering it useless. At the time, I had built a patch using the CAE amp with the preamp gain set to about 4 and the power amp gain set to about 8 (think Foo Fighters' "Learning to Fly" tone). I left it on that patch for the rest of the set using the only the volume and tone knobs and my pick attack to clean or dirty things up (and changed the delay time between songs). It worked great!
 
All wonderful feedback and thank you. For all of you that do use your guitar volume control on stage extensively to affect tone (but not necessarily volume), how do you deal with the volume drop off when dialing back your guitar volume control?
 
All wonderful feedback and thank you. For all of you that do use your guitar volume control on stage extensively to affect tone (but not necessarily volume), how do you deal with the volume drop off when dialing back your guitar volume control?
It's a non-issue for me. The volume drop off is nigh unnoticeable.
 
It's a non-issue for me. The volume drop off is nigh unnoticeable.

Yeah ..., pretty much the same for me too .... As I start to turn down the guitar's volume, the volume stays pretty much the same, but the gain slowly falls away. But, about 3 or 4 ( or so ), the gain is gone, only then does the volume go down ....

Unless you're using active pickups ( ie; EMG, etc; ) it should pretty much exhibit the same behavior ....

I've always wanted a really good volume pot w/ a 'detent' about 1/2 way through the travel .... Then I could find the sweet spot quicker !
 
I've always wanted a really good volume pot w/ a 'detent' about 1/2 way through the travel .... Then I could find the sweet spot quicker !
I'm not sure if it's suitable or not, but take a look at the pot that's sold with Fenders TBX mod. I know mine has a detent in the center of it's travel. I'm NOT sure if that pot would work for a volume control.
 
For the first 10 years of playing, I used EMG's with volume and tone all the way up. Never used either of them. Eventually, I actually wired up the tone as a second volume so I could turn off 1 pickup and use the selector as a kill switch. I thought about removing the knobs altogether until two things happened: I changed pickups to Alumitones and I saw an AMAZING local guy do an entire show, nailing everything, with a single-channel amp and 3 pedals. I couldn't believe it. He said he spent the last year honing his volume knob technique. Since then, I've actively worked on using my volume now and it's to the point where I don't know I could do a whole show on full blast anymore. It's SOOO much smoother and sounds more natural to roll the knob back to clean up the crunch for a section of a song.
 
Volume knob is never full-blast. Which is a huge change for me. Before the axe, I always had that sucker cranked and thought that it was making my tone optimal. Alas, I was very young and very wrong. Now, it gives me so much more control in finding that sweet spot.
 
Back
Top Bottom