Tone Problems

[Slowmo]

I've been having tone problems for the longest time now. Before during my bedroom musician and metal band days, I can get tones quite easilly and stay with that particular tone for some time.

Now, with me doing a number of different styles mostly steeped mostly in blues. I'm having a tough time applying my tone to studio and live situations. They either get too muddy or too bright. It's very annoying. I'm compromising our sound a lot.

I usually tweak the guitar's tone knob to muddy up my Strat's brightness. Unfortunately, studio and venue equipment aren't too cooperative with me. What should I adjust to tweak my bedroom tone to match studio jamming and live settings? I have trouble with distortion and overdrive. I'm satisfied with my cleans as well as mods/delays/reverb though.

 

[amra]

What kind of amps are you using in this situations?

 

[Slowmo]

I'm connected to a solid state amplifier. My problem lies from the start. I don't know whether to adjust the treble, bass, or mid first. I usually adjust the guitar's tone knob to muddy it up if it sounds too bright. Also, I'm not sure if it's good to decrease the guitar's volume knob because that also affects the tone a lot.

I read somewhere before that adjusting the knob to flat (0 treb, max mid, 0 bass) is a starting point to get the tone I wanted. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to help much.

On power chords, I never get problems with tone but when I do the other types of chords as well as some "jazzy" chords, everything gets messed up.

 

[Codmate]

If you can afford it you might want to try a tube amplifier such as the Fender Blues Junior.

It's an expensive solution though.

I'm assuming that you've listened to lots of the blues players and picked up on the stylistic things they do to make their sounds. Width of vibrato, knowing which notes to bend and playing with the right feel all contribute.

It might be worth popping down to the music store and trying out some tube amps.
Give some thought to the VOX Valvetronix as well as the Blues Junior and similar products. Try some modeling stuff such as the POD and Sansamp stuff as you might like it and it's cheap and portable.

 

[louloomis]

Please post your signal chain.

It's possible that your rig is not able to get what you want when you want it and you should change. But first, we (I) need to know what's in your rig.

LL