How to Get Better Tone (Instrumentalists)

Over the last several weeks (well—YEARS, really), I've been obsessing over tone.?

As a guitar player, it comes with the territory; half the fun of playing guitar is experimenting with things like tonewoods, pick-ups, effects, amps—the list goes on. And many other instrumentalists share the same experience.?

But here's the thing: With all of the options out there to help you "chase tone," you still need to draw out a solid, fundamental sound on your respective instrument.?

Here's how you do it.?

The Essentials of Tone

For a long time, I thought "tone" equaled "effects." As a young guitar player, I had only three concepts of sound: "acoustic," "clean," and "DISTORTION!!!" And to an extent, those categories are the essential sounds of guitar as we know it.?

But within each area is a MASSIVE range of possibilities, and it takes a long time to master the full capabilities of your instrument that allow you to explore those ranges. For me, I never went beyond turning the distortion switch on my amplifier and cranking the gain to get more of that sweet, crunchy sound.?

What I had no idea was that even though my tone was fully saturated with all the distortion I could give, it lacked character. What I thought was big, full, and glorious was actually thin, brittle, and annoying. Here's what I was missing:

• Warmth vs. Brightness
• Fullness
• Depth
• Clarity

And here's the thing: There's no one-size-fits-all approach to getting a good tone, but you need to dial in the right character for each context in which you find yourself. ?

Let's explore how we can shape tone in more detail.

Knowing the "What" and the "How"

When we say your tone should have "warmth," we mean that it should accentuate more lows, i.e., letting bass frequencies stand out. On the flip side, "brightness" means to bring out more highs, i.e., treble frequencies. This two ends of the spectrum lend to how clear or muddy a tone is, or whether it's full or weak/brittle. This all leads to the depth of your tone and how it sits within a mix (blending back vs. standing out).?

Materials: This comes down to "what" the instrument is made of.?

• Acoustic instruments: Tonewoods greatly affect the sound, i.e., mahogany boosts the mid-range frequencies while rosewood accentuates highs and lows. (Same goes for other stringed instruments.)?
• Electric instruments: It mainly comes down to pickups and the components of your amps and effects. Different transistors, tubes, and order of signal processing all plays a part in your tone. You can listen to the difference between a chimey single-coil pickups with warm, fat humbuckers, or compare bright, sparkly clean Fender amp with a heavy, mid-driven Marshall, or plug into an Ibanez Tubescreamer and compare it to a Ratt Distortion.
• Wind instruments: Your mouthpiece and and the body material greatly affect the tone, i.e., shallow vs. deep cups on brass mouthpieces, metal vs. plastic bodies (yes, plastic horns exist!).?
• For drums: Shell material and head material play the largest part in shaping tone. Coated heads yield darker, warmer tone while clear heads offer more brightness and punch. Apart from that, your stick material, especially the tip, greatly influences tone, too.?

Controls (hands and hardware): As the saying goes, "The tone is in the hands." This comes down to "how" you control the tone that is already available from the "what" that comes with your initial set-up.?

• Picking/bowing: The angle and speed of attack will yield different results, and sometimes, the shape of your pick will change the tone, too. I've played picks made from plastic, wood, carbon fiber, even buffalo horn! They all sound different. If you change your grip from using the pointed edge of a pick to a rounded edge, then your tone tends to darken. For bowed instruments, wood vs. carbon fiber bow shafts will darken or brighten your tone, respectively. The same goes for natural horsehair vs. synthetic bow material.?
• Amps/effects: Some amplifiers come with relatively simple controls, while others allow you to sculpt the sound more minutely. For my set-up, I use two Fender amplifiers, which both only have a volume, "highs," "lows," reverb, and vibrato knobs, the last two of which also include controls for shaping the intensity and rate ?of each respective effect. Since each amp can only control highs and lows, I don't have any way to bring out the mids, which is crucial for the sound I want to achieve. To make up for that, I use a effect pedal that has additional controls to boost the mids that my basic set-up is missing.?
• More on effects: Your signal chain in effects, whether in pedals or in a rack, greatly influences tone. Generally speaking, I set up my chain to be: clean sound optimized for lows/mids/highs → overdrive/distortion → modulation (chorus/vibrato/tremolo/etc.) → delay → reverb → amp. All of these effects, for the most part, should stand out less than what you think they should. Too much distortion/gain is harsh, over-modulated chorus sounds to watery, and too much delay/reverb get WAY too intrusive. So just dial things back and bring them into focus to fit the room/recording.
• Wind instruments: Your attack and airflow are your "effects" for your tone. To give you an example, compare these two great alto saxophonists: Paul Desmond and Dave Sanborn. Both are masters of their instrument and are categorized as jazz players, but they couldn't be anymore different. In Desmond's words, he wanted to have a tone that was like a "dry martini," and when you listen to Sanborn, it is chock full of ripping energy. You can listen to the differences here and here.?
• For drummers: The intensity of your strike coupled with its placement will change your tone, a lot. These days, I encourage drummers to play with intensity, hitting each drum in the center of the head to get the characteristic tone of that "worship sound." But in other cases, you may want to pull back and play closer to the rim for a more delicate approach. It all depends on context.?

The Bottom Line

For your tone to work well, it needs to have character, which means the right highlighting of lows, mids, and highs, acceptable levels for each effect, a clear mastery of how to "attack" each note, and exploring other instruments/materials to bring out different characteristics in your playing.?

Be blessed ????