Ideal Practice Tone?

Playing Technique
#1

Ok, so, I seem to have actually started a full blown argument with my IRL guitar friends over this (there are some strong personalities) over whether there is a “best” tone to practice with. So I thought I would see whether you guys can be the voice of reason, or put forward some new views :slight_smile:

In my experience, I seem to get the most out of practicing with a tone that would be classed as crunchy, but unforgiving. I don’t want to sound good when i practice, instead I want to hear my mistakes. I make sure that there is just enough gain and comp to make sure that I can hit pinch harmonics (but only if I nail them) and that it has enough sustain and gain to carry legato licks etc. Oh, and a tiny bit of reverb to make it not sound totally poo.

If I have it set cleaner, I find I don’t hear muting mistakes, and if I have more gain, I find I miss inaccuracies that the gain covers up.

Thoughts?

N.B. There are no wrong answers, only opinions, I’m just curious.

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#2

IMO you have to use different tones! I use a 5150 one-knob amp sim to practice, and the knob varies from 2 with the boost off to 7-8 with it on over the course of a session.

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#3

When I was at Berklee, Joe Stump was my private instructor and he always said to practice on a tone that is most similar to what you’re going to use in a live setting, so that’s what I’ve done ever since. Super easy for me to do nowadays with the torpedo captor X, I can practice with my exact rig at studio volume.

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#4

This I can totally understand for practicing one’s own material, but what about for just plain ol’ practice? IIRC Joe uses a fairly high amount of gain, i wonder how to listen out for things that are being “covered up” by gain while doing raw practice?

Not at all saying the Joe Stump is wrong, I’m just curious :slight_smile:

#5

Honestly it never really concerned me. I play high gain material where learning to control the gain and tone with my hands is crucial. I literally never play on a clean tone. If I played material that required it, I would practice on a clean tone, but I don’t, so it’s not important to me. I think the idea that Stump is suggesting is to learn to sound good on the tone you’re going to actually use.

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#6

I usually tend to dial in a mid-present tone anyways, and rely on the bass and drums to give it thickness.

There’s no room to hide in the sonic landscape even, haha!

Everything is heard, including my mistakes.

So the person that said, dial in the tone you’d use in a live setting is spot on. I do that for recordings, live, and practice. Learning to control all of that and make the instrument sing is like the musician’s creed, as it were.

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#7

Edge of breakup all day for me.

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#8

My normal tone (relatively high gain), dry works best for me, and I make sure to practice on unamplified acoustic fairly regularly. This covers all the bases - noise control is developed on electric, dynamic control on acoustic.

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#9

Does the mistake exist if you can’t hear it under the performance tone? :face_with_monocle:

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#10

That is the crux of something i have wrestled with, and i can only give a personal and convoluted answer.

I like to play several different styles, but i want my core voice on the guitar to be doable, no matter the tone, from high gain all the way down to tweed twang. I think this is why i want to hear every mistake when practicing (or i just hate myself).

I should add, im not a great player by any stretch of the imagination, im just interested in everyone elses personal philosophies on the matter.

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#11

To me, the question boils down to, ‘Am I an artist or an athlete?’

If I’m an athlete, I want to be the best I can possibly be, and be able to prove it. Use an unforgiving tone that shows my mistakes.

If I’m an artist, I want to make expressive sounds that speak to people on an emotional level. Use the tone I will perform with so I can practice the feedback between what I hear, what I want to hear, and what my hands are doing.

I’d rather be an artist, but no judgment. Do what makes you happy.

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#12

I thought that most famous artists had one primary tone, perhaps in a lead/rhythm version?

I could even see developing a secondary tone (say you were metal but also wanted to play flamenco), but the idea of being able to play over a range of tones sounds unusual.

UPDATE: Ah, Vernon Reed, he is a sonic chameleon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtHd2v9YiEA

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#13

Yeah, he does say that. When I was with him he played through a j station into a SS fender amp, drenched with reverb and delay with a noisy grey 250 that sometimes picked up radio stations.

It was nothing like what he used live. There is some value in it if your plan is to only play under those circumstances.

If that’s your goal and you want to be super masochistic, play dry, through headphones, and record yourself frequently. Your brain can play tricks on you even with room reflections. Sometimes when you play something that sounds great and listen back to it, you will pick up on slop you didn’t hear in the moment.

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#14

Covered up by gain? lol go to GC on Saturdays… nothing is covered up by gain.

The idea to use a tone … any tone that doesn’t sound good on purpose for “practice “ is dumb .

Strive for good tone clean and with gain.

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#15

But artists (im thinking classical painters) would practice for hours and hours not with their full palette of oil paints, brushes, and whatever else they use, and would instead do studies with a simple piece of charcoal, or would draw fundamental shapes endlessly with a pencil. I know that some of that is cost based reasoning (and luckily tone doesnt cost by the minute :stuck_out_tongue: ) but there was also a strong sense thst a simple medium shows you your skills and allows you to practice honestly.

This really is the main thing, i dont see practice as art, i see it as a tool to become better at art.

Oh come now, have you never practiced a legato lick with your favourite tone, then tried to play it at a jam with a slightly less nice rig and realised that the lovely compress, gain, and lovely amp was actually masking the fact that you werent quite hitting some of the notes very well? Or maybe youve learned a lick on a clean channel (or unplugged) and when you go to play it you find out that your muting isnt good?

I didnt say to use a tone that doesnt sound good, i said to use one that is unforgiving. I still want a nice sound, i just dont want to mask stuff while i practice. GC levels of gain dont hide rotten playing for sure, but a nice amount of gain and compression can absolutely hide a bad slide, or a bend not quite pulled off, or a weak hammer on.

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#16

For me practice and performing are two different things. When practicing I want to hear my errors so I can correct them. What’s the purpose of practice if I can’t improve?

It’s the same thing with stuff like fret wraps (which often seem to spark some controversy): I would never recommend to use a fret wrap while practicing (especially not for stuff like for example multi string tapping etc), I would always try to get my playing as clean as possible without any help.

Then when it comes to performing however (live, in the studio, whatever), use whatever makes you sound best. Use a fret wrap if you need to (I mean in the studio it’s standard anyway to mute everything that’s not needed), use your best sounding tone, etc.

So in conclusion to the practice tone question: I use a sound that does not hide mistakes in too much gain or effects but also one that does not make me hate practicing and still sounds somewhat good. I have some slight reverb just to not make it sound too boring but it doesn’t mask anything important.
So it’s not “doesn’t sound good on purpose” – it’s just “does not drench itself in gain and effects”

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#17

Ok, so there’s at least one other person out there who views it similarly to me!

The strong reaction I got from my friends made me wonder whether I am a loony :sweat_smile:

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#18

There are dozens of us!

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#19

Yes. Painters can be athletes too.

Nothing wrong with being an athlete. :slightly_smiling_face:

Just kidding, but only a little. I’m describing mindsets. Are you focused on doing things correctly, or do you question whether there is any such thing and spend your time exploring rather than perfecting?

These mindsets are not permanent. You don’t have to choose one and stick with it forever, or even for a whole practice session. Most practitioners of any artform develop their own balance between them. I’ve spent plenty of time on athletics, but mostly when there’s something specific I want to play that I can’t. I much prefer to spend time making new things that didn’t exist before and therefore can’t be perfected in advance. I want to surprise myself. Some of my favorite music sounded ‘wrong’ the first time I heard it. I don’t want to miss out on creating that experience for someone else.

CTC focuses a lot on athletics, and I wouldn’t hang out here I didn’t find that approach valuable. It’s just not my end goal or how I want to spend the majority of my playing time. I’d rather practice creating new things, which I find requires me to avoid thinking that there is a correct way to do anything, music-wise.

Again, no judgment if your goals or preferences are different.

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#20

You kind of play off of what you hear back, so I don’t see why you would practice with a tone or level of gain you don’t intend to use…

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