How do I make my Tele whine?

[FrankAtari]

 

Hi Guys,

 

this is Frank. I am new here and first of all I'd like to thank everybody for your attention.

 

I am kind of a beginner player so please accept that my question may sound stupid to some of you.

 

I have a telecaster and I am happy with it, but my guitar sounds exactly like an amplified classical guitar, that is all of the notes I play are perfectly separated. Now I was looking to get that lovely whine out of my guitar where the notes seem to blend together in a whistle (for lack of better words) and I was told to buy compressor and overdrive and use them together. Well it doesn't work. So how do I get a whine out of my electric guitar?

 

 

This is all I have:

 

amp head quilter 101 (with headset, as I don't have any cabinet)

telecaster with 2 single coils

OCD overdrive

BOSS compressor cp1x

 

and I also have a MOOER RADAR  but it is not in my chain

 

 

Many thanks to all.

 

F

 

 

Edited October 23, 2021 by FrankAtari

[ezbass]

Welcome, Frank.

 

No problem about questions, we were all beginners once and there’s always the chance for those with more experience to pick up some new info with the answers to seemingly simple enquiries.

 

Can you tell us what amplifier you’re using? It may be a case of you acquiring a multi FX with some amp simulations (together with other FX, inc distortion, comp and some other fun stuff).

[FrankAtari]

 

Hi Ezbass,

thanks for your understanding

this is all I have:

 

amp head quilter 101 (with headset, as I don't have any cabinet)

telecaster with 2 single coils

OCD overdrive

BOSS compressor cp1x

and I also have a MOOER RADAR  but it is not in my chain

 

 

 

 

Edited October 23, 2021 by FrankAtari

[ezbass]

Hmm. I’m surprised that you can’t get a decent overdriven tone through the headphones (assuming they’re headphones designed for listening to music) with that set up. Just cranking the gain on the amp should saturate your signal enough to achieve a level of overdriven smoothness, even before adding the overdrive pedal. I wouldn’t use the compressor just yet, not until you have something like the effect looking for, then you can add it to taste. Sorry, I don’t think I can help beyond that. 

[FrankAtari]

 

Not at all, it's great help and very much appreciated.

 

Wow I got almost there. I did crank the gain up and turned the compressor off. I was trying with low gain settings and didn't realize it was a mistake. At least I've learnt that it's probably just a matter of tweaking my knobs.

 

But I still have a problem. The sound has become musical and the guitar whines, great, but still I can hear the notes being separated by the pluck of my picking, no matter how gentle I try.  Basically the notes pop and then whines. Can I get rid of the pop?

 

Tnx

 

 

 

[ezbass]

Might be something to do with using headphones, but you'll always have some sort of pick/finger attack, but it can be reduced. The way I achieve that really 'singing', violin tone (Eric Johnson is my go to guy for this tone), is by using a fuzz face style fuzz. With what you have, you might get closer by cranking up your distortion pedal into your already gain driven amp and then rolling the tone off at the guitar until you get where you want it to be. In short, more knob tweaking. If you place your compressor after the distortion (not the 'normal' way, I know) you might be able to set it up to add sustain without emphasising the note attack. Happy tweaking.

[FrankAtari]

Tnx a lot you're a mine of information. I do really appreciate your help. I'll try everything you just mentioned above and see what happens. So basically playing the guitar is the easy part, tweaking is tough.

 

Anyway yeah I am looking for the "singing violin tone" and I'll slowly look into fuzz effects, if you say it may help.  

 

Bye for now,

F

 

 

[leftybassman392]

Hi there and welcome.

 

The pick sound is part of what makes a guitar a guitar, and is not something most guitarists would want to get rid of. Not completely at least.

 

That said, there are two (possibly three) approaches I'm aware of that can pull it back into the sound a bit:

 

1. Use a bow. No, really: https://ebow.com/

 

2. Use lots of gain. Also varyingly called distortion, overdrive, fuzz, etc., but as much as you can possibly muster. My guess is that this is more likely to be the kind of sound you're after, which in turn suggests a metal sound of some sort. The idea is that the signal chain is being driven so hard that there's no gain left for the pick strokes to stand out.

 

(3. There is a third way, but I'm not sure you can still buy the kit you'd need, or indeed would want to even if you could. A noise gate with a variable attack time that can be set to kill the initial pick sound. TBH I'm not sure you can even buy one these days as they're a bit of a throwback to the days of noisy amps. Modern equipment suppresses the hiss better to start with so nobody really uses them anymore afaik - certainly not in stomp-box form. In any case it wouldn't work well with a continuous sequence of notes as it needs gaps to reset itself. Not really an option in your situation, and I only mention it for completeness as something you might want to look at further down the road.)

 

It's also worth saying that the Telecaster's characteristic sound is actually quite bright and pingy to start with (it's very popular with, for example, country & western guitarists for that very reason), so you're a little bit up against it. Doesn't mean you shouldn't try of course...

Edited October 25, 2021 by leftybassman392

[FrankAtari]

 

Hi leftybassman392,

 

thank you so much for your contribution to my topic. Let's start from the end of your comments. You're right sometimes I wonder if I am swimming upstream with the Telecaster. But it is my first electric guitar and I wanted something with a fixed bridge, also musicians I really love use it (eg ted greene, Mike Stern, etc.). I don't like metal and distorted sounds too much. Ideally I would play blues, mellow jazz, neo soul, etc. I like single note playing. This is why I still think the telecaster is ok.

 

My tone is great and I don't complain about the guitar being a guitar. Most times I love hearing the plucking of the single notes. Still I have often heard on youtube etc a tone that I am trying to replicate. Yngwie Malmsteen is an example, but thousands are using it.

 

Now if you go to minute 28 of the video you'll hear the sound of my guitar (more or less)

 if you go to minute 8 you'll hear what I am trying replicate

 

 

 

 

 

I've learned something from ezbass' contribution to this topic. After experimenting with my gear as much I could as he suggested, I now see that at the end of the day, tone like technique is something that you develop slowly as you grow as a musician. With the electric guitar you can create your music and can create your tone according to taste. That's it, it's gonna take some time. Pedals don't work like switch, good tone on / off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Stub Mandrel]

Ok, forget the compressor, with that sort of sound compression is superfluous - especially as the limiter on the quilter does essentially the same thing.

 

You need masses of gain, on the amp and on the pedal. Consider investing in some cheap pedals (e.g. Behringer Tube Overdrive a tube screamer clone) or maybe a fuzz or distortion pedal rather than just overdrive. There is delay or chorus in there too, as a minimum use some of the amp's reverb. Once you are close to the sound you want, you might upgrade, or feel you don't need to.

 

Bad news is that Yngwie uses stacked humbuckers in his guitars, tele PUPs are pretty weedy single coils that give the classic thin, biting sound, even more than a Strat. That's one reason why they aren't popular with shredders.

 

Best thing to do is dial gain and tone controls (especially the mid range) to max, then back things off to get the sound you like. You don't get a sound like that by pussyfooting around.

 

If you can't hammer on a note and get a creamy distorted sound you won't get anywhere near that video.

[leftybassman392]

14 hours ago, FrankAtari said:

 

Hi leftybassman392,

 

thank you so much for your contribution to my topic. Let's start from the end of your comments. You're right sometimes I wonder if I am swimming upstream with the Telecaster. But it is my first electric guitar and I wanted something with a fixed bridge, also musicians I really love use it (eg ted greene, Mike Stern, etc.). I don't like metal and distorted sounds too much. Ideally I would play blues, mellow jazz, neo soul, etc. I like single note playing. This is why I still think the telecaster is ok.

 

My tone is great and I don't complain about the guitar being a guitar. Most times I love hearing the plucking of the single notes. Still I have often heard on youtube etc a tone that I am trying to replicate. Yngwie Malmsteen is an example, but thousands are using it.

 

Now if you go to minute 28 of the video you'll hear the sound of my guitar (more or less)

 if you go to minute 8 you'll hear what I am trying replicate

 

 

 

 

 

I've learned something from ezbass' contribution to this topic. After experimenting with my gear as much I could as he suggested, I now see that at the end of the day, tone like technique is something that you develop slowly as you grow as a musician. With the electric guitar you can create your music and can create your tone according to taste. That's it, it's gonna take some time. Pedals don't work like switch, good tone on / off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, thanks for the extra info.

 

First off, I should say that I'm not a big Malmsteen fan. That said, he does have a very advanced technique that would take time, talent and tenacity to get anywhere close to.

 

I'm not too sure what you're getting at wrt the video if I'm honest. However, another thought that occurs to me is that one of the techniques Malmsteen and others of his ilk use a lot is something called legato, which is essentially producing notes with the fretting hand use a range of techniques under a general heading of slurs. Although Malmsteen is a shredder, it's a technique that can be used in any style on pretty much any kind of guitar. If you like Mike Stern by the way, you may also like Guthrie Govan (caution: don't try this at home )

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yPEewaalik

 

Guitarists can spend years trying to get the sound they have in their head out of the guitar. You've had some great suggestions on this thread that you can spend time exploring, and while I'm at it, for smoother sounds you could also try high gain with the tone rolled off to taste - possibly with some fairly heavy compression and a very light picking technique so the gain does all the work. Many ways to skin a cat; have fun experimenting.

[FrankAtari]

On 27/10/2021 at 00:14, Stub Mandrel said:

You need masses of gain, on the amp and on the pedal. Consider investing in some cheap pedals (e.g. Behringer Tube Overdrive a tube screamer clone) or maybe a fuzz or distortion pedal rather than just overdrive. There is delay or chorus in there too, as a minimum use some of the amp's reverb. Once you are close to the sound you want, you might upgrade, or feel you don't need to.

 

Bad news is that Yngwie uses stacked humbuckers in his guitars, tele PUPs are pretty weedy single coils that give the classic thin, biting sound, even more than a Strat. That's one reason why they aren't popular with shredders.

 

Best thing to do is dial gain and tone controls (especially the mid range) to max, then back things off to get the sound you like. You don't get a sound like that by pussyfooting around.

 

If you can't hammer on a note and get a creamy distorted sound you won't get anywhere near that video.

Hi Stub Mandrel, I hope you're doing fine. Thanks a lot for answering my question and contributing to the topic. I see you know my Quilter that's good. And you opened my eyes about Yngwie modded guitar, that makes a lot of sense. Everybody here has agreed about the limits of the Tele and the lots of gain thing, so that's the way to go. For now, since this is my first electric guitar (I used to play the classic guitar though) I'll stick with my system which I like and experiment with the settings. When I feel the need to upgrade my gear I will consider a Boss GT1000. Thanks a again for sharing your thoughts.  

[FrankAtari]

On 27/10/2021 at 02:34, leftybassman392 said:

Guitarists can spend years trying to get the sound they have in their head out of the guitar.

 

Hi there, thanks again for your help and for the video. I do know Guthrie Govan and like him a lot and he's such a nice guy. The sound in that video is indeed another example of the tone I like. It's a tone I'd like to be able to use sooner or later simply because I love it. There's no other reason really. Well I certainly got enough information to keep me busy for a while, although for now I'll have to go on playing with my Telly twang