Scratcher Posted June 17, 2019 Share Posted June 17, 2019 (edited) I am a newcomer to guitar (completely). I feel to be kind of progressing but I am currently trying to learn paranoid as I have been told it's good to learn and fairly easy supposedly. I have a telecaster and grafter amp with overdrive switch. I cannot seem to get a sound anywhere near the online tuition. What settings should I be using? The guitar is a telecaster with standard pickups. Edited June 17, 2019 by Scratcher Spelling mistake Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EliasMooseblaster Posted July 8, 2019 Share Posted July 8, 2019 The classic Black Sabbath guitar sound is a Gibson SG into a Laney valve amp - obviously that would be quite an investment, but one of the key differences in the tone will be the fact that the SG has two humbucking pickups*, and those do sound quite fundamentally different from the single-coil pickups in a Telecaster. It's a thicker, more bass-heavy sound, but you can approximate it by using the neck pickup, turning the tone down a little, and keeping the guitar's volume up. Now to your amp: does it have a "Gain", "Drive", or "Input Volume" control? Getting the overdrive under control can often be key to these things - in my experience, you can usually get a decent overdrive tone out of smaller practice amps, but they can also sound quite "fizzy" if you set the drive too high. Have a play with the overdrive at lower gain/drive/input vol settings - you want plenty of crunch, but you also don't want to lose the definition in your sound (if you don't have gain/drive/input on the amp, you can turn down the guitar's volume to tame the overdrive). As for the amp's EQ, I'd probably start by backing off the treble a bit, and experiment with the bass and mids to see how it sounds - I'm afraid it's hard to be specific without knowing the amp myself! Hope that's of some help - let us know how you get on! *well, probably P-90s when they recorded Paranoid, but those sound more like humbuckers than Fender-style single coils! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scratcher Posted July 10, 2019 Author Share Posted July 10, 2019 It has an overdrive button.And a gain control.I will try your suggestions and see how I get on I was really getting myself all muddled as to which to turn up and down. I also used the bridge pickup thinking it would work as the neck pickup seemed quieter.I was possibly going completely the wrong way about it. I am a total novice so everything is learning.Thank you. I really want to play something through so I feel I am progressing.Everything is a bit of a struggle at the moment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
