I play guitar in a rock covers band, and so have two or three pretty standard guitar sounds - i.e. 'overdriven', 'more overdriven' and 'front row of audience go blind within first two bars'.

HOWEVER I am playing a one-off with some friends which will involve a much cleaner guitar sound and I want some tips on how to improve my guitar tone.

There will be some funky stuff in there, and I have heard that compression is an essential part of the funk tone...but I have NO IDEA HOW TO USE COMPRESSION ON GUITAR SIGNALS.....



Any experiences geetar users out there care to make any suggestions....?

Natural compression comes from a slightly overdriven tube amp - a SMALL overdriven tube amp, (like a Fender Deluxe). It happens when the knobs are telling the amp to go louder, and the amp is telling the knobs, "sorry dude, that's all I've got".

Which then compresses the volume - actually just limits it to a certain volume.

A compressor/limiter, then, tries to duplicate that type of sound. You've got a few knobs, usually, sustain, attack, level, maybe ratio, maybe cutoff.

What you're doing by rotating the knobs is changing how fast does the effect kick in? When you hit a hard note, does it squash it immediately, over a second or two, or really slowly? AND, with sustain, you're determining how long does it stay squashed? Does it eventually allow the full volume to be reached, or whut?

Additionally, (my favorite) is where it will kick up the quieter notes. I'm not such a fan of squashing the volume when I play hard, but I really dig pulling up the quieter notes.

But, personally, nothing beats the straight-to-tube compression.

My second-favorite (of the week) is the MXR Dyna-Comp. It's a classic red pedal with just one knob, I think. Maybe two. Get in there and experiment with the various settings. I used a crappy Danelectro compressor for years, and loved it. Also, it's great for changing from rhythm to lead - compress the rhythm, and then shut it off for lead.

The science of compression is pretty involved, and I'm sure I've made some other guitarists wince with my descriptions.

otan said:

Thank you very much, I will begin experimenting tonight whilst my wife is at work.



that could have been taken totally the wrong way, no double entendre intended there.


Thanks again for taking the time out to give such a detailed reply - I guarantee that will come in handy for me.

Did you know slash covered Peac with Rod Stewart and Duff covered Bambi? I love some gnr. I am fan of Prince and Slash and am a guitar player too. Nice to meet you.

7salles said:

Didn't know either of those facts but cool, thanks for the info!

Nice to meet you, too.


What guitar do you play, what styles too and what other guitarists do you like?


I play mostly a Les Paul in a rock covers band, also play a Telecaster on rare occasions.
Big fan of Slash, obviously, but also admire Angus Young of ACDC and, just to add a different styles altogether, Johnny Marr of the Smiths.

Slash said:

I play a purple luthier copy of a Ibanez JS, the one satriani plays. I like hard rock, funk, funk rock, blues, jazz and there you go. I also used to play on cover rock bands, i even had a GUNS N ROSES cover band, but nowadays i am just composing, praticing and that's all. I like Slash, Sambora, Brian May, Nuno bettencourt, Prince the guys from funkdalic. But i also dig some jazz, liek pet metheny and george benson. but i am not very good at playing jazz, my brain is too slow yet for that. hehe