How to Make the Most of Your Gear and Gain the Knowledge You Need

Ever heard the saying "all the gear but no idea"? Maybe you've met a wild hobbyist that has all the bells and whistles but just can't produce a half-decent tone. Or you've bought a new toy to help shape your sound, but it's not quite doing what you want it to do. Shaping your tone is almost a dark art that can lead you quickly down a rabbit hole if you're not vigilant. Technique is a huge part of it, but for the sake of this post, we will be focusing on the gear.

Let's look at a guitar, for example, and where does it start on the guitar? The strings, of course! Picking the right type of string is a huge factor, whether they are flat wound or round, what material is used, and the gauge; these will seriously impact the tone of the guitar. Not only that, it will also impact your playing technique and dexterity. The type of guitar you use, the timber it's made of, even the shape can affect the tone, but some of these factors will be far more noticeable than others, and depending on what's available to you and your budget, may not be things worth worrying over.

Some things to consider: metal guitarists will often use a thicker gauge of string, 10–49 or 11–52, and push it even further if they are using alternative tunings. Jimi Hendrix used a hybrid setup: 10, 13, 15, 27, 32, and 36. This played a huge part in his slinky tone, sometimes tuning to Eb, which exaggerated it even more! Stevie Ray Vaughan used really thick gauges on his E, B, and G strings, keeping them all at 15. This gave him that great percussive sound when muting the strings and also enhanced a lot of the power in his solos.

Amps, pedals, and other outboard gear will also play a big role in shaping a guitar's tone. Let's take a look at Jimi Hendrix's tone again. One of the factors for him was playing really loud, being able to control the feedback loop with the amp on command, and riding his guitar's volume pot not only for volume but also tone control. Then there is Angus Young; similar again, he played very loud and, to lots of people's disbelief, used little distortion. He ran his tubes very hot; in the studios, they would catch fire, but all this helped shape the tone we know and love.

When it comes to recording, using the right microphone plays a big role as well. Think of it a bit like a photo filter; it captures the image a certain way. Audio engineering has come a long way, with developing simple solutions that 99% of the time always work. Let's put the amp volume low and a SM57 in front of the cone in the center and call it a day. I'm not going to bash this at all, but there is something to be said when everyone is doing it the same way and lots of records sound the same. If that's the tone you want, great! But that isn't the be-all and end-all. You can mic up the back of the cab, stereo image it with some room mics, create that big sound that makes you feel like your head is inside the cabinet.

At the end of the day, all these tones came together with experimenting, some creativity, and happy accidents. It's become clearer over the decades of music progression that there is more than one way to achieve something, whether it's the analog chain, playing technique, or shaping it in the box in post. We are spoiled today with the number of options we have and creative pathways we can take.