Sustain and vibrato


Old Bones
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Old Bones
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11/26/2019 8:42 am

Still looking for my tone. I have a ine 6 modelling amp so I can do pretty much anything. However I am trying to find out more about sustain and vibrato. I am having difficulty getting them together.

If I play with no amp on my hollow body, my vibrato sounds great but when I amp it my vibrato is not as noticeable. I suspect because I am looking for more sustain from my settings and the sounds are more even?

I love the sustain of say Gary Moore which I can get with a tube screamer but I lose the nuances in my playing.

I understand that some of this is in my fingers and I will keep working at that. Just looking for any ideas from others to improve my tone.

Cheers

Stephen J


# 1
ChristopherSchlegel
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ChristopherSchlegel
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11/26/2019 1:00 pm
Originally Posted by: stephen82

Still looking for my tone. I have a ine 6 modelling amp so I can do pretty much anything. However I am trying to find out more about sustain and vibrato. I am having difficulty getting them together.[/quote]

Sustain is largely a matter of volume. All guitars have an immediate high point at the inital note attack, then a dramatic drop off to decay. Some guitars have better sustain, but even a great guitar isn't going to keep that note ringing as strong as the inital attack.

You can of course help keep a note alive by vibrato, and subtle re-picking. So that might be something to work on. But to get the type of sustain Gary Moore gets you need gain & volume. To get that sort of endless sustain there really isn't any substitute for playing an electric guitar through an amp putting out enough volume that the note coming out of the speakers affects the guitar enough to start a sort of feedback loop.

If you can't or don't have that much volume on tap, then try turning up the gain!

Originally Posted by: stephen82If I play with no amp on my hollow body, my vibrato sounds great but when I amp it my vibrato is not as noticeable. I suspect because I am looking for more sustain from my settings and the sounds are more even?

Can you describe this a little more? It sound kind of backward to me! Typically playing through a amp, well, amplifies whatever you are playing. :) I've noticed that even just a small amount of unamplified vibrato sounds huge through an ampflier.

[quote=stephen82]

I love the sustain of say Gary Moore which I can get with a tube screamer but I lose the nuances in my playing.

[p]It's tricky to find the right balance between enough gain for sustain & too much that destroys nuance. Most of that is how hard you pick & squeeze, shake the note. Guys like Moore also rode the volume knob. At 10 there was a ton of gain on tap. But for more dynamic parts, they would turn the volume on the guitar down to 4 or 5 & be able to get more nuanced tones as well!

Anders has done some pretty good material on the basics of vibrato.

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=768

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=1589

And I did this tutorial on getting the most out of your volume knob.

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=2290

Hope that helps!


Christopher Schlegel
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# 2
Old Bones
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Old Bones
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11/26/2019 9:59 pm

Christopher,

Thank you for your great response as always. I am OK with using the gain and volume to get the sustain.

Originally Posted by: ChristopherSchlegel

Can you describe this a little more? It sound kind of backward to me! Typically playing through a amp, well, amplifies whatever you are playing. :) I've noticed that even just a small amount of unamplified vibrato sounds huge through an ampflier.

You are right - It seems counterintuitive. I play an Epiphone ES339. If I just pick it up and play, my vibrato is really clear - particularly the vibrato on my bent notes. When I plug it in and play through my amp the vibrato is not as pronounced. That had me thinking that maybe that "feedback loop" I am creating with volume and gain for sustain is flattening things out. Having said that, I understand that vibrato is changing the pitch and not volume.

Maybe I am just playing my vibrato a bit differently when amplified. Perhaps subconsciously I am reacting to the additional noises it can create with the higher volumes? I will certainly keep practicing to improve my technique.


# 3
ChristopherSchlegel
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ChristopherSchlegel
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11/27/2019 1:13 pm

You're welcome for the reply!

Originally Posted by: stephen82

You are right - It seems counterintuitive. I play an Epiphone ES339. If I just pick it up and play, my vibrato is really clear - particularly the vibrato on my bent notes. When I plug it in and play through my amp the vibrato is not as pronounced.[/quote][p]Is the tone knob on your guitar turned down? Sometimes that can cause quick note decay. How about if you just play a note with no vibrato & let it ring? How long does it sustain?

Originally Posted by: stephen82

That had me thinking that maybe that "feedback loop" I am creating with volume and gain for sustain is flattening things out. Having said that, I understand that vibrato is changing the pitch and not volume.

[p]The type of feedback loop I'm describing is turning up the amp so the sound coming out of the speakers is loud enough to be picked up by your guitar pickups. I'm not suggesting you need to go deaf to do this. :) But in order to get your amp to work as an integrated part of your tone you need enough volume.

[quote=stephen82]

Maybe I am just playing my vibrato a bit differently when amplified. Perhaps subconsciously I am reacting to the additional noises it can create with the higher volumes? I will certainly keep practicing to improve my technique.

Maybe. I'm curious how much sustain you are getting without vibrato as a benchmark. If you are getting less when you bend & use vibrato, then you might have a problem with your guitar action. If it's too low, then it can choke the strings when you bend too far.

Let me know how it goes!


Christopher Schlegel
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# 4
JeffS65
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JeffS65
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11/27/2019 4:04 pm
Originally Posted by: stephen82

Christopher,

Thank you for your great response as always. I am OK with using the gain and volume to get the sustain.

Originally Posted by: ChristopherSchlegel

Can you describe this a little more? It sound kind of backward to me! Typically playing through a amp, well, amplifies whatever you are playing. :) I've noticed that even just a small amount of unamplified vibrato sounds huge through an ampflier.

You are right - It seems counterintuitive. I play an Epiphone ES339. If I just pick it up and play, my vibrato is really clear - particularly the vibrato on my bent notes. When I plug it in and play through my amp the vibrato is not as pronounced. That had me thinking that maybe that "feedback loop" I am creating with volume and gain for sustain is flattening things out. Having said that, I understand that vibrato is changing the pitch and not volume.

Maybe I am just playing my vibrato a bit differently when amplified. Perhaps subconsciously I am reacting to the additional noises it can create with the higher volumes? I will certainly keep practicing to improve my technique.

How much overdrive are you using? Amp plus pedal? Taking a queue from Chris and using volume andtone knobs on the guitar, it can be due to the equipment or settings. When I read this, I'm not sure it is a volume issue but a clarity issue. If you have any overdrive pegged, what happens when you dial that back? What people often don't realize when they hear that awesome tone on a recording is that it is frequently less overdriven than it seems.

The ES339 is a pretty nice guitar and I'm assuming that it's got the Epi Classic Pro and Classic Pro Plus pickups with coil taps. Meaning that you probably have a pretty mice instrument with a nice set of 57-styled pickups.

How much do you mess around with your tone and tone settings?

I'm am a chronic knob twiddler. I don't stop until I get what I want to hear. Also, I can get get tone out of nearly any amp. I don't want to make that sound like 'look, I'm cool...' kinda thing. It's not. 'Back in the day'(in the 80's), I used to annoy the heck out of the local store by hanging aroundand only buying picks, strings and magazines. So they'd put me to work trying out some gear to get my opinion (which was actually really cool). One of the folks at thats store just came out and said, 'you seem to get tone out of everything'. Even some amps that weren't exactly tone monsters.

The point isn't about me and some magic skill. I'd just screw around til I got something I liked. Chris and I have often joked about having nearly identical 'junk' rigs in the 80's but we both agreed that our 'junk' rigs sounded great. No one would look at these 'junk' rigs and even consider them as tone monsters before playing. We made it work.

Sustain and vibrato....why is all the tone talk important? If you get a nice vibrato 'acoustically', then something in your plugged in signal chain is masking it. It's your job to get the mud out. That means tweaking and twisting knobs until you get what you like.

Literally when I try (tried) new amps, I zero everything out. I'll add a bit of gain but won't peg it. Then for the amp tone knobs, I will start dialing up the Treble/Hi (I think of it as the tone clarity knob). It usually ends up somewhere between 1 and 3 o'clock. Then I dial up the Bass/Low knob (the 'beef' knob). That seems to end up between Noon and 2. Then I dial up the Mid (this is the 'flavor to taste' knob). I find that the mid gets the least amount of dial up but a little can add a lot of body.

This is just how I do it. You don't have to follow this but there is a thought behind it in that you're allowing frequencies to pass through the knob and the more you turn up that knob, the more of that frequency you're letting through. This allows you to clean up your sound by hearing what you're letting through in a 'formal' process. Then, once you've dailed up something nice, add a little more overdrive if you wish. You'll probably tweak the tone a little more after a little more overdrive but by having a nice amp tone setting to start, it helps you see how much overdrive you really need.

In doing so, you might find that you're vibrato was masked under the tone. My thought for the day.....


# 5
Old Bones
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Old Bones
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12/02/2019 8:56 am

Chris and Jeff,

Thankyou for your insights. Both really useful. I think I have been overdoing the overdrive and that has masked things like my vibrato. Combined with the volume cranked up for sustain, you can hear every little touch of the string and I was also holding back a bit on my vibrato.

Cleaning up the sound and working on my technique, I can see a fair bit of improvement and I will keep working on it.

Also Christopher thank you for the link to the lessons on the volume knob. I have started to play around more with the knobs on my guitar and finding some better sounds. It always amazes me how much there is to learn on this site. Who would have though a whole series of lessons on the volume knob. Patience has to be the virture. So much to learn and I want to learn it all now.

Cheers

Stephen J


# 6
ChristopherSchlegel
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ChristopherSchlegel
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12/02/2019 12:25 pm

You're welcome for the reply!

Originally Posted by: stephen82

I think I have been overdoing the overdrive and that has masked things like my vibrato. Combined with the volume cranked up for sustain, you can hear every little touch of the string and I was also holding back a bit on my vibrato.[/quote]

Excellent update! Volume can do wonders. And too much gain is a common problem. Glad you are solving these problems & making progress.

Originally Posted by: stephen82

Cleaning up the sound and working on my technique, I can see a fair bit of improvement and I will keep working on it.

Yeah, that describes most of practice routine for the last 40 years. Fortunately I keep seeing improvment. :)

[quote=stephen82]

Also Christopher thank you for the link to the lessons on the volume knob. I have started to play around more with the knobs on my guitar and finding some better sounds. It always amazes me how much there is to learn on this site. Who would have though a whole series of lessons on the volume knob. Patience has to be the virture. So much to learn and I want to learn it all now.

You're welcome! Glad you are enjoying GT & the learning process. Let me know if you have any other questions!


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# 7
matonanjin2
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matonanjin2
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12/02/2019 3:12 pm

All this talk of sustain and no mention of that Santana sustain?


[u]Guitars:[/u] 2014 PRS Santana, 2013 PRS Paul's, 2009 PRS Hollowbody, 1972 Gibson ES-325, 2012 Fender Strat American Standard, 2012 Yamaha Pacifica, Martin M-36, Martin 000-15M, Seagull S6 Classic[br][u]Amps:[/u] Fender Blues Junior III, Boss Eband JS-10, Line 6 POD 500X, Quilter Microblock 45

# 8

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