Amp sound

Hello guys,

I'm very new to the guitar and working on the song Californication by the Red Hot Chili Peppers right now (not through GuitarTricks). But I have noticed that the sound that comes from my amp does not sound like the ones in the videos. I assume this has to do with the settings on the amp, but I don't really understand them yet. Could someone help me out with this issue? Here is a photo of my amp and my current settings.

https://imgshare.io/image/NOkObQ

I'm new to electric guitar playing myself, but what I have found out is that there is no one answer to this.

There is many factors contributing to a single sound. First there is the type or brand of guitar. Secondly (often most importantly) there is the type of pick-up (single coil or humbucking - both sound very differently). And then you have different brands and makes of pick-ups for each of these. Thirdly, additional effects will distort the sound. Some of these effects can come with the amp (like mine, Boss Katana 50), if not you'll need pedals.

I have tried playing the riff in Californication, and I mimicked the sound by using a fairly clean setting (with some extra gain) on the humbucking pick-up of my stratocaster HSS. The exact settings on the other controls will vary from amp to amp. Like I said, there's many roads that lead to Rome.

As a final comment I'd say that it is fairly hopeless to try and mimick any sound on any song from any band. You'd need tons of extra equipment, and more than a few guitars. I bought a stratocaster with 2 single coil and 1 humbucking pickup, because, after long reasearch and talks with the shop owner, I came to the decision that this guitar is extremely versatile and not overly expensive. For me, as a beginner, that was very important.

Hi Mikey,

I don’t know that particular amp but I recommend two things here:

1 - try turning that Drive knob way down. I’m guessing that’s adding a lot of gain / distortion.

2 - switch to your bridge pickup.

Edit: There is so much studio trickery and strange pawn shop guitars / vintage gear / mics / pedals that John Frusciante uses that it’s hard to predict. He might be using some direct signal as well as multiple amps and pre-amps blended and who knows what is applied to it in the mixing. It’s possible there are articles out there explaining the details of this exact recording but I didn’t see anything legit with a quick search.

Tough to closely replicate with a practice amp but hopefully those two things above will help.

-Carl.