The Daily Insight
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How do you get good crunch tones?

Although you can get a crunch tone with pedals, it came about by running an amp hard and pushing it past it’s happy clean sound. The first way to achieve a crunch tone is by pushing the amp with pedals. A boost pedal does just what the name implies. It boosts the signal coming from the guitar.

How do you set up a distortion?

Turn knobs marked “gain” or “overdrive” all the way up. Turn other volume knobs down to get the loudness you want. Once you’ve proved you can get heavy distortion, dial things back to find the tone you want. Some amps won’t distort at low volumes.

How do you adjust a distortion pedal?

Place your distortion pedal at the end of your effects chain, but before your wah or volume pedal. Avoid dialing in high-pitched tone on a distortion pedal. Use your amp’s EQ instead.

How do you set an amp distortion?

For a distorted tone, set your amplifier settings to 7-9 for gain, 4-5 for bass, 5-7 for mids and 5-7 for treble. For metal, consider decreasing the mids and increasing the treble and bass. For heavy rock distortion, lower the gain slightly, and increase the mids. Keep in mind, that this is just a starting point.

How do I get the distortion sound out of my amp?

You can create distortion by merely increasing the volume of your guitar and setting the input gain high enough on your amplifier. This combination of volume and preamp gain will create distortion as explained above, the gain exceeding the voltage capacity, causing the sound waves to clip.

Is overdrive the same as distortion?

Overdrive is mild/medium; distortion is spicier — and hotter! Another difference is this: while an overdrive pedal pushes your signal pretty darned hard, it doesn’t change your existing tone much. Distortion pedals, on the other hand, not only add more saturation (or spice), but they also tend to alter your sound.