Riff vs lead tone: a small guide

Since my view of this has grow a lot recently (especially in the lead departement!), i want to share a small sum of my finding here with you.

Yes you can use a single tone of both, many do, but what if you want to spacialize and get the most of both worlds? And whay if you want to know what are the difference?

GAIN:

You dont want too much gain on your rythm but you may want more gain on your solo. Way? Rythms need to be tight and "clear" and solo may need sustain. You want the feel the attack and the stom while you strum, one side and want you note to last as long as it can to the other.

DELAY:

Same goes for the delay, Riff want no delay or a very short slap to "double" your guitar. On the opposite when doyng a solo you want athmosphere you want your fast notes melting and messing with the repeats

EQ:

Again your riff need to be thight, with a good amount of highs (but always keep away that arsh taste), while avoid the honk of a exagerated mid and you want to tame your basses so it is not too boomy or undefined.. Thats the recipe, you know. And the solo: the solo needs to stand out, so you need some more mid to cut through the mid, and your highs need more basses and more mids to get full and rounded. Check with your neck PU if you have too much basses listening to the tone of the A string between 10 and 15 frets. Yuo need that notes to be usables. Many uses the neck pickup for the higer frets but i think that you may want to tame your highs and to keep the brighe pickup usable in that zone for the sweet armonics that it makes when you it more than one string and bend!

Fender Mustang new superclean tones

I've worked on my clean recently.

I've noodled with all my preset and decided that the 65 Twin Reverb.

I like that glassy superclean tone, and i like it to be clean with my humbacker.

So, i set the gain all the way down, and bass and middle really close to that. treble at 5 (because trebles give you the definition, the attack of the note!). Cranked the volume at 9 and added a compressor post gain to raise the volume (set attack and threshold way down, ratio at 3, release at mid).

I loveit! And so responsive to the change of pickup, very acustic!

I called this "65 TW PURE"

BUT

Yes there is a but!

All that trebles! So bad as a pedal platform! I mean drive pedals act very bed with all that trebles. Sound so sterile.

So i decided to make room for an alternative.

I made a new preset: the "65 TW BALANCED".

TREBLE=4,MID=3,BASS=2.5

Not as wonderful as before, a more humbled tone i will say. But this is good enough as a pedal platform. Drives are warm now.

So the idea is: When i play a 2 tones song, i can use the PURE setting, when i need a 3rd tone, i can relay on pedals in front of the BALANCED wrkorse!

random thoughts on guitar effect and tones

As you may have read, during the quarantine i've reorganized my presets. And then i've reorganized again and then i've changed presets. And i've startedfrom scratch my pedalboard.

I'm trying to find my way, and may be i'm fighting my own nature in the disperate grow as a guitar player.

When i was young and was playing in a band i had a clean (a la Jazz Chorus) and a high gain (a la 5150) sound. And most of the time the clean had no use. So most of the time i did not even need a footswitch.

After years, with my actual configuration (no matter what it is) the footwork is still a pain. So i'm leaning toward getting information on people using less sounds. Minimalists. And built from there. A clean, a drive, possibile with versatility. At least inside a song.

Whatching Satriani's pedalboard did not help. I realized that i dont have the mind to figure out how to use all thoose stuffs. I've learned how to use multiple delays but maybe it is just not my cup of thea.

But Joe said something interesting. When he's working the songs from the album to the tour, he play the full setlist with just one sound, to see where it works and where not. I'm giving a try to this mindset to see where it leads. And  maybe not worring if the tone i'm using for a song is the perfect one will make a better experience. Because maybe there is no perfect tone.

So i will try all the combinations, also. What if i play my "set" with just one tone (so no cleans), then just 2 and the up to 3, my actual limit?

I will let you know where i land!