What the $%#@! do those knobs do?

August 10, 2006 5:04 PM

Guitar Filter -> I just helped my 15 year old brother buy his first electric guitar... how does he use it?

He purchased an Epiphone Les Paul. It has two double humbuckers, a switch to move between the two, and 4 knobs. I have a basic idea of what the switch does (neck vs. bridge vs. both) and the knobs are tone and volume for each pick up. But I am unable to explain to him when to use different settings. Its his first electric, so I really just need the basics. After a while he kind of figure things out by playing with it.

posted by bob bisquick to Media & Arts (8 answers total)

The switch is, as you surmise, changing between neck, neck and bridge out-of-phase and bridge pickup.

The not-very-hard-or-fast rule-of-thumb is to use the bridge pickup for lead sounds - it has more treble, which equals more harmonics when distorted, which enables it to cut through the song more - and use the neck pick-up for rhythm - more bassy, more backgroundy. The oop sounds is for those times when it sounds right...

In reality, letting him play with the switches, discover sounds and just explore the guitar is going to get him the answers he needs pretty fast - because despite what I wrote, there are no rules - whatever sounds he likes are the right sounds...
posted by benzo8 at 5:08 PM on August 10, 2006

When I was getting started, I'd play something on pretty much every pickup combo (and my first guitar was a strat style with 3 pickups, so there were 5 combos) and sometimes fool around with the tone knobs also. So I think that's probably what he's going to have to do. When he's advanced enough to want a particular sound, he'll know what to do, until then, there really just isn't a right answer.
posted by RustyBrooks at 5:17 PM on August 10, 2006

when i was getting started, I left the switches on the bridge pickup and couldnt imagine why anyone would ever use the neck pickup.
depends on what he's playing tho. I was a metalhead ;) and I took care of the sound with my amp and pedals (high compression, low midrange) and it sounded great. So switching between pickups didnt help anything for that. Even when I mellowed into a Blues phase, I dont think I ever used the neck pickup. My amp and equalizer got me whatever sound I wanted, tho admittedly I dont play a wide range of genres.

Especially for a beginner, its mostly a tone-and-warmth difference. For most rock/blues he prolly will just be happy sticking with the bridge pickup and turning all the knobs up. The amp should do the rest.
posted by jak68 at 5:33 PM on August 10, 2006

Yeah, bridge pickup is used more commonly - it tends to give a more treble sound, sharper attack, less muddy, especially if you're playing on a cheap amp. Neck position, on the other hand, gives a more full, warm, mellow sound, more fitted to playing mellow chords.

For reference, at the moment I have my Gretch Sparkleset set to the middle position (neck and bridge pickups), with the tone knob turned town slightly. This gives me a brilliant, warm, blues-rockabilly sound. On my strat copy, I find I can move between bridge (rock / lead sound), to the middle single coil (harsh, brittle sound - anywhere from Big Black to Billy Bragg) to the neck (warmer, more like a Les Paul).

But, as others have said, this is a situation where there are no rules. One of the brilliant things about the electric guitar (hell, any electric instrument) is that you have a whole other dimension of adjustments that can be made, besides your playing style, to change the sound. He'll find a sound that sounds good to him. Then, some time later, he'll find a different sound. You can't break the thing by playing with the knobs ;)
posted by Jimbob at 5:57 PM on August 10, 2006

Tune the guitar using the neck pickup (especially if you're using an electronic tuner). You'll get purer tones with fewer confusing harmonics.
posted by fuzz at 4:28 AM on August 11, 2006

I'm an extreme amateur with the exact same guitar.
The guitar has 2 pickups and the switch switches between the 2 or if in the middle uses both.

Not having any better idea of what to do with them I crank one knob up to max and leave the other one quite low vol. then I can switch the switch to transition from a more distorted sound to a crisper sound. I'm pretty certain there's a better reason for it.. but i'm easily amused.
posted by mule at 6:10 AM on August 11, 2006

all that's right about the switch and the pickup info -- pretty basic. then you've got 4 knobs, 2 belong to each pickup (probably the "front" pair goes to the neck pickup), and of the pair, one is volume one is tone. tone is basically a simplified EQ, one way for more treble, other for more bass. on my Reverend clockwise is treble up, counter is bass up. i only have 2 knobs though, which affect all 3 pickups identically. with your 4 knobs you can affect your pickups individually, so play with it!
posted by qbxk at 8:26 AM on August 11, 2006

One fun trick he can do on guitars with this kind of setup (independent volume knobs for each pickup) is to turn the volume all the way off on one of the pickups (say, the neck), then flick the selector switch back and forth to create a very staccato tremolo-type sound. Pete Townshend used to do this all the time on the early Who records.

In general, depending on the amp you get, dialing back the volume on a pickup will also "clean up" the sound through the amp, so you can also switch from a distorted tone to a clean tone as mule mentioned.

Other than that, he should just experiment and see what sounds he likes. That's the best part of learning to play guitar!
posted by sbrollins at 2:23 PM on August 11, 2006