Guitar Volume Control

[GAJ52]

In a music forum recently (can't find it now) a guy was having a problem with the recorded sound of his guitar and somebody recommended turning the volume control of his guitar down as it should never be as max. I have never heard of this before, the controls on my HM Sig Strat are always turned fully clockwise.

Just wondering if this is correct, should the volume knob, not be at max for any technical reason.

Glen

[Charlie Hall]

Hi Glen,
It was always standard practise in studios to be told to turn your guitar volume control to maximum. This was done to keep noise to a minimum. I don't know about these days though.
Regards,
Charlie

[Deleted]

There are lots of players who back off their volume slightly when playing Shads stuff even to try to achieve that vintage quack/bark especially with the older tracks like big boy, Frightened City and Kon-tiki for instance whilst whacking it hard. But to say it should never be at max sounds silly to me.
Tony

[tonybiker]

Hi.

Charlie is correct and the same applies for modern studio's. Turning the volume down on the guitar is just masking a problem and then finding another one. I can't see any recording engineer being impressed if he found out you had turned your volume down, your never going to be able to find exactly the same position again.

Tony

[sixchannel]

One of the features of turning down the Volume pot (UNLESS you have done the bleed capacitor mod) is to warm up the tone slightly at the expense of output. I found the better fix is to do the vol pot mod for sure but to then re-wire the tone pots so that the bottom one is TONE on the BRIDGE and the middle pot is TONE on NECK or MIDDLE. Then you can do what I understand Hank does now and that is to run the tone pot at 7 when playing his modern warm sound. Or if you want Max Treble, just turn it to 10.
I could never understand why Fender never put a Tone control for the Bridge. why wouldnt they want to control it?
cheers
ian

[26rednef]

Hi.

I have never understand Fender's tone controls, completely unusable and the volume control will act as a tone control when rolled back from max position, put on nine on old starts was called "The Dollar Sound" a warmer tone much used.

On my old 1962 Strat I have never used the tone controls during the years it has always been set at max . To day I use custom's with Kinman's electronic and he has made a ton control setup that is really useful and far better then Fender's unintelligible tone control setup.

Kind Regards,
26rednef

[speedyr0b]

Hi all forgive my inexperience on my strat I find that when I crank up the volume to between 8 - 10 my sound starts to break if I hit it right I can get some nice driven tones is this not how they are designed to work I normally play my instrumental stuff between 7-8 or is this a rule of thumb for recording only

Regards
Rob

[26rednef]

Hi Rob.

That is a good way.

When the amp is set to the sweet spot and want to use a distorted sound I set the volume to about 5 - 6 and use the volume control to control the amount of dist.
Or use the volume pedal the same way with the guitar set to max.

To use the volume on the guitar is the old fashion way to control the dist, I like that it is simple and gives full control.

Kind Regards,
26rednef

[Charlie Hall]

That is the point with reducing the volume on the guitar. The amp has to be turned higher to compensate and overdriven sounds can result when the guitar volume is increased. But studios don't like this way of working because of the increased noise, although I am sure there have been exceptions.
Regards,
Charlie

[26rednef]

Hi Charlie.

That's right you will get a lot more hiss from the amp that way especially if it is a tube amp. Live it is nice to do like that and OK, but as you say in then studio it will make problems.