The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by frankhond
    20+ years experience playing acoustic, alone or with other acoustics. And more recently some solo jazz guitar. Volume is not an issue, as I control dynamics with my hands.

    Got a covid strat and now when pandemic is over, joined a funk/rnb/soul band for fun. Rather loud electric piano, drums, bass, a singer. Need some advice from more experienced electric players.


    Right now I play mostly clean or edge of breakup rhythm guitar. Say a song varies between clean not too loud funky chord fragments, single note bubble parts, and some more muscular country arpeggio stuff. I struggle with understanding best way to control dynamics on the electric.

    How do you control volume and tone in this setting? Ride the volume dial throughout the song? Set the amp to something (what?) and control the pick attack? Step on a pedal?
    I'm supposed to know about this..
    I used whatever the clubs had for amps and they were solid state. For funk rhythm tubes don't matter. For rock, hell yes but I wasn't playing rock.
    There are different amps, volume pedals. You'll work it out.
    It makes life simpler to boost the mids a little.

    If it feels like dynamics are a little out of control there are very good compressors now. Way better than the basic Boss compressor. They're fairly cheap too.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #27
    New rehearsal... I stuck with the Hot Rod because it seems to be popular as a backline in local venues. Tried input 2, strat volume to 6-7, dialed clean channel volume so it was loud and clear when I played really lightly, forced myself to bring volume up some more. Bright switch on, eq I just left around 12'o clock for everything. Reverb is just godawful, set that to almost off.

    And there it was. I could work volume up and down, use pickup switch throughout a song and get different clean tones, the guitar could be heard. Most importantly, the piano player seemed to hear me better and started to adjust his dynamics, the whole sound of the band came together. With guitar volume to 10 and neck pickup, the guitar was a bit too loud. Lots of usable dynamics between volume 4-9.

    Lots to figure out still, eq and pedals... but applying all the advice I've been getting is paying off. Thank you all!

  4. #28

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    For funk music a strat does well as a percussive instrument. Considered as a hi-hat or snare drum but not equally good as tom-tom or kick drum. What makes it cut is the attack. So much depend on playing style. Used this way it can cut with a small tube amp with 6,5in speakers where a more "jazzy" full sounding guitar would be nothing but farts. IME, that is. Overly loud keyboard players should reduce volume so they match the setting, just as everybody else
    Nice that you found a good setting. When you insert a pedal you start all over. For that reason and IME when you are in a cover band nothing beats a reliable multi-fx where you can store a library of settings.