There is something about the twangy snarl of a single coil that I just love for heavy riffs also I feel like with single coils you hear every note of every chord and its not just a wash of fuzzy distortion.
It's a real talent to, not only dial in these sounds, but to also be able to clearly explain why each part of the chain helps the next. Many of us tried to get a smoking tone using just our amps and limits to volune and/or gain and tone had us go out and shop for a pedal. With no real idea as to where to start, many of us put a distortion through a clean amp, wondered why the sound sucked, and gigged sounding crap and thinking that that's just the way it had to be. In the modern guitar world, I'm sure most of us have heard of gain stacking but yours is the best explanation and presentation of how and why to make the most of gain pedals into a awakened amp! Thank you, Bea, well done!
Jeah it's kind of funny to me. Because any high gain Amp tells somewhere in the specs, description and manual that it uses several gain stages that either chain up or work in parallel on bass-middle-treble (Boogie).
Honestly I think it sucked. Every tone he got reminds me of post-grunge/new metal garbage, awful. If I didn't have any experience, just by watching this video, I'd think gain + singles = new metal. There're two videos of Ola playing Tele American Ultra and there he trully shows how heavy and special singles + overdrive can be.
@@samaldini I'm sure there's many players able to dial in sounds but, in my experience, there's not many who can clearly and consisely explain how and why they use what they use and what each component dors to the signal. I love watching Ola but he also shates that ability. Back in the day, before the internet, many of us, as new guitarists, had no information at all as to how to use pedals, especially multiple gain pedals and tone stacking. Even today, there's not many players who can dial in, play, and explain in simple terms how and why their rig works as a system to deliver a particular sound! Many of us just had a guitar, an amp, and one gain pedal and wondered why we could never sound like our guitar heroes!
@@cchavez248 I started playing guitar in 2001 so I know what you're talking about. Anyway, I'm still doing kind of the same: Amp + overdrive or fuzz pedal and nothing else. To sound like our "heroes" is to sound fake. Recording 3 similar tracks, post production and whatnot... And when they go live, same thing, bunch of junk altogether to make it muddy and loud, so much they need monitors. Even they don't sound like what they sound in their albums or live when they're in their rooms.
Rabea is a blessing to the guitar world, these past few videos on dialling in tones is absolutely fantastic! I wish I had all this knowledge when I first started playing (pre TH-cam era)
I've been into single coils recently, and being used to heavy output humbuckers I was really struggling to dial a heavier tone. This was supper helpful, as were the compression, drive, delay and reverb. Really hope you keep doing this type of videos whenever you have time because they are very educational and helpful!
I love it! Part of the goodness in this approach - and your playing: the clarity and note definition is so THERE! There's nothing twangy, but the strat-y stringiness is there on the thinner strings (and sounds fantastic).
I wish I could send this video to every local guitarist I've heard plug a Squier strat into a roaring Marshall and annihilate my ears with his spiky trebly tone.
If they couldn’t figure out the simplest thing as lowering the guitar volume to cut some treble and using the tone knob, I highly doubt that watching this video will help. Besides that they most probably had the Marshall EQ at zero mids, max treble, gain and presence. Such sound might be fine for some sort of black/death metal though.
@@JoeBaermann as one victim from that kind man / girl, i can confirmed your statement mate!👌 but from what i saw in past bass at 3 o'clock mid 0 high max gain max presence max
You pretty much can. We live in the wild future where everyone has the internet...so. Knock yourself out : send this video to everyone whose toaan wasn't up to your scratch...
How our beloved Bea still has not reached a million subs is beyond me. His videos are just pure gems and will be studied by guitar players for the years to come. Nothing but love and respect for him.
Thank you Bea, I appreciate the detail on your thought process here. I’ve been playing with those tones with my strat on your Archetype. I LOVE the octave with the fuzz.
The problem is that when you're a good guitar player, even the less than ideal tones still end up sounding good. But this is a very informative video as I am primarily a Strat player and a lot of what I play isn't heavy at all (funk, jazz, blues and some rock) but I am trying to add heavier tones and riffs to my playing so videos like this are quite helpful.
A lucky accident for me was a BB Preamp pedal in front of a Marshally emulation. It's in the TS category, but its voice and the 2 band EQ made it perfect for me to beef up the single coil tone. One last thing about boosting into modellers: Make sure you are not clipping the inputs!
Thank you so much for this! I just dialed in a killer heavy tone with my Strat going into the Crunch channel of a Katana Artist with a Boss Waza Fuzz going into a Wampler Triumph. That's one of the best Strat tones I've ever dialed in!
I toured in the late 90’s-mid 2000’s playing in a Punk/Metal band using a Tele through a VHT head through a Mesa Recto cab. Tone was monstrous and I always had people at shows and other bands coming up to me complimenting my tone. While I do play with humbucker loaded guitars as well…you don’t necessarily need high output humbuckers to get heavy tones. Especially with today’s high gain amps. Bunch of Metalcore bands in the early 2000’s played Tele’s as well…Poison The Well, The Bled, Underoath.
Very fortunate that my setup produces massive single coil tones with no pedals on! It took awhile to find the right symmetry but it's finally there. I think the key was swapping pickups and adding a baseplate to the bridge pickup. I went with Planet Tone DG set several years back and they remind me of the Triptych set a lot. People really should experiment with different things. These videos are really, really useful and can save people years of struggle. Love the new series idea.
Great video, sounds amazing as always. I think that the Dry knob at noon on the Halcyon is what a traditional tube screamer would sound like. I think turning it all the way up on the Halcyon will sound a bit different, more clean, than most tube screamers, "DRY: This controls the level of clean signal. In the noon position, the clean level is the same as in a vintage Tube Screamer. Turn clockwise to help maintain body, clarity and definition when used with an overdriv- en amp. Turn counterclockwise to remove the clean signal. This is recommended when using the pedal as a standalone overdrive pedal into a clean amp."
Nicely done, Rabea! When my Fender Blacktop baritone was 3 singles, I also put my Kraken preamp pedal gain on half, then I added the Pharaoh Fuzz on low. Just to fatten things up a bit
Nice! With my Tele I use a Jet City JCA5012C on the crunch channel and… a Digitech Grunge pedal…When dialed in it sounds great with single coils no joke.
DUDE this video was AWESOME! I'm really not a pedal guy, because I struggle with activating them correctly during rehearsal and on stage, so I don't use them more than just turning them on and off between songs, if even that - but this video really gave me a new perspective on how they work and also how to dial in a sound for recording and generally just audial education - and i could watch you playing around with dummy thicc tones all day man - I'd love if you continue videos like this! Cheers from Austria mate!
As soon as he hit that fuzz on, combined with the riffs he was going with, I got instant Matt Pike in High on Fire vibes, but with a twang and I absolutely loved it.
I'm a bit confused about the Triptych pickups mentionned to be ''mid forward'', when in the demo video, they are described as ''scooped, almost'', and also the EQ chart on BKP's website shows a fairly scooped sound.
What a player Rabea is, love your style Rabea, and your tonal choices I have been using Tele style single coil Guitars for Mathcore/Math Metal for 25+ years. I use both Amp gains and Pedal gains depending on the set up: AMP GAINS CORE TONE With a High gain Amp channel (5150 etc) I use a Walrus Audio Mayflower(Timmy clone) to boost the high gain channel, its mainly about raising the volume of the guitar signal, adding almost no extra gain (just a tiny amount) For amp sims I find this approach to be the best too PEDAL GAINS CORE TONE However most of the time I practice at home with a cheap solid state amp which has a clean sound pretty much like a Jazz Chorus, flat dead, and CRYSTAL clean. Amp eq pretty much 12 o'clock across bass middle and treb For High gain modern metal tones my chain is this: G&L Asat Special into- Walrus Mayflower(Gain 7 o'clock Bass 11 o'clock, Treb 2 o'clock , Volume 3 o'clock) into- DOD Gunslinger (Gain 2 o'clock, Bass 12 o'clock, Treb 1 o'clock Volume 1 o'clock) into- DOD Boneshaker (Gain 9 o'clock Bass 1 o'clock bass freq 11 o'clock, Mid 11 o'clock mid freq 9 o'clock , Treb 11 o'clock treb freq 5 o'clock, Volume 1 o'clock) into Amp For more dirty Fuzzy sludgey tones my chain is this: G&L Asat Special into- Walrus Mayflower(Gain 7 o'clock Bass 11 o'clock, Treb 2 o'clock , Volume 3 o'clock) into- DOD Gunslinger (Gain 2 o'clock, Bass 12 o'clock, Treb 1 o'clock Volume 1 o'clock) into- DOD Carcosa (Before 1 o'clock, After 8 o'clock, Hi Cut 9 o'clock, Volume 1 o'clock, switch Dehme) into Amp Both of these use the DOD gunslinger as the core crunchy tone, the Mayflower as a tone shaping front end boost, and either the Boneshaker or Carcosa at the end of the chain. In the Boneshakers case it tightens up the sound, gives a little more gain and bite and I use its extensive EQ to fine tune the tone With the Carcosa, it adds obviously some filth, a little extra thickness and some fuzziness Both tones are similar , the Boneshaker chain being tighter , more focused and chuggier and great for modern metal/math metal riffage The Carcosa more messy but a little flubbier better for low single string riff stuff and lead stuff. These really are the same principles Rabea is using , he is just doing it with amp gain playing a similar role to my Gunslinger (which is a very JCM800 in a box kind of pedal....highly underrated by metal players btw, its really a special pedal, very amp like response) This is a long drawn out way of saying I concur with Rabea's method, I came to basically the same (or similar) approach quite independently of Rabea, but I fully endorse what he is saying here and I can proclaim with confidence that the same principles work with all pedal gains too. *** The Gunslinger is very mid forward so it does not require the step Rabea describes with the TS style pedal, its all about blending the gains though
I love doing this at home and just playing around but never thought of using it at a show because of the noise. after hearing this I'm now reassured that it's fine to have the noise on those single coils. I don't like using noise gates
Tony Iommi says he used a strat on Wicked World before it blew up, and switched to an SG for the rest. Sounds the same to me. The SG had P90's so maybe that's why.
A couple of key items for me you didn't cover is the pickup you were using. Looks like you used mostly the bridge...On my Fender Tele Plus I found myself going to my bridge PUp but with tone variations on my guitars tone and volume knobs. I could dial in some great heavy tones but needed the compressor which you also didn't cover. I am using your Archetype by the way. So much easier to dial in vs. my Headrush pedal board. Maybe do a part 2 coming more from the guitar tone setup, compressor setup and bring along your Tele?
I tried a Fjord Fuzz Berserk (a kind of Fuzz Face with less compressed low end and a bass cut) with rolled back gain before a GCP Pumkin Pi (Green Russian muff side) and I've got nice results ! The Berserk acts like a treble/mid boost with tremendous volume output, and tame the low end mud of the Green Russian pretty nicely. I'd like to try adding a Klon after the Pumkin Pi, or a Tube Screamer.
I love, LOVE a killer single coil clean, but never liked a distorted single coil tone until now. yeah this gives me good ideas & I’m thinking that I could split so,e coils and crush some skulls at the same time. Awesome video!
tell you wot i do on my strat, i de tune it to c standard going through a laney gh100 l decent amount of gain and that pretty much does it .plus im going from 13 - 62 string wise and its not bad at all. it works great with gain and you keep the definition. down tuned strats rock man. i got a baritone warmoth neck on one of my strats and thats even better.
I've played Slayer on an early 80s Strat-o-Clone, but the single coils were built more like P90s. More output than traditional singles, but less than humbuckers. Right now, my younger daughter's stock Squire Bullet Tele is tuned to D, and I can get some nasty metal tones out of it.
Great video but in my experience with a big muff and tubescreamer type overdrive, I have to run the OD into the fuzz, the other way around just sounds like mush. That being said I have an mxr bass fuzz on my guitar pedal board and it’s before the tubescreamer in the signal chain and with single coils they sound good together so maybe it’s just the big muff style fuzz.
There is only 1 way to use single coil pickups for high-gain situations, and that is to set the treble at zero and use an enhancer (like a BBE sonic maximizer) to add in the high end after the gain stages. The noise will still be there, but a noise gate before the enhancer can use a lot lower threshold.
I found that using the Dimarzio Cruiser bridge model to be a great solution for dialing in heavier single coil palm muted stuff. Everyone puts it in neck position like Andy Timmons. Try it in the bridge position!
HS-3 and 4, or the YJM Fury (Malmsteen pickups) are the absolute bees knees to me. Crunchy break-up on the amp and let an OD (and NS-2) do the rest. I like the strattyness it retains, but you don’t get the searing ice pick glass of a traditional single. I get pretty uninspired when I play through a traditional humbucker now.
Glad to read this comment. I just put fender noiseless pickups in my Strat (taken from a player plus) because I do high gain layers and couldn’t cope with the hum anymore. The fender noiseless are so balanced with the tone and I hear every string clearly even at high gain levels. However I have to live with the fact these pickups are low output. Are your Hs3 low output too?
@@federicoverdicchio I mean, they have plenty of saturation and sustain to my ears. But, my playing is unashamedly derivative of Malmsteen’s playing, and I pick a lot, so it works for me. I hear a lot of modern metal tones and playing, with that kind of sine wave/Theremin that comes with modern preamps, dirt boxes and modellers. I don’t think I could get that kind of saturation.
Great sounds! I like it dark, so I'm using a suboctaver. I tryed out the Queequeg and the Moai Maea from KMA Audio. The Queequeg is easy to use, also the new version, but for the Moai Maea it takes a day to get the right settings that I like to use for lead tones, but also for rhythm tones. Mostly I use the suboctaver for lead stuff and that's the easy way. For riffs it's much more complicated to get a sound that is not muddy and has enough definition. Pitch shifter pedals can also bring nice effects. I tryed out the PS6 Harmonist from Boss, it's ok, but it's not perfect for me. Also there could be a big difference on sound between a "normal" tuned guitar or a baritone and of course pickups, that makes it not easy to get the right settings if you using different guitars on a gig. Now I'm using different pedals for different guitar types on my pedalboard and I'm trying to use a small rig... I'm still searching for solutions to make it better. I will try out the tube screamer trick on the end of the line, maybe also a drive pedal with two separate units...one for single coils and the other for humbuckers... 🤘
My 3 main Strats have 69s ,P-90s ,and Tele pickups. I love single coils I actually think pedals sound better with them. I do tend to follow Bea's preference for Tube Screamers on the board ,and last in the gain stage. 7 out of 8 boards so far. The last one being an ambient shoe gaze board ,and has a mid pushed E.Q. last in the chain when needed ,to compensate for the lack of said Tube Screamer ; ) Single coils worked just fine for Jimi, Blackmore, Yngwie, and Morello so I think I'll stick wit dem .
Thanks for this video, the one on Tom Morello sound, and all the other where you play angry stuff on your Strats. Everything you play is fantastic but this single coiled angriness is really the most powerful sound to me.
NGL I kind of feel like a badass for using the same fuzz pedal as Rabea. The Bender does a great high gain thing, of course, but I also love running it with its gain down very low, then boosting into it with a TS808 for higher gain sounds.
Love it - I've been exploring trying to use a tele in this similar context for a while - trying to get that Andrew Groves sort of vibe So for a board without a switcher would you chain be : Octave>Fuzz>Dist>OD Does the order of the fuzz/dist matter as much as having that Clean Octave at the front and that Toneshaping OD at the end? Would love to know your thoughts.
Crushing sound out of a single coil Are your sig pickups double stacked or more traditional style? Ever play with P-90 or soap-bar single coils? Wonder if they would be a fatter twang but still dynamic
So these are pretty impressive pickups. I'm currently looking to upgrade an old eerie ds Japanese dk Jackson. I've already settled on a peacemaker bridge. I'm hoping to get some suggestions on which single coils to look into, that might work very well with the peacemaker humbucker, for the middle and neck position.
Might just be my personal taste, but I really liked the treble at halfway on the thunder claw! Maybe it’s more harsh in the room but sounded super articulate and heavy in my headphones.
Been playing high gain stuff with single coils for a couple of years now and my solution for the lack of thickness in the guitar tone is to allow more space for the bass guitar to occupy more mids and be more distorted, so in a context of a band you might not even need octave down or fuzz
Wow man just checked out that concert at Summer Breeze festival!!! Holy shit batman 😵😵😵taking 'out of context' to a whole new level!!! Smashed it mate! Will keep an eye out for ya'll looks like you had a blast! I had a blast watching it 😄 \m/
I have a AXL telecaster deluxe lipstick pickup in the neck and it used to have the EMG AXL TELECASTER BRIDGE PICKUP. Which I just sold on eBay I swapped it with a hotrail single coil. I have an ELECA 20w tube amp on clean mid at 12 treble at 3 and the bass from 1 to 4 it's very bassy. ! Butttt I use a behringer ULTRA METAL 300 or even the distortion from the amp. And boy let me tell ya I can tune down to drop A and play Slipknot and the sound would make Jim Root hot and bothered. I just wanted to mention what I do to get a sound I crave. It's a "mini" humbucker but it's still a single coil pretty much. Even mino buckers they are twangy also.
First video I've seen that actually created a "tone" instead of just a wall of mud. The video I'd like to see is how to make this work for the entire band. How do you get bass, rhythm, and lead all sounding angry while still staying distinct in the mix?
Super helpful. With drop C so you’re tuned to D and dropping the lowest string to C. What’s is your string gauge for that? I have a mick Thompson custom shop Jackson that I tune to drop A but its LOOOOW it think it’s like a .056 on the bottom. Also and 8 string but I’m really digging the drop C sound, the clarity is better and I love your chord voicing btw. I have a few guitars tuned to drop D and some standard tuning which this might be fun to try. Love your vids and playing. (I grew up watching Nuno in clubs pre record deal, I know he’s an influence but I don’t hear much of that, you have your own vibe)
I have always wanted to be able to modulate the treble, would always be nice to bring the tone forward when needed. Might be a project I now need to do
Great video rabea and loving this collection of videos. Just curious do you usually prefer drop C anyway, or is it something you like to do for single coils as part of the setup you describe here?
Forgot the reason I even made that comment. With that high output mini humbucker I roll the volume back not quite halfway and it cleans up everything with all that crunch and fuzz and feedback and amp a pedal noise gate some reverb and delay roll the volume back on your guitar and I believe that'll fix the largest of the problems
With the TS being last in the chain do you mean it goes before your modulation and time effects? I always thought TS and ODs should go first in the chain
I have a Big Muff and DOD Carcosa both of which can do distortion/fuzz. Which would you set for distortion and which for all out fuzz? I can boost them with Boss SD-1 into a V4 Kraken.
I’ve always been more into humbuckers than single coils and that’s why I’ve never owned a Fender for long. But THESE tones are really intriguing me and I may pick up a decent Squier or G&L to experiment with sounds like these and finally stick to it lol
"How to dial in" is a VERY VERY helpful idea for a series of videos. Thank you!!!
The my reverb settings are dialed in so much better already from the last video
There is something about the twangy snarl of a single coil that I just love for heavy riffs also I feel like with single coils you hear every note of every chord and its not just a wash of fuzzy distortion.
It's a real talent to, not only dial in these sounds, but to also be able to clearly explain why each part of the chain helps the next. Many of us tried to get a smoking tone using just our amps and limits to volune and/or gain and tone had us go out and shop for a pedal. With no real idea as to where to start, many of us put a distortion through a clean amp, wondered why the sound sucked, and gigged sounding crap and thinking that that's just the way it had to be. In the modern guitar world, I'm sure most of us have heard of gain stacking but yours is the best explanation and presentation of how and why to make the most of gain pedals into a awakened amp! Thank you, Bea, well done!
Jeah it's kind of funny to me. Because any high gain Amp tells somewhere in the specs, description and manual that it uses several gain stages that either chain up or work in parallel on bass-middle-treble (Boogie).
@@MrHaggyy ummmm, huh?
Honestly I think it sucked. Every tone he got reminds me of post-grunge/new metal garbage, awful. If I didn't have any experience, just by watching this video, I'd think gain + singles = new metal.
There're two videos of Ola playing Tele American Ultra and there he trully shows how heavy and special singles + overdrive can be.
@@samaldini I'm sure there's many players able to dial in sounds but, in my experience, there's not many who can clearly and consisely explain how and why they use what they use and what each component dors to the signal. I love watching Ola but he also shates that ability. Back in the day, before the internet, many of us, as new guitarists, had no information at all as to how to use pedals, especially multiple gain pedals and tone stacking. Even today, there's not many players who can dial in, play, and explain in simple terms how and why their rig works as a system to deliver a particular sound! Many of us just had a guitar, an amp, and one gain pedal and wondered why we could never sound like our guitar heroes!
@@cchavez248 I started playing guitar in 2001 so I know what you're talking about. Anyway, I'm still doing kind of the same: Amp + overdrive or fuzz pedal and nothing else. To sound like our "heroes" is to sound fake. Recording 3 similar tracks, post production and whatnot... And when they go live, same thing, bunch of junk altogether to make it muddy and loud, so much they need monitors. Even they don't sound like what they sound in their albums or live when they're in their rooms.
Rabea is a blessing to the guitar world, these past few videos on dialling in tones is absolutely fantastic! I wish I had all this knowledge when I first started playing (pre TH-cam era)
Just hearing this tone and sound has my mind flooded with riff ideas.
Thanks for the inspiration once again!
I love a great single coil tone for metal i think its highly underrated/underused
Affirmative.
It isn’t often I comment on videos but this one has been an eye opener for me.
Thanks for the video (and the dialling in series overall), it is great!
I've been into single coils recently, and being used to heavy output humbuckers I was really struggling to dial a heavier tone. This was supper helpful, as were the compression, drive, delay and reverb. Really hope you keep doing this type of videos whenever you have time because they are very educational and helpful!
I love it! Part of the goodness in this approach - and your playing: the clarity and note definition is so THERE! There's nothing twangy, but the strat-y stringiness is there on the thinner strings (and sounds fantastic).
I wish I could send this video to every local guitarist I've heard plug a Squier strat into a roaring Marshall and annihilate my ears with his spiky trebly tone.
If they couldn’t figure out the simplest thing as lowering the guitar volume to cut some treble and using the tone knob, I highly doubt that watching this video will help.
Besides that they most probably had the Marshall EQ at zero mids, max treble, gain and presence.
Such sound might be fine for some sort of black/death metal though.
Haha, for some, that trashy tone is their Grail.
@@JoeBaermann as one victim from that kind man / girl, i can confirmed your statement mate!👌
but from what i saw in past
bass at 3 o'clock mid 0 high max gain max presence max
Wow, life's hard man.
You pretty much can. We live in the wild future where everyone has the internet...so. Knock yourself out : send this video to everyone whose toaan wasn't up to your scratch...
Just stuck a ts and the end of my chain, and followed your advice by boosting the volume. Made a world of difference. This was immensely helpful.
How our beloved Bea still has not reached a million subs is beyond me. His videos are just pure gems and will be studied by guitar players for the years to come. Nothing but love and respect for him.
He is so humble as well. Huge difference compared to most guitarists.
Paused this video to watch the Summer Breeze performance and holy crap that was sick! So good to see you guys play that huge crowd!
Please tell me what is this riff he plays always ( 10:10 ) thanks 👍🏼
Thank you Bea, I appreciate the detail on your thought process here. I’ve been playing with those tones with my strat on your Archetype. I LOVE the octave with the fuzz.
I recently got myself a tele so this is super useful. Great video Bea! Keep it up!
This one was extremely helpful Mr Massaad sir!
The problem is that when you're a good guitar player, even the less than ideal tones still end up sounding good. But this is a very informative video as I am primarily a Strat player and a lot of what I play isn't heavy at all (funk, jazz, blues and some rock) but I am trying to add heavier tones and riffs to my playing so videos like this are quite helpful.
A lucky accident for me was a BB Preamp pedal in front of a Marshally emulation. It's in the TS category, but its voice and the 2 band EQ made it perfect for me to beef up the single coil tone.
One last thing about boosting into modellers: Make sure you are not clipping the inputs!
Wow, this is absolutely brilliant! I've been struggling with my single coils and now I see what I was doing wrong! Invaluable information, thanks Bea!
13:36 I've been using a Big Muff followed by the Soul Food on my strat, feeling validated lol
saw you on Summer Breeze, great gig! Highlight of the festival for sure!!!
Thank you so much for this! I just dialed in a killer heavy tone with my Strat going into the Crunch channel of a Katana Artist with a Boss Waza Fuzz going into a Wampler Triumph. That's one of the best Strat tones I've ever dialed in!
JCM900 like AMP and Single Coil is what japanese rock bands do these days a lot.
I toured in the late 90’s-mid 2000’s playing in a Punk/Metal band using a Tele through a VHT head through a Mesa Recto cab. Tone was monstrous and I always had people at shows and other bands coming up to me complimenting my tone. While I do play with humbucker loaded guitars as well…you don’t necessarily need high output humbuckers to get heavy tones. Especially with today’s high gain amps. Bunch of Metalcore bands in the early 2000’s played Tele’s as well…Poison The Well, The Bled, Underoath.
Very fortunate that my setup produces massive single coil tones with no pedals on! It took awhile to find the right symmetry but it's finally there. I think the key was swapping pickups and adding a baseplate to the bridge pickup. I went with Planet Tone DG set several years back and they remind me of the Triptych set a lot. People really should experiment with different things. These videos are really, really useful and can save people years of struggle. Love the new series idea.
Thank you for this!
Great video, sounds amazing as always. I think that the Dry knob at noon on the Halcyon is what a traditional tube screamer would sound like. I think turning it all the way up on the Halcyon will sound a bit different, more clean, than most tube screamers, "DRY: This controls the level of clean signal. In the noon position, the clean level is the same as in a vintage
Tube Screamer. Turn clockwise to help maintain body, clarity and definition when used with an overdriv-
en amp. Turn counterclockwise to remove the clean signal. This is recommended when using the pedal as
a standalone overdrive pedal into a clean amp."
Last setup was a really heavy stoner sound. Loved it! Single coil rulz \m/
Thanks for bringing up Arcane Roots!! Shame they called it quits. Such a great band. Baroness also plays all single coils also.
Nicely done, Rabea! When my Fender Blacktop baritone was 3 singles, I also put my Kraken preamp pedal gain on half, then I added the Pharaoh Fuzz on low. Just to fatten things up a bit
Nice! With my Tele I use a Jet City JCA5012C on the crunch channel and… a Digitech Grunge pedal…When dialed in it sounds great with single coils no joke.
Great video, missed content like this.
❤ Respect.
DUDE this video was AWESOME! I'm really not a pedal guy, because I struggle with activating them correctly during rehearsal and on stage, so I don't use them more than just turning them on and off between songs, if even that - but this video really gave me a new perspective on how they work and also how to dial in a sound for recording and generally just audial education - and i could watch you playing around with dummy thicc tones all day man - I'd love if you continue videos like this! Cheers from Austria mate!
As soon as he hit that fuzz on, combined with the riffs he was going with, I got instant Matt Pike in High on Fire vibes, but with a twang and I absolutely loved it.
I can’t thank you enough for this video. Thanks Rabea!
Because of u man i fell in love with octave. I don't use it often 5 years ago
I'm a bit confused about the Triptych pickups mentionned to be ''mid forward'', when in the demo video, they are described as ''scooped, almost'', and also the EQ chart on BKP's website shows a fairly scooped sound.
Bareknuckle Cobra bridge is an awesome single coil for metal, it responds really well to aggressive picking. Snarls.
The thunderclaw is such a great pedal! Dig the tones man
Excellent video Sir. Thank You! Best Regards and Best Wishes!
What a player Rabea is, love your style Rabea, and your tonal choices
I have been using Tele style single coil Guitars for Mathcore/Math Metal for 25+ years.
I use both Amp gains and Pedal gains depending on the set up:
AMP GAINS CORE TONE
With a High gain Amp channel (5150 etc) I use a Walrus Audio Mayflower(Timmy clone) to boost the high gain channel, its mainly about raising the volume of the guitar signal, adding almost no extra gain (just a tiny amount)
For amp sims I find this approach to be the best too
PEDAL GAINS CORE TONE
However most of the time I practice at home with a cheap solid state amp which has a clean sound pretty much like a Jazz Chorus, flat dead, and CRYSTAL clean. Amp eq pretty much 12 o'clock across bass middle and treb
For High gain modern metal tones my chain is this:
G&L Asat Special into-
Walrus Mayflower(Gain 7 o'clock Bass 11 o'clock, Treb 2 o'clock , Volume 3 o'clock) into-
DOD Gunslinger (Gain 2 o'clock, Bass 12 o'clock, Treb 1 o'clock Volume 1 o'clock) into-
DOD Boneshaker (Gain 9 o'clock Bass 1 o'clock bass freq 11 o'clock, Mid 11 o'clock mid freq 9 o'clock , Treb 11 o'clock treb freq 5 o'clock, Volume 1 o'clock) into Amp
For more dirty Fuzzy sludgey tones my chain is this:
G&L Asat Special into-
Walrus Mayflower(Gain 7 o'clock Bass 11 o'clock, Treb 2 o'clock , Volume 3 o'clock) into-
DOD Gunslinger (Gain 2 o'clock, Bass 12 o'clock, Treb 1 o'clock Volume 1 o'clock) into-
DOD Carcosa (Before 1 o'clock, After 8 o'clock, Hi Cut 9 o'clock, Volume 1 o'clock, switch Dehme) into Amp
Both of these use the DOD gunslinger as the core crunchy tone, the Mayflower as a tone shaping front end boost, and either the Boneshaker or Carcosa at the end of the chain.
In the Boneshakers case it tightens up the sound, gives a little more gain and bite and I use its extensive EQ to fine tune the tone
With the Carcosa, it adds obviously some filth, a little extra thickness and some fuzziness
Both tones are similar , the Boneshaker chain being tighter , more focused and chuggier and great for modern metal/math metal riffage
The Carcosa more messy but a little flubbier better for low single string riff stuff and lead stuff.
These really are the same principles Rabea is using , he is just doing it with amp gain playing a similar role to my Gunslinger (which is a very JCM800 in a box kind of pedal....highly underrated by metal players btw, its really a special pedal, very amp like response)
This is a long drawn out way of saying I concur with Rabea's method, I came to basically the same (or similar) approach quite independently of Rabea, but I fully endorse what he is saying here and I can proclaim with confidence that the same principles work with all pedal gains too.
*** The Gunslinger is very mid forward so it does not require the step Rabea describes with the TS style pedal, its all about blending the gains though
nice tutorial and a cool sandman costume!
Great, thank you for continuing your " how to dial in..."- series!!
I love doing this at home and just playing around but never thought of using it at a show because of the noise. after hearing this I'm now reassured that it's fine to have the noise on those single coils. I don't like using noise gates
Tony Iommi says he used a strat on
Wicked World before it blew up, and switched to an SG for the rest. Sounds the same to me. The SG had P90's so maybe that's why.
A couple of key items for me you didn't cover is the pickup you were using. Looks like you used mostly the bridge...On my Fender Tele Plus I found myself going to my bridge PUp but with tone variations on my guitars tone and volume knobs. I could dial in some great heavy tones but needed the compressor which you also didn't cover. I am using your Archetype by the way. So much easier to dial in vs. my Headrush pedal board. Maybe do a part 2 coming more from the guitar tone setup, compressor setup and bring along your Tele?
I tried a Fjord Fuzz Berserk (a kind of Fuzz Face with less compressed low end and a bass cut) with rolled back gain before a GCP Pumkin Pi (Green Russian muff side) and I've got nice results ! The Berserk acts like a treble/mid boost with tremendous volume output, and tame the low end mud of the Green Russian pretty nicely. I'd like to try adding a Klon after the Pumkin Pi, or a Tube Screamer.
I love, LOVE a killer single coil clean, but never liked a distorted single coil tone until now. yeah this gives me good ideas & I’m thinking that I could split so,e coils and crush some skulls at the same time.
Awesome video!
tell you wot i do on my strat, i de tune it to c standard going through a laney gh100 l decent amount of gain and that pretty much does it .plus im going from 13 - 62 string wise and its not bad at all. it works great with gain and you keep the definition. down tuned strats rock man. i got a baritone warmoth neck on one of my strats and thats even better.
I've played Slayer on an early 80s Strat-o-Clone, but the single coils were built more like P90s. More output than traditional singles, but less than humbuckers.
Right now, my younger daughter's stock Squire Bullet Tele is tuned to D, and I can get some nasty metal tones out of it.
Love this series man!
Great video but in my experience with a big muff and tubescreamer type overdrive, I have to run the OD into the fuzz, the other way around just sounds like mush. That being said I have an mxr bass fuzz on my guitar pedal board and it’s before the tubescreamer in the signal chain and with single coils they sound good together so maybe it’s just the big muff style fuzz.
Love the Tele. Using it more than my Paul these days. Try a Fractal FM9 Turbo. EZ.
There is only 1 way to use single coil pickups for high-gain situations, and that is to set the treble at zero and use an enhancer (like a BBE sonic maximizer) to add in the high end after the gain stages. The noise will still be there, but a noise gate before the enhancer can use a lot lower threshold.
I found that using the Dimarzio Cruiser bridge model to be a great solution for dialing in heavier single coil palm muted stuff.
Everyone puts it in neck position like Andy Timmons. Try it in the bridge position!
Fresh as always
HS-3 and 4, or the YJM Fury (Malmsteen pickups) are the absolute bees knees to me. Crunchy break-up on the amp and let an OD (and NS-2) do the rest. I like the strattyness it retains, but you don’t get the searing ice pick glass of a traditional single. I get pretty uninspired when I play through a traditional humbucker now.
Glad to read this comment. I just put fender noiseless pickups in my Strat (taken from a player plus) because I do high gain layers and couldn’t cope with the hum anymore. The fender noiseless are so balanced with the tone and I hear every string clearly even at high gain levels. However I have to live with the fact these pickups are low output. Are your Hs3 low output too?
@@federicoverdicchio I mean, they have plenty of saturation and sustain to my ears. But, my playing is unashamedly derivative of Malmsteen’s playing, and I pick a lot, so it works for me. I hear a lot of modern metal tones and playing, with that kind of sine wave/Theremin that comes with modern preamps, dirt boxes and modellers. I don’t think I could get that kind of saturation.
Great sounds! I like it dark, so I'm using a suboctaver. I tryed out the Queequeg and the Moai Maea from KMA Audio. The Queequeg is easy to use, also the new version, but for the Moai Maea it takes a day to get the right settings that I like to use for lead tones, but also for rhythm tones. Mostly I use the suboctaver for lead stuff and that's the easy way. For riffs it's much more complicated to get a sound that is not muddy and has enough definition. Pitch shifter pedals can also bring nice effects. I tryed out the PS6 Harmonist from Boss, it's ok, but it's not perfect for me. Also there could be a big difference on sound between a "normal" tuned guitar or a baritone and of course pickups, that makes it not easy to get the right settings if you using different guitars on a gig. Now I'm using different pedals for different guitar types on my pedalboard and I'm trying to use a small rig... I'm still searching for solutions to make it better. I will try out the tube screamer trick on the end of the line, maybe also a drive pedal with two separate units...one for single coils and the other for humbuckers... 🤘
So glad for your successes both on TH-cam and on stage. Well deserved 👏
The tone on the recap section was pretty sweet!
My 3 main Strats have 69s ,P-90s ,and Tele pickups. I love single coils I actually think pedals sound better with them. I do tend to follow Bea's preference for Tube Screamers on the board ,and last in the gain stage. 7 out of 8 boards so far. The last one being an ambient shoe gaze board ,and has a mid pushed E.Q. last in the chain when needed ,to compensate for the lack of said Tube Screamer ; ) Single coils worked just fine for Jimi, Blackmore, Yngwie, and Morello so I think I'll stick wit dem .
Thanks for this video, the one on Tom Morello sound, and all the other where you play angry stuff on your Strats.
Everything you play is fantastic but this single coiled angriness is really the most powerful sound to me.
This might be the best TH-cam video ever
That show sounded pretty damn good. I really like Hannah’s singing too. You definitely belong on the big stage
NGL I kind of feel like a badass for using the same fuzz pedal as Rabea. The Bender does a great high gain thing, of course, but I also love running it with its gain down very low, then boosting into it with a TS808 for higher gain sounds.
Love it - I've been exploring trying to use a tele in this similar context for a while - trying to get that Andrew Groves sort of vibe
So for a board without a switcher would you chain be :
Octave>Fuzz>Dist>OD
Does the order of the fuzz/dist matter as much as having that Clean Octave at the front and that Toneshaping OD at the end? Would love to know your thoughts.
Crushing sound out of a single coil
Are your sig pickups double stacked or more traditional style?
Ever play with P-90 or soap-bar single coils?
Wonder if they would be a fatter twang but still dynamic
Every Goddamn riff is just GOLD. love his approach to guitar. ✌️👽🤘
So these are pretty impressive pickups. I'm currently looking to upgrade an old eerie ds Japanese dk Jackson. I've already settled on a peacemaker bridge. I'm hoping to get some suggestions on which single coils to look into, that might work very well with the peacemaker humbucker, for the middle and neck position.
Might just be my personal taste, but I really liked the treble at halfway on the thunder claw! Maybe it’s more harsh in the room but sounded super articulate and heavy in my headphones.
This was great....as a beginner, this was extremely helpful. Thank you ☮
Do you think an Ibanez 808 would get the same quality Tube Screamer effect as the Halcyon?
Been playing high gain stuff with single coils for a couple of years now and my solution for the lack of thickness in the guitar tone is to allow more space for the bass guitar to occupy more mids and be more distorted, so in a context of a band you might not even need octave down or fuzz
Every one of those Riffs reminded me of Fluffs competition, haha that Comp was awesome.
Wow man just checked out that concert at Summer Breeze festival!!! Holy shit batman 😵😵😵taking 'out of context' to a whole new level!!! Smashed it mate! Will keep an eye out for ya'll looks like you had a blast! I had a blast watching it 😄 \m/
I have a AXL telecaster deluxe lipstick pickup in the neck and it used to have the EMG AXL TELECASTER BRIDGE PICKUP. Which I just sold on eBay I swapped it with a hotrail single coil. I have an ELECA 20w tube amp on clean mid at 12 treble at 3 and the bass from 1 to 4 it's very bassy. ! Butttt I use a behringer ULTRA METAL 300 or even the distortion from the amp. And boy let me tell ya I can tune down to drop A and play Slipknot and the sound would make Jim Root hot and bothered. I just wanted to mention what I do to get a sound I crave. It's a "mini" humbucker but it's still a single coil pretty much. Even mino buckers they are twangy also.
First video I've seen that actually created a "tone" instead of just a wall of mud.
The video I'd like to see is how to make this work for the entire band. How do you get bass, rhythm, and lead all sounding angry while still staying distinct in the mix?
Super helpful. With drop C so you’re tuned to D and dropping the lowest string to C. What’s is your string gauge for that? I have a mick Thompson custom shop Jackson that I tune to drop A but its LOOOOW it think it’s like a .056 on the bottom. Also and 8 string but I’m really digging the drop C sound, the clarity is better and I love your chord voicing btw. I have a few guitars tuned to drop D and some standard tuning which this might be fun to try. Love your vids and playing. (I grew up watching Nuno in clubs pre record deal, I know he’s an influence but I don’t hear much of that, you have your own vibe)
11:13 tone is the perfect blend of single coils and supreme prog metal
Do you know what riff that is/ what song is it from?
I have always wanted to be able to modulate the treble, would always be nice to bring the tone forward when needed. Might be a project I now need to do
These A, B comparisons are a huge wealth of knowledge
Great video rabea and loving this collection of videos. Just curious do you usually prefer drop C anyway, or is it something you like to do for single coils as part of the setup you describe here?
Forgot the reason I even made that comment. With that high output mini humbucker I roll the volume back not quite halfway and it cleans up everything with all that crunch and fuzz and feedback and amp a pedal noise gate some reverb and delay roll the volume back on your guitar and I believe that'll fix the largest of the problems
Why does the riff at 23:40 sound really familiar? I hate when this happens.
With the TS being last in the chain do you mean it goes before your modulation and time effects? I always thought TS and ODs should go first in the chain
Great Video as always, well I would like to se ya dialing in Tones like 70's Spacerock like Hawkwind for the 21th Csntury ✌
Man all the tones in this videos reminded me of Mastodon and I loved that
Cool sounds ,cool video again! ✌
I have a Big Muff and DOD Carcosa both of which can do distortion/fuzz. Which would you set for distortion and which for all out fuzz? I can boost them with Boss SD-1 into a V4 Kraken.
Hey Rabea can you make a video about the perfect dial of a edge of breakup strat tone?
So glad to hear your partnered with Ernie ball! Perfect brand for you
Single coils work very well with low tunings!
I get good heavy tone from single coils with a Carl Martin Plexi Ranger and a (modded) Boss GE7 into a variety of valve amp and pre pedal setups.
Very interesting! But now I am a bit lost and have a question what for I need second channel of kraken if I can stack pedals like this. 🤷♂
I want to do this now. I'm going to try Tele bridge pickup into Rat, into Soul Food, wet dry to my couple small tube amps :)
please does anybody know what hes doing rytmically at about 9:12?
instead of tube screamer at the end of the distortion any chance one can use an EQ pedal instead (after distortion) to boost the mids?
I’ve always been more into humbuckers than single coils and that’s why I’ve never owned a Fender for long. But THESE tones are really intriguing me and I may pick up a decent Squier or G&L to experiment with sounds like these and finally stick to it lol
Dis you pick it up?
this guitar suits you so good , I did not imagin you with no other mark then this .