I hear folks on YouTube, like the guys on " That Pedal Show " or Rick Beato or even just my favorite songs in the blues or rock areas and I don't know enough about pedal into amp variables to pull of the tone I hear.
Yup. As mentioned above, Google and YouTube will let you look up lots of popular guitar tones. For instance, you can look up
Clapton woman tone and find several ways to imitate it.
And you're right. The pedal, guitar, and amp all team up to decide the tone. A Tele has twang and spank, a Strat has quack and bounce, humbuckers are smooth and loud. A Marshall has
kra-a-ang (EL-34 tubes), while a Fender is fatter and cleaner (6L6 tubes).*
Like food groups and dog breeds, there are families of overdrive pedals. You can find clones for Klons, Tube Screamers, Blues Breakers, Fuzz Faces, Dallas Rangemasters, and other classic designs. Each has its own voice, character, and assets.
So you might continue your pedal education by Googling and YouTubing each of those to get a sense of which does what, who uses them, and how. For example, a Klon (or clone) is usually used lightly through an amp with lots of headroom, just to add presence. Think Chicago blues. A Rangemaster (or clone) is more often found in front of a very crunchy amp and is kicked on
after the breakup threshhold, for the proverbial "beyond beyond." Think seventies album rock.
When the gain knobs get twirled up, the low end notes seem muddy to me and not " Cool metal " or heavy blues tones or Pink Floyd like. Most often I read that the songs that have great sounding solos are more over driven or have more distortion effect than you would think. I'm sure most web sites that have players who know, don't go down that road for fear of being blocked at worst of demonitized at best.
I spent so many years listening and trying to play acoustic stuff, I never learned to come up with cool rock tones. I'm sure there is more to SRV than the right model Tube Screamer and 13s for strings on a beat up Strat.
You're right, there is. For one thing, he had talent. For another, he slammed the strings murderously. That's why he needed thirteens. Nothing lighter would last the night.
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* An amp shopping tip: You can use a pedal to dirty up a clean amp, but no pedal will clean up a dirty amp. (Likewise, a pedal can fatten an underwound guitar pickup, but no pedal can thin an overwound pickup. That's why Vaughn could use underwound pickups and a Fender amp: Unlike Hendrix, he had a Tube Screamer.)
