How to get a good rock tone on any amp

Crunch, not saturation

Most rock rhythm tones sit just past the point where the amp starts to break up. Chords keep their separate notes, the pick attack comes through, and the distortion adds edge rather than sustain. Set the gain where a full open chord rings with a clear edge, and stop there. If the chord smears into one sound, there is too much.

Malcolm Young said it was all about getting that edge from the Marshall rather than having the chords fart through, and that even in arenas his amps were rarely above 2 or 3. Guitar World describes his rhythm tone as surprisingly clean, through a Marshall Super Bass, a model tweaked for more clean headroom at high volume.

Keep the mids up

Start with the middle at 6 to 7 and the bass at 5. Rock guitar lives in the midrange, between the bass guitar and the cymbals, and scooping it is the quickest way to a tone that sounds big on its own and disappears once the band comes in.

If the tone is thin, raise the middle before the gain. If it is harsh, take the presence down a step, then the treble. If the low strings boom, lower the bass rather than the middle.

Rock settings by style

Classic rock crunch, the AC/DC and Led Zeppelin end: gain 4 to 6, bass 5, middle 6 to 7, treble 6, presence 5, reverb 0 to 2. Back in Black is two guitars on two Marshalls, Angus Young's SG into a Super Lead and Malcolm's Gretsch into a Super Bass, with no pedals. The one extra in Angus's chain was his Schaffer-Vega wireless, which had a preamp of its own.

Hard rock, from Van Halen to Guns N' Roses: gain 6 to 7, bass 5, middle 6, treble 6, presence 5 to 6. Both bands made those records on 100-watt Marshalls. Eddie Van Halen played Eruption through a 1968 Super Lead, and the amp Slash rented for Appetite for Destruction was a Marshall modified with an extra gain stage.

Nineties rock: gain around 6, bass 5, middle 6, treble 6, reverb 1, and usually a clean sound for the verses. Everlong is Gibsons in Drop D into Mesa/Boogie Rectifiers. Creep keeps its verses clean and kicks a distortion pedal on just before each chorus, so the jump in gain is part of the song.

Garage rock: gain around 6 with the bass and middle both at 6, on an inexpensive amp turned up. Seven Nation Army is a Kay hollowbody into a 1960s Silvertone 1485, and its bass-like weight comes from a Whammy set an octave down, not from the amp's bass knob.

Get the crunch from volume when you can

Plenty of rock records are a loud amp and no pedal. Don Felder's parts on Hotel California went straight into a cranked Fender Tweed Deluxe, and Jimmy Page says Whole Lotta Love is exactly his Les Paul through Vox Super Beatle heads, which were solid-state. An amp worked hard compresses and responds to the pick in a way a high gain setting at low volume only partly copies.

On a master-volume or modelling amp, set the gain for the crunch and the master for the room. On an amp with only a volume knob, a smaller amp reaches crunch at a lower volume. The other route is a drive pedal into the clean channel, with its gain low and its level at or above unity, so the amp still does some of the work.

Pickups, strings and the volume knob

Play rhythm on the bridge pickup. Humbuckers push an amp harder than single coils, so a Les Paul or SG reaches crunch at a lower gain setting than a Strat or a Telecaster; with single coils, raise the gain a step.

The guitar's volume knob is a second gain control. Malcolm Young said Angus played a little more distorted live so that he could use the volume knob on his Gibson to pump up the drive for his solos. Set the amp for the lead, then roll back to 7 or 8 for rhythm.

Heavier strings sound bigger. Malcolm used a .012 to .058 set and said the rhythm sounded bigger for it. His other tip for the big open G chord: stop the strum at about the G string, and the chord sounds rounder and bigger.

Solos: boost, don't add gain

For a solo, raise the guitar's volume or switch in a boost, such as an overdrive with its drive low and its level up, rather than turning the amp's gain up and losing the rhythm sound. Raise the middle a step so the lead sits above the band.

Add a little delay, 300 to 500 ms with two or three quiet repeats, and keep the reverb low. Eddie Van Halen's Eruption ran an Echoplex in front of the Marshall, and Welcome to the Jungle uses delay for accents rather than as a constant wash.

Rock settings by type of amp

Marshall-style valve amps: on a JCM800 2203 the gain is the Preamp Volume. Start it around 5 with the Master set for the room, Middle 6 to 7 and Presence 5. Vox AC30: use the Top Boost channel with Treble 6 and Bass 5. There is no middle knob, and the Tone Cut works backwards from a presence control, so turn it up to take the edge off.

Fender-style amps stay cleaner for longer. A '65 Deluxe Reverb only reaches crunch with its Volume well up, so at home a drive pedal in front usually works better. Boss Katana: for classic rock, the Crunch amp type with Gain 5 to 6, Bass 5, Middle 6 to 7 and Treble 6. For hard rock, the Lead type, which BOSS describes as going from crunch to high gain with the Gain setting, with the Gain around 5. Use the Booster for solos.

One guitar is not the record

Rock records are usually several guitars. Back in Black has Angus and Malcolm on two different amps, and The Cranberries' Zombie layers three guitars through cranked AC30s and Marshalls. More gain on one guitar does not get closer to that; it gets fizzier.

Rock settings for a specific song on your amp

These positions are a starting point for the crunch most rock is built on. A particular song adds its own pickup, pedal and EQ choices, and the numbers move from one amp to the next. When you want positions for one song on the amp you own, Tonelify writes them for the controls that amp actually has.