How the PROS use VOLUME KNOBS - Tone Secrets from Michael Landau

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I've generally been a volume knob at 10 kind of guy, but Michael Landau has changed my mind, I reckon...
The preset I'm using here is secret for now...
/ johnnathancordy you can get my backing tracks and lesson tabs here.
www.buymeacoffee.com/johnnath... - if you like what I do and
only if you wanted, you could buy me a coffee!
Get my PADs bundle here: www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr... (this folder will grow, and I'd encourage you to ask for different keys/songs and stuff that might suit this type of preset?)
I've decided to make it possible to grab both my Helix/HX Stomp bundles (the expression bundle with freeze presets has always been separate) together for £5 - www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr... - I will then email you a link to both bundles!
Try my general patches for Helix or HX Stomp in this bundle for £3 using this link - I will then send out the patches! www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr...
You can get my EXPRESSION patches in this bundle using this link - I will then send out the patches! www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr...
Try my patches for Pod GO for £3 using this link - I will then send out the patches! www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr...
/ johnnathancordy get my backing tracks here
www.buymeacoffee.com/johnnath... - if you like what I do and
only if you wanted, you could buy me a coffee!

[@darwinsaye]

I’ve done the 50s Les Paul wiring mod on a couple of my guitars. (In case anyone doesn’t know, you can do this mod on guitars other than Les Pauls - I did it to my Telecaster). The 50s wiring does a number of interesting things that you rarely hear anyone talk about. Not only does it retain treble when you roll the guitar volume down, it also rolls off some low end instead, so it’s excellent for going all the way from blistering fuzz to acoustic-like cleans between 10 and 6-7 on the guitar volume. It also alters the tone control behaviour so that rolling down the tone knob between 10 and 5 slightly reduces volume more than treble, and between 5 and 0 it reduces treble like normal. This gives you a lot of tone sculpting ability with only the guitar controls. On my guitars that have normal modern wiring, I counter the treble loss when rolling down the guitar volume like this: FIRST I set the guitar volume at 5 and the guitar tone at 10, and THEN I dial in the gain and EQ on my amp/pedals to have a nice bright articulate clean tone there. Then when I roll the volume up and that extra treble I have dialed in on the amp/pedals comes in, I just roll the guitar tone down to counter any harsh highs. I have tried to make peace with the guitar volume treble loss and use it deliberately like you say in the video, but I just can’t stand it. If I want to lose a bit of treble, that’s what the tone control is for. If I jump on someone’s rig that has modern wiring guitar and an amp set up for optimal clarity when the guitar is all the way up, then I have to play it with the volume and tone left all the way up, like you said, as on off switches.

[@ChristopherOrth]

Yes! This is how I have approached tone since the early 90s, and it blows my mind that more people don’t think this way. Massive ranges of tone available. After all, it is a knob, not a switch! And this is why many of us prefer audio curve rather than linear pots on guitars. More useful resolution throughout the turn of the knob if you don’t go linear.

[@jean-philippemorin1176]

I find The boost helps keeping the volume more constant on the amp when lowering the volume knob on guitar. So in a way the volume on the guitar become to act more as a gain knob, and the range of usable volume on the guitar volume knob increase in a way. This works well on a fuzz face too, below 7-8 on guitar volume knob with the fuzz on, the signal is already pretty clean and the volume remains quite constant on the amp, while rolling down the guitar volume down to approx. 3. Without the fuzz engaged the amp volume drop a lot faster, and below 7-8 on guitar knob while the amp is now clean, the amp volume has also dropped a lot. Maybe too much already in the mix. The boost / overdrive/ fuzz helps to keep volume constant. I have found its a balance between the gain on the amp, the pedal you are using to boost, and your guitar volume and tones. I own a single channel marshall amp and I learned to work my knobs on the guitar because of this.

[@ozlion152]

Rangemaster type of boost is amazing at exaggerating the volume knob effect. You can almost push a Marshall to mid-high gain and you get completely clean on 7 without losing volume and treble. It's almost like treble bleed but with much more dynamics.

[@drothberg3]

I do something similar. I never have my volume on 10, at least not intentionally. I like to set my crunchy clean sound with volume at 7, then back it off for cleaner and bump it up for dirtier. And also have a few pedals for additional dirt and sounds. Sounds better to me. And it I feel I’m getting lost in a mix, I have a little more gain and treble in a pinch. 😊

[@guitar9310]

Man, great vid and your playing is INSANELY expressive! Subscribed!

[@picksalot1]

I use both the volume and tone knobs. But, I usually find that it's faster, more accurate, and consistent to recall a sound by pressing a button for a Snapshot on my HX Stomp.

[@tiago2336]

Agree. All depends on genre of music and how fast you have to change from one to the other. Although in most situations, when you get used to guitar controls, its also really fast and you not only have more control over what you are hearing and more choice, but you also have gradual dynamics. Which you kinda lose with presets.

[@TLMuse]

My favorite way of playing a 4-knob dual-humbucker (I do this with a Yamaha SA 1100) uses the top volume knob as a kind of tone+gain control. I use the middle switch position (both pickups). I put the bridge pickup full-on (volume and tone, bottom controls both at 10). The neck pickup I use with the tone around 3 or 4, so really rolled back. It sounds kind of muffled on its own, but I don't use it on its own in this setup. I put the neck volume knob near full. Then with slight adjustments of the top (neck) volume knob, I get a really interesting range of tones. With it full on, the neck tone control rolls off lots of the highs from both the neck and and bridge pickup, because of the way controls interact on 4-knob dual humbucker guitars. Turning down the top (neck) volume raises the highs, and the volume (because the neck tone control is interacting with the bridge pickup less). Just playing with the top volume knob from around 6 or 7 to 10 gives a really interesting range of tones, going into an amp modeler at or just beyond edge-of-breakup. -Tom

[@tonystartup3817]

I do use the volume knobs quite a lot these days to get the cleaner more mellow sounds. My PRS is particularly good at this I think (once I'd snipped the treble bleed cap), and an really enjoying doing this on the Strat with a 500k volume pot

[@stratless]

Wow! Love the preset a lot! 😊

[@justinainsworth6264]

The dimed Marshall 4 hole EQ section with bass on 0 didn't make sense to me until I learned to never play those amps with guitar on 10 set that way. Both single coils and humbuckers to me sound more articulate for lead tones around that 7-8 range with a super bright tone dialed in if the guitar were on 10. The presence knob shout was a huge add as well, and I also didn't understand why I'd ever use it when I played on 10 all of the time. The presence knob being in the power amp on most classic amps is why it works. The high end roll off of non-treble bleed volume pots occurs in the preamp of the amp, and then you add that brightness back in from the power section which gives a much better balance of brightness on the entire sweep of the guitar vol pot than the treble knob cranked alone. I'd add that I much prefer the high end roll off of the volume pot vs the tone knob especially on humbuckers, it just feels more natural. Instead of simply removing all high frequencies above a certain threshold(The volume pot does remove some too, but without altering the EQ curve nearly as drastically and low-end response stays tighter) you are turning their volume down. If anyone struggles with wanting a bright clear tone without harshness, this is how its done. The louder the room volume is, the more this helps as well. This little trick is a huge part of Joe Bonamassa's tone as well as many big Marshall players of yesteryear. Kossoff's live tones come to mind, Robin Trower for strats into Marshalls, and even Angus Young highly utilized this approach. That's the secret to how loud and clear many AC/DC solos sound while also being cleaner. Amps set really loud and bright with guitar vol dialed back gives clearer notes and more articulation than guitar on 10 and amp adjusted accordingly especially for overdriven tones. Some clean tones do sound better with guitar on 10, however.

[@rudiyantohalim736]

I use my volume knob on my Fuzz setting. 2,5-3 for edge of breakup sound, 7 for distorted, and 9-10 for that fuzzy sound on my strat on my cheap modeller, and it works fine

[@mrskint55]

I use to. Use the volume flat out for years then a friend of mine who was a session musician mentioned use to the volume knob as an effect .I have never looked back since I just love working the volume pot now .

[@tersan8547]

Put a volume pedal in the effect loop. Doing that you can push the pre amp tubes til they boil by running your amp on 11. Use the volume knob on the guitar to adjust the amount of overdrive, and the pedal for the volume. This way you can play a 100 W Marshall at full throttle in a library.

[@mikeblue385]

i've been going down that rabbit hole as well. i have no tone control on the neck pickup on my strat. the volume knob works great for that.

[@Anshul1614]

Try dialing in your drive and amp so that 3 turns clean and 7 or 8 is gainy lead. After you have that, that touch dynamics is going to come flying. I made a preset exactly like that on my boss katana so on just one patch I can go from clean jazz, to nice cleans, to crunch, to soaring leads using just the controls on my guitar.

[@kevinprado1380]

Using tone knob we can also get jazz clean tone or "creamy Eric Johnson like" lead tone. Thank you very much for the tip! That's exactly where I want to be with my tone. I'll try it as soon as I get home tonight. Thanks!

[@Anshul1614]

@@kevinprado1380 Happy to help!

[@vinny943]

Gain all the way up on some dirt pedals with a higher clean boost master volume to taste and the volume knob and the guitar is like magic

[@ernieb3626]

great stuff im going to try this today.

[@_johnnyguitarf3549]

I think Carlos Santana sets up his rig to function this way too. Very cool. Also, curious what John's approach to Carlos' sound using the hx stomp would be like.

[@jasonweidner3274]

One reason why this method works is the SD9 has a fuzz face type thing going on where rolling down the guitar volume creates a glassy, sparkly thing. For me, I really love over-gaining an amp well above the gain levels I'm likely to use and then using lower output SC's low on the volume. It's kind of it's own sound but pretty similar to John's vid. I have a Friedman Runt that I love to dime the gain on, but with a strat it'll still clean up as one example. Max gain & clean tones; it's pretty amazing tbh

[@ksharpe10]

To me personally I like the 6:00 when you first click on the Distortion/drive pedal the vol. 5 and 6 positions, at 8-10 then you start getting more of that noise the Fizzy part I keep talking about. Which is OK, and some do or are not bothered by it. Plus it seems to round off your pick attack too. But to my OLD ears the rolled off volume with the less fizziness just sings so much more. Thanks for doing this, this might be a way to ROLL off some of the extraneous noise that I hear on these presets. IT is a more HOLDSWORTH and also ERIC JOHNSON type tone, think VIOLA sound, at about the 15th fret then we might want to call it a Violin type tone. VERY NICE. Maybe the SECRET sauce with using the Fuzz FACE kind of pedals. That and a TONE control on the Bridge pickup of a STRATOCASTER, like all the signature model Eric Johnson stratocasters. By the way I like the LAZARUS les paul I got, thanks for a GREAT review on that.

[@ksharpe10]

There is a really good video by Rhett Shell on rolling the volume knob down for use with FUZZ FACE type pedals. it is worth checking out, there maybe some others who have done one too, perhaps someone else will chime in and mention those too.

[@tonykennedy8483]

There's so many tonal colours in the controls on a good guitar Don't forget your tone controls as well,

[@theloniouscoltrane3778]

My only complain with the Strat's design is the volume knob placement! It gets in the way of playing rhythm/lead near the bridge and prevents effective palm muting. If Fender company relocates that irritating volume knob, my Strat will be my indispensable arsenal. Until then, I'm sticking with my Teles & Les Pauls.

[@randyaquatoad8975]

The challenge I have using the volume knob is managing overall volume of my setup. I never play heavy overdriven tones, just clean to little crunchy. I can definitely clean up my sound by rolling back the volume, but in this zone of OD, there's less compression so DB's also drop quite a bit when rolling back the volume. Tips to address this?

[@justinainsworth6264]

My approach for this is to use more volume/gain than I need, and never turn the guitar higher than the gain level you want. Which is likely never on 10. You set the tone of the amp brighter than you would with volume always on 10. So basically how I'd describe it is setting your sound so that on 10 is simply both too loud and too bright. Because you never go that loud you get the benefits of headroom/volume increasing low-end/fullness and a broader dynamic range from pick attack. More harmonic content as well because of more signal flowing through the amp's preamp by dialing a brighter sound. My reference is an old 70s 4 hole Marshall and Supro amps cranked. What's more is sometimes 5-6 picked really hard may sound better for some parts than 7-8 picked softer. Lowered volume settings on the guitar allow for a harder pick attack without huge transient spikes.

[@thekramer1097]

I've tried this before but honestly playing live either I forget about it or I am too sloppy to aim where I want so I don't even bother anymore.

[@GitShiddy]

Must be because I learned to play on guitars where the knobs were out of the way, but my volume has been set at 10 & left there 95% of my time playing, maybe more. That's forced me to rely on my attack for tonal dynamics, which is good. I feel like those who play with the volume & tone knobs may be apples to apples in terms of tones, but their phrasing tends to be more compelling than a set & forget guitarist.

[@GM-mv1ch]

What radius on this one?

[@johnnytwo-shoes9798]

I have a Gretsch with 3 volume knobs... Play with them too much and they fall off 😅 1 vol pot for each HB pup and a master vol. (Ive modded mine to have an additional tone pot so 1 for each pup and 2x tri switchs series, split and parallel a la Ibanez artist guitars). I always thought that in original no master vol amp + E guitar eco system design the guitar vol was the gain and the amp vol was the master (sort of, so I set the max gain I want and roll the guitar vol down to clean up in that setting). I have the bridge set on close to 10 if not 10 and the neck set to 3 for cleans. Master on 8. I use the pup selector as a channel switch. Neck for clean, bridge for hot and master vol to adjust slight variance or for a solo boost. I have a lot of HH guitars with a tri switch mod for each pup, set this way most without a master vol. Then the neck is set to single coil around 3ish for clean maybe edge of break up and I play the bridge vol from 6-10 depending for my drive sounds. I also change it for the room or situation but that's a common theme. I find coil split cleans up nicer than parallel HB. I've also found that on hottish pups around 14k+ dcr (I know dcr isn't defining spec - think SD JB or TR Generator bridge) rolling the vol down to 7-8 made the sound more manageable closer to a PAF-a-like. I like the 2 vol 2 tone pot arrangement.for that type of control.

[@guitar9310]

Is that pedal what EJ uses???

[@waynebacer6235]

I couldn't find the "Secret for Now" preset on gumroad???

[@ksharpe10]

Makes me think he may have a early NEW release from HELIX, that HE cannot divulge yet, and for a later video. We knew it had to happen with all this Profiling/capturing style stuff going on. STAY TUNED LOL.

[@andrewbecker3700]

The only guitar I own that doesn't have all the electronics upgraded is my Epi '59 LP. That has 50's wiring with good quality pots and caps, and does everything I want it to already. All the rest have treble bleed curcuits and either DiMarzio or CTS heavy duty, all brass shaft, custom taper pots. Good pots with a nice even taper and a treble bleed curcuit, makes ANY guitar, way, way more useable. I hate modern wiring, especially without a treble bleed curcuit. Renders the pots virtually useless.

[@jimmcdougall9973]

The problem with most potentiometers is that they’re one volume between 2 and 10. Would it be the difference between 250k and 500k pots?

[@Crabfather]

That's the difference between linear and audio taper pots. Linear seem rather pointless to me.

[@587583922]

That's pretty much how I've always used my guitars. Idk if it was just the people who taught me to play. But...yes. Amp gainier and brighter than you actually want and use the knobs. If you also want pedals, cool...but they're not always necessary. Some of the first guitar amps didn't even have gain or volume controls. The designers figured they weren't needed because the guitar already had them.

[@peterjasonocol594]

Is this technique also capable of using a noise gate?

[@johnnathancordy]

I'd think that the noise gate would complicate things to be honest?

[@peterjasonocol594]

yeah i tried this technique, unfortunately the noise gate can compensate the dynamic of the volume knob, and also if the guitar doesn't have a treble bleed the clarity gets muddy when roll off at 6-7

[@globalfatmas]

Sometimes I turn my volume knob down by accident. The next time I play my guitar it takes me a while to figure out why no sound is coming out of my guitar.

[@the1trueporkchop]

You know, when I get no sound, it’s almost always because I forgot to actually connect my cable to the amp/modeler. I’ll plug in one side, completely forget the other

[@globalfatmas]

@@the1trueporkchop and it's important to turn the power switch to the on position.

[@the1trueporkchop]

@@globalfatmas case in point. This happened today for church. Turned on helix. Tuned. Said I’m ready to go…. Forgot to plug in the XLR. 😂

[@globalfatmas]

@@the1trueporkchop Acoustic guitars are good.

[@Herfinnur]

You must be traveling in different circles than me. Every Fender player known for great tone and feel always says to work the volume knob. Especially those that go straight into an amp. I learned that before I ever got a guitar. The first thing I remember reading about this was in a late 90's interview so my memory is a bit unreliable on this but in it David Gilmour said he only goes to ten if he wants to emphasise a bend and he learned that from listening or talking to other players

[@matrix12x]

the benefit of running volume at 10 all the time is better signal to noise ratio.

[@seanledesma5997]

10 or 0 lol I’ve never really explored all too much

[@kenerb8249]

I find rolling off the volume in a digital environment isn't this same as going into an amp.

[@587583922]

Which digital "environment"? It works perfectly on a Fractal.

[@ksharpe10]

And this concerns me with the type pedal that a Tonex, kemper, Quad, and this FREE NAM, are using the Snapshot tones, if there is little to no tweakability on the preset, how can a real world volume/tone knob on the instrument itself effect it much. I know the older modellers like my Vox Tonelab se, it all reacts just like real Amplifiers do, I do run mine into an Actual Guitar Amp, not monitors or these FRFR that are out there, those are not Guitar Speaker devices, they are more the FULL spectrum AUDIO type speakers. I been reading up about all this stuff to try to grasp how in the world anyone can use all this NONE stage volume stuff, it is unreal to this old man anyway. JOHN was recently having troubles on a Gig, trying to get something pleasing when he was playing live, and from what I am finding out, when sound engineers/Good ones anyway, they prefer a signal sent to their sound boards to have from Guitars a more rolled off bottom end and Rolled off top end, aiming for Mid Range for reg. guitars. I can kind of Grasp this for a FOH situation.

[@tiago2336]

100% agree, at least with Helix in a general way.

[@the1trueporkchop]

I disagree. With the Helix, I dial everything to be able to clean up with rolling off the volume knob. Only a select few of the high gain amps struggle with it, even with the drive down low.

[@587583922]

@@the1trueporkchop high gain tube amps don't really clean up either.