Guitar Volume Levels

Betterman77

Ok need some advice from some serious players, Which is best for volume settings on a guitar and amp, i'll use mine as an example, I got a fender Strat and a Marshall jcm 800, i always usually keep the volume on the guitar up full and play around with the marshall volume, but of coarse if the guitar volume is up full then I gotta turn down the Marshall volume more cause of the extreme loudness it gives off, but to get the perfect sound, should I level down on the guitar volume and crank up the marshall volume more? what do you all think, and how do you all go about with your volume settings for the best sound?

by the way my question relates to having the overdrive on. not on clean channel.

HailHailVitalogy

if you are playing with overdrive, and you turn the volume down on your guitar, then the overdrive kind of fades out....so it may be the volume you want, but less of the effect

MissYouAllDay

Hello fellow ontarion,

I also leave my guitar volume up and adjust the tube screamer and amp volume as required.

I have also wondered this too, how much people on this board change their guitar volume while playing since I just leave mine at full always.

Betterman77

yeah but i hate it when i use the pickup switch all the way down, if the volume on the guitar is full i get alot of humming out of the amp, if I switch the pickup up to the next postion higher it goes away no more hum, I hate that.

Dirty_Frank

I always leave the guitar volume on full. When you lower the volume directly on the guitar is lowers the output of the pickups. Unless that is the sound I'm going for, ie.) Eddie Van Halen style clean, the volume knob is always on full.

Sometimes if I'm playing with one setting and I need to give a little less for one part of the song I'll turn it down too.

Dirty_Frank

Betterman77 wrote:

yeah but i hate it when i use the pickup switch all the way down, if the volume on the guitar is full i get alot of humming out of the amp, if I switch the pickup up to the next postion higher it goes away no more hum, I hate that.

Maybe you need to lower the bridge pickup a little bit. All you have to do is loosen the screws a little and the pickup will go down. If the pickup is too close to the strings, it can cause buzzing and humming when played through an amp.

Try this and see if the humming goes away.

Betterman77

Dirty_Frank wrote:

Maybe you need to lower the bridge pickup a little bit. All you have to do is loosen the screws a little and the pickup will go down. If the pickup is too close to the strings, it can cause buzzing and humming when played through an amp.

Try this and see if the humming goes away.

Yeah but if i switch the pickup to the next position higher the humming completely goes away, does that still indicate that it could be the bridge?

who's_pearljam?

If you're playing a Strat,,,, when you are on the bridge, middle or neck pickup only,,, then you'll get some hum. Once you switch to the 2 in between positions, you're using two pickups , and cancelling the hum like a humbucker would.
You can shield your guitar cavity, and that might help. Single coil pickups are like little amplifiers for all the electronic interference in the room, so some noise is inherent with them. You can try to aim them in different directions, too and see if that helps.


I usually play with guitar volume all the way up. That's where you get your maximum tone. When you roll back on the volume on most guitars,,, you lose some of the highs, because it gets filtered out by cords and connections, and the sound gets muddy.

There are some mods that are pretty easy to do to counteract this.
I gotta look'm up.


I'll be Baaack!

Dirty_Frank

A couple of mods you can do are simple ones like wax shielding your pickups, or if you have a bit of money, upgrading the pots or even getting noiseless pickups.

I think that when you switch to the 2 or 4 position, the two pickups acting together cancel out the hum. But like I said, it's, been many years since I've owned a single coil guitar.

moster78

I kind of like the hum the single coil pickup gives off on my Strat. Lets me know its on and ready to go. But thats just me.

exhausted

oh how i love noiseless pickups.

mccreadyisgod

By backing off the volume of your guitar, you're hitting your amp with a less-powerful signal, which will result in less overdrive. A lot of players will utilize this and play with the guitar's volume to get different dynamics. But to get the most overdrive possible, keep your guitar's volume up all the way. Essentially, overdrive is when your signal has too much volume (over-driving) and distorts, so more volume in the signal leads to more overdrive.

Like the other folks said, positions 2 and 4 on a Strat are wired so that the pairing of pickups, out of phase, creates a humbucking effect that will cause much less noise. Humbuckers are just two single-coil pickups wired together out-of-phase anyways...

The new cobalt (SCN) Fender pickups do really well, but there are "noiseless" pickups from many manufacturers that are semi-humbucking and do a good job.