Crayon Sky Music

What should I set the tone knobs on my Fender Strat to?

I have a Fender Stratocaster guitar, which has 3 single coil pickups, and tone controls for the neck and bridge pickups. If I’m plugging into an amp with a heavily distorted setting, what should I set these knobs to for a good tone?

Hi! Well, the short answer is to set the knobs fully on (clockwise). Distortion will make cutting the treble sound like a muddy mess, and is pretty undesirable (from a tone purity standpoint). You can also clean up the distorted tone by rolling off a bit of the volume control knob. This has the added benefit of being able to bring up the level of distortion for solos. Make sure to add a capacitor to the volume control pot (many on-line articles regarding this mod, see http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr06/articles/guitartech_0406.htm for example), to retain the higher frequencies. When using distortion with a Stratocaster, I found it best to balance the tone with amplifier controls, not with the instrument. Hope this helps. Best regards, Dana

My Fender Stratocaster guitars… sound test (neck & middle+bridge)