How do you dial in your strat country tone?

Think the lead fills and solo in "Wild horses".

I put the middle/neck position (or just the middle pickup if I want to sound more edgy) and set the amp with not too much treble.

How do you like to do it?

I tend to not mess with the amp and try to use the guitar's tone control. For me, the amp is set to the room and the guitar to the song at hand.

It's all about the treble on on the amp. Use lots of it and you can turn the bass way down sometimes too.

A good country tone out of the mix will often sound thin, but in context it's awesome. One of the things about traditional country "twang" is that it cuts the mix without being overly loud.

I wouldn't turn the guitar tones down for country since the guitar tone control is a low-pass filter.

A really good compressor is almost a must, add a slapback delay with tap-tempo set to 16ths, use a lot of stacked 5ths and you'll be in high cotton.

Chuck

Don't go surfer with the reverb, but a noticeable bit can be good for twang.

Light strings really helps too. Strats can get a little too "bell like" with SRV bridge cables some blues guys prefer.

Yeah, when you dial in country what you do is get the tone right on the 3rd fret G on the LOW E string. It should be as clear an "grindy" as you can make it.

Use the bridge pickup for this, start with both tomes dimed and the volume at about 7.

So start with all your amp tone controls a zero. Start twanging on the low G and then push up the treble until said G is clear and full of sparkle. Now go to the bass and while still twanging the low G, start adding some bass - but- the instant you notice the bass is taking he sparkle off of the low G stop and take a little back out.

If you have a mid control Do the same at the C on the 8th fret.

Set you amp's volume with the guitar volume still at about 7. Find that sweet spot where it's clear but just wanting to break up. If you have a separate gain - for country you want the breakup in the power section and not the preamp.

Now you're set, and you can go to the middle, neck or a tweener to fit the song. On a slow ballad when you roll down the volume the highs will be less punchy.

If you have a happinin' amp or modeler, when you push the volume past 7 up to ten it won't get a lot louder but it will get fatter.

Reverb - meh, not sure I'd agree on that. In small doses but when I chicken pick I want a delay instead. Reverb will muddy it up and delay doesn't. Delay can be set to slap back by setting the milliseconds and only have one or two repeats. Tap delay makes it sound like you're playing lots more notes than you really are. Paisley and The Hellecasters are the master of that little trick.

All IMHO, YMMV,

Chuck

Great advice, everyone. I was essentially rolling back the guitar tone knob, but I'll definitely check out your tips.

Dan: I understand your point. Thing is, I play SSS strats and a Rickenbacker through Fender amps, that means things might get REAL trebly, so I set the amp and the guitar tone knob according to what I'm doing.

Willie: I am mostly a live player (recording is a whole other thing regarding settings and effects, really), so I'll have a bit of reverb aleways on, it really makes live tones better. It helps indeed.

Chuck: I always appreciate your tone related posts. Thanks a lot for the patience of writing in detail. Very nice info, really! BTW do you think the middle pickup is the best alternative to using a Tele? My experience so far is that the best way to emulate a Tele twang with a strat is to use the middle pickup and use a Fender amp with a bright speaker. The Jensen C12N in my current amp really gives me some great country tones.

Depends on whether you're looking for Don Rich, Brad Paisley, or somewhere in the vast gulf in between. In the new country covers band I was in, my #1 was an American Deluxe Tele, but my backup was a Strat, and when I had to use it, I used a clean tone through a Deluxe Reverb, bridge or middle pickup with the tone and volume dimed, and a touch of compression. Tone varied with attack.

Give Pete Anderson's work a listen, on Dwight Yoakam's best albums. Pete has the tone I like best. Twang for days. It's the sound I think of when I think of a great Tele sound. Before I had a Tele, I used to get pretty close to it on the Strat. And Chuck is right that you need a compressor (you need one anyway even if you don't know it). I'd stay away from the MXR Dyna Comp which colors the sound too much for me. I've got the ones made by Ampeg OptoComps, which to my ears sound pretty transparent.

I used a compressor for a long time but never liked it. I prefer to use as few pedals as possible.

Sergio, if you go sans compressor then you're going to rely on the amp alone to squish and that means you need to run it almost wide open. That's way too loud for most club gigs with anything over 10W.

Using compression takes a bit to absorb but with Fenders it's almost a given I'll have the squeezebox on if soloing. That's where the singing sustain comes from. For country thats how you make the fat attack too.

It's just one more tool in the shed. Like all tools, once you learn how to use it it usually makes your work go smoother and come out better.


YMMV,

Chuck

I'll give the compressor another try. But that's why I chose to use smaller, low watt tube amps with 12" speakers. It allows me to get a nice breakup and compression at lower volumes. I really don't miss compressor pedals.

I have a BOSS CS3 that might do the job.