Just tweaked my SS and wow.

[Jkater]

I fell in love with my Silver sky playing it unplugged. The feel and resonnace is so musical. But then some of that was lost when playing with my amp… I felt a bit underwhelmed (or rather overwhelmed) by the amplified sound, finding it a little too harsh and two dimensional for my taste. Sounded good, mind you, but not tailored for the kind of soft response I dig in a guitar. Then I turned down the volume knob on the guitar to about "7", it rolled off a bit of treble, I tweaked my amp (an Eric Clapton Twinolux) and, man, it changed drastically the way it responds and became really sweet sounding and gave it a different character.

Anyone has their own tweaking tips to share?

 

[Andy80]

That's a killer amp! I wish I picked one up, they're very hard to find now.

S-style guitars have always been a challenge for me, but I tend to use the amp to drive distortion as much as possible and then roll the treble off to get rid of the high end frequencies that I don't like. I also use a lot of compression which works well.

When playing clean, I turn the bass up a fair bit and get it on the edge of breakup. really pleasant sound there.

 

[László]

Folks sometimes underestimate the power of the volume and tone controls, especially on a PRS. There’s a lot of nuance and adjustment possible.

 

[WA Paul]

Folks sometimes underestimate the power of the volume and tone controls, especially on a PRS. There’s a lot of nuance and adjustment possible.

The volume knob is now my favorite tone control

 

[Jkater]

The volume knob is now my favorite tone control

I see exactly what you mean. I even tried with rolling it down to three, turning up the amp to get the volume back and it is still a very clear and strong signal, just mellower sounding to my ear. I wonder if I could combine using the volume pedal and try different things. This is all a big relief for me because I like the guitar so much and was a bit sad that the sound at first was not quite to my taste.

 

[Jkater]

Folks sometimes underestimate the power of the volume and tone controls, especially on a PRS. There’s a lot of nuance and adjustment possible.

In my case I like that the volume knob has an effect on the attack and softens it as well as cutting a bit of treble.

 

[Jazzedout]

Try lowering the pickups as well...

 

[Jkater]

Try lowering the pickups as well...

I did!

 

[Dirty_Boogie]

Folks sometimes underestimate the power of the volume and tone controls, especially on a PRS. There’s a lot of nuance and adjustment possible.

Les... you're such a control freak!

 

[László]

Les... you're such a control freak!

I’m a veritable hob-knobber.

 

[László]

In my case I like that the volume knob has an effect on the attack and softens it as well as cutting a bit of treble.

Yes, it drives the amp differently as the output level goes up and down, and of course the high frequencies roll off a bit. I find it’s a great way to operate a guitar, but hell, I’m old-school.

 

[László]

Sorry for the multiple posts, but one thing I do with all my amps, single-channel or not (I have 3 that are, one that isn’t) is set the guitar volume at about 5-6 and then set up the amp for a slight crunch tone. Roll down for cleaner sound and to tame the treble, roll up to solo and cut through a mix a little better.

Most of the session players I’ve hired for ad music tracks do it that way, but I learned it in high school, because two channel amps hadn’t been invented!

“Les, when you were in high school, the wheel hadn’t been invented.”

“When I was in high school, high school hadn’t been invented.”

 

[Rider1260]

On single coil guitars I have always set the gain high and lowered the Vol to taste ( or not for the Trower , Jeff Beck kinda tones )
The Silver Sky also responds really well to small pickup height adjustments to fine tune the guitar to your sound

 

[Alnus Rubra]

“Les, when you were in high school, the wheel hadn’t been invented.”

“When I was in high school, high school hadn’t been invented.”

That darn Mammoth tusk abacus!

 

[Tonart]

The inherent tone of the guitar, ie the way the the string vibrates on that particular guitar, is really the be all and end all.

The rest is tweaking the electronics.

 

[Jkater]

The inherent tone of the guitar, ie the way the the string vibrates on that particular guitar, is be really the be all and end all.

The rest is tweaking the electronics.

Including (gasp!) swapping pups if nothing really seems to accommodate one's taste. I'm not there yet but this is certainly not out of the question because this guitar has something special regardless of the electronics that I want to tap into and make it perfect.

 

[Tonart]

Including (gasp!) swapping pups if nothing really seems to accommodate one's taste. I'm not there yet but this is certainly not out of the question because this guitar has something special regardless of the electronics that I want to tap into and make it perfect.

Yes as good as the singer is, you still need a good microphone to duplicate the singer’s voice. A bad pickup leaves too much lost in translation, or just lost.

 

[Tonart]

Great guitar played acoustically = Steve Perry belting in the bathroom

Great guitar amplified with bad pickups / amp = Steve Perry with 1920’s mic

Great guitar amplified with great pickups / amp = Journey Greatest Hits

 

[Steve Dombroski]

I put jumbo frets in mine and a seymour duncan lil '59 single coil sized humbucker in the bridge...it's one of my favorite guitars I've owned.

 

[Jkater]

I put jumbo frets in mine and a seymour duncan lil '59 single coil sized humbucker in the bridge...it's one of my favorite guitars I've owned.

I know I could just measure but I'll ask. The SS pups have the same size as other strat pups and could be swapped easily? one of the great things about strats is how easy it is to swap electronics without having to unsolder much.