Playing guitar solo's completely dry with minimum gain.

[jgcable]

Its challenging. I have been devoted to a Fender Pro Junior and a Nashville Deluxe Telecaster for the last 3 days working on my solo chops. Completely dry with minimum gain. What I noticed is when I play progressive metal using my 5150-II or my Randall RM100 /12 stacks with my Intellifex in the loop set on a very nice delay with tons and tons of gain I can pull off just about anything. I am trying to play those licks with a Telecaster and a completely dry Pro Junior with maybe 25% of the gain and its not easy. Its not about hitting the notes cleanly. Its more about making the notes sustain naturally and smoothly. I sound alot more choppy playing clean. The smoothness is lacking. I also notice its more about messing with the guitar volume knob and varying my pick attack. When you play with a ton of gain and delay a volume knob isn't even necessary.
I seem to be getting better but its very challenging.

The lack of gain and the lack of delay or reverb are really messing with me. To give you an idea of the amount of gain I am talking about figure about 1/2 as much gain as Angus Young uses. Its almost clean and if I lighten up the pick attack enough it almost sounds clean.

Do any of you guys play dry with minimal gain?

[Grim]

When I play jazz

[straycat]

When I try to learn a new chop I do it dry with my strat on a clean channel.

[horns666]

I play completely dry..it's much tighter..even for metal.

Also my favorite amp in my Marshall JMP-1 and Rack..which seems not nearly enough gain for most metal guys. I never found a prob with it. As you know, my other amp is an Uberschall..but I really prefer the Marshall for most things.

[Hellbat]

This is the reason guys who play with clean tones generally use compressors, to even out and add some sustain. If it's not being compressed at the front end, chances are it's being done at the back.

[Twitch]

I dont do all that great with gobs of distortion and sustain, so kudos to you good sir for getting that far on the clean channel.

[tonemonster]

I dont play dry, but close. just enough to get some "dimension" to my sound. but I play with plenty of gain. I just like fundamental guitar tone. not alot of FX on it. but I likes my gain.

[VitaminG]

I play with varying amounts of gain but always dry. Occasional smattering of chorus on clean rhythms, not usually on solos.

Used to use a bit of delay occasionally on solos, but the RM100 doesn't play nice with any of my delay pedals so for the last couple of years haven't used any at all.

It's funny though - am currently awaiting arrival of a new delay pedal. So while you're weening off it, I'm geetting right back on it.

[markD]

i play dry and clean almost all the time at home. it took a while to get used to it. i have found that i get more sustain from trying different pick up positions. these days i am almost completely a strat player. i have found some magical tones from the middle pick up. of the neck pick up sustains well, but there are a lot of great tones in the middle. playing a tele can be a challenge because the range of tones on the pick ups is EXTREME. the bridge pick up is great for hard, snappy tones and the neck pick up is great for muted, jazzier runs. the nashville tele adds the strat pick up in the middle right?

anyway, the sustain is there, it is just a bit different. notes will ring, but they won't hold a long time. it's hard to explain. with a tele, that may not be a bad idea. it may make your tone a little more "country" than "blues" though. notes will pop and sustain, but it will feel "fake" for the lack of a better term....

[Hellbat]

My favorite position on a strat is the "2" position with the bridge and middle pickup. Probably because it's closer to a humbucker in tone...

[Chief_CrazyTalk]

I bought a 52ri tele a few years ago because it was so different than what I was used to. Tiny frets and a very sticky 7.25" radius fretboard. It doesn't seem to take to distortion well, to my ears, but does sound good with some gain. I only use the bridge pup and really only use this guitar to practice with using a cleaner tone. It doesn't see a lot of use, honestly, but I like it to slow down with occasionally and go back to basics. I think it's helped me.

I've found that I hate delays these days. I've tried a few over the last few years and always ended up selling them after a few days. The only thing I use is a boost, and that's off with the tele...and some amp reverb. I can't really get a "clean" sound with my amp but with the gain backed off it's a nice change. It's also pretty cool playing my main HB guitars like this. You can do so much with gain, this is a nice change and seems to help me hear things I normally don't.

[Mr Sandman]

I use a clean tone when I`m looking for new things on the guitar...
I normally sit down for an hour or so before I start playing and just noodle around looking for new things. (and I mean things on the guitar that I have`nt found yet)

I use heaps of gain and delay when I`m playing though. I use a tap delay and tap it in to the beat of whatever song I`m playing. It would trick alot of people into not noticing that there is any delay used at all... I`m just a bedroom player though lol

[BenoA]

I play completely dry..it's much tighter..even for metal.
...which seems not nearly enough gain for most metal guys. I never found a prob with it.

Same here. Don't know if it's the age but the older I get, the "less" gain I use.

[MakeAJazzNoiseHere]

5 metal zones and a wah wah all the way, baby.

[Shawn Lutz]

I use less and less gain these days. I've always played fairly dry and hate players overusing gain, delay and reverb.For some reason guitars think it makes them sound better but to me I can't stand it