Help me with this amp and guitar

Graham

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crate15amp.jpg

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So I have this at my disposal to play around with and I tried that today. To be honest I have no idea what I'm doing and I don't know what the knobs and dials on the amp or the guitar are supposed to do. I didn't go at it for more than 15 minutes but I did manage to play the opening riff to Smoke on the Water, seeing how it's only three power chords. I did get quite a bit of distortion going at one point.
 

fungusyoung

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Cool! Looks like a Tommy Iommi signature model SG.

The guitar has 2 tone knobs and 2 volume knobs. The ones to the front control the neck pick up (warmer, bassier) and the rear ones control the bridge pup (snappier, brighter... more prone to leads or distortion). The switch should allow you to toggle between bridge pup, neck pup or the middle setting is for both. The middle is fun to play around with on guitars like this because you can adjust the volume of each pick up to get nice blends between the two. The bridge pup alone will immediately make you a rock star if you're looking to make some crunchy racket.

I'm not familiar with the Crate amp, but if you want distortion there should be a gain dial or channel on there somewhere. The amp might have two channels, one for "clean" and another for "gain" or effects. If so, there should be a switch on it so you can check out both. Play around on the knobs a bit and you should get some fun tones.

Turn it up, and kick out the jams!
 

Graham

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Thanks Fungus, it is an Iommi, I bought it for my son a few years back when he was playing. He doesn't touch it much now. :(

So I should be able to get a very clean tone from just the neck PUP if I wanted to play around with some jazz type stuff?

The amp does have a gain knob and an overdrive button.

One thing I found was a lot of crackle and "interference?" as I moved the guitar around. I'm thinking that could be a bad cable?

I'll have to set this guitar out so that it's more available and plug in some headphones so I can just play with it.
 

fungusyoung

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Graham said:
So I should be able to get a very clean tone from just the neck PUP if I wanted to play around with some jazz type stuff?

Absolutely. I'd try a blend of the neck and bridge, with the volume knob turned down quite a bit on the bridge too.



Graham said:
One thing I found was a lot of crackle and "interference?" as I moved the guitar around. I'm thinking that could be a bad cable?

The cable is my best guess too. Interference is odd because that guitar has humbuckers... single coils pick up all sorts of things in my house, everything from lights being turned on/off, appliances, etc., but buckers are usually pretty quiet. Check it out with another chord. If that doesn't do it, try each pick up alone with the amp dialed in completely clean so you'll know if its the electronics.
 

Graham

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What I am finding is the neck pickup doesn't seem very responsive. If I have the control set for both PUPs, there is a lot of volume available for the bridge one, but very little for the neck one. Is that how it's supposed to be?

Had some fun this afternoon playing with Wonderful Tonight. Bending strings and such is all new to me. As well as the very skinny neck. Kinda cool though. 8)
 

fungusyoung

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Graham said:
What I am finding is the neck pickup doesn't seem very responsive. If I have the control set for both PUPs, there is a lot of volume available for the bridge one, but very little for the neck one. Is that how it's supposed to be?


There definitely should not be a huge difference in output although the bridge pup will have more shimmer, bite & gain when cranked up a bit. Have you turned the volume up way more on the neck while turning down the knob that controls the bridge?

It could be some sort of wiring or shielding issue that I'd be out of my league addressing. I seriously doubt anything is wrong with the pup itself.
 
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