Few terms have caused as many rivers of ink as indie. Is it simply a way of doing things? Does it become a genre? Did it start out as one thing and now it’s another? What’s indie and what’s alternative? Will indie solve the climate crisis? Is it dead or is it neither created nor destroyed and only transformed? I’m afraid, dear reader, you’ll have to look elsewhere for those answers. Here we have it more or less clear, we are referring to a very concrete sound: the one that was created by (mostly American) bands since the mid ’80s around small independent labels that had relative levels of popularity (Matador, K, Merge) and that has one foot in the (Velvet) Underground, another in the second wave of American punk and the ears set in the “4 Bs” (Beatles, Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers, Big Star). We are talking, of course, about bands like Pavement, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Yo La Tengo and The Pixies. Pristine melodies and certainly naive and lo-fi sentiments, but also distortion, speed and force. This mixture of calm and storm is surely the most characteristic feature of the sound we are looking for. A sound that, speaking of guitars, you will have to generate especially from the pedals and the amplifier. But, well, by now you know: even the way you wear your guitar counts. So take out your plaid shirts, don’t bother combing your hair and sing like Lou Barlow: Gimme indie rock!
If there is a guitar that is characteristic of the sound we are looking for, it is the Fender Jazzmaster, used by people like Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo (video above), Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth or J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr., who, by the way, developed with Fender one of the most celebrated signature models. But it is not the only one: there was Peter Buck (from REM ) with a Rickenbacker, D Boon (from Minutemen) with a Telecaster, Kurt Cobain (Nirvana) with a hybrid of Jaguar and Mustang, Joey Santiago (The Pixies) with a Gibson Les Paul, Frank Black (also from The Pixies) with a Mustang. What we mean is that, given the breadth of references covered by this type of sound, it can be reached through practically any guitar. However, there are certain details that are worth taking into account.
Although it is usually recommended to set the pitch and volume potentiometers to 10, we have to take into account that the sound we are after is often based on changes in intensity (something that was taken from a combination of Hüsker Dü and The Pixies, referring to THIS), which will force us, once we have found our distortion, to use the volume potentiometer, since it is the one we have closest to us while playing. Finally, when choosing your guitar you have to take into account, obviously, what kind of sound you have in mind. Mainly because of the pickups.
Amplitube X Gear X Drive Distortion Pedal
The single coil pickups are the oldest in history and are characterized by a bright, round and warm sound. The problem is that they can causes a constant buzz when you play at high volumes. We must resort to them when looking for a clean and smoothly distorted sound. A sound like the one we find in the less noisy songs of Yo La Tengo, for example THIS.
To correct this buzz, humbuckers (or double-wound pickups) were developed. When two single coils are connected in a particular way, the hum disappears. And not just the sound: a certain brightness of sound disappears as well, which turns into something more full and powerful. Plugged into the amplifier with the same volume as the single coil, the humbucker sounds much louder. That’s why we’ll use them when we want to make a good racket. Something like THIS.
Another option to get the variety of intensities we mentioned before would be to have a guitar with both types of pickups and to play with the selector. Because, friends, in indie rock there are many different styles meshed into one.
I Finally Have My Pedalboard Completed And Am Still Playing About With Settings. I'd Love To Hear Any Recommendations For Pedal Combinations With Settings Etc. I Play Alt Melodic Rock, Shoegaze, Indie
Let’s be honest: there is no element in your gear that will determine your approach to the sound we are looking for more than the pedals. But is a fuzz or a distortion the same as an overdrive? What do I use each one for? Well, let’s take it one step at a time.
If we’re talking about saturation pedals, the oldest ones are fuzz. Their sound, rich in harmonics, resembles the buzzing of a hornet, and is characteristic of psychedelic rock (another of the sources from which alternative rock drinks, reminiscent, for example, of Screaming Trees). The fuzz reproduces the sound of a defective amplifier and allows us to lengthen and give presence to single notes or chords. There are dozens of models, but the ones we put up here are sure options: the Electro Harmonix Green Russian Big Muff Fuzz, the Electro Harmonix Big Muff PI USA or the Dunlop Jimi Hendrix Fuzz Face. Having said that, tell me: would you like to sound like this?
Besides a reverb and an overdrive (which we will see later), the key to that wall-of-sound that J Mascis builds is in his fuzz. To do this, we must set the volume potentiometer to two o’clock, the tone to one o’clock and the sustain (time that a note, played only once, can continue to sound until it stops being audible) to full blast. With this predominance of the sustain we will create a wall of distortion, configured by the different notes when stacked together. For a sound like the one achieved by John Frusciante in Wet Sand’s solo we would keep the sustain at full power and lower the volume and tone even more (around 11 o’clock), to turn down the sound a little bit.
Exploring The World Of Distortion Pedals: A Comprehensive Guide
The overdrive pedal, on the other hand, emulates the overdrive effect of a tube amplifier at maximum volume: the amplified signal exceeds the capacity of the tubes and that deforms the sound wave, in a smoother way than the fuzz and the distortion pedal. It is clear, then, that we will use it to provide different degrees of distortion. These three examples you have above are three very interesting models: the Wampler Plexi Drive Deluxe, for example, is often used by J Mascis; the Alexander Pedals Jubilee Silver is often used by John Frusciante with both Red Hot Chili Peppers and solo, and the Fulltone OCD Overdrive V2, you can often hear it with Thurston Moore. Let’s take this last pedal as a reference. In Bull in the Heather, for example, there is a second guitar with an overdrive that we can get by setting the volume and drive (the amount of signal to which the effect is applied) to 11 o’clock and the tone a little stronger, to two-three o’clock. By adding a compressor pedal, it creates the perfect counterpoint to the first guitar. In the famous opening track of Dinosaur Jr.‘s Feel the Pain, for example, we can hear the smoothness of an overdrive, in this case with the tone at full throttle (to generate presence) and with the gain and volume between the two and three o’clock. One more thing before finishing with the distortion pedals: there is another possibility to raise the signal and saturate the amplifier. We are talking about the booster.
And now we come to the distortion pedals. They are, so to speak, between the overdrive and the fuzz. Although modern tube amplifiers can easily distort, a pedal will help us to achieve a specific sound and to manipulate it more easily. About the sound we are looking for, the distortion pedal is used when we are looking for more aggressiveness and intensity, and that’s what the four beasts up here are about. Let us introduce you (although you probably know most of them already): the Boss DS-2, the DS-1, the Proco Rat 2 and the MXR Distortion +. And if we’re talking about aggression, intensity, and alternative rock that’s a little harder… we’re clearly talking about Nirvana. The DS-1, for example, owes much of its popularity to the fact that Cobain (and also Novoselic, who used it to dirty his bass) carried it around with him everywhere. There’s the riff of In Bloom. To get that nuance, we’ll have to set the tone and level to half and the distortion potentiometer to full. On the In Utero tour, Cobain gave the DS-2 a lot of attention. Some proof can be found in the guitar of Heart Shaped Box, with a rawness that we will get by placing the level and tone at 11 o’clock, the distortion at full and the turbo in the middle. The Proco Rat is one of the most used pedals in grunge, but curiously Cobain only used it in Territorial Pissings. How? Well, it’s very easy: set the filter and volume between 9 and 11 o’clock and, of course, set the distortion at full throttle. See? That’s why they said Nirvana songs could
The overdrive pedal, on the other hand, emulates the overdrive effect of a tube amplifier at maximum volume: the amplified signal exceeds the capacity of the tubes and that deforms the sound wave, in a smoother way than the fuzz and the distortion pedal. It is clear, then, that we will use it to provide different degrees of distortion. These three examples you have above are three very interesting models: the Wampler Plexi Drive Deluxe, for example, is often used by J Mascis; the Alexander Pedals Jubilee Silver is often used by John Frusciante with both Red Hot Chili Peppers and solo, and the Fulltone OCD Overdrive V2, you can often hear it with Thurston Moore. Let’s take this last pedal as a reference. In Bull in the Heather, for example, there is a second guitar with an overdrive that we can get by setting the volume and drive (the amount of signal to which the effect is applied) to 11 o’clock and the tone a little stronger, to two-three o’clock. By adding a compressor pedal, it creates the perfect counterpoint to the first guitar. In the famous opening track of Dinosaur Jr.‘s Feel the Pain, for example, we can hear the smoothness of an overdrive, in this case with the tone at full throttle (to generate presence) and with the gain and volume between the two and three o’clock. One more thing before finishing with the distortion pedals: there is another possibility to raise the signal and saturate the amplifier. We are talking about the booster.
And now we come to the distortion pedals. They are, so to speak, between the overdrive and the fuzz. Although modern tube amplifiers can easily distort, a pedal will help us to achieve a specific sound and to manipulate it more easily. About the sound we are looking for, the distortion pedal is used when we are looking for more aggressiveness and intensity, and that’s what the four beasts up here are about. Let us introduce you (although you probably know most of them already): the Boss DS-2, the DS-1, the Proco Rat 2 and the MXR Distortion +. And if we’re talking about aggression, intensity, and alternative rock that’s a little harder… we’re clearly talking about Nirvana. The DS-1, for example, owes much of its popularity to the fact that Cobain (and also Novoselic, who used it to dirty his bass) carried it around with him everywhere. There’s the riff of In Bloom. To get that nuance, we’ll have to set the tone and level to half and the distortion potentiometer to full. On the In Utero tour, Cobain gave the DS-2 a lot of attention. Some proof can be found in the guitar of Heart Shaped Box, with a rawness that we will get by placing the level and tone at 11 o’clock, the distortion at full and the turbo in the middle. The Proco Rat is one of the most used pedals in grunge, but curiously Cobain only used it in Territorial Pissings. How? Well, it’s very easy: set the filter and volume between 9 and 11 o’clock and, of course, set the distortion at full throttle. See? That’s why they said Nirvana songs could
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