Scott Henderson Discussion

[Vinchan]

I always seem to have a shitty tone, not because of shitty equipments, but because my eq'ing sucks.

I used to mimic eq setting for whatever pro I like was using..but the approach never worked because of equipment used, room acoustics and etc. For instance, I saw Mike Landau was setting his dumble like bass knob at 8, and I tried the same with my Les Paul and Fender amps, and it sounds like fat guy shitting in his pants.

Now I get more sense and importance of proper eq and things, but I still get either too thin or too woofy farty tone. Usually I feel that "oh I need to take that bass off or add treble" etc, but never find good "balance" of those, especially when I combine with other pedals which adds more variables.

Any advice for training good sense of eq and getting the most out of a rig?

[Scott Henderson]

I learned a lot from listening to albums and comparing my tone to other guitarists - not to copy them, but to compare the amount of bass, mid, and treble in their sound to mine. This also applies to type and amount of FX, mixing levels between guitar/ bass/ drums, panning, layering, and everything else. Once you've listened enough to good sounding albums, you learn what sounds good and what doesn't - a lot of it is experience. I've released a lot of stuff that doesn't sound that good, but I've learned along the way.

I've also been fortunate to work with some great engineers - it was invaluable to see how they work. Even though there's still a lot of stuff I can't do by myself, like EQ bass and drums, I have a much better knowledge of it than I used to.

Even though good tone is mostly in your fingers, good gear is helpful. I play through really simple, one channel amps - I like old amps or clones of them. I also keep the recording chain simple - guitar to pedal, pedal to amp, using very short Mogami cables. Some recent improvements in the sound of my albums is recording at 96k and recording the project onto ½ inch tape before mastering.

I just did a video for MyMusicMasterclass about how to get good tone in the studio - it's extremely thorough and I'm in the process of editing it. Hopefully it'll be out in a few months.

[Vinchan]

Thanks for your time to write about it.
I saw that your new videos coming out, and I'm really looking forward to checking out once it gets released.

loved your blues videos, and watching it almost every week to get principles and ideas.

Thanks again for spending your time to share wisdom to us through this forum.