Comments on: Color Me… Transparent

By: goofydawg

goofydawg — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:55:51 +0000

Vibrato, my friend, it’s vibrato. Once I lost the inherent sustain “crutch” with my overdrive and compressor pedals, I really had to focus on vibrato techniques, of which there are several. Here’s a pretty good tutorial that I found on the web that’ll get you started:

http://www.cyberfret.com/techniques/vibrato/index.php

To be honest, what really got me away from relying on my pedals was laziness. I had just finished a gig, but wanted to work on a new song, and I didn’t want to hook up my pedal board. When I heard how I was playing, and even though I knew how to do vibrato, I said, “Oh crap! That sounds horrid.” So I started really emphasizing my held notes with vibrato. Then I really started focusing on holding my chords and wiggling my strings while fretting chords to get more out of them as well. The end result is that I’m feeling much more confident about my playing.

By: 56lp

56lp — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:41:04 +0000

Nice topic in this article! I am like Cody and have gotten used to the natural distortion of a good tube amp. I rarely use distortion pedals now.

Goofydawg is probably using the vibrato technique with his left hand finger to keep the string vibrating for increased sustain.

By: Cody

Cody — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:56:39 +0000

Great article! I may be on the opposite side of the spectrum as your friend…I have a hard time using my Tubescreamer because of the midrange hump. Once the fullness of my basic amp tone disappears slightly, I feel I am missing something, and I think that carries through to my confidence while playing. Interestingly though, I don’t really mind a pedal that adds a little more bass or oomph to the sound of my amp.

Just curious, how do you “eek out as much sustain from your guitar using just your fingers”? Any tips?