How to make your lead parts/solos stand out?

[GDPunkRock]

Hello guys,
I've been trying to think of how to get my lead sound to stand out more when playing with my 3 piece band and would love some advice!

I mainly play alternative rock and occassionally some metal and kinda wanted to have a lead and rhythm sound, so I was wondering what effect/s I could get to have this flexibility. I was considering getting a good,single delay pedal to add some flavour to my sound when playing lead and I could turn that off while playing rhythm parts. What do you guys think??

 

[zesn]

Sure, your delay will add flavour, but it still won't help you stand out.
If used incorrectly, you'll risk the whole band not sounding 'tight'.
Lead and rhythm sound,
use a boost pedal and/or EQ pedal to kick into lead section?
Increase the volume and clarity frequencies for lead.

IMO some scooped lead tones really can't cut through.
I would prefer to add more mids.

 

[GDPunkRock]

hello zesn,thanks for the quick reply! actually i think i might've used the wrong word to describe what i was looking for.i wanted to say "stand out" as in sound differently rather than in terms of volume.
you know,to add variety to our very limitied sound. i actually only play with an amp + guitar right now, so i'm kinda interested in adding maybe a pedal to help to achieve variety
might you have any recommendations?

 

[AaronSoFat]

eq pedal. what i do is i model a lead tone with my blackstar pedal. then from there it feeds into an ge-7 with a scooped mid. volume doesn't change. but tone does. it becomes more treblish and might sound irritating without a band but with the band it'll sound pretty cool. Be sure to try to take recordings or something to hear how the overall eq of the band sounds just in case.


Edit. Should've been clearer. eq scoops so it becomes a more rhythm sound and switch off the eq you get a solo sound. thats the generic picture

 

[zesn]

^^^^^^^^
what AaronSoFat has said.

you wanna make your lead tone more 'colourful' then go ahead and try reverbs,delays,chorus,phasers,flangers.
All the modulation stuff then.

 

[GDPunkRock]

oh cool.does a eq pedal work kind of like a second set of eq when used with my amp?like i literally have two sounds to work with now if the i set the eq differently from the amp?

anyways, regarding pedals, i have to see it from a very economoical viewpoint too.i'd like to get if possible only one pedal to solve my needs. my amp at home actually has built in effects, but i can't access them with a footswitch, so i can't turn it on/off like a foot pedal

may i know where u got ur blackstar eq from aaron?maybe go try it one day

 

[lemonade93]

Aside from an EQ Pedal, you can also get a multi-effect, all the colours you need haha. The Boss GT-10 and the ME70 has a harmoniser in it, and if you use the MFX, you can use the SAME SOUND with a diff EQ using a diff bank in 1 of your preset channels

 

[AaronSoFat]

oh cool.does a eq pedal work kind of like a second set of eq when used with my amp?like i literally have two sounds to work with now if the i set the eq differently from the amp?

anyways, regarding pedals, i have to see it from a very economoical viewpoint too.i'd like to get if possible only one pedal to solve my needs. my amp at home actually has built in effects, but i can't access them with a footswitch, so i can't turn it on/off like a foot pedal

may i know where u got ur blackstar eq from aaron?maybe go try it one day

oh lol. sorry wasn't clear in the first post. blackstar ht-dual is a distortion pedal. so i shaped that tone to be a lead tone then the signal runs into a boss ge-7. so normally ht-dual on is solo, click the ge-7 riff, click the ge-7 again it's on the solo again. go for multi-efx. much more budget than you would actually think... I bought all single pedals now i think spent a total of 1.5k at least. a pod hd500 will get you to sound better than me with 500 bucks

 

[carboxymoron]

The most economical viewpoint is that it's all in the fingers. Change pickups and dig in harder for lead.

 

[J.custom]

The most economical viewpoint is that it's all in the fingers. Change pickups and dig in harder for lead.

^ What he says. But you might wanna consider a mid range boost, most of the time it helps to cut through the mix better. However, do take note that adding too much mids may cause your tone to be a little muddier than you like.

Another tool you can use is a wah/phaser which gives your tone great vocal like qualities.

 

[J.custom]

The most economical viewpoint is that it's all in the fingers. Change pickups and dig in harder for lead.

^ What he says. But you might wanna consider a mid range boost, most of the time it helps to cut through the mix better. However, do take note that adding too much mids may cause your tone to be a little muddier than you like.

Another tool you can use is a wah/phaser which gives your tone great vocal like qualities.

 

[GDPunkRock]

hey all thanks for the replies!very interesting to read through all the options available to me.
however,i've had experience(very little though - only 3 or so days to play around) with multi effects,namely the Zoom G2.1U unit and found that it's quite troublesome to come up with patches.

i mean, the amount that you can tweak for each parameter, for each effects all-in-all is quite overwhelming, so i kind of find it difficult to get a good sound. maybe difficult is not the word...but it takes quite some time to be familiar with every single effect,and amp model on your unit. but i'm not really one to say though, only borrowed a friend's one to try and use the online manual for help

another thing is, i'm a very lazy lazy guy, so i was thinking of getting just one effect or pedal so i won't be tweaking so much. although i can see the convenience in switching patches at one step of a button in multi fx's
ps: the first thing i did on my fren's g2.1u was kope some settings that other people put online and try. only made 1 or 2 satisfactory patches myself after hours of scrolling through different combinations.

 

[dudelove]

Its very simple. If you have a rhythm guitarist, tell him to play less, and play stuff that don't intrude your solo. If the rhythm guitar plays alot and very loud it'll sound like a huge mess and your solo will get drowned out. The most effective way of standing out is to be louder, so a very simple clean boost pedal is enough. Step on it and you'll be way above the mix, loud and clear.

 

[GDPunkRock]

hey dudelove,i can understand what you mean by making myself louding will stand out more.but i think for me,it's more of adding flavor/effects to my sound then changing my eq/vol. i'm more of a if i'm gonna go into my solo, i just wanna press one button and immediately it sounds differnet from my rhythm playing

was browsing through some of the boss me series on youtube and looking at demos.i think if i were to get a multi effects,i'd probably just get a cheap one with good effects.

with me,i think it's always more of effects then amp simulation because i got a normal digital amp at home,so i'm thinking of it as - if I'm at a gig,using the amp there,and i can only plug in one pedal/effects unit, what effects do i apply to add spice to my playing?

 

[dudelove]

hey dudelove,i can understand what you mean by making myself louding will stand out more.but i think for me,it's more of adding flavor/effects to my sound then changing my eq/vol.

Oh then you can have lots of fun with many different effects. Get something like an M9 and experiment with different flavours of effects. I like wahs, phasers and flangers for solos.. All fun stuff..

 

[MadWerewolfBoy]

delays and reverbs, the more the merrier. and if you add too much, it might get epic! =P

these usually make your sound more wet, so it needs a slightly greater volume boost to make your lines more present. phasers and flangers can get quite weird with certain types of lead sometimes so not a good investment.

if you want to save money, save up and get a pod hd500. if not, get a pod hd300 or 400. it's the cheapest way to try out the most popular type of pedals under $500. you won't regret, especially now with the v1.31 firmware out! the interface is so dummy proof and the modelling is so zai you might just convert and sell your pedal board and amp in the process. =D

 

[dudelove]

delays and reverbs, the more the merrier.

Gotta disagree bro. Too much delay and especially reverb will make everything very muddy and cluttered especially when using distortion. There are certain very special uses to it though, like how Neil Young turns his spring reverb on to the max and gets those extremely washed out sounds. But its very deliberate.

Phasers and flangers are tricky. You're right when you say it gets weird, that's why it takes smart note choice to make them stand out nicely.

 

[AaronSoFat]

delays and reverbs will definitely make it sound very epic though. just that it might not come out. need a volume boost if that happens.

if you're really too lazy to model patches you could just get any multi effects look online for patches then just program it into your multi effects. at the end of the day it's easier than using single pedals especially on stage. I'm doing some kung fu shit now when i wanna switch off compressor and distortion and switch on my acoustic simulator. or when i'm kicking in a solo and have to side kick my ge-7 off and reverb on.

 

[lemonade93]

I like the traditional delay or wah for my leads . Can't go wrong with a wah pedal . But like I said, get a MFX, you won't regret it. The G2u is diff cause it only has 2 buttons, so you're abit pressed for choies cause you scroll through the effects one by one, but if you were to get the HD300, you have a bigger unit, so much more ease in making patches and editing them. Seriously-ness. Check out the HD300 lah, it's pretty straightforward. My first MFX was the Korg AX3000G, loved it and I think you will too

 

[GDPunkRock]

damn,the pod 300HD looks and sounds really great.only problem i have with it,it looks quite large and i wonder if it's heavy.price is also kinda out of my budget. hoping, but not limiting myself to something around 300SGD? are there any compact size multi-effects like zoom-size but with line 6 quality modelling? i think i'm asking for too much here haha,but just trying my luck.
another thing i wanna ask is, how important is a built in expression pedal on a multi effects unit? i'm curious because with what little time i spent with the zoom g2.1u, i find that i didn't use that much. i might be limiting myself here, but i try not to play with adjustable effects.i only mainly switch between patches on my effects unit as i feel that controlling the module i use on the fly overwhelms me,especially when im not really that good of a guitar player so i try to keep things simple on effects i use,so i can still focus on my playing.
sorry guys for so many queries, just wanna know my stuff clearly before i jump into anything!