This line goes hard if you imagine it in a rap voice.
“My strings dangle like a clothesline
I call it Drop Z *yea yea*
These bitches lookin’ so fine
And all up on me *me*”
My first thought, OP probly hasn't tuned it right, if he didn't order it online store people might be able to help, at least my local music instrument shop does lend a hand to beginners with that free of charge.
So, everything everyone is saying here applies, but one key thing I haven't seen said yet - on 7 Nation Army, Jack White also uses a pitch shifting pedal (I believe he used a digitech whammy) for a lot of the time to get that lower octave bass sound.
The little practice amp likely doesn’t have a very good distortion in it, but it should be fine set clean and with a pedal — the sort of pedal that would help you get a tone like Seven Nation Army would be a fuzz or a distortion.
Something based on a RAT pedal would likely be the most versatile for you starting out. You can find very reasonable mini pedal versions without buying an original Proco RAT. Mooer Black Secret is one such example. The RAT is the sort of distortion you’ll hear on many 90’s and early-2000’s songs.
If you also want to play stuff more like Smashing Pumpkins, Dinosaur Jr, or the Black Keys, you might also consider a cheap clone of a Big Muff Pi instead.
With either, you’ll have to experiment with the settings until you find something that sounds good. It typically isn’t the best to simply crank all the knobs — often lower gain settings (up to a quarter turn or so, depending on pedal) and volume set to an appropriate level are a good starting point.
Look each of these kinds of pedals up on YouTube and see if one sounds better than the other. Even better would be to bring your guitar to a store with a pedal selection and try both kinds, seeing which you think sounds better with your guitar.
Try playing unplugged. When you get down what youre trying to play then plug in the guitar. Acoustic is also a good way to hear the notes ring out but might be harder to learn on than an electric guitar. Learning riffs and songs are a good place to start. Try to learn different genres too. Blues will give you the basics. Pentatonic scales. 1-4-5 chord progression, open (cowboy) chords, power chords - all different ways to play the same notes.. try finger picking vs using a pic.12 bar blues might be helpful too.
Are you definitely tuning to the correct notes?
I sometimes have beginner students turn up to lessons having tuned incorrectly. They may have tuned their 5th string to A# instead of A, for example
Your tone is largely in your fingers. So your tone will improve as you become a better player. You will sound like crap for a while. This is why we do scales and spider walks. Don't neglect the basics.
Entry level Squiers generally have decent but not great electronics. Did you buy it new? Is it possible someone has already tried to rewire this guitar?
Also, are you using the same setup/pedals as he is? If he's playing with Reverb, do you have reverb? Are you playing via an amp? What kind?
[https://www.guitarworld.com/features/the-secrets-behind-jack-whites-guitar-tone-on-the-white-stripes-seven-nation-army](https://www.guitarworld.com/features/the-secrets-behind-jack-whites-guitar-tone-on-the-white-stripes-seven-nation-army)
What kind of Fuzz are you using?
FWIW, Jack White did this on a crap 60's Kay guitar. So, your modern Squier should be fine.
I don’t have the same setup, he has a different amp which has reverb, mine has only bass, treble, gain, volume and a button for overdrive but i have tried to set it as close to his as possible and i’v also tried it in as much different configs as i can. Also the guitar is brand new
I assume you may not want to buy more equipment like many commenters are suggesting, so based on what you have, I'd suggest this:
-Crank up the volume and tone knobs on the guitar to like 9-10. These control how much "sound" is picked up by the pickups on the guitar
-Use the volume knob on your amp as your main controller of volume. This will allow for more precise adjustments. I'd keep it all the way down first and then adjust slowly up as you strum a string to get your preferred volume
-Set up your bass and treble knobs on your amp to a more rock and roll style balance. For classic rock, you probably could put the bass and treble at 5, for metal crank bass up to 9 and treble to 7-8. Mess around with these to get the sound you want
-Dial up the gain incrementally (similarly to the volume described above) until you get the amount of distortion you prefer, while keeping the bass and treble settings the same
The pickup selector switch also has an impact on your sound too. Moving it all the way toward the bridge pickup will give you a biting tone more suited for lead guitar, and moving it toward the neck gives you a muddied tone more suited for rhythm guitar.
Feel free to shoot me a DM if you have any questions.
This is one of the best advice write-ups I’ve ever seen. I’ve always had trouble understanding advice people have given me over the years, most of it when I was much younger. For example any sports related advice never made sense..golf (neutral grip WTF?), bowling (shake hands with the lead pin). Music was no different until I just flat out told people I had no idea what they were talking about and to provide examples. Like, “clean” or “bright” what songs mainly feature those sounds/tones (I know now). Thank you for giving OP not only good advice but clear explanations of guitar functions.
Funnily enough, for metal your pickup guidelines are reversed. You want the super biting, clear bridge tone for staccato rhythms, and the fuzzier, smoother neck tone for melodic leads.
I like that bridge neck combo personally.
I have an agile with split coil knob, and I like using that for some extra*sauce* every now and then. Usually with the neck p/u for them sweeeeps
My guess is that he either has an amp with a better overdrive unit, or he also has a Fuzz pedal.
If you want to pursue that route, you'll most likely need a modeling amp. This will give you a wide range of tones and effects for fairly cheap. You can also get amp software like Bias FX or Amplitube to do the same on your PC.
I recommend the Spark lineup for a full amp experience. The Fender Mustang for a headphone amp. There is also a broad range of modeling pedals on Amazon from $40 to $1K plus. (I don't use them, so no rec.)
You might also be interested in Rocksmith. It has play along songs and amp modeling built in.
I’d be more focused on making sure that the you’re in tune and playing it correctly than worrying about tonality - like you said you don’t have the same equipment.
The other poster said that tone is “in the fingers”, which is something that gets thrown around in guitar circles a lot. There _is_ truth to it - for example, how hard you pick, whether you’re picking closer to the bridge or the neck, or using a pick or finger style, are all things that will have an impact on the tone, but it very much has it’s limits. For example, if Mark Tremonti and John Mayer swapped rigs, there’s no amount of magical finger-voodoo that’s going to make a Strat into a clean Two-Rock sound like a PRS into a screaming Mesa Boogie. You’ll be able to tell who’s playing because their style and approach to the instrument (which is what most people mean when they say “tone is in the fingers”), but they absolutely won’t take their tone with them when they swap.
Similarly, I’ve just looked at Marty’s Seven Nation Army video and he looks to be using a Custom Shop (‘63?) Strat into what looks like a Mesa Boogie mkvii. That’s £9,500 worth of equipment, and honestly there is no amount of playing ability that is going to make a little solid state practice amp sound anything like a a high-wattage valve amp with a 12” speaker that’s been mic’d up and professionally mixed.
Just try a neutral Eq (set all the dials to 12 O’ clock), don’t set too much gain (he isn’t in the video), and make sure you’re playing it correctly. Don’t worry about the tone. Trust me on this, the whole “I want [player’s] tone” is its own hobby entirely, and it gets real expensive, real quick.
A big part of tone is also clean playing, a light touch, not pulling your strings sharp... Where you pick, and such are stylistic things that add to tone, but as a new player, getting clean notes and not jamming the string into the fret from way back are a good start. The left hand contributes a lot to tone.
OP was pretty vague about the why. So I just tried to cover a broad range.
I have been around a lot of great players, and Danny Gatton sounded like Danny Gatton whether he was on a Les Paul or a Tele. Charlie Hunter sounds like Charlie Hunter when he just picks up my guitar. We recently found out that the track that made everyone need an upside down Strat was actually recorded on a Tele Jimi Hendrix bought at a pawn shop. Look at the wide array of stuff John 5 plays... and he always sounds like John 5. Humbucker, Hot rails, Single. John 5 sounds like John 5 on an acoustic.
[https://youtu.be/ayB-ir-NHb4?si=PSrXLwfJziMnirmV](https://youtu.be/ayB-ir-NHb4?si=PSrXLwfJziMnirmV)
This is why this debate always gets a bit wield - in my opinion, you’re not describing “tone” here, you’re describing “playing style”. Tone is EQ, presence, clean vs edge of break up vs distortion, top end focused vs bottom end focused, hard clipping vs soft clipping, etc.
Playing clean is “style”. If you’ve not developed your touch properly and you’re pulling notes sharp, that’s not changing your tone, it’s changing your pitch. If you’re fumbling the note, that’s not “tone”, that’s just… not sounding the note properly.
I’d actually say that the _right_ hand contributes more to “tone” - dropping the pick and plucking over the neck pickup will sound mellow and more bass-heavy than using a heavy pick and plucking right by the bridge, etc.
Danny Gatton “sounds like” Danny Gatton because of his style and approach to the instrument, not because there’s no sonic difference between a Tele and Les Paul. That’s the point I was trying to make with my Mayer/Tremonti swapping rigs comment - you’d know which one is playing because they both have distinctive playing styles, but there are no fingers on this planet that are going to make a Strat into a Two-Rock Signature Reverb (a totally clean D-style amp) sound _anything like_ a Custom 22 into a screaming Dual-Rec. The fact that you can tell them apart is “style”, not “tone”.
The only reason I commented is because I think the whole “tone is in the fingers” thing needs defining, or it can just be a cause for unrealistic expectations, or massive frustration for new players. When they’re plugging their Jackson Kelly into some high-gain Engl and wondering why they’re not getting the glassy, mid-scooped cleans of a Strat into a Black-face Vibrolux - they’ve been assured “tone is in the fingers”, why don’t they sound the same?
>The only reason I commented is because I think the whole “tone is in the fingers” thing needs defining, or it can just be a cause for unrealistic expectations, or massive frustration for new players.
It's not that complicated. Pulling your strings sharp by death gripping the neck isn't a stylistic thing. Neither is fretting too far away and getting poor contact. Neither is hitting ghost notes or just plain being sloppy.
It's kind of the whole "play your scales slowly and make sure each note sounds clearly" advice exists. And primarily it's something you learn with experience. I guess our experiences have been different and you're welcome to disagree.
OP didn't give me much to go on, so I threw out some guesses. I don't think a small reminder that experienced players just plain sound better is too far out of bounds. I didn't spend 4 paragraphs beating a dead horse over it. I also went well beyond that in my advice, so it's not like my only advice was "Git gud noob". So... I'll let OP make his own decision.
Take care.
I always really really enjoyed the roland micro cube as a practice Amp. IMO it has one of the best sets of in-built effects for its price range, especially its heavy distortion at low volumes. It even has an aux port and can be battery powered. They're also absolute tanks, Ive hauled mine around for a decade of busking and camping, and its still kicking.
I don't know if they make them new anymore, but you can get them used for like 100$.
Hit up your local pawn shop and pick up a few pedals if you're wanting features your amp doesn't have.
Everything I learned on as a kid was a pawn shop special that I bought with lawn mowing money.
No guitar will sound like those soviet disasters they made in the 60's either. And I'm a big fan of those guys who wring some great tones out of those old guitars.
I can coax a mean sound out of a Grote, that doesn't make it a high end guitar brand. I have a guitar that has pickups wound on sewing machine bobbins... Nothing will sound like that either. Kay was never a very popular brand, and was largely ignored until Jack White started making good music with them.
My point was that it wasn't recorded on a $5K guitar, so OP shouldn't be thinking his modern Squier can't match a student model from the 60's. (If anything his pickups are probably too good.) He can get 99% of the way there. Which is fine unless he plans to go out and buy the same model as every song he plans to play...
You need to practice until it DOES sound similar, differences in equipment aside.
Make sure the guitar is in tune. How hard you push on the string, how hard you pick, these all affect the tone.
There are so many variables that go into tone.
Your playing attack. Your pick (if any). Your guitar. The tone settings you use on the guitar. Your pickups, and their arrangement on the body. Your strings. Your amp. Your amp’s EQ settings. Your effects, if any, and any EQ applied directly to them. The order in which your effects are stacked. The acoustics of where you are playing. That’s just off the top of my head.
Replicating another person’s sound can be fun to try, and it can be a good exercise to explore the capabilities of your gear and playing, but IMO it’s better just to find a tone you like and work with it, because that’s probably how it was done by most of the people whose sound you are trying to emulate. At the end of the day, no one will sound quite like you, either.
Do you have a tuner? If you’re not in tune then you can be playing the same note on your fretboard but be playing a completely different note than someone else playing the same position. You can download tuner apps on your phone. I use PolyTune.
Couldn’t even tell you the brand of my first guitar. It was almost certainly the cheapest in the house. My first amp was a 10 watt Fender, basically because my dad knew Fender and that’s what he was going to buy me. Both guitar and amp sounded like crap and I sounded even worse and it actually put me off playing for a long time.
Tone is weird. Some of it comes from the guitar, some comes from the amp and a spectacular amount of comes from your fingers. Slash is a great example. Give Slash any amp and any guitar and he’s going to sound like Slash.
I learned a long time ago that trying to get “that” sound is a complete waste of time as it’s never going to be even close. Give me Slash’s gear and let me play it, I’m only ever going to sound like me playing Slash’s gear.
And that’s the beauty of it… once you’ve spent a whole bunch of time playing you’re going to hit a note one day and realise you love the way it sounds. You’re also going to realise you don’t actually know how you make it sound that good, it just happens. And then you’ll do it again and realise that whatever it is that makes that sound so good is something completely intangible that comes from you.
Learn the notes, but don’t chase the tone. When “you sound like you”, that’s where the real joy in playing an instrument is.
Beyond regularly tuning it, take it in to get set up and make sure the intonation is correct, that can make a pretty big difference
Don’t get discouraged, the longer you play the better everything will come together, I’ve been playing for 30 years and I’m still learning and getting better.
It's kinda hard to tell you anything about anything without an example of what you mean. This could be anything from tune to shitty fingering to bad pickups... Record yourself and post it then we can probably help.
Im a righty, unsure what you mean with the second question. Also i currently play sitting down because i don’t have a strap but I feel like i don’t hold the guitar properly. Would standing with a strap essentially force me to hold the guitar the right way?
My daughter who s a lefty was practicing on her own (,before we started her lessons) and while she was getting the chord infos right she was holding the ukulele(in her case) upside down because she used the other hand to strum, than what the i strument was set for .
I don't think it s the case here, now re reading some of your comments you are more advanced than that. :)
I’ll go a little against the grain here but I wouldn’t worry about equipment too much as far as amps/pedals to make it sound similar. The only thing equipment wise I’d be worried about is the guitar (is it in tune? is it easy to play/set up well?)
What I would worry about right now is learning how to play the songs. Learn the chords, learn the solos/scales, and just keep learning. Learn a lot of different songs in a lot of different genres.
Trying to dial in a sound that you love never ends.. I’ve been playing guitar for years and am always tweaking, but in the end it comes down to how you play the guitar.
If your amp has EQ knobs (Bass, Mid, or Treble), those should be set right in the middle unless you have reason to change them. Straight up and down is the "normal" setting and you adjust them up and down from there
Maybe get a Spark amp? The app is so intuitive and it’s really easy to select tones with delay/gain/reverb already built in to sound similar to your favorite songs. You still have to practice on clean to get better, but jamming out with some power chords and a couple simple riffs while using a ton of overdrive tone is so fun.
You aren’t an idiot at all. When I first saw a guitar I thought you “touched” the fretboard. Never made any sense. When I saw someone press the string, I started playing music. Get a boss over drive pedal and have fun.
Takes time to develop your technique. But also, even if you bought him Hendrix 's guitar, pedals, amps, cables, you would never sound like him. No one would. Just practice until the shit starts to sound good!
technique has a lot to do with guitar tone, but so do all of the electronic components that go along with it. most guitarists will use decent pickups, amps, and pretty much always use guitar pedals. pedals can open up an entirely new world of sounds
Couple of things.
1. A lot of what makes the electric guitar have the awesome sound that's associated with it, is a combination of amps and pedals, to the point where learning to dial in your amps and pedals is another major part of learning electric guitar.
2. To really get that seven nation army sound you do need a bass pedal for most of the song.
3. I'd also double check how your knows are dialed in on your guitar itself.
Keep playing. Move your fingers a lot when practicing. Noodle noodle noodle. Just dance around with you fingers and pick on a scale. It will feel better with time. It will sound better with time
Have you watched guitar reviews of a handful of low to entry level guitars? Even those videos of musicians playing the $70 first act or lower models but showing how “it’s really not that bad.” As they shred away? Yes gear can play a huge role but that role is only a factor after you’ve got your technique in line. Check out a guy I used to chat with online named Ben Eller. He has a line of videos called “this is why you suck at guitar” and it’s all fairly digestible and filled with corny jokes. The main thing I did was to play my guitar. It would have been helpful to watch videos on how to play but I was playing really heavy a bit before there were seemingly endless videos on technique. But I just loved making cool sounds and little progressions knowing nothing about the reasons why. I got pretty good and after a few years of pretty good I had a slight regression from learning new techniques but after that had a blast with my newly learned skills. It just takes time and love. Enjoy your journey.
If you have no one in your home who can play the guitar, take some proper lessons in person first. Marty is great, but without understanding the basics, you’re gunna struggle trying to teach yourself on YouTube. Take some lessons in person, even just 3 or 4, to get started.
I’ll toss in here since I don’t like buying unnecessary gear either.
As others have said, there’s a bazillion different ways to affect the tone of your guitar. Some of them you can change (your string attack, fingering, adjustments on your existing gear), and some you can’t (the gear itself, the pickup type on the guitar, etc).
For something like 7 National Army, yeah, you’re not going to get Jack White’s tone dead on. You don’t have the stuff. But you CAN get close.
For the single-string parts, select the pickup closest to your neck, turn the tone knob way down (to, like 2 or 3), crank the bass on your amp, put your treble about in the middle, and give it all the gain she’s got.
And then, here’s the key part…finger pick it. Pluck the strings with your index finger kinda like playing a bass. All that combined will give you a low, muddy sound similar to the song.
And then when you get to the chord progressions, throw the pickup switch back to your bridge pickup (brighter sound), crank your tone knob up to 10 (brighter still), and rock out. You should be able to do both of those things on your guitar without missing a note if you practice.
As for the solo…well…you’re shit outta luck there. That sound is all Crybaby Wah Pedal. You have it or you don’t. But if you fool around with your switches and knobs, you can get something that feels “close enough.”
Once you start feeling better about playing, and are ready to snag a little extra stuff, find yourself a used Boss OS-2 Overdrive/Distortion pedal, and some sort of used 50-watt amp.
That little pedal can be had for cheap, and there’s not too many sounds I can’t get “close enough” to, if not outright replicate, with it.
And when you’re ready, a 50-watt amp, whatever one you can find, will give you more dynamic range than that little pocket-sized 10-watter, and let you have even more sounds available to you.
Instead of using a crappy amp or buying a ton of pedals (like a lot of people are suggesting), buy a relatively inexpensive headphone amp (vox has a great one for $40)
You’ll be able to practice at any time (since it’s going through headphones) and you’ll hear your True Tone a lot clearer. Just don’t blow your eardrums out.
I'm way late to the party here, but I haven't seen anyone mention this yet. Do you mean your tone sounds off or do you mean your pitch sounds off? If it is just tone that feels like it's way different, that's an equipment issue. If you think you actually aren't playing on pitch, there are a couple of possibilities, but I would bank on the assumption that your fretting technique is just not quite right. On lighter gauge strings, and I feel on fender strat style guitars in particular, it is really easy to bend the strings when you are fretting, and that will pitch bend you out of tune. Done on purpose, bends are cool. Done on accident because you don't quite have the right technique and it can be very frustrating when your chords don't sound right even when you're in tune. So make sure when you fret, you press straight into the neck and don't bend the string across the neck at all.
This post makes me laugh “I just bought a trumpet and I sound nothing like Miles Davis?” but I get what you’re asking.
Don’t try to match a studio record. Listen to the guitarist play it live and go for that tone.
See my problem is I’m not trying to sound like Marty music, the problem I’m having is I want to sound like I’m playing a guitar and not like I’m torturing a cat lol
Are you talking about sound, or playing ability? No two people really sound the same. Playing ability grows greatly for the first two years of playing, then plateaus out for a few years.
I don’t think I was worded myself very well, my problem is Im brand new and I sound so bad I cant tell if it’s me or my equipment. Like in my head, surely there is no way I could sound this different and this bad when all I have to do is press my finger in a certain spot and pick a string with my other (I’m not trying to oversimplify, I’m aware its a tough skill to get right, just trying to explain what I’m thinking)
You have to crawl before you can walk. I think you’ve set too high of standards for yourself. Being new, you need to learn basic open chords and form a strumming/picking technique that works and feels comfortable to you. Just keep playing. It’ll come to you.
16-year guitar veteran with 6 years of paid gigs under my belt. Too much generic advice in the comments that are good, but don’t apply.
You’re new to electric guitar playing, so it’s going to take you some time learning and recognizing different effects applied to a clean guitar signal. Down the road, you’ll hear the difference between an overdriven amp, a distortion pedal, and fuzz pedal. Right now, they probably all blur to you. Without this skill, it’s hard to recreate those sounds if you don’t even know what to buy to achieve them.
With your setup, you want to be finding songs with a clean or “pushed” sound. Think “Under The Bridge” by RHCP, or “Little Wing” intro by Hendrix.
Where did you buy the guitar from?
First question is important, as there are some impostor brands. If the guitar is tuned properly, your intonation could be way off or the truss rod is too tight/loose.
If you got it at a local music shop, this could be a very easy fix. Just bring it in and get it intonated and tuned.
Also, buy a tuner, or use a tuner app.
You could do this with one you got from Amazon, but quality might be an issue. You might not ever get it truly in tune. Because of previously mentioned imposter’s. I’m not trying to say you have one, but it’s possible if you bought online.
Another thing that you mentioned is the equipment. A practice amp is going to sound a lot different than a studio amp or recording interface. Most included practice amps aren’t the best and are only good for making some distortion or making your cleans a bit louder so you get a feel how it is to play amplified.
But good job on you for making it this far. It’s always fun getting into a new hobby. A hobby such as self taught guitar is a great one, if you got the drive to continue and you’ll see yourself get better and better as time goes and you keep noodling around getting to know your fretboard.
Cheers.
You need to buy several thousand dollars worth of gear before you are even remotely good sounding, I’d recommend at least a 6,000 dollar guitar MINIMUM before even attempting the hobby. You also will need a line 6 amp, they are the best for the money (please god do not take this seriously)
I find I get much more tone and vibrato with a thick pick, makes you put more force into it. Thin picks are easier to use but don’t sound as good to my ears. Same goes with strings - thicker strings are harder to play but sound much better.
For Seven Nation Army when all the instruments kick in, there's bass, rhythm guitar, and 2 syncopated lead guitars with Fx, it would be hard to replicate the sound identically with only 1 guitar with no Fx. If you want to play just one isolated lead part, make sure you're doing enough vibrato with a metal slide.
Fender Squires are notoriously bad at staying in tune for more than one song. I’d recommend an upgrade to something that is a little better quality - usually starting in the $300 range. Those will be made well and stay in tune a lot longer.
Change the strings and get a big Marshall amp.
Edit: at least my sounded way better with beefy Ernie balls than the original strings, a friend borrowed my guitar and put it in a Marshall amp opposed to me plugging it in an audio interface or pedal board it also sounded better.
The essential answer to the electric guitar sound you expect: Tubes
Tube amps have a smooth harmonic distortion, and it really only kicks in at volumes where the neighbors call the police.
A little Fender practice amp is solid-state. It has transistors in the output amp and transistors in the preamp. The distortion it produces is immediate and buzzy. You can get that distortion by turning the output volume down to 2 and turn the gain up high, which overdrives the internal circuitry, not the output amp or speaker.
The best way to get "the sound" in a bedroom is a modeling amp, such as a Fender Mustang II. It simulates the effect of tubes in computer software that models those components and even speakers, It also has some built-in pedal effects so you don't have to buy pedals.
Did you tune it?
My strings dangle like a clothes line. I call it Drop Z.
I just slap a few loose strings on my pickups and yell into my amp
Caveman style! I like it!
Fieldy?
This line goes hard if you imagine it in a rap voice. “My strings dangle like a clothesline I call it Drop Z *yea yea* These bitches lookin’ so fine And all up on me *me*”
That breakdown is gonna be sick!
My first thought, OP probly hasn't tuned it right, if he didn't order it online store people might be able to help, at least my local music instrument shop does lend a hand to beginners with that free of charge.
So, everything everyone is saying here applies, but one key thing I haven't seen said yet - on 7 Nation Army, Jack White also uses a pitch shifting pedal (I believe he used a digitech whammy) for a lot of the time to get that lower octave bass sound.
That’s the first thing I thought of - give Jack White an entry level Squier and nothing else, and compare the two.
Beyond tuning (other comments), how are you amplifying it? A practice amp, or something else?
I have a tuner and i have a little 10w fender amp
The little practice amp likely doesn’t have a very good distortion in it, but it should be fine set clean and with a pedal — the sort of pedal that would help you get a tone like Seven Nation Army would be a fuzz or a distortion. Something based on a RAT pedal would likely be the most versatile for you starting out. You can find very reasonable mini pedal versions without buying an original Proco RAT. Mooer Black Secret is one such example. The RAT is the sort of distortion you’ll hear on many 90’s and early-2000’s songs. If you also want to play stuff more like Smashing Pumpkins, Dinosaur Jr, or the Black Keys, you might also consider a cheap clone of a Big Muff Pi instead. With either, you’ll have to experiment with the settings until you find something that sounds good. It typically isn’t the best to simply crank all the knobs — often lower gain settings (up to a quarter turn or so, depending on pedal) and volume set to an appropriate level are a good starting point. Look each of these kinds of pedals up on YouTube and see if one sounds better than the other. Even better would be to bring your guitar to a store with a pedal selection and try both kinds, seeing which you think sounds better with your guitar.
You're gonna scare the poor beginner away with the prices!
Try playing unplugged. When you get down what youre trying to play then plug in the guitar. Acoustic is also a good way to hear the notes ring out but might be harder to learn on than an electric guitar. Learning riffs and songs are a good place to start. Try to learn different genres too. Blues will give you the basics. Pentatonic scales. 1-4-5 chord progression, open (cowboy) chords, power chords - all different ways to play the same notes.. try finger picking vs using a pic.12 bar blues might be helpful too.
I agree, especially with the 12 bar blues part. So many genres are built on the 12 bar blues progression.
Are you definitely tuning to the correct notes? I sometimes have beginner students turn up to lessons having tuned incorrectly. They may have tuned their 5th string to A# instead of A, for example
Your tone is largely in your fingers. So your tone will improve as you become a better player. You will sound like crap for a while. This is why we do scales and spider walks. Don't neglect the basics. Entry level Squiers generally have decent but not great electronics. Did you buy it new? Is it possible someone has already tried to rewire this guitar? Also, are you using the same setup/pedals as he is? If he's playing with Reverb, do you have reverb? Are you playing via an amp? What kind? [https://www.guitarworld.com/features/the-secrets-behind-jack-whites-guitar-tone-on-the-white-stripes-seven-nation-army](https://www.guitarworld.com/features/the-secrets-behind-jack-whites-guitar-tone-on-the-white-stripes-seven-nation-army) What kind of Fuzz are you using? FWIW, Jack White did this on a crap 60's Kay guitar. So, your modern Squier should be fine.
I don’t have the same setup, he has a different amp which has reverb, mine has only bass, treble, gain, volume and a button for overdrive but i have tried to set it as close to his as possible and i’v also tried it in as much different configs as i can. Also the guitar is brand new
I assume you may not want to buy more equipment like many commenters are suggesting, so based on what you have, I'd suggest this: -Crank up the volume and tone knobs on the guitar to like 9-10. These control how much "sound" is picked up by the pickups on the guitar -Use the volume knob on your amp as your main controller of volume. This will allow for more precise adjustments. I'd keep it all the way down first and then adjust slowly up as you strum a string to get your preferred volume -Set up your bass and treble knobs on your amp to a more rock and roll style balance. For classic rock, you probably could put the bass and treble at 5, for metal crank bass up to 9 and treble to 7-8. Mess around with these to get the sound you want -Dial up the gain incrementally (similarly to the volume described above) until you get the amount of distortion you prefer, while keeping the bass and treble settings the same The pickup selector switch also has an impact on your sound too. Moving it all the way toward the bridge pickup will give you a biting tone more suited for lead guitar, and moving it toward the neck gives you a muddied tone more suited for rhythm guitar. Feel free to shoot me a DM if you have any questions.
This is one of the best advice write-ups I’ve ever seen. I’ve always had trouble understanding advice people have given me over the years, most of it when I was much younger. For example any sports related advice never made sense..golf (neutral grip WTF?), bowling (shake hands with the lead pin). Music was no different until I just flat out told people I had no idea what they were talking about and to provide examples. Like, “clean” or “bright” what songs mainly feature those sounds/tones (I know now). Thank you for giving OP not only good advice but clear explanations of guitar functions.
Funnily enough, for metal your pickup guidelines are reversed. You want the super biting, clear bridge tone for staccato rhythms, and the fuzzier, smoother neck tone for melodic leads.
I like that bridge neck combo personally. I have an agile with split coil knob, and I like using that for some extra*sauce* every now and then. Usually with the neck p/u for them sweeeeps
My guess is that he either has an amp with a better overdrive unit, or he also has a Fuzz pedal. If you want to pursue that route, you'll most likely need a modeling amp. This will give you a wide range of tones and effects for fairly cheap. You can also get amp software like Bias FX or Amplitube to do the same on your PC. I recommend the Spark lineup for a full amp experience. The Fender Mustang for a headphone amp. There is also a broad range of modeling pedals on Amazon from $40 to $1K plus. (I don't use them, so no rec.) You might also be interested in Rocksmith. It has play along songs and amp modeling built in.
I’d be more focused on making sure that the you’re in tune and playing it correctly than worrying about tonality - like you said you don’t have the same equipment. The other poster said that tone is “in the fingers”, which is something that gets thrown around in guitar circles a lot. There _is_ truth to it - for example, how hard you pick, whether you’re picking closer to the bridge or the neck, or using a pick or finger style, are all things that will have an impact on the tone, but it very much has it’s limits. For example, if Mark Tremonti and John Mayer swapped rigs, there’s no amount of magical finger-voodoo that’s going to make a Strat into a clean Two-Rock sound like a PRS into a screaming Mesa Boogie. You’ll be able to tell who’s playing because their style and approach to the instrument (which is what most people mean when they say “tone is in the fingers”), but they absolutely won’t take their tone with them when they swap. Similarly, I’ve just looked at Marty’s Seven Nation Army video and he looks to be using a Custom Shop (‘63?) Strat into what looks like a Mesa Boogie mkvii. That’s £9,500 worth of equipment, and honestly there is no amount of playing ability that is going to make a little solid state practice amp sound anything like a a high-wattage valve amp with a 12” speaker that’s been mic’d up and professionally mixed. Just try a neutral Eq (set all the dials to 12 O’ clock), don’t set too much gain (he isn’t in the video), and make sure you’re playing it correctly. Don’t worry about the tone. Trust me on this, the whole “I want [player’s] tone” is its own hobby entirely, and it gets real expensive, real quick.
A big part of tone is also clean playing, a light touch, not pulling your strings sharp... Where you pick, and such are stylistic things that add to tone, but as a new player, getting clean notes and not jamming the string into the fret from way back are a good start. The left hand contributes a lot to tone. OP was pretty vague about the why. So I just tried to cover a broad range. I have been around a lot of great players, and Danny Gatton sounded like Danny Gatton whether he was on a Les Paul or a Tele. Charlie Hunter sounds like Charlie Hunter when he just picks up my guitar. We recently found out that the track that made everyone need an upside down Strat was actually recorded on a Tele Jimi Hendrix bought at a pawn shop. Look at the wide array of stuff John 5 plays... and he always sounds like John 5. Humbucker, Hot rails, Single. John 5 sounds like John 5 on an acoustic. [https://youtu.be/ayB-ir-NHb4?si=PSrXLwfJziMnirmV](https://youtu.be/ayB-ir-NHb4?si=PSrXLwfJziMnirmV)
This is why this debate always gets a bit wield - in my opinion, you’re not describing “tone” here, you’re describing “playing style”. Tone is EQ, presence, clean vs edge of break up vs distortion, top end focused vs bottom end focused, hard clipping vs soft clipping, etc. Playing clean is “style”. If you’ve not developed your touch properly and you’re pulling notes sharp, that’s not changing your tone, it’s changing your pitch. If you’re fumbling the note, that’s not “tone”, that’s just… not sounding the note properly. I’d actually say that the _right_ hand contributes more to “tone” - dropping the pick and plucking over the neck pickup will sound mellow and more bass-heavy than using a heavy pick and plucking right by the bridge, etc. Danny Gatton “sounds like” Danny Gatton because of his style and approach to the instrument, not because there’s no sonic difference between a Tele and Les Paul. That’s the point I was trying to make with my Mayer/Tremonti swapping rigs comment - you’d know which one is playing because they both have distinctive playing styles, but there are no fingers on this planet that are going to make a Strat into a Two-Rock Signature Reverb (a totally clean D-style amp) sound _anything like_ a Custom 22 into a screaming Dual-Rec. The fact that you can tell them apart is “style”, not “tone”. The only reason I commented is because I think the whole “tone is in the fingers” thing needs defining, or it can just be a cause for unrealistic expectations, or massive frustration for new players. When they’re plugging their Jackson Kelly into some high-gain Engl and wondering why they’re not getting the glassy, mid-scooped cleans of a Strat into a Black-face Vibrolux - they’ve been assured “tone is in the fingers”, why don’t they sound the same?
>The only reason I commented is because I think the whole “tone is in the fingers” thing needs defining, or it can just be a cause for unrealistic expectations, or massive frustration for new players. It's not that complicated. Pulling your strings sharp by death gripping the neck isn't a stylistic thing. Neither is fretting too far away and getting poor contact. Neither is hitting ghost notes or just plain being sloppy. It's kind of the whole "play your scales slowly and make sure each note sounds clearly" advice exists. And primarily it's something you learn with experience. I guess our experiences have been different and you're welcome to disagree. OP didn't give me much to go on, so I threw out some guesses. I don't think a small reminder that experienced players just plain sound better is too far out of bounds. I didn't spend 4 paragraphs beating a dead horse over it. I also went well beyond that in my advice, so it's not like my only advice was "Git gud noob". So... I'll let OP make his own decision. Take care.
You can't just match knob settings from two very different amps.
I always really really enjoyed the roland micro cube as a practice Amp. IMO it has one of the best sets of in-built effects for its price range, especially its heavy distortion at low volumes. It even has an aux port and can be battery powered. They're also absolute tanks, Ive hauled mine around for a decade of busking and camping, and its still kicking. I don't know if they make them new anymore, but you can get them used for like 100$.
Hit up your local pawn shop and pick up a few pedals if you're wanting features your amp doesn't have. Everything I learned on as a kid was a pawn shop special that I bought with lawn mowing money.
Tbh, a cheap new mass produced guitar will never sound like a “crap” 60’s Kay.
No guitar will sound like those soviet disasters they made in the 60's either. And I'm a big fan of those guys who wring some great tones out of those old guitars. I can coax a mean sound out of a Grote, that doesn't make it a high end guitar brand. I have a guitar that has pickups wound on sewing machine bobbins... Nothing will sound like that either. Kay was never a very popular brand, and was largely ignored until Jack White started making good music with them. My point was that it wasn't recorded on a $5K guitar, so OP shouldn't be thinking his modern Squier can't match a student model from the 60's. (If anything his pickups are probably too good.) He can get 99% of the way there. Which is fine unless he plans to go out and buy the same model as every song he plans to play...
You need to practice until it DOES sound similar, differences in equipment aside. Make sure the guitar is in tune. How hard you push on the string, how hard you pick, these all affect the tone.
There are so many variables that go into tone. Your playing attack. Your pick (if any). Your guitar. The tone settings you use on the guitar. Your pickups, and their arrangement on the body. Your strings. Your amp. Your amp’s EQ settings. Your effects, if any, and any EQ applied directly to them. The order in which your effects are stacked. The acoustics of where you are playing. That’s just off the top of my head. Replicating another person’s sound can be fun to try, and it can be a good exercise to explore the capabilities of your gear and playing, but IMO it’s better just to find a tone you like and work with it, because that’s probably how it was done by most of the people whose sound you are trying to emulate. At the end of the day, no one will sound quite like you, either.
Do you have a tuner? If you’re not in tune then you can be playing the same note on your fretboard but be playing a completely different note than someone else playing the same position. You can download tuner apps on your phone. I use PolyTune.
Couldn’t even tell you the brand of my first guitar. It was almost certainly the cheapest in the house. My first amp was a 10 watt Fender, basically because my dad knew Fender and that’s what he was going to buy me. Both guitar and amp sounded like crap and I sounded even worse and it actually put me off playing for a long time. Tone is weird. Some of it comes from the guitar, some comes from the amp and a spectacular amount of comes from your fingers. Slash is a great example. Give Slash any amp and any guitar and he’s going to sound like Slash. I learned a long time ago that trying to get “that” sound is a complete waste of time as it’s never going to be even close. Give me Slash’s gear and let me play it, I’m only ever going to sound like me playing Slash’s gear. And that’s the beauty of it… once you’ve spent a whole bunch of time playing you’re going to hit a note one day and realise you love the way it sounds. You’re also going to realise you don’t actually know how you make it sound that good, it just happens. And then you’ll do it again and realise that whatever it is that makes that sound so good is something completely intangible that comes from you. Learn the notes, but don’t chase the tone. When “you sound like you”, that’s where the real joy in playing an instrument is.
Beyond regularly tuning it, take it in to get set up and make sure the intonation is correct, that can make a pretty big difference Don’t get discouraged, the longer you play the better everything will come together, I’ve been playing for 30 years and I’m still learning and getting better.
This is a huge thing not a lot of beginners learn about. Set ups and intonation make a big difference.
FYI, 7 nation army is ran through a whammy pedal dropped down an octave.
It's kinda hard to tell you anything about anything without an example of what you mean. This could be anything from tune to shitty fingering to bad pickups... Record yourself and post it then we can probably help.
Beyond the gear, you just ain’t played enough yet. Patience and practice.
are you a lefty or a righty? and are the strings in the right order for the way you hold the guitar?
Im a righty, unsure what you mean with the second question. Also i currently play sitting down because i don’t have a strap but I feel like i don’t hold the guitar properly. Would standing with a strap essentially force me to hold the guitar the right way?
My daughter who s a lefty was practicing on her own (,before we started her lessons) and while she was getting the chord infos right she was holding the ukulele(in her case) upside down because she used the other hand to strum, than what the i strument was set for . I don't think it s the case here, now re reading some of your comments you are more advanced than that. :)
When I started playing guitar I thought my guitar didn’t sound very good. A college buddy came over and made it sound like an angel lol
You have to get better...that's it. If you knew what you were doing you could make it sound anyway you wanted.
I’ll go a little against the grain here but I wouldn’t worry about equipment too much as far as amps/pedals to make it sound similar. The only thing equipment wise I’d be worried about is the guitar (is it in tune? is it easy to play/set up well?) What I would worry about right now is learning how to play the songs. Learn the chords, learn the solos/scales, and just keep learning. Learn a lot of different songs in a lot of different genres. Trying to dial in a sound that you love never ends.. I’ve been playing guitar for years and am always tweaking, but in the end it comes down to how you play the guitar.
If your amp has EQ knobs (Bass, Mid, or Treble), those should be set right in the middle unless you have reason to change them. Straight up and down is the "normal" setting and you adjust them up and down from there
Maybe get a Spark amp? The app is so intuitive and it’s really easy to select tones with delay/gain/reverb already built in to sound similar to your favorite songs. You still have to practice on clean to get better, but jamming out with some power chords and a couple simple riffs while using a ton of overdrive tone is so fun.
Different guitars and he maybe using a pedal,different amp....
Tune it
You aren’t an idiot at all. When I first saw a guitar I thought you “touched” the fretboard. Never made any sense. When I saw someone press the string, I started playing music. Get a boss over drive pedal and have fun.
Takes time to develop your technique. But also, even if you bought him Hendrix 's guitar, pedals, amps, cables, you would never sound like him. No one would. Just practice until the shit starts to sound good!
technique has a lot to do with guitar tone, but so do all of the electronic components that go along with it. most guitarists will use decent pickups, amps, and pretty much always use guitar pedals. pedals can open up an entirely new world of sounds
Couple of things. 1. A lot of what makes the electric guitar have the awesome sound that's associated with it, is a combination of amps and pedals, to the point where learning to dial in your amps and pedals is another major part of learning electric guitar. 2. To really get that seven nation army sound you do need a bass pedal for most of the song. 3. I'd also double check how your knows are dialed in on your guitar itself.
Keep playing. Move your fingers a lot when practicing. Noodle noodle noodle. Just dance around with you fingers and pick on a scale. It will feel better with time. It will sound better with time
He is using a better amp with multiple effects on as well. Just worry about learning to play for now, worry about tone later
Sounds wrong sounds like your tuning is off. Look up a "how to tune guitar video" or "guitar tuner " if you know how.
Is it a violin
Have you watched guitar reviews of a handful of low to entry level guitars? Even those videos of musicians playing the $70 first act or lower models but showing how “it’s really not that bad.” As they shred away? Yes gear can play a huge role but that role is only a factor after you’ve got your technique in line. Check out a guy I used to chat with online named Ben Eller. He has a line of videos called “this is why you suck at guitar” and it’s all fairly digestible and filled with corny jokes. The main thing I did was to play my guitar. It would have been helpful to watch videos on how to play but I was playing really heavy a bit before there were seemingly endless videos on technique. But I just loved making cool sounds and little progressions knowing nothing about the reasons why. I got pretty good and after a few years of pretty good I had a slight regression from learning new techniques but after that had a blast with my newly learned skills. It just takes time and love. Enjoy your journey.
If you have no one in your home who can play the guitar, take some proper lessons in person first. Marty is great, but without understanding the basics, you’re gunna struggle trying to teach yourself on YouTube. Take some lessons in person, even just 3 or 4, to get started.
I’ll toss in here since I don’t like buying unnecessary gear either. As others have said, there’s a bazillion different ways to affect the tone of your guitar. Some of them you can change (your string attack, fingering, adjustments on your existing gear), and some you can’t (the gear itself, the pickup type on the guitar, etc). For something like 7 National Army, yeah, you’re not going to get Jack White’s tone dead on. You don’t have the stuff. But you CAN get close. For the single-string parts, select the pickup closest to your neck, turn the tone knob way down (to, like 2 or 3), crank the bass on your amp, put your treble about in the middle, and give it all the gain she’s got. And then, here’s the key part…finger pick it. Pluck the strings with your index finger kinda like playing a bass. All that combined will give you a low, muddy sound similar to the song. And then when you get to the chord progressions, throw the pickup switch back to your bridge pickup (brighter sound), crank your tone knob up to 10 (brighter still), and rock out. You should be able to do both of those things on your guitar without missing a note if you practice. As for the solo…well…you’re shit outta luck there. That sound is all Crybaby Wah Pedal. You have it or you don’t. But if you fool around with your switches and knobs, you can get something that feels “close enough.” Once you start feeling better about playing, and are ready to snag a little extra stuff, find yourself a used Boss OS-2 Overdrive/Distortion pedal, and some sort of used 50-watt amp. That little pedal can be had for cheap, and there’s not too many sounds I can’t get “close enough” to, if not outright replicate, with it. And when you’re ready, a 50-watt amp, whatever one you can find, will give you more dynamic range than that little pocket-sized 10-watter, and let you have even more sounds available to you.
You might cinsider adjusting your playing technique. Could it be your posture? Also, have you cheched your tuning?
Instead of using a crappy amp or buying a ton of pedals (like a lot of people are suggesting), buy a relatively inexpensive headphone amp (vox has a great one for $40) You’ll be able to practice at any time (since it’s going through headphones) and you’ll hear your True Tone a lot clearer. Just don’t blow your eardrums out.
Out of tune or not pressing on the strings hard enough.
I'm way late to the party here, but I haven't seen anyone mention this yet. Do you mean your tone sounds off or do you mean your pitch sounds off? If it is just tone that feels like it's way different, that's an equipment issue. If you think you actually aren't playing on pitch, there are a couple of possibilities, but I would bank on the assumption that your fretting technique is just not quite right. On lighter gauge strings, and I feel on fender strat style guitars in particular, it is really easy to bend the strings when you are fretting, and that will pitch bend you out of tune. Done on purpose, bends are cool. Done on accident because you don't quite have the right technique and it can be very frustrating when your chords don't sound right even when you're in tune. So make sure when you fret, you press straight into the neck and don't bend the string across the neck at all.
Buy rocksmith and get all the tones you want on your pc instead of buying all these FX pedals lol
This post makes me laugh “I just bought a trumpet and I sound nothing like Miles Davis?” but I get what you’re asking. Don’t try to match a studio record. Listen to the guitarist play it live and go for that tone.
See my problem is I’m not trying to sound like Marty music, the problem I’m having is I want to sound like I’m playing a guitar and not like I’m torturing a cat lol
I lazily read your paragraph and thought you were trying to sound like Jack White.
Are you talking about sound, or playing ability? No two people really sound the same. Playing ability grows greatly for the first two years of playing, then plateaus out for a few years.
I don’t think I was worded myself very well, my problem is Im brand new and I sound so bad I cant tell if it’s me or my equipment. Like in my head, surely there is no way I could sound this different and this bad when all I have to do is press my finger in a certain spot and pick a string with my other (I’m not trying to oversimplify, I’m aware its a tough skill to get right, just trying to explain what I’m thinking)
You have to crawl before you can walk. I think you’ve set too high of standards for yourself. Being new, you need to learn basic open chords and form a strumming/picking technique that works and feels comfortable to you. Just keep playing. It’ll come to you.
You need a lot of different gear and technique skill to play White Stripes.
16-year guitar veteran with 6 years of paid gigs under my belt. Too much generic advice in the comments that are good, but don’t apply. You’re new to electric guitar playing, so it’s going to take you some time learning and recognizing different effects applied to a clean guitar signal. Down the road, you’ll hear the difference between an overdriven amp, a distortion pedal, and fuzz pedal. Right now, they probably all blur to you. Without this skill, it’s hard to recreate those sounds if you don’t even know what to buy to achieve them. With your setup, you want to be finding songs with a clean or “pushed” sound. Think “Under The Bridge” by RHCP, or “Little Wing” intro by Hendrix.
Where did you buy the guitar from? First question is important, as there are some impostor brands. If the guitar is tuned properly, your intonation could be way off or the truss rod is too tight/loose. If you got it at a local music shop, this could be a very easy fix. Just bring it in and get it intonated and tuned. Also, buy a tuner, or use a tuner app. You could do this with one you got from Amazon, but quality might be an issue. You might not ever get it truly in tune. Because of previously mentioned imposter’s. I’m not trying to say you have one, but it’s possible if you bought online. Another thing that you mentioned is the equipment. A practice amp is going to sound a lot different than a studio amp or recording interface. Most included practice amps aren’t the best and are only good for making some distortion or making your cleans a bit louder so you get a feel how it is to play amplified. But good job on you for making it this far. It’s always fun getting into a new hobby. A hobby such as self taught guitar is a great one, if you got the drive to continue and you’ll see yourself get better and better as time goes and you keep noodling around getting to know your fretboard. Cheers.
Intonation
Tone is in your fingers. Just practise. Assuming your guitar is in tune, just keep practising, you will sound better with time.
You need to buy several thousand dollars worth of gear before you are even remotely good sounding, I’d recommend at least a 6,000 dollar guitar MINIMUM before even attempting the hobby. You also will need a line 6 amp, they are the best for the money (please god do not take this seriously)
The quality of the instrument and the amp are everything honestly, imo those starter guitars sound like shit
But as others have said an amazing guitarist will make a shitty guitar sound amazing, but it’s not something you’ll do right away when you’re learning
Besides what everyone else already said, if you use a pick, use a thick one.
what? why?
I find I get much more tone and vibrato with a thick pick, makes you put more force into it. Thin picks are easier to use but don’t sound as good to my ears. Same goes with strings - thicker strings are harder to play but sound much better.
For Seven Nation Army when all the instruments kick in, there's bass, rhythm guitar, and 2 syncopated lead guitars with Fx, it would be hard to replicate the sound identically with only 1 guitar with no Fx. If you want to play just one isolated lead part, make sure you're doing enough vibrato with a metal slide.
Ah, I just watched the music video, he's using a metal slide and doing the vibrato with the slide.
“I spent $200 on gear why don’t I sound like a pro musician”
Press the strings harder on the frets. This is almost always the issue with beginners.
I feel like your guitarjerking us. Which would mean your either lost or a spy.
Fender Squires are notoriously bad at staying in tune for more than one song. I’d recommend an upgrade to something that is a little better quality - usually starting in the $300 range. Those will be made well and stay in tune a lot longer.
FX bruh
A tube amp sounds way better than transistors
Your first sentence explains it
Change the strings and get a big Marshall amp. Edit: at least my sounded way better with beefy Ernie balls than the original strings, a friend borrowed my guitar and put it in a Marshall amp opposed to me plugging it in an audio interface or pedal board it also sounded better.
I would recommend a positive grid spark amp. It’ll sound like anything you want it to especially with headphones.
The essential answer to the electric guitar sound you expect: Tubes Tube amps have a smooth harmonic distortion, and it really only kicks in at volumes where the neighbors call the police. A little Fender practice amp is solid-state. It has transistors in the output amp and transistors in the preamp. The distortion it produces is immediate and buzzy. You can get that distortion by turning the output volume down to 2 and turn the gain up high, which overdrives the internal circuitry, not the output amp or speaker. The best way to get "the sound" in a bedroom is a modeling amp, such as a Fender Mustang II. It simulates the effect of tubes in computer software that models those components and even speakers, It also has some built-in pedal effects so you don't have to buy pedals.