Getting a good lead sound
There are many different types of lead sounds and many ways of getting them. What I've decided to look at here, is the classic overdriven sustaining lead sound used by countless famous players over the years.
There are three main ways to achieve this sound.
The first way, is to use a good valve (tube) guitar amp turned up very loud (almost all the way). When a valve amp is turned up loud, the output valves are overdriven, this produces a warm sustaining, overdriven lead sound. The problem with this method, is that it does require the right sort of amp, for example; a Marshal stack, A large Fender combo amp, a Messa Boogie (there are many others). If you don't have a valve amp, but a transistor amp instead, you won't get the same sounds. Getting an overdriven sound also means that you have to be able to turn the amp up almost to full volume. If you haven't got, and can't afford this type of amp, or if you don't have a situation where you can play that loudly (for example in your house, or in a small venue), then this method is obviously not a good one for you. However, for a lot of people, this method produces the best results in terms of sound. There are also a lot of people, who prefer the sounds of the other methods I'm going to discuss.
The next method is to use some floor boxes. You have to choose the right ones, and the various boxes need to work well with each other (which doesn't necessarily mean they should all be made by the same company).
The first box you need is a compressor, sometimes called a sustain pedal, which is exactly what it does. This device works by sensing the volume of your note as it sustains. As your note begins to die away and decrease in volume, the compressor turns its own volume up. This, in effect, makes the note sustain much longer than it ordinarily would. The compressor carries on increasing the volume even after the note has died away, so what happens is that the noise of the guitar and cable, get turned up too. After the note is gone, this produces an increase in hiss and buzz when you're not playing anything. You can use another box called a noise gate, to solve this problem. A noise gate turns the volume off completely once the note has gone.
After the sound is compressed, it needs to go into a distortion box to give you that overdriven sound. Distortion boxes come under many names; distortion, fuzz, overdrive, tube screamer etc... All these do approximately the same thing, but they do all sound different. The difference in sound however, has more to do with the company that makes it, than with weather its called fuzz, distortion, or overdrive. There are many companies making distortion boxes. The Roger Mayer, Rat, and Boss boxes are all popular with professional guitarists, but there are many others, its always worth trying out unknown ones. Its important to remember that you need to have a compression pedal, between your guitar and the distortion box, in order for it to sound right. Distortion boxes (even the good ones) usually sound thin and messy without compression first. So make sure you use a compressor when you try out distortions boxes in the shop.
The final way I'm going to talk about here, is in many ways similar to using floor boxes. This option is to use a multi effects pedal. In case you're not familiar with them, multi effects pedals, give you a whole range of effects in a single box. Just as useful, is the fact that most multi effects units have memories. So you can take your time setting things up for just the sound you want, and then save it in a memory. When you want the sound again, you just select it from the memory (this is known as a patch) and its all there as you set it up. Most multi effects boxes have lots of memory space for lots of patches, so you can store many different sounds, which can be accessed at any time with the touch of a button.
The down side of a multi effects box, is that a good one is more expensive than buying single compression and distortion boxes. However since multi effects boxes, give you a lot of other effects (such as chorus, flanging, reverb, echo), so it may end up being very cost effective if you want a greater range of sounds.
The other thing to consider is that, with a multi effects box, all the effects will obviously be made by the same company, where as with separate boxes, you can mix and matches from various companies, depending on the sounds they produce. Having said that, a good quality multi effects box, can produce a huge range of excellent professional sounds, including the classic distorted lead sound.
Digitech, Boss, Zoom and Korg all make excellent multi effects boxes, but there are other companies worth listening to. When you try out a multi effects box in a shop, make sure you bring your own guitar and use the same amp to try out all the different multi effects boxes you're comparing. This is an important point. If you try out one effect box in one shop with a particular guitar and amp, and then go to another shop to try out a different effects box, and use a different guitar and amp, it will be very hard to compare them accurately.
As a general rule, the more you pay with multi effects boxes, the better, and more professional it will sound. Some of the cheaper units have lots of different effects in them, but when you switch off all the chorus, echo etc... and just listen to a basic lead sound, they don't sound as good as the expensive ones. So don't be taken in by lots of amazing effects. If what you want to use most of the time, is a classic lead sound and a crunchy rhythm sound, make sure the until you get excels at this, rather than at wild effects you'll hardly ever use.
In setting up a multi effects unit to produce a classic lead sound, you basically follow the same steps as for single effects. Start by turning off all the effects. Then turn on the compressor and adjust the amount of compression until you get a nice sustain (be careful not to put on so much sustain, that the notes sound too flattened out). Next turn on the distortion. Set the amount of distortion to about half way. Then go through all the different types of distortion it gives you (usually several). When you find one that produces the particular quality you are after (for the classic lead sound, look for a rich full sustaining sound), go back and adjust the amount again until it sounds right.
Follow this, and you'll get that classic lead sound at least in basic form. From there you may want to tailor it a bit in the EQ section (tone control) of the multi effects unit. If the sound is to bright and "fizzy", cut back on the highs. If its too light weight, add some bass. Also try experimenting with the midrange controls, both cutting and boosting various frequencies. Boosting the midrange frequency 1KHz a little, is a good bench mark to start with for guitar sound, but you should experiment. You might then want to add a bit of warm reverb, or possibly a touch of echo, be careful not to add too much though, or it will muddy the sound.
Once you arrive at a good lead sound, you'll find that with small adjustments to the EQ, you can get a whole range of usable variations and refinements on the basic sound.
If you follow all these steps, use your ears while making all adjustments and you still can't get a good classic lead sound, either your equipment is not good enough quality, or your using boxes or guitars which don't work well with each other, so you may need to change one of the boxes you're using, or even your guitar. For example: if you are looking for the sort of rich thick lead sound, one normally associates with a Les Paul (which has humbucking pickups), but you're using a Strat (with single coil pickups), you'll never get that sound. You'd need to change the guitar, or at lest put in humbucking pickups. However, if you want a hollower, bluesier sound, with the tonal variation one normally associates with a Strat (with single coil pickups), and you're using a Les Paul, you'll never get that sound. So the type of guitar and the type of pick up, are very important. Try comparing various types of guitars in shops, listen to the difference between a Strat (or similar) and a Les Paul (or similar). There are quite a number of modern guitars that can produce both these types of sounds quite well, and a lot of other good sounds besides, all on the same guitar so don't limit yourself to the traditional classic guitars unless your sure you only want the sounds they produce.
