Best Guitar Gear Setups for 3 Types of Rock Music

Over the last few years of being a recording engineer, I have had the pleasure and opportunity to record many bands and artists, spanning across a wide variety of musical genres. The style of music that I predominately work with is “Rock” music. The word “Rock” is an umbrella term that people use to cover any music that is mainly guitar driven. That being said, I will break “Rock Music” down into 3 smaller categories and tell you what I have learned to be the best, most versatile, most suited guitar gear setups for these types of music! CLASSIC ROCK First we have the music that we grew up listening to from our parent’s radio, 8-tracks, or vinyl’s, (Yes, I remember 8-tracks!), classic rock! As I said before, “Rock” covers quite a lot and “classic rock” itself has many different sounds. Weather you are going for a clean Clapton sound, a crunchy Brian May tone, or a full-on wall of fuzzy noise sound like Hendrix, there are a few setups that are staples in classic rock. If you are after a clean, bluesy, rock tone with the option to push your sound into a little bit of dirt, it’s all about Fender! Fender is well known as the makers of some of the cleanest amps ever built! A fender combo amp such as a deluxe reverb, or a bandmaster paired with a Fender guitar with single coil pick-ups will instantly give you that sound! However a fender tweed amp, or tweed-like-reissue will deliver plenty of that old school dirt and grit. If a smooth crunch sound that still cleans up well is what your after, Vox may be the answer. The classic Vox AC30 is a very versatile amp, perhaps most famously used by Brian May from Queen. From chimey, bright clean sounds, to aggressive overdriven tones, and everything in between. These amps tend to favour humbucking pickups, (Such as a Gibson LesPaul or SG), due to how bright the sound is. Finally, the amp that every young guitarist dreams of, the Marshall Stack. When I think of classic rock, an image of a Marshall head and speaker cabinet is generally the first thing that comes to mind. From Led Zepplin, to AC/DC, to Hendrix, Marshall was probably the most widely used amp in classic rock music. There are many different models of Marshall amps, however the Marshall Plexi head with a 1960 speaker cabinet is the pinnacle of the sound of this era. Known for it’s screaming, distorted tone, any Gibson guitar plugged straight into this amp instantly delivers that satisfying classic rock, stadium filling sound! However, plug a Fender guitar with single coil pick-ups in, and put a fuzz pedal, (Specifically Dunlop Fuzz Face), in front of the amp and you have the Hendrix Sound   PUNK AND GRUNGE  I am grouping Punk and Grunge together because sonically, they are quite similar! The key thing to remember when trying to get a good Punk/Grunge sound is aggression! Most guitarists [...]

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