THE TONE METHOD

Jeffrey Kunde
 THE TONE METHOD

Jeffrey Kunde
Design by: Tate Hollingsworth
www.theguitarinstitute.co

©The Guitar Institute 2020. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States
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For more information, contact info@theguitarinstitute.co
 THE TONE METHOD
CONTENT
Intro1

1000 Failure Points 3

Ground 0 5

The Relationship Between Amp and Guitar 8

Set Your Mic, Walk Away 11

The Magic of Compression 14

Dialing In Your Drive 17

Delay, Reverb, and Whipped Cream 21

EQ28

The Art Of Troubleshooting 31

 I
Intro

Great players don’t accidentally produce great tone. John Mayer

didn’t nail the cleans on “Gravity” by guessing. AC/DC’s Malcom
Young isn’t regarded as the best rhythm guitarist of all time because
he bought the latest overdrive pedal on the market, hoping it would
be the answer to his overdrive problems. This much is obvious:
great players are SKILLED at crafting their tone. They know the
ins and outs of what makes an electric guitar sound legendary. They
know how to fit into a mix and sound right for the song, rather than
sticking out of a mix like a sore thumb. More importantly, masterful
players, like the ones I mentioned, know how to fix their tone when
it’s not right in the mix - whether that means choosing to remove
low end from the pedal vs the amp, or adjusting EQ at the sound
desk vs moving the mic placement.
This book is about electric guitar sound engineering. It’s an
approach to electric guitar tone based on sound design principles -
not opinions. There’s a lot of discussion among guitar players, both
in the online community and in person, on what constitutes “good
tone.” And if you’re like me, you’re tired of bombarding news that
this pedal (insert $1000 rare pedal) is THE ANSWER, or this amp
(insert $4000 tube amp) is the missing piece. Equally so, you’re
tired of hearing that “tone is in the fingers”, because you know that’s
also not true. It’s not possible to achieve the sounds that our guitar
heros produce with just our fingers. That’s why this book is about
engineering your sound. Because the secret to getting fantastic guitar
tone is not in the gear you use, or the touch of your fingertips alone,
but in your knowledge. The secret to confidently dial in your tone or

1
quickly identify the problem in your tone is in your education of the
sound spectrum and the contributing factors that change tone - for
better or for worse.
I’m passionate about educating guitar players in this subject, as
you can tell. As a studio and touring guitarist for my entire career,
I’ve realized that a leg up I may have on the average guitarist is the
speed in which I am able to dial in right tone. Where rig breakdowns
or shifting sounds may stress and frustrate the average weekend
player, for me it’s a simple step-by-step method to quickly isolate the
culprit and fix it - be it the guitar itself, the amp, the mic, the pedals,
or the EQ and sound desk effects. Once you really understand the
science behind each of these factors, you’re going to breathe a huge
sigh of relief. You’ll feel like you can quickly and consistently dial
in your rig, isolate problems, and most importantly, be inspired by
the tone you’re getting. Once you understand The Method, you’ll
never have to worry about this stuff again.

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 01
1000 Failure Points

Let me tell you a story about a guy I know. My friend, Davis,

has a killer rig. He has the most up-to-date pedalboard worth $4000.
He has a British made Vox AC30. He just bought a $3500 handmade
boutique guitar. He’s the cool guy with the cool rig, so naturally he
gets more opportunities to play. But sound guys aren’t impressed
by his setup or attitude, because they find his tone thin, piercing
and weak. Davis is frustrated. He spent all this money and is doing
everything the Internet tells him to do. He thinks, “Our sound guys
must be uneducated and not know what they’re talking about.” Then
again, he suspects something is wrong with his tone, but he has no
idea where the problem is. Is it the new guitar? The pickups? The
micing technique the crew is using? A bad tube in his amp?
There are a thousand “failure points” along the signal chain
between the guitar and the microphone on the amp. This is probably
the most frustrating thing about playing guitar these days. The fancier
your setup, the bigger your pedal board, the more complicated your
amp, or the more mics you use, the more likely something will go
wrong.
Countless times I’ve seen a guitar player on stage attempt to fix
his tone by wiggling one of 40 cables on his board, turning a pedal
on or off, or resorting to the “kick it” method, and hope it starts
working. I’ve been there too, and I used to check off this list in the
same way. If you’re like me, you’re tired of driving to the venue,
wondering if your setup will work properly and sound good today.

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 Back to our story. From the back of the venue, I watch
soundcheck pause while Davis fidgets around with his cable. The
tension between the crew and Davis begins to rise. The rest of the
band is also frustrated because, yet again, they must wait for Davis
to fix his gear. So, with permission, I step in to help Davis. To prove
a point, I strap his guitar on, I play through his rig, and within 10
minutes the tone sounds drastically different. The thin and piercing
tendencies of his tone disappear replaced by full-bodied, smooth,
wide, and powerful sounds. His drive pedal, that he thought was
a waste of money, now fits perfectly. His levels are even, and his
clean tones don’t fade beneath the band. At that moment, Davis --
confused, a little nervous, but certainly relieved -- realized his gear
actually could do what he purchased it to do.
All the tweaking that happened in that 10 minute interval
was not a trial-and-error, shake-the-cables-and-cross-your-fingers
chance. I didn’t get lucky. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even isolate
the issue he was having. I followed a method that started with the
pick in my hand and went through every checkpoint all the way to
the microphone on the amp.
What makes this method easy to follow and proven to work
every time is that it’s not as much about “identifying” a specific
problem as it is about following The Method to identify the problem.
If you follow The Method, great tone will follow you and your
problems will be solved automatically.
Let me put it this way. Think of bad guitar tone like a cake
that you accidentally baked with salt instead of sugar. It may look
great. After all, you spent money on the very best ingredients. You
invested hours into crafting this cake to be a spectacle for your
friends to admire. Then you take a big bite. It’s really, really, really
wrong. You are embarrassed and frustrated. Of course it would be
pointless to attempt to salvage the cake by extracting the salt out of
the cake. That’s impossible. Only one option remains - bake a new
cake, the right way. The good news is, when it comes to extracting
the “salt” from your guitar tone and rebuilding it the right way, it
only takes 5 or 10 minutes if you follow The Method.

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 02
Ground 0

Before getting into The Method, I need to establish the goal.

That goal is to produce a guitar signal into the crowd that has an
even and balanced EQ range. That means that I want my highs, mids
and lows, to be equal and even. For instance, I don’t want my high
end to be louder or more prominent than my low end. Conversely,
I wouldn’t want my low end to drown out my high end. This is
something you learn to decipher by ear over time, but it’s important
to establish as the goal.
Below is a graphic EQ. This is what Davis’s tone looked like
before I stepped in.

Bad Frequency
No Low End

There are two things to notice here that will help us understand
guitar tone. First of all, you can see on the sound desk, Davis was
producing almost 0 low end. This created a thin, weak sound. The
second thing to notice is that his high end produced a frequency that

5
was MUCH more prominent than the rest of the high end frequencies.
Those frequencies can be described as “sharp” or painful to listen to.
The combination of those two negative factors made his tone shrill,
bighty, weak and unpleasant.
The graphic below is what your guitar (EQ range) should look
like at the soundboard. Flat, even, and full-bodied.

Full And Even Range

This is the goal throughout your entire guitar chain. I’m going
to show you now how to achieve it, starting with your guitar.

STEP 1 - Dialing In Your Guitar

After I put on Davis’ guitar, I unplugged it from the pedalboard
and walked to the amps. Step 1 of The Method takes you to the
source where you slowly work your way backward.
The next thing I did was
switch the pickup selector
to the bridge pickup (down
position), and roll every knob
on the guitar up all the way.
That includes all the volume
knobs and tone knobs.
Those two action points,
(1) switching to the bridge
pickup selection and (2)

6
turning the knobs all the way on, are VERY important because they
place your guitar in its brightest setting. Why would you do that?
Well, the most common problem area with electric guitar tone is
exactly what plagued Davis -- unbalanced and hurtful high end. And
this only compounds itself when you start stacking on overdrive
pedals. So the first way to guard against this issue is to make sure
your guitar and amp aren’t the culprit (by the way, this also works
if you have a different EQ problem). If you set your guitar to its
brightest setting, and THEN proceed to dial in your amp, you can
create a smooth amp tone (whether it’s a digital amp processor, or
a real tube amp), big and full while eliminating the possibility of
producing brighter frequencies to the amp.

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 03
The Relationship Between Amp and Guitar

Ok, let’s assume your guitar is set to bridge pickup selection

(down on the tone toggle), your tone and volume knobs are all the
way on, and you’re ready to plug into the amp.
As I’ve already stated, the goal with the amp at first is to
produce an even amount of bass, mids, and highs. This is true no
matter the context of the song or the style of music you’re playing.
Later on, you can always fine tune adjustments from the guitar or
pedals while you’re on stage. I’m sure in most cases for you, your
amp is mic’d up in a location that’s not where you are playing, so
making adjustments to the amp is going to be difficult. That’s why
establishing a big, full and clear sound from your “home base”
(guitar amp) is important.
The first thing I do when approaching any amp is set the tone
knobs on the amp to 12 o’ clock -- the neutral position.

Still focusing on EQ, we can now use our ear to listen for that
flat sound. For instance, if your amp’s settings point straight up but

8
still produce too much low end, then your settings may look like
this.

Or let’s say the amp sounds a little dull in its neutral position,
then you could pull back middle, and push up the treble.

Hopefully you’re on an amp that has the ability to “drive” or

“break up,” and produce natural overdrive. I recommend using
that to your advantage. The reason for this is because the amp will
yield a natural, warm breakup with more forgiveness over the EQ
range. The cleaner your tone (or quieter your tone), the harder to get
big lows and mids. The more drive from the amp itself, the more
naturally your tone’s EQ will even out. This natural drive is also
harder to manufacture from pedals. Take advantage of what your
amp is meant to do and push it from the beginning.
You might be thinking, “But I want to get killer clean tone too.
If I cause my amp to distort, my clean tone will fly out the window.”
Here is my answer: don’t confuse overdrive for distortion. If you
push your amp to a nice warm overdrive, you get a great pay back
when you “dig in” and play hard, and you also are able to produce
full clean tones if you “back off” and play with a lighter touch.

9
 All of this is so much easier heard than explained. To get an
idea of these objectives, visit tonemethodbook.theguitarinstitute.co
and watch Video 1.

10
 04
Set Your Mic, Walk Away

Ok. We have lift off. Your amp and guitar are dialed and in
perfect position. This means that you can be confident knowing if
any other problems arise as you add in more factors (pedals, mics,
sound boards, monitors, ect), the guitar and the amp are NOT the
problem. As we move through The Method, we check items off of
the list. So far we have: Guitar - check. Amp - check.
Now before we walk back to our pedal board, we need to set
the mic up in its rightful position.
“Wait... What? Isn’t that the soundguy’s job?”
No. It’s your job. In fact, the microphone is just as much
responsible for your tone as your amp. It can make or break you.
And if you don’t know what to do with a microphone and how to fix
its position, I guarantee it will break you.
To understand micing, you need to understand how speakers
function. Speakers, whether in your guitar amp or on your tv, produce
different frequencies at different locations from the speaker itself.
The brightest noise comes from the very center of the speaker (the
cone). As you work your way to the edge of the speaker, it produces
more mids and lows. See the diagram below.

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 We can use and apply this knowledge to our micing technique.
Let’s say I just dialed in Davis’ guitar and amp. I can count on a big,
full-bodied sound from the amp with a smooth EQ range. However,
the sound still isn’t right in the monitors and at front-of-house (the
main venue speakers). So do I then go and change my amp settings
to fix the problem? No! I’ve already checked those off my list and
know they no longer pose failure points. There can only be one other
culprit - the mic placement. (Remember we haven’t plugged the
pedalboard back into our chain yet.)
Because we know how a speaker works, we know that if Davis’
tone is too muddy/dull, we can move the mic closer to the center of
the speaker to get a brighter sound. If his tone is too bright, we do
the opposite - move it to the edge of the speaker. Check it out.

12
 Let’s check out a video where you can see and hear exactly what
I’m talking about. Again, visit tonemethodbook.theguitarinstitute.
co and click Video 2
Now that you know proper mic placement, you can assist your
local sound guy who may mic the amp in an obscure way. Trust me
here. I’ve been in the industry, both in major studios and stadium
venues. This is the proper technique for best amp results.

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 05
The Magic of Compression

At this point, we can be sure that everything besides your pedal

board is locked and ready to perform optimally. That means we can
confidently walk back to the pedal board and start working through
that process.
With Davis, the next step in The Method was to plug into his
pedal board and work through his chain. Davis asked my advice
before he built his new board. I recommended an effect chain which
looked like this: Guitar -> Compression Pedal -> Light Overdrive
Pedal -> Medium Gain Overdrive Pedal -> Heavy Gain Overdrive
Pedal -> Tremelo Pedal -> Chorus Pedal -> Stereo Delay Pedal ->
Stereo Reverb Pedal -> Amplifier.
Compression can be complicated and often confuses the average
musician. He doesn’t know quite what it does, and therefore isn’t
sure how to properly use it. But once you have a solid understanding
of its function and realize just how fantastic it can be, you’ll consider
it your favorite pedal.
Here’s an overview of compression. Below is a diagram of a
sound wave. Think of a sound wave as your guitar signal. Every
time you strum or pluck, you’re producing this wave below. The
beginning of the sound wave (left) is the start of your sound, and
the end of the sound wave (right) is the end of your sound. The big
mountains, or peaks of the sound wave are the loudest points of the
sound. The small mountains/peaks and flat points are the quietest
parts of the sound.

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 Now when you put that sound wave through a compression
pedal, you essentially put your signal into a chamber or box.
Compression lessens, or cuts off the dynamic range (peaks and
valleys of the sound wave) so that the loudest and quietest points
of the wave can be controlled. This is done by boosting the quietest
signals and attenuating (lessening) the loudest signals on the wave.
Check it out below.
You can see that the bottom red line made the quietest parts of
the sound wave louder, and the top red line made the loudest points
of the wave quieter.

The way that this is useful for your guitar is that, especially
with clean tone, you can maximize all the intricacies of your light
touch and soft playing, so that it’s prominent in the mix and retains
rich, big and full tones. Compression is also incredibly useful
because it not only controls your dynamic range, but gives your
guitar exponentially more sustain. Again, this is especially useful
with your clean tone, which doesn’t have the same sustain as your
dirty tone. A compression pedal “grabs” on to your sound waves
and won’t let them go until you tell it to (via knobs on the pedal). It
allows that sustain-for-days silky smooth effect.
Go to tonemethodbook.theguitarinstitute.co and click Video 3
to hear this compression and sustain in action with clean tone from
an amp.

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 As you saw in the video, the dry (bypassed) signal is in unity (the
same as) with the engaged pedal’s signal. This is important, so that
you can be sure you’re not fooled that louder is better. Sometimes,
when you’re working with audio, an easy trap to fall into is thinking
that when you engage a pedal, and your signal becomes louder, it
sounds better. This isn’t true. Your pedal board is pulling one over
on you. Louder does not equal better. In fact, volume can actually
mask problems as well. So be sure that when you’re adjusting
compression, the audio level on both sides of the pedal is the same.
When the pedal is off, your guitar should be producing the same
amount of volume as when the pedal is on.
Lastly, you can choose whether or not to leave your compression
pedal in an “always on” position. Over the years I’ve seen advanced
players go back and forth on their opinion about this, but most of
the time, players seem to leave compression pedals always on.
At the end of the day, it makes playing the guitar so much easier.
Compression is an addiction I don’t want to give up.

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 06
Dialing In Your Drive

Write this down, put it on your desk, or set it as a daily reminder

on your phone: you DON’T need to buy another overdrive pedal.
Trust me. I’ve either owned them or tried them all. (Yes, I know
that’s impossible, but I’ve played through enough to make it seem
true.) The thing I’ve come to realize is that overdrive pedals aren’t
really that different from each other. While they may have different
subtleties and nuances, I find that if you understand EQ as it relates
to the guitar, you can mold most overdrive pedals into behaving the
way you want them to.
This probably sounds familiar. A big problem Davis experienced
was that when he put on his 2nd stage overdrive, his volume was
WAY louder than his clean tone. The sound guy had to bring Davis
down in the mix so that “overdrive” Davis wouldn’t kill everyone’s
ears. The problem then arose that “clean tone” Davis wasn’t audible
by anyone. Davis had three overdrive pedals on his board, which
means he had 4 different volume stages - Clean (no drive pedal on),
Drive 1, Drive 2, Drive 3. When I stepped into his shoes to dial in
his pedal board, I needed to get those 4 volume stages interacting
properly with each other. All 4 volume stages must maintain a level
that made sense for the sound guy to mix. The truth about front-of-
house sound mixing is that, like it or not, the guy running the sound
board isn’t going to have his finger on your guitar’s fader. He won’t
turn you up when you’re quiet or turn you down when you’re too
loud. He wants to be able to leave you where you are and let you
mix yourself.

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 Overdrive pedals give you the control. You become your own
mix engineer. That means that they should boost your volume a bit
when appropriate, shape your tone to be more cutting or mellow and
soften your tone when needed.
Here’s what Davis’s stages were doing before I stepped in.

Each stage of Davis’ volume, from Clean to Drive 3, was

dramatically different from the other. Once he clicked one on,
his volume shot way up as did his other pedals. This was a major
problem for the monitors and front-of-house. The sound guy could
hear Davis only at his loudest. If he set the mix to hear Davis at his
quietest, once Drive 2 or 3 were clicked, he was WAY too loud.
I was able to fix this issue by making two adjustments. First
I gained up his amp to a more saturated level. An interesting fact
about amps and gain stages: if you gain up your amp and cause it
to overdrive just slightly, your pedals have significantly less impact
on the volume output of the amp. When your amp is set up for a
more clean setting, pedals dramatically impact your volume output
on your amp making it harder to control.
The second was to adjust each of the volumes on the drive
pedals to unity with each other so that as each pedal was turned on,
the volume output didn’t change by much. See the diagram below.

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 If you attempt to set your pedals at the same volume (bypass
clean volume is the same as engaged dirty volume), and increase
only the overdrive as you progress through the different stages,
you’ll find that they naturally get louder as you gain up, but at a
much more manageable rate.
For Davis, instead of using individual pedal volumes to affect
the dynamics of his playing, I demonstrated the use of pedals to
shape tone, or emotion, and how that in turn impacts dynamics. If
you’re using the pedals just to change your volume, you’ll drive
everyone in the audience, on stage, and yourself crazy with your
inconsistency.
Davis had built his board with a compression pedal and three
drive pedals. Here’s a brief overview of the goal of these different
stages.
Compression - Like we talked about previously, his clean tone
was set up to be a big full- bodied tone with a compressor. The goal
here was lots of sustain and an equal amount of lows, mids, and
highs.
Drive 1 - We dialed Drive 1 (the first drive pedal in his
pedalboard chain) to be a mellow rhythm drive. The shape of the EQ
of this drive is meant to be completely flat: not adding or deleting
any mids, highs or lows. When “digging in” and playing harder on
the strings, you should be able to hear a fair amount of overdrive.
Drive 1 should also provide the option of a clean tone if you play
with a lighter touch.
Drive 2 - We dialed Drive 2, the second in his chain, to be a
“lead” drive tone. If Drive 1’s saturation was a 3 out of 10, Drive 2’s
saturation level should lie at about 6 or 7 out of 10. However, the
goal of Drive 2 is to cut through the mix and stand out. To do that,
we gave it a high end boost. Be meticulous in shaping this high end.
We want it to be smooth, pleasing and yet still cutting, while at the
same time retaining all the fullness of the mids and lows.
Drive 3 - On the saturation scale, this pedal we set to 9 or 10
out of 10. We’re going for full saturation and sustain. I like to refer

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to this pedal as the Super Lead. It’s the pedal to turn on when the
band is so loud that you need an extra tip over the edge to get out
in front. This is also the brightest of the pedals, as it needs to cut
through the mix. Using the same principles as Drive 2, Drive 3 was
tweaked until it produced a smooth high end boost. To be honest,
I’m an overachiever when it comes to dialing in high end. It has to
be perfect. Remember that guitarists typically fail here. Typically,
the high end frequencies on the electric guitar are usually what make
ears hurt. So when I dial in the high end, I take extra time to make
sure it’s rounded, smooth and perfectly balanced.
This is all easier heard than explained, so check out this video
at tonemethodbook.theguitarinstitute.co and click Video 4 to see
how I show each of these stages and how to shape them.

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 07
Delay, Reverb, and Whipped Cream

The Only 5 Presets You’ll Ever Need

The last link in The Method for Davis to fully “fix” his tone
was to dial in his delay and reverb pedals. Like a lot of you out there,
Davis’ pedal board was equipped with a stereo delay pedal and a
stereo reverb pedal, both with programmable presets. Rather than
tweaking his existing presets to painstakingly get them right, I started
over and made 5 new presets (2 for delay, 3 for reverb). Believe it
or not, my entire career has been based on these 5 presets. Tone
building, especially delay and reverb tone building, lends easier and
more fantastic results if you have a baseline from which to work.
Tweaks can be made per the song’s needs that you’re working on,
but a home base is a total game changer.
Here are the 5 presets backbone of everything I play and teach.

1. Rhythm Delay
The first is my go-to quarter note glue-everything-together
delay that I affectionately call “Rhythm Delay.” When I click on
this preset, I can be sure it will work for 90% of the parts I’ll be
playing. The point of this delay is actually to not be heard. In fact,
it’s preferable if the listener didn’t even know it was on. Instead,
the goal is to provide a nice glue to my playing, to smooth out my
licks and leads and even out my chord transitions. I like to have this
setting as my first preset on my delay pedal because I use it for the
majority of a live set. Check out the diagram below to see my mix

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and repeat settings (for most delay pedals).
Notice how the Mix level is just
below 12 o’clock. Twelve o’clock
on most delay and reverb pedals is
“unity” - the point at which the delay
or echo effect equals the volume going
into the pedal. For rhythm, I want that
level to be below unity, as I’m using
this setting as a pedal/sustain effect. I
don’t want the repeats to interrupt my
playing. I also keep the repeats low,
so as not to blur the upcoming notes
or chords I’ll be playing.
For the shape of these go-to delay settings, I set Davis’ digital
pedal to the Analog setting. As you can tell from the video above,
when using delay, I try to shape the tone of the repeats to align with
the signal going into the pedal. That’s done by shaping it as analog
and warm as possible with mild modulation. I like it to sound nice
and warm. However, be careful not to go too dark here, as a dark
delay can dominate your high end and cause your guitar to lose
clarity.
Hear this preset in action by visiting tonemethodbook.
theguitarinstitute.co and watching Video 5.

2. Dot 8 Delay
The other preset I set for Davis on his delay pedal was a dotted
8th note delay. A common mistake young guitarists make, and a
trap Davis fell into, is using dotted 8th delay as a go-to preset (like
I use quarter note rhythm delay). This causes a variety of problems,
the main one being that the player’s timing suffers greatly because
of all the subdivision happening. Clarity becomes clouded by extra
repeated notes. To put it bluntly, it spins your tone into a big mess.
But a proper dotted 8th delay is classic and necessary for your
arsenal. So I set Davis up with a heavy mix and light repeats. The

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reason for this is because when you
play dotted 8th, the listener should
think, “Oh ya.. I’m hearing some
sweet delay right now.” It should be
loud, pronounced and obvious. Not a
background flutter of nonsense. U2’s
“Where The Streets Have No Name”
is a great example of this.
Check out this setting in
action by visiting tonemethodbook.
theguitarinstitute.co and watching
Video 6.

3. Rhythm Reverb
Davis’ reverb pedal (as well as my reverb pedal) includes three
presets he can easily navigate without heavy scrolling or extra midi
controllers. These three presets will do the trick for 99% of the parts
he would be playing in any given live performance.
The first preset was a basic rhythm reverb. Using the same
principles of the rhythm delay setting, the goal of this reverb setting
is to mildly glue your notes together and give the playing some air.
Check it out below. I like to back off the mix to about 10 o’clock and
set the sustain around the same.
You probably are aware of
this, but the style of reverb you
choose can dramatically change
your tone. For rhythm verbs (used
for strumming and cleaner single
note lead lines) I like to use a nice
natural Room or Hall setting. This
provides a space and airiness effect
while not oversaturating the notes.
Hear this setting in action – go to
tonemethodbook.theguitarinstitute.
co and watch Video 7.

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4. Razor Verb
I also set Davis up with a razor-
like heavy reverb. I sometimes refer to
this as “lead verb”, but it’s not totally
accurate as not all lead lines get this
verb. This preset is meant to give my
guitar a lot of width, edge, and a lot
of sustain and space. It’s here that I
like to use more of a heavy mix, more
sustain, and a preset that is edgy and
bright. For this preset, I’m listening
for a mid-scooped EQ of the reverb
with plenty of high end shimmer.
(By the way, don’t mistake high end
shimmer with overtones. A lot of modern reverb pedals produce 5ths
and octaves as reverberating overtones that can easily be misused
and get out of hand. I stay away from these presets on pedals for the
most part unless the part absolutely calls for it.)
Of course, this is more easily heard than explained, so check
out - tonemethodbook.theguitarinstitute.co Video 8.

5. Ambient Verb
Modern music, especially
modern church music, indie music,
and instrumental music, relies
heavily on reverb guitar that almost
acts like a synth pad. This is the turn-
everything-up-and-play-anything
setting that you’ve probably spent
hours with. It’s what you would use
for guitar swells or single note sonar-
like pings. For Davis, I used this as
the last setting on his reverb pedal.
I used the same preset as the Razor
Verb (lots of high end, brightness,

24
and excitement), and then dialed the mix and sustain up even more.
Again, let’s hear this preset in action. tonemethodbook.
theguitarinstitute.co - Video 9.

Too Much Whipped Cream

As guitarists we probably spend the majority of our time,
headspace, and money on the delay and reverb for our pedal boards.
Especially if you’ve ventured into the world of stereo delay and
reverb, you know how consuming it can be. I remember the first
time I set up my board to split two amps. It was as if I had been
seeing the world in black and white, and then someone flipped the
switch to color. I couldn’t have been more inspired. I’m sure you’ve
had the same experience if you’ve heard your guitar with stereo
delay and reverb after having played in mono for so long. Afterall,
there is a reason iTunes and Spotify doesn’t offer music in mono for
your listening pleasure. Music IS and SHOULD BE in stereo.
Soon after going stereo with my pedal board, I started to notice
my tendency to drown my guitar in lush reverb and delay. The more
you hear how beautiful stereo delay and reverb can be, the more you
want to use it. Before I knew it, it was as if I took all my killer amp
and overdrive tones, and threw them in the pool. All of a sudden, the
intricacies of tone became indistinguishable. My guitar wasn’t as
audible in the audience, and players on stage had a hard time hearing
me as well.
I heard it said once by a veteran musician in reference to this
problem, “If you put too much whip cream on the cake, you can’t
taste the cake.” I began to recognize this truth among colleagues
who played guitar in other bands. The more consumed with reverbs,
the less I could actually hear their music during live shows. When
too much “whipped cream” (reverb and delay) is put on top of your
“cake” (clean or dirty signal), you actually lose the ability to clearly
hear the guitar above the rest of the band.
Here’s what’s happening. Using a diagram below of a wave,
imagine this wave is your delay and reverb. The green line is your

25
dry signal (everything before delay and reverb), and the red dotted
line is the mix level of the rest of the band.

Notice how the wave is above the band volume line, but the
green line (dry signal) is below the band volume line. When this
happens, your guitar will end up sounding weak, thin, and sometimes
even blurry, because not enough dry signal is pushed to that red
band line. A correct version of this example should look more like
the image below, where the wave and green line balance each other
and ride at the same level as the rest of the band.

Go to tonemethodbook.theguitarinstitute.co and click Video 10

to hear this example in action.

The Golden Rule Of Decay

If you’ve ever been a student of mine, taken a lesson from me
at some point, or been a part of my team, then you’ve probably heard
me talk about controlling the decay of your reverb. It’s a rule I follow
called The Golden Rule of Decay, and it will change your life when
it comes to clarity from your rig. If you notice your delay and reverb
pedal, you’ll have a knob or setting you can adjust that controls
the amount of time your pedal either repeats or sustains. This knob

26
might be called “decay”, “sustain”, or “repeats.” Regardless of its
label, it’s there to prolong whatever notes are fed into it. Here’s the
rule regarding this knob whether on your verb or delay: Don’t allow
the sustain to overlap the next chord in the progression.
Here’s what I mean. Let’s say the chord progression you are
playing is G, C, D, C. If each chord gets four beats in the progression,
then your delay or reverb shouldn’t last longer than 4 beats. What
will happen, if you don’t abide this rule, is A LOT of notes will clash
with other notes causing a swirl of bad harmony beneath your guitar
playing. Check it out by going to tonemethodbook.theguitarinstitute.
co and clicking Video 11.

27
 08
EQ

A huge turning point for me in my evolving understanding

of the science of guitar tone occurred as I put myself behind the
computer and actually started engineering my own guitar tracks in
my studio. Previously to this I had taken a few lessons on EQ and
had been taught several times on the rights and wrongs of adding
and subtracting EQ. However, it didn’t “click” for me until I noticed
a pattern of EQ changes that worked not only for my guitar tracks,
but for other people’s guitar tracks as well. I noticed that when EQ
changes needed to be made on electric guitar tracks, they were
almost always the same changes. Light bulb moment. I learned a
very valuable lesson - the goal is to generate tone from your gear
that doesn’t require EQ at all. In fact, that’s what this whole book
is about. But now that we’re nearing the end of our journey, it will
be helpful for you to know about common EQ changes so that you
know how a preamp translates your guitar signal. Again, you’ll feel
inspired as you begin to make “in-the-box” EQ changes, fixing the
problem at the source (your gear), instead of at the end (computer,
preamp, or sound board).

The High Pass Filter

If you look inside any mix engineer’s session and open the
effects he has on the tracks, the first thing you’ll see in 90% of his
tracks is a EQ curve commonly referred to as a High Pass Filter. The
high pass filter, as shown below, carves out all the low end nonsense,
and leaves everything else. I remember when I first learned about the
high pass filter, I didn’t understand why it was important. After all,

28
the basic principle to most high passing on tracks is to eliminate low
end that the ear cannot even detect. It’s an interesting phenomenon:
those sub frequencies, the ones that your ear can’t hear, when
removed from the track, especially a guitar track, no longer muddy
your signal. If you can listen to the video below with headphones, I
recommend it. You can tell that when I engage the high pass filter,
the guitar track receives a clarity it didn’t have before.

Go to tonemethodbook.theguitarinstitute.co and watch

Video 12 to hear this EQ .

The Clarity Dip

The second “fix” that happens at the studio or at the soundboard
is commonly knowns as a slight low mid dip. This happens when the
track needs to be “clearer”, or there’s a general “cloudiness” on the
guitar. A simple dip with a wide Q in the low mids will do the trick.
But remember an even better remedy is to move the mic on the amp
closer to the center of the speaker.

29
 Check it out: tonemethodbook.theguitarinstitute.co, Video 13.

The High Mid Notch

It takes a trained ear to hear this one, but once you learn its
sound, you can’t unhear it. It’s a high pitched resonant frequency
squeal that commonly occurs for electric guitar players, and a tough
one to pin down. Often it shows up only when you play certain notes,
are on a certain point of the neck, or have a certain pedal on. To fix
this from the player’s end, move the mic slightly away from the
center of the speaker, adjust your compression settings, or attack the
strings in a more downward motion instead of scraping the strings
horizontally. If you have to resort to an EQ plug in, be careful to
use a very tight Q, so as to only pull out the resonant frequency and
leave the rest of the highs and mids surrounding it.

See if you can hear this frequency here: tonemethodbook.

theguitarinstitute.co, Video 14.

30
 09
The Art Of Troubleshooting

Now that you have The Method that I used with Davis and the
knowledge and science to back it up, let me say this: Trouble Will
Find You. Problems will arise: a mysterious crackling in your chain,
sudden volume loss, complete signal drop out, or a combination of
all of the above. And the factors contributing could be any of the
following: a guy tripped over your cable, your power supply is faulty,
you didn’t wire your board properly, ect. The list goes infinitely on.
I remember being on stage in front of about four thousand
people in the winter of 2019. We were halfway through the second
song, and my guitar signal stopped working. Completely silent.
Panic set in. No, not my own panic. My guitar tech’s panic. I looked
at him, his eyes were wide, his hands were in the air signaling, “What
the heck is wrong?” But as for myself, I had been playing on stage
professionally for 12 years at this point and as a hobby for a decade
before that. I knew from experience, if I stuck to The Method, I
could work through my chain quickly and effectively to find the
problem. I fixed the problem in about 3 minutes, where most guitar
players or guitar techs would have puzzled over it for much much
longer, especially if they didn’t follow a troubleshooting system.

What not to do:

In that moment, I could have gone straight to the most likely
culprit - the pedal board. But that would have been like diving
headfirst into a spiderweb. You know like I do, finding the problem
on your pedal board is like searching for a needle in a haystack. You

31
rarely find it. And when you think you’ve found it, 2 minutes later
the problem reoccurs. It’s maddening. This is what NOT TO DO -
don’t start at your pedal board.

What to do when trouble finds you:

Use The Method in the order we talked about in this book. For
me, I unplugged my guitar and walked back to my amp. I plugged
straight into the amp - the amp worked. Then I tapped on the mic -
the mic worked. Then I inspected the cable going from the amp to
the pedal board - problem found. That cable had been kicked and
unplugged by a stagehand. What could have been an embarrassing
situation turned into a cool and calm quick fix.
Remember, this is the order to troubleshoot your rig, AS WELL
AS set up your rig for success.
1. Dial in your amp
2. Dial in the mic
3. Make sure the pedal board works to the amp with no pedals
engaged
4. Dial in compression
5. Dial in overdrive
6. Dial in delay
7. Dial in reverb
Following that order with Davis as well as myself in a high
pressure situation, led to FAST and effective results.
You now have all the keys to fix and strengthen your tone. Just
remember - Stick To The Method!
I’ll leave you with one final thought: There is no replacement
for community. If you want to really reach your full potential as a
guitarist, you need to surround yourself with players who are better
than you. Players who can push you to become the best version of

32
yourself. Players who can answer your questions when they arise.
Players who’ve been there, know your pain, and know how to help.
That’s exactly why I created a community of guitar players online
called The Guitar Institute, where pro instructors and modern players
just like you are helping each other every day. It’s not only packed
with hundreds of hours of teaching and instruction, weekly lessons,
group challenges, and live Q/A’s, but a huge online community of
modern guitarists who are crushing their goals together everyday. If
you’re tired of feeling alone and having to figure this stuff out by
yourself, I’m telling you right now that there’s no need to feel that
way anymore. Check out The Guitar Institute and everything we’re
doing over there. You won’t regret it. I guarantee it.

33
For more books and resources from the author visit
www.theguitarinstitute.co
 The Tone Method is a groundbreaking,
immersive book & video experience
that will take you to recording school
and virtually guarantee that you will get
perfect and problem free guitar tones at
every gig. In this book, you’ll discover
a repeatable process you can use to
dial in your tone - no matter what your
gear setup is. Instead of plugging in
and guessing or making assumptions on
what settings work, you’ll follow a simple
process that guarantees your tone is as
good as it can be - from the guitar to the
pedalboard to the amp. So that no matter
your situation, you can be absolutely
confident you are able to get the absolute
BEST tone possible.

About the Author:

Jeffrey Kunde is a studio musician
in the Northern California area. He
graduated from California State University
Sacramento with a Bachelor of Arts
degree in Piano Performance. He is a
Grammy nominated producer and studio
musician, lead guitarist of Jesus Culture,
and co founder of theguitarinstitute.co