Hi there! Welcome to my tutorial on 'Right Hand Dynamics.' The point of this tutorial is to touch on various concepts, and techniques, that will help you develop a myriad of tones, sounds, and dynamic levels.
In this video, I discuss the electronic side of this topic. Some things to consider:
What are you using for an amp? Tube amps tend to react more with your playing. A solidstate amp, or a processor, may not give you exactly what you're looking for. This, of course, must be taken with a grain of salt! A tube amp is a very general classification, in the guitarist’s realm of gear. Every amp sounds, and feels different, and you will find that some amps work better for this type of playing.
Do you use compression? If so, you may want to reconsider, or at least analyze why you're using it, and when it should or shouldn't be on.
How saturated is your tone? Lower gain settings will most definitely be more dynamic, in terms of how much you can manipulate the sound. If you set the level of drive just right, you can actually control whether you have a 'dirty' sound, or a 'clean' sound, by how hard you play! Super-high-gain tones are going to be less dynamic, or will at least, you won't notice as much of a change in tone.
Using the Volume Knob: You can often get some interesting results, when you back off the volume on your guitar, by small amounts! In some situations, you may be able to go from overdrive, to clean, by turning your volume down a bit, and playing with a light touch.
Another thing that I forgot to mention in the video- Active Pickups tend to be less dynamic! This may not always be the case, but when using active pickups, or a wireless unit, you may struggle to achieve the same results. From my experience, and from what I have heard and read, you may be better off with a quality set of passive pickups, if you're looking to achieve this type of sensitivity. That said, there are situations where active pickups will work better than passive pickups.
Move on to the next video, for part two.