Are you puzzled by all of the control knobs and switches on your electric guitar? Many guitar students, especially beginners, have little idea what the controls on an electric guitar do. Most electric guitars have three main control knobs—the volume knob(s), tone knob(s), and the pickup selector, which is what transfers the sound of the guitar to the amplifier.

Volume

Volume knobs may seem fairly self-explanatory, but there are some things you may not know about them. When your guitar is going through a clean amplifier with no distortion, a volume knob acts just as you think it should: It controls the volume of the instrument. However, when you apply distortion to your sound you'll notice that the volume knob no longer controls the overall volume. When distortion is turned on, the volume knob acts as a distortion filter, essentially turning up and down the level of distortion. You can change your guitar from a semiclean sound by turning the volume knob down (but not off) while distortion is on. As you turn the volume knob up, your guitar sound becomes more distorted. This is a handy way to make adjustments without bending down to change your effect pedal, or amp distortion settings mid-song.

Tone

The tone knob adjusts the frequencies that go through the guitar and into the amplifier. By changing the position of the tone knob, you can adjust the sound from treble to bass (just as you do with the tone knob on stereo equipment). When the tone knob is all the way up (10), the guitar acts normally—the tone knob is not doing anything but letting the natural sound of the pickups pass through to the speakers. Rolling the knob down limits the amount of high frequencies the guitar emits, so the sound gets muddier and more bass heavy. This has long been a secret of jazz and blues players who want to warm up their clean sound. The tone knob can dramatically alter your sound, so experiment with it!

Pickup Selector

Pickup switches typically come in two varieties: Stratocaster 5 position and Les Paul 3 position. Each serves the same purpose. Did you ever wonder why you have pickups at different spots on the guitar? The location of the pickup affects the sound, just as the location of the pick affects the sound on an acoustic guitar.

The pickup closer to the bridge has a more treble-like sound; the pickup closer to the neck sounds sweeter and has more bass. The pickup selector chooses between the different pickup locations and thus acts as the sound selector—when the pickup selector is in the forward position (toward the neck) the sound is softer; when the pickup selector is in the back position (the bridge) the sound is heavier.

Traditionally, the neck pickup is used for solos and clean chords, and the bridge pickup is used for distorted chords and heavier rhythmic parts. For guitars with three pickups, the middle position gives you a nice in-between sound.