Hi folks. I've been mulling this one over for a wee while but a recent revisit to some old Stoner stuff on Apple Music has me wanting to learn to play some...
What is the best way to learn some Stoner Rock? I'm thinking the likes of John Garcia, Kyuss etc. but not too heavy, just that sort of fuzzy, almost floaty style. I'm still fairly basic level player and it generally sounds quite straightforward to play (I could be wrong here!) so I'm thinking I just need to get some tabs together and learn them, but how to get the sound is really my main query.
I've been looking at buying one of the new Op-Amp Big Muffs. Or a Russian one maybe. Ideally I'd get the one that can cover some other stuff too - including 90s "alternative" and Smashing Pumpkins - so this has me leaning towards the Op-Amp. I'm not too sure which is more suited here. I currently have a Rat, maybe that's all I need... I don't know. Guitar / amp wise, I have an SG, an HH Charvel with coil splits and an Orange Rocker 15. I have a Soul Food too but that's probably out of it's depth here. I can't help thinking this isn't a bad starting point, is it worth buying one of the Muffs or do I just need to spend a while dialling in the Rat and the amp? These are really basic questions, I know, but I'm honestly not sure what way to approach this kind of thing and am just looking for general advice and findings from folk who play this kind of style.
Songs to try, useful pedals and amp settings etc., would all be really helpful.
Thanks in advance.
Andy
Comments
Some experimentation is called for.
To do it properly will need downtuning to D/C# or C, either 'dropped D' method or standard tuning. Getting the groove right is important. Use triplets, as in Children of the Grave by Sabbath (a good song to try, they are the godfathers of stoner rock after all). I could riff all day just using 0-3-5-6-7 on the low string and 5-7- 9-10 on the second string, single notes or power chords. With plenty of wah soaked minor pentatonic solos.
A good song to try if you do tune down to C is Dopes to Infinity by Monster Magnet
https://www.songsterr.com/a/wsa/monster-magnet-dopes-to-infinity-tab-s421971t0
Obviously it depends on the amp too. Don't be afraid to spend time going through all possible combinations of settings on amp & pedal to find what works for you
Feedback
Lots to think about and try out here! I'm generally only working on something from my lessons but I'm trying to branch out more now and develop my own stuff to play and goof about with, while still working on specific things from the lessons. So far, I don't really spend any time experimenting with sounds and styles etc. and definitely not with alternative tunings - it's all very much "learn this, practice that" and more about technique or learning a set piece of music than experimenting with things. I'm going to use the info here to start investigating more ideas and seeing where it takes me.
I love a bit of Monster Magnet, that's a great song to try first.
I could never get the Rat to play ball quite how I wanted, it was always too bright / fizzy sounding and lacked oomph, but I followed the recommendation above from @stickyfiddle and that has made a big difference. When I bought the pedal, the guy in the shop was great and said Rats were all about how the three controls interact, and I think that's proven to be right here. It sounded amazing in the shop and I've never been able to replicate that at home, until now. I set the filter and distortion knobs at 3 o'clock and the volume around 12 (same audible volume as the amp really) and that gave me a great starting point. I found my SG on the neck pickup worked best of what I have, the bridge was much much brighter and instantly caused the fizziness which just sounds messy to me, so against my original thinking I opted to stick to the neck pickup with the distortion much higher than I'd normally have looked to set it to.
Playing this with the amp on the clean channel sounded very good to my ears, adding the Soul Food gave it some real beef and then flipping over to the Dirty channel also worked pretty well, so there's a lot of options here with hardly any kit. Despite not spending long at it and having pretty much fallen out with the Rat recently, this has really sparked something for me. I'll try learning some riffs tonight in the dropped tunings but last night's initial experimentation really worked. Thanks for the help!
Andy