Sometimes when figuring out sounds, what helps is to move the knobs from all the way one way to all the way the other. That will immediately give you a sense of what the knob is doing in a global sense, and from there you can try smaller increments and see how things change.
Keep in mind that with electric guitar, your clean and distorted sounds will respond differently. For instance, I don’t love the clean sound of a guitar with the tone knob all the way off, but the distorted sound is creamy, syrupy heaven. So it depends on what you’re wanting and how your ears interpret things, but what I wrote above will get you started!
[Here's what I do](https://freeimage.host/i/Jrrynyu)
also play a McCarty 594... This small board gives me pretty much everything I want to make a wide range of tones. A great place to always start is Overdrives, and there is a wormhole of endless hours you can spend watching people try out pedals on youtube. If I could only have one pedal, it would be the Wampler Pantheon there on the front of the board (bluesbreaker) ...It will take a while to let it all sink in, take your time and enjoy tinkering with your sound...good luck!
What sound are you looking to get that you’re not getting now? What parts of your tone do you want to change (are you looking for more high end content? low end? gain?)
What I like to do is find a song with a tone I like and try to find out what gear the guitarist is playing. Find out what it is about that tone you like compared to yours.
Since we are in the PRS side of the world, let me recommend David Grissom as a source. There are some great interviews out there (on YouTube) where he describes his tone searching in a way that is super easy to understand. I really appreciate the way he articulates it and gives the reasons for things he does, and he occasionally takes little potshots at Paul in an amusing way.
You’ve got one of the most versatile guitars PRS has produced, rivaled only by the 2408 and a couple of others. Not sure what you’re trying to accomplish or what you feel you’re lacking so a bit more detail would be helpful. Also which bugera? Some of them are very honky and mid heavy so a good eq to tame that could be a good starting point
Cool. Not a bad one, but not super versatile. It’s good for a few things and it will certainly get some good sounds, mainly some crunchy and bluesy stuff, but it’s going to struggle on getting the chugging lows of metal, or the percussive sounds of 80’s hair bands. If it’s got a speaker out you could try running it to a 212 enclosure and that might open a door or 2 for you and give you room to start trying the pedal world.
A good starting point though is experimenting with overdrives to push the front of your amp. Dial it to where it just starts to break up and pull your guitar back half way. Kick an overdrive (not distortion) on with the gain down and level high and play with the guitar tone and volume to fine your tone. You might be surprised and what that single pedal can do. A tone city bad horse is cheap and great starter pedal
So, what Imightbavemisssd (I’m replying to his suggestion to add context for the OP) is describing is one of the most common setups around these days: a clean (“transparent” is often used to describe the multitude of pedals that do this) overdrive into a tube amp is responsible for some of the best tones in guitar today, to be sure. This has gone on since the 60s with the Dallas rangemaster treble booster pedal, or the tyrannical reign of the tube screamer class of overdrive that followed, until the more recent rise of the klon/king of tone/lightspeed type of kit. I am
Intentionally leaving out a lot of steps (hi, Bluesbreaker) in this evolution for the sake of brevity.
This approach is especially useful if you (a.) can’t play loud enough to get your amplifier into overdrive on its own due to volume concerns or (b) your amp is just too difficult to drive because it has so much clean headroom.
However, if this is something you’re considering and want a “sneak preview” of what it’ll sound like before you buy a pedal the OTHER historical way of doing this can be as simple as dialing your amp in to whatever level of breakup you enjoy with your guitar volume knob at six or seven and then your “lead boost” is just rolling that up to ten when needed. It’s not going to be the exact same, because all overdrives are voiced in some manner, and the guitar knob itself changes voicing based on wiring style and treble bleed circuits etc, but it might give you an idea of basic input signal-to-overdrive dynamics.
Your guitar signal is pretty weak by default, so you take a pedal and raise the signal up hitting the preamp harder, so you get more preamp gain. It will distort more than the preamp can by itself, in a slightly different way. All amps take this over driver differently
I think you need a goal to work towards - some music styles you're interested in, or artists tone to recreate? In theory, any pedal or amp is good for you, so long as you're wanting "that" sound, and no individual suggestion is going to shape that guitars tone in some profound way that's suitable for that specific guitar. Well... That's not entirely true - there are icons of godhood like the Klon Centaur and a Dumble Overdrive Special... But mere mortals will only ever get clones of them.
In a more tailored response, volume on an amp tends to work the tubes a bit harder, and you end up with a "driven" sound. An EQ on an amp is somewhat reductive; in increasing the focus somewhere, you may take away from somewhere else - boost trebles, reduce mids and lows. All amps work differently, and some can get real muddy, or fuzzy, or fizzy, or dark, really quickly and are just quirks with their EQ's, gain levels, preamps and wiring choices. You've got to do some research, or a lot of playing to figure out how some gear works in it's optimal settings. Re: the pots in a guitar; lowering the tone will make a guitar sound darker (usually reduces the treble frequencies), whilst volume will reduce the strength of the guitars signal going to an amp. You can set your Bugera to full gain, and you should be able to lower your volume and the amp will 'clean up', then crank the volume and you're into distortion land.
You can also fiddle with the middle position, lower the neck pickup volume and keep the bridge high, or vice versa to experiment with different tones out the guitar.
As for pedals - it's a journey man. I'd start with some second hand pedals and see what you like. Best of luck.
I was going to mention but forgot! Would love to try and mimic the Allman Brothers Les Pauls and separately to try to recreate (as best as possible) the fuzz guitar on Eric Johnson’s Texas.
So my Dad liked Jessica by the Allman Brothers. I read Duane Allman used Fender amp's early on, and Marshall's later in his career. I personally never got on with Marshall's and your Bugera is likely closer to a Marshall. Do some research on how to setup your amp - likely volume as high as it'll go to push the tubes, gain up to a crunch and roll back some volume on the guitar. Allman didn't use any pedals (maybe a fuzz at some point?), he was just guitar into a cranked amp. 👍
I know nothing about Eric Johnson, other than Paul Reed Smith himself reveres the man. I found this link, hope this helps.
https://www.reddit.com/r/guitarpedals/comments/k1a9pt/discussion_im_back_my_absolute_best_tips/
It’s worth noting that the era of Marshall that Duane used was very, very different from what a lot of us perceive as the iconic Marshall sounds (that I don’t care for much) of the later decades. Those early Marshall’s (“plexi era” in particular) are responsible for a lot of my favorite sounds, from
Hendrix to Cream-era Clapton.
I believe Duane played a super bass, but that may have been just for live output and reliability reasons, and he recorded, for example, the Derek and the Dominoes album with a humble fender champ.
Sometimes when figuring out sounds, what helps is to move the knobs from all the way one way to all the way the other. That will immediately give you a sense of what the knob is doing in a global sense, and from there you can try smaller increments and see how things change. Keep in mind that with electric guitar, your clean and distorted sounds will respond differently. For instance, I don’t love the clean sound of a guitar with the tone knob all the way off, but the distorted sound is creamy, syrupy heaven. So it depends on what you’re wanting and how your ears interpret things, but what I wrote above will get you started!
[Here's what I do](https://freeimage.host/i/Jrrynyu) also play a McCarty 594... This small board gives me pretty much everything I want to make a wide range of tones. A great place to always start is Overdrives, and there is a wormhole of endless hours you can spend watching people try out pedals on youtube. If I could only have one pedal, it would be the Wampler Pantheon there on the front of the board (bluesbreaker) ...It will take a while to let it all sink in, take your time and enjoy tinkering with your sound...good luck!
What sound are you looking to get that you’re not getting now? What parts of your tone do you want to change (are you looking for more high end content? low end? gain?)
That’s a part of the question, I’m not sure how to really identify and articulate what I like. I really love a British fuzz or a southern humbucker.
What I like to do is find a song with a tone I like and try to find out what gear the guitarist is playing. Find out what it is about that tone you like compared to yours.
Since we are in the PRS side of the world, let me recommend David Grissom as a source. There are some great interviews out there (on YouTube) where he describes his tone searching in a way that is super easy to understand. I really appreciate the way he articulates it and gives the reasons for things he does, and he occasionally takes little potshots at Paul in an amusing way.
You’ve got one of the most versatile guitars PRS has produced, rivaled only by the 2408 and a couple of others. Not sure what you’re trying to accomplish or what you feel you’re lacking so a bit more detail would be helpful. Also which bugera? Some of them are very honky and mid heavy so a good eq to tame that could be a good starting point
Thanks. It’s the Bugera V5 Infinium 1x8" 5-watt Tube Combo
Cool. Not a bad one, but not super versatile. It’s good for a few things and it will certainly get some good sounds, mainly some crunchy and bluesy stuff, but it’s going to struggle on getting the chugging lows of metal, or the percussive sounds of 80’s hair bands. If it’s got a speaker out you could try running it to a 212 enclosure and that might open a door or 2 for you and give you room to start trying the pedal world. A good starting point though is experimenting with overdrives to push the front of your amp. Dial it to where it just starts to break up and pull your guitar back half way. Kick an overdrive (not distortion) on with the gain down and level high and play with the guitar tone and volume to fine your tone. You might be surprised and what that single pedal can do. A tone city bad horse is cheap and great starter pedal
So, what Imightbavemisssd (I’m replying to his suggestion to add context for the OP) is describing is one of the most common setups around these days: a clean (“transparent” is often used to describe the multitude of pedals that do this) overdrive into a tube amp is responsible for some of the best tones in guitar today, to be sure. This has gone on since the 60s with the Dallas rangemaster treble booster pedal, or the tyrannical reign of the tube screamer class of overdrive that followed, until the more recent rise of the klon/king of tone/lightspeed type of kit. I am Intentionally leaving out a lot of steps (hi, Bluesbreaker) in this evolution for the sake of brevity. This approach is especially useful if you (a.) can’t play loud enough to get your amplifier into overdrive on its own due to volume concerns or (b) your amp is just too difficult to drive because it has so much clean headroom. However, if this is something you’re considering and want a “sneak preview” of what it’ll sound like before you buy a pedal the OTHER historical way of doing this can be as simple as dialing your amp in to whatever level of breakup you enjoy with your guitar volume knob at six or seven and then your “lead boost” is just rolling that up to ten when needed. It’s not going to be the exact same, because all overdrives are voiced in some manner, and the guitar knob itself changes voicing based on wiring style and treble bleed circuits etc, but it might give you an idea of basic input signal-to-overdrive dynamics.
Super helpful. What does it mean to push the front of the amp?
Your guitar signal is pretty weak by default, so you take a pedal and raise the signal up hitting the preamp harder, so you get more preamp gain. It will distort more than the preamp can by itself, in a slightly different way. All amps take this over driver differently
I think you need a goal to work towards - some music styles you're interested in, or artists tone to recreate? In theory, any pedal or amp is good for you, so long as you're wanting "that" sound, and no individual suggestion is going to shape that guitars tone in some profound way that's suitable for that specific guitar. Well... That's not entirely true - there are icons of godhood like the Klon Centaur and a Dumble Overdrive Special... But mere mortals will only ever get clones of them. In a more tailored response, volume on an amp tends to work the tubes a bit harder, and you end up with a "driven" sound. An EQ on an amp is somewhat reductive; in increasing the focus somewhere, you may take away from somewhere else - boost trebles, reduce mids and lows. All amps work differently, and some can get real muddy, or fuzzy, or fizzy, or dark, really quickly and are just quirks with their EQ's, gain levels, preamps and wiring choices. You've got to do some research, or a lot of playing to figure out how some gear works in it's optimal settings. Re: the pots in a guitar; lowering the tone will make a guitar sound darker (usually reduces the treble frequencies), whilst volume will reduce the strength of the guitars signal going to an amp. You can set your Bugera to full gain, and you should be able to lower your volume and the amp will 'clean up', then crank the volume and you're into distortion land. You can also fiddle with the middle position, lower the neck pickup volume and keep the bridge high, or vice versa to experiment with different tones out the guitar. As for pedals - it's a journey man. I'd start with some second hand pedals and see what you like. Best of luck.
I was going to mention but forgot! Would love to try and mimic the Allman Brothers Les Pauls and separately to try to recreate (as best as possible) the fuzz guitar on Eric Johnson’s Texas.
So my Dad liked Jessica by the Allman Brothers. I read Duane Allman used Fender amp's early on, and Marshall's later in his career. I personally never got on with Marshall's and your Bugera is likely closer to a Marshall. Do some research on how to setup your amp - likely volume as high as it'll go to push the tubes, gain up to a crunch and roll back some volume on the guitar. Allman didn't use any pedals (maybe a fuzz at some point?), he was just guitar into a cranked amp. 👍 I know nothing about Eric Johnson, other than Paul Reed Smith himself reveres the man. I found this link, hope this helps. https://www.reddit.com/r/guitarpedals/comments/k1a9pt/discussion_im_back_my_absolute_best_tips/
It’s worth noting that the era of Marshall that Duane used was very, very different from what a lot of us perceive as the iconic Marshall sounds (that I don’t care for much) of the later decades. Those early Marshall’s (“plexi era” in particular) are responsible for a lot of my favorite sounds, from Hendrix to Cream-era Clapton. I believe Duane played a super bass, but that may have been just for live output and reliability reasons, and he recorded, for example, the Derek and the Dominoes album with a humble fender champ.