Three Essential Guitar Tones with Mark Lettieri

Check out the gear used in this video: PRS Fiore Electric Guitar: PRS HDRX 20W Guitar Amp Head: The Melody Mark Lettieri Signature Overdrive: J. Rockett Hot Rubber Monkey Overdrive: Keeley HALO Andy Timmons Dual Echo: Five-time Grammy Award winning guitarist, composer, producer and educator Mark Lettieri identifies his three essential guitar tones, and shows you how to get them. As a member of the instrumental groups Snarky Puppy and Fearless Flyers—as well as his own Mark Lettieri Group—the versatile guitar player seeks tones that can work seamlessly with almost any style of music. Watch Lettieri as he demonstrates how to get an “edge of breakup” tone (“That sounds like a Hallmark movie,” he says. “I should write the soundtrack to that.”), a higher-gain lead sound and ambient reverb textures. As the video unfolds, he also shares solid performance advice, such as “Hear how the amp sounds first before you start throwing pedals in front of it” and “Don’t forget to use the tone and volume controls on your guitar—you don’t have to have everything on 10 all the time.” Lettieri doesn’t even mind if you totally hate the sounds he is dialing in. “The beauty of using gear to make the music,” he says, “is you can find your own three essential tones.” Keep tabs on Mark and his projects: Chapters 00:00 - Intro with Mark Lettieri 00:54 - Three Essential Guitar Tones for Every Guitarist 01:26 - Mark’s Clean Sound 01:57 - How to Achieve a Classic “Edge of Breakup” Tone 06:50 - Demo: Mark Lettieri’s Higher-Gain Lead Tone 07:13 - How Mark Get His “Gained Up” Lead Tone 10:38 - Mark’s Method of Creating an Ambient Reverb Tone 13:17 - Mark’s Final Thoughts on the Three Essential Guitar Tones 14:30 - Outro