3 MOST ESSENTIAL WORSHIP GUITAR TONES - BETHEL, HILLSONG AND PHIL WICKHAM

Have you ever struggled with creating the perfect  tones that your favorite worship guitarists and   bands use? I sure have. I've been playing  guitar for 20 years in the last two years   I've completely rethought everything I  knew about creating and shaping tones   I wanted to take that journey and share it with  you today I am definitely not a professional   guitar player I'm a hobbyist but I've been playing  for years I have a passion for being a part of   worship I've played electric guitar acoustic  guitar sang and played with fans and worship teams   across Southern California and it's just brought  so much joy to my life and I'm so thankful to have   been a part of that and so much of that Journey  has been crafting the sounds and tones that go   along with the songs that we play and two years  ago a good friend of mine and worship leader said   this nugget of wisdom that totally changed how I  approached and how I looked at Worship guitar and   the sounds that I was creating and I'd always  built my pedal board to go after things that I   thought were great sounding or the perfect sound  or the perfect tone but then that was actually a   really frustrating experience because then I feel  like I was chasing this thing and as you all know   as guitar players there's no such thing as perfect  right it all has to do with what we enjoy and want   to sound like and what what connects with the  audience and the type of music we're trying to   create and so especially as a Worship guitar  player so much of what we do is fill space and   create a sound and what my buddy said to me this  nugget that I'll never forget is he said you know   as a worship team if we could replicate the songs  to 80 of what they are on a Sunday morning then   that would be a huge win knowing that you know  for the most part the musicians are volunteers   and hobbyists and I'm passionate about music but  you know if we're playing in the worship team on   a Sunday like myself like I don't profess to  be at the quality of a guitar players those   who are in these incredible bands that right  this god-led music that's just wonderful and   so to me I was like okay I could think I could do  80 is good like you know I feel like um that's a   challenge I can take on and with that it also got  me in this mindset of thinking and it hadn't like   totally clicked for me this idea that as a worship  band it's more or less a cover band and for many   of you even be like duh um but for me in some way  that's it started me thinking about my tone and   my sounds in a different way and then you partner  that with the progression in digital technology   um especially all the stuff that Simon's doing  and so many great companies out there that allow   the kind of the replication of these amazing  sounds without having to buy purchase tons and   tons of gear and so I went on this journey to  discover and figure out okay how could I get to   80 or better of that sound that when I listen to  a Bethel record or when I listen to Phil Wickham   or Hillsong interviews and amazing bands um and  worship leaders how can I make how about something   like that and part of that for me one was just  that was a personal challenge but I also felt like   um as worship leaders that so much of what we do  is create space and encourage people into worship   to connect with God and one of the ways to do  that is through music Excellence that for the   non-musician typically that's coming to worship  right that they can be a part of that experience   and I and I really realized and thought about  like when we sound more like what they're used   to hearing what people are listening to on Spotify  or on the radio that it's easier right for them to   subconsciously and emotionally connect with the  spirit and obviously the spirit's always moving   in there but again helping people to find that  and so this challenge of like okay well how do   we create this sound that's more like what people  are used to hearing in ways that without having   to go buy 10 15 20 000 a year and three amps and  all these crazy guitars and these boards that are   so big like that was another part for me is like  I just didn't want to carry around a giant pedal   board I'm like man I got enough gear to move  around I gotta move it in and out on Sundays   and I'm packing it at night after my kid goes  down you know it's like I don't I don't want to   carry around a 50 pound pedal board that has every  little perfect sound and noise and so um that was   kind of the framework for me for this challenge of  okay could I create a board that was able to get   to 80 or more of the sounds and tones of the bands  and the Porsche teams that we're playing and I'm   happy to report the answer is yes and through that  Journey it's like man I have to share this and I'm   so excited to share this so I wanted to share it  with you all so for me I was thinking through what   are some of the main bands and teams uh and  worship leaders that I listen to and that we   meet with Sunday in our church and there's lots of  Bethel Bill Wickham Hillsong Chris Tomlin Barrett   elevation and so those are the types of bands that  are really the inspiration for this and as I was   going through this I recognized and realized that  there was kind of three primary tone shapes and   sounds that are really driven by the distortions  the reverbs um and the amps that groups are   using and there's plenty of other things I say  those three categories for me were like okay   these if I can get dialed in and have enough  options help me create those tones and sounds   that are 80 or better um in terms of sounding like  what people are used to hearing and what those   records sound like and so um through that journey  I realized that there's kind of a Bethel sound and   um that a lot of that again has to come from  the distortions that they're using and the   stones and the shapes and so we're going to  dive into that and then there's been lots of   bands that have come out of Bethel been inspired  by Bethel so I would say those all kind of live   in a similar tonal space and then there's a  there's Bethel then philicum yeah philicum   has his own sound as well and if you ever  listen to philicum stuff it's a little poppier   um and uses a lot more chorus in some of the  brighter sounds than some other groups I'll kind   of show you that and then the last group I would  say which is it was probably the largest group   actually is like the Hillsongs and Chris tomlin's  and Pat Barrett's and bands that are using kind   of lighter distortions we can still get really big  but they're using uh kind of see what I mean but I   would say they use more clean tones with a little  less fuzz and distortion on them and those all   kind of fit and feel in a similar category and so  by with that I was able to use that as inspiration   for these tones and these shapes and was able to  craft a pedalboard as you can see here that's not   giant that doesn't break the bank that I can move  easily around my house and unplug it and take it   to church on Sunday and take it back um and so  with that I'll kind of gonna walk through those   three groups and walk through the pedal board and  I'll start that to you by saying that really none   of this would be possible or this journey at least  was made incredibly simpler by Tone factor and the   Bethel guitar players and they just have been  so generous with sharing their tones and their   sounds and I'm so thankful for that because  then that has really been the foundational   base for all of this and so I'll link out to  some of those patches and I'll speak to them   and some of the differences there but that's  been a huge part of making this possible for   me so with that let's walk through the battleborn  all right let's walk through the pedal board this   pedal board has gone through lots of iterations  over the years and I feel like every time I tweak   it you know you just get that much more excited  about it as I mentioned after about a two-year   journey of really tweaking and I'm completely  redone every single thing on this board from   where I started I'm incredibly happy with it and  you'll see the streaming 3 the Holy Trinity there   um and like I said actually that's a huge piece  of making this problem possible because of the   ability to utilize the digital patches that are  that have been provided by the Bethel team and   through a tone factor and they've just done a  really amazing job of creating that so that you   could replicate these sounds easily and and use  them kind of pretty much anywhere without again   having a huge setup and then um so I'll go where  do I want to start actually I'm going to start   with the Iridium and I'll kind of walk through  the board and then from there I'll go through   I'm going to speak to the three different kind of  tone shapes and sounds that I was talking about   earlier but I'll just start with the board and  walk you through kind of how I have it configured   and what these different things are and some of  the things I learned along the way when building   a board and I've bought lots of different puddles  and tried different things along the way and so   with that being said there's so many ways you can  construct these boards there's lots of incredible   um puddles and cool things going on and amazing  companies that are just creating great gear   um and so like I said this was structured from  a perspective of how do I replicate the sounds   of these bands um and as closely as possible  not necessarily how do I create a quote-unquote   best tone or best shape because again there really  isn't that there's best practices for how to sound   in the realm of like okay now this sounds good  right this is doing all things we wanted to do   but then from there there's so much you can do to  create differences all right I'm gonna start with   the Iridium I love that thing I don't even travel  with the amp anymore it's game changing and to be   honest I was never happy with the amps that I  traveled with because I always loved the ac30   but it was too big I never wanted to travel  around with it so I felt like I was always   um you know taking some of the tongue away from  what I wanted with uh with the amps and so that   iridium really changed the game and so the Iridium  is basically an amp modeler and um they have a   fender Fox and Marshall kind of classic uh amp  sound with different kind of speaker and cap   setups and so you can mess around with that and  totally dial them in it's awesome you can have a   favorite setting and so uh it's just been amazing  and then with that is you can actually download   um digital presets and IRS that go along with  it and that comes again with tone Factor so   basically all the streaming setups you can  actually download from the Bethel team the   exact setups they're using it's again amazing this  wouldn't really be possible without them or again   it would be way harder so the Iridium allows me to  mimic the tones and the amps that are being used   by the Bethel team and I just absolutely love the  tone setup and they typically use multiple amps   and you know they're able to just crank them up  and get the best possible sound out of them that   honestly I've never been able to even turn it up  loud enough at most the churches you know I've   played out in my career so this just allows you  to do all those things you would want to at the   professional level but literally right there okay  and then um this isn't necessarily an order of how   they're wired but it's going to go in order of how  looking at them on the board um so the next is the   starving Big Sky so the Reverb set and um I mean  I just feel like all these driving pedals are kind   of a staple of worship these days that's probably  the most consistent element of any of these pedals   is the three trimen so you got the Big Sky for  Reverb you got the Mobius for like tremolos and   kind of fun effects and courses and phasers and  all those types of things so it saves you from   having a bunch of different pedals it's kind of  all right there in the Mobius and you can preset   it so love that and then the timeline obviously is  kind of the classic streaming delay that's just a   beautiful petal and so I would say those shape a  lot of the this space filling sounds between the   three of them there's everything you would want so  there's one thing on this board that you won't see   that's on a lot of worship boards and that's the  POG pedal and the POG pedal allows you to do the   octave sounds and so that gets used by a head  full of bands but I would say that that sound   tends to be when they even when it is used is mild  and so the average listener wouldn't be able to   pick up the difference especially in a mix and  to be honest I ran out of room and I was kind of   decided do I want go on a Boost do I want most of  multiple amps or do I want the POG so that was the   one I had to sacrifice here but that being said I  could switch out one of the distortions if there's   a certain set on a Sunday like this has to have a  Pog and if you have no idea what I'm talking about   then don't worry about it you probably won't use  it that much anyway and if you love The Fog I'm   sorry uh and then uh I have just a mini compressor  there's other compressors out there but it just   felt like this SBE compressor just fit on the  board sounds really nice you'll notice I have   a lot of these mini pedals I have the mini tuner  right in the middle there um and then I have a   volume pedal I've gone back and forth with friends  on volume pedals and how much people hate Bobby   pedals because they tend to break all the time  I've tried a couple of them and I've just given   in that it's going to break every couple years  but I like this done up on a lot if it's the   board perfectly and it sounds great so I've stuck  with this one and then the part that took me the   longest to figure out actually was this Distortion  and boost stack here along this section and that's   actually the most internal debate so the one that  was the easiest was The Kilt which is this middle   kind of gray Distortion right here and that is  the primary Distortion that David Hislop uses   at Bethel and so when you think of Bethel sound  it's really the from a distortion standpoint it's   the Kilt and I feel like that sound if you have  to think and just worship distortions aren't say   um heavier Distortion the Kilts just is a big part  of that it was modeled off of the Delirious stuff   that stoogie was a part of that and so there's  kind of a long Legacy of amazing warship music   and guitar that kind of comes through the Kilt I  really like the Kilt because it also has a kind of   an added Distortion layer to it so it's got this  cool the JHS makes this red button here so how you   can kind of turn that on so I'll turn the kilt on  and then you'll see the normals blue and hit the   red it gives it this extra little Crunch and so  I love that just by not necessary boost but it's   like a little more Crunch and can come in really  handy when you have a bigger lead line or one a   little like a little little pop-up not necessarily  a boost so I'd say that's the primary Distortion   for the Bethel as well as the look of them and  I'll get into that a little bit more and honestly   I probably could have gotten away with just that  because it's very flexible Distortion I can turn   it up or turn it down and or you can just play  lighter softer and it gives you a lot of leeway   to work with and then the vertex boost super happy  about that I just feel like it does everything I   wanted to do from a tonal shaping it just kind of  pushes into the apps and is a beautiful boost and   then last on here is the Benson and so that for me  I was introduced to that recently actually that's   also got that from the Bethel team and Kenyan from  tone factor and the Benson is a much more I would   say it can go from clean to fuzzy and has a lot  more range in what it can do as opposed to The   Kilt I say The Kilt kind of has one sound and it  does super well the benzo has more range I don't   ever use the really fuzzy parts of it I feel like  that's tone I don't hear much in worship but the   clean Distortion or kind of lighter distortion  on the Benson I love it's I've tried tons and   tons of distortion pedals and I feel like the  Benson does the best job of kind of simulating   the sound of pushing into an amp and so you get a  clean that you can kind of dig into but it still   has lots of tone um and like I said you can you  can do a lot it's got the four different kind of   toenails with the treble the bass and the drive  and it just is an incredibly flexible pedal but   I use it primarily as it's a really nice balance  to The Kilt and then they actually stack um if   needed as well so there's a few songs where the  Benson and the big Parts doesn't give me enough   Crunch and so then I can actually stack it with  the Kilt and then I get that as well so Benson   um is is newer in my world but yeah I totally love  it and highly recommend it and so from there the   kind of the last piece I wanted to speak to is  then okay how do you create the sounds of kind   of those three main sounds so I'll start with  Bethel bethel's the easiest because they provide   all their presets so again go to tone Factor um  you can dab a whole stranded pack so you can get   all of the and they have it structured in two  different ways so David Hislop actually sells   the the his like actual presets that he uses by  pedals so it's awesome so you're like oh we're   playing razor Hallelujah this Sunday okay great  boom I have the David Hislop Raise A Hallelujah   presets and then you add the Kilt and then it's  exactly like his sound right so it's there's   lots of cool things he'll add on it and I can say  it's not this as good but he's talking about 80   or better like those are the core elements that  are shaping his sound um and so and then I will   add to that then on the Iridium they all um the  Bethel team also sells the presets for the amps   and so I'm using actually the Bethel patches  for the tone Factor patches for the Iridium   um and so then it's modeling off of the amp that  David Hislop is using and I feel like it's a much   um it's better than the kind of the standard  presets that are on the Iridium but then also   again it allows you to give it some that tone  so it's like you got the amp the distortion   pedal The Verve and the delay that are being  used by the Bethel teams and David Hislop and   it's just like a beautiful thing it makes it  so easy um the downside to that is it's kind   of a pain to to reset everything every single  week when you have new songs to um to remember   or where okay this song is here look I gotta move  this around on the MIDI controller on the patch   um and so the other thing that I love about the  Bethel team is so on tone Factor they also have   a ability to just buy the general like General  tones that aren't necessarily song specific so   I'm kind of flipping through here you can see some  of them and um these sounds so I use this General   tape now as like my standard delay that comes from  tone factor and use that for like 80 plus probably   of songs um but then they have kind of the delays  and the trim lows and all the sounds you would   want the same thing for the Big Sky I love they  have this patch for a bright cloud and a dark   cloud again I use those like 80 of the time not  just Bethel but like all the worship sounds and so   um there's times where you want other things but I  would say in general having these kind of Patches   from tone factor for these plus those core drives  allows you to just you turn it on you're like wow   I feel like I didn't have to do anything although  you did a ton because you got to buy these pedals   and stuff but you don't have to sit there and try  to tweak every little bit it's it's already dialed   for you and it's an Incredible Gift so thank you  tone factor and David Hislop and team for that   so then moving into the Phil Wickham sound so  the difference between the Bethel sound and   the Phil Wickham sound is that um Phil likes to  use choruses or as guitar players do it is test   tone and sound tends to be brighter so for me  I use the Kilt still as the primary Distortion   um it and I don't actually know what Distortion  that the welcome team is using there's not a lot   of great resources out there to find it so Phil  and team if you're listening we'd love for you   all to drop drop a hint for us here but I feel  like The Kilt sounds really close and really   good so I've been using the Kilt and then the  on the the general tape works for a lot of his   stuff but then he also off of the tone factor  I should have worn different shoes for this   um the quarter clean uh comes in really handy for  some of the more Rhythm parts and Rhythm pieces   that don't need the fold out at eighth sound on  them so I would say for philippum those are the   two primary sounds and then the bright um the two  verbs that often is on from the tone factor is   the bright cloud and then let me see if I got  it in here or not um if I can get this going um I would say this light plate verb gets  used a ton for me with silicon stuff and then   um on the Mobius at the um courses are  awesome so there's this polywide uh chorus   and then I remember what the other one is see  if it's in here or not and not have it in here   but the poly wide and then there's another  chorus um I can't find it so there's another   chorus on the Mobius that's kind of the two  standard choruses from tone factor that go   with the Mobius and both of those are really  close to what Phil look who's using and so the   difference between Bethel and Phil wickum is  that you're going to use the chorus on almost   all silicon songs you very rarely going to use  a chorus for Bethel songs and then I would say   the Philippines also use the the light Cloud  that kind of brighter Cloud sound whereas the   um Bethel songs seem to just have more  variety and there's times where you want   a brighter sound sometimes we want a darker  sound so you're going to use more things   um with uh Bethel sounds but the same kind of core  Distortion so I mean honestly you could boil it   down to as simple as the filicum is using chorus  and not the tends not too for our third General   sound we're going to speak to kind of a cleaner  uh Distortion that you often find with Hillsong   Chris Tomlin Pat Barrett and a lot of other bands  that are kind of in that style I guess tonality   wise and that doesn't mean that they don't get big  if they don't have lots of distortions and but I   was realizing as I've been playing along that when  I used the Kilt with some of those bands in that   category and just some bands in general that it's  just it's a little too crunchy in some of the soft   moments and it's not exactly the sound that I want  and so there's a number of bands that I would say   use a electric guitar sound that's more cleaner  in general and then pushes into the amps whereas   The Kilt can do that certainly does do that but  it's General State of crunchiness is higher and   so the Benson has just a huge range of what it can  do and the high drive side of it it's really fuzzy   I personally don't love that sound but I'd say  it just I would say that sound I don't see and   worship quite as often that really fuzzy sound but  this thing's it's so has such a wide range that   has a really nice clean you can almost use it as a  clean boost if you wanted to and so I kind of end   up sitting we're kind of right in the middle there  but roll back the base and kind of do a little a   little bit over middle drive on the Benson and  it gives you this really nice kind of sound that   pushes into the amps so it's a little cleaner and  I realized with like I said those bands that just   use a cleaner but full sound that's not purely  damp this Benson does such a wonderful job of kind   of replicating that and then with that though  The Kilt stacked really nicely on the Benson   so there's certainly times where it doesn't give  me enough crunch for kind of big Bridges and can   stack The Kilt on top of that and works really  nicely I very rarely when using the Kilt as a   primary drive stack the Benson because I would  say it gets kind of lost in it it doesn't make   a big difference if I wanted more I'd either use  the kind of red button to turn on the overdrive I   guess the second drive for The Kilt or the Boost  and so but when using just the Benson and you   need a little bit more The Kilt could be a great  option um or if you just need it to be louder a   little punchier the Boost works as well but I do  find in big Bridges and stuff being able to add   on a little bit more on top with the Kilts kind  of rounds out the needs for a lot of those bands   um and then there's uh the tone factor for the  Mobius has a really cool tremolo sound and I   feel like there's more and more times where  there's people are starting to use tremolos   there's a tremolo being used on the New Bethel  record as well I think about some of the the down   parts and another in a fire there's a tremolo  piece so I love that on the Mobius and then   um course is typically not used to kind of in  this range so it's typically less effects and so   oftentimes may even use a quarter clean instead of  the full dotted eighth or kind of a lighter plate   Reverb as opposed to the kind of cloud Reverb  and so the plate I would say it just is a more   traditional feeling um Reverb it's actually comes  from like they would literally shoot the sound off   of a metal plate and bounce it back in the day  to get that sound that's why it's called a plate   Reverb as opposed to that cloud Reverb which is  really that Airy full sound which I would say is   is probably the predominant Reverb sound in in  worship and it's certainly used a lot kind of   in this third category but I do find a lot of  times where it's too much for in this category   especially if you're doing a little less of the  Distortion and the guitars are not feeling as much   space but kind of tonality kind of just locking  in but not feeling everything with the guitar   that sometimes I end up using the light plate or  the quarter cleaning more thank you so much for   listening I hope this was super helpful this was  literally two years at least of a journey and lots   of Googling lots of pedals and trying different  things I just felt like man I really want to share   this knowledge to help others be able to bring to  life these sounds and these tones that we love and   to help your your local church and your worship  band and your journey with the Lord and just uh   using music as such a huge part of that  and so thank you for for what you do and   thank you for being a part of worship and  um yeah I hope you enjoyed this good luck

Channel: Adam Wagner

Views: 10,070

Keywords: worship, electric guitar, worship music, bethel, phil wickham, hillsong, worship guitar, tutorial, pedalboard, Worship pedalboard, phil wickham electric guitar, bethel electric guitar, hillsong electric guitar, worship electric guitar tutorial

Id: PHXinClNxr0

Length: 26min 28sec (1588 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 30 2023