There's a moment in every guitarist's life when they realize their amp will never sound like their heroes. But Tim Beato has a theory about why — and it has nothing to do with gear. The secret lies in how players approach that between clean and distorted, and how engineers EQ the final mix.
The Guitar That Hides in Plain Sight
Tim showed up at Rick's studio with a Paul Reed Smith guitar he'd had built five years ago. He'd intentionally disguised it — swapping the signature birds for something subtler so that for the first five seconds, people might think it's not a PRS at all. Then they'd realize it is.
Practicing With Purpose
Lately, Tim has been working on his speed. He admits he was never a fast player, but now he finally has time to get up to speed and compete with buddies who play faster than him. The key difference: practicing with a track rather than alone in a room.
"It's like being a doctor without a patient. If you have all your tools and there's no patient, what is there to do?"
Tim emphasizes he's always been an ensemble player — his love of music comes from songs first, guitar second.
The Amplifier and the Tone Philosophy
The amplifier driving everything in this conversation is a Marshall 20-watt — affordable, surprisingly great. There's a distortion pedal on it called Karma, which is a clone of the ODR1, with that signature sparkly top end that players love.
When asked about overdrive and compression, Tim pulls no punches: he loved high gain stuff early on. He got his first Selano (presumably from Mike Sano) and was one of the first guys to use it — singing through it was fun. But now that he's older, he prefers cleaner tones.
The sweet spot for him is late '60s classic rock. The whole game is having it clean when you pick lightly and distorted when you pick hard, with all the levels in between. That's where articulation lives.
Edge of Breakup: Where the Amp Finds Its Voice
Tim explains edge of breakup as the place where an amp hits its perfect spot — maybe around six on a Fender, or eight or nine on a Plexi Marshall. It's where clean starts to turn into dirty, just begins to compress but not too much. Everything evens out when you hit it hard and opens up when you hit it soft.
The goal: a tone that plays softly with real clarity while having enough gain that harmonic information speaks — especially inside a track.
Critics might note that most older guitar players touring today use too much distortion, often because their hearing is starting to go. The more distorted the tone, the easier it is to hear. But Tim says anything can become a crutch — a distorted tone means you don't have to articulate as precisely, and it's easier to be sloppy.
Recording Techniques: Amp First, Pedals Second
When Rick asks about getting guitar sounds in recording, he describes two philosophies. The first: get the sound from the amp itself, then use a pedal to smash the front end — which he calls "the hit harder" approach. The second: shape everything with compressors and clean amps, adding distortion later.
For metal bands, he'd use pedals basically to tighten up the mids, with barely any distortion on them. But for overdubs where he wanted a part to speak, he'd use edge of breakup plus an overdrive pedal doing exactly what Tim describes.
The point both agree on: get the amp to its right place where it's doing what it's supposed to do. If you want more, don't change the amp — use a pedal. And that pedal is best if it's barely on.
The EQ Crime Most Guitarists Commit
Rick identifies the biggest sin he's committed as a player: too much low mid and too much bass, because he thought that made him sound big. But when mixing engineers take that away, everything shrinks.
The solution: you're better off not having it in there. There's only so much room in a song on any record. If you want space for the bass and drums, guitars have to sit in the middle — and they can shrink pretty small sometimes. The way to keep them big is taking away bottom end that's not clouding anything else.
"If you're going to have room for the bass and the drums, the guitars have to sit in the middle."
Mono vs Stereo: Why One Speaker Is All You Need
Rick recalls interviewing Ken Scott at Abbey Road about recording the Beatles. In mono mixes of songs like "I Feel Fine," they would use radically different tones between guitars so they'd be distinguishable. Put it in stereo and it sounds huge.
The lesson: get your sounds right in mono first. Rick remembers being about 12 years old, hearing a tiny clock radio on the toilet with a speaker that small — yet what was playing sounded like the biggest, most evil, hugest thing he'd ever heard. That's mono.
"The period of disco was where there was too many things," he notes. "Everything gets small if you put too much in it." A three-piece with guitar, bass and drums in mono? Pretty great.
The Mid-Range Is Where Everything Lives
Rick emphasizes that getting the mid-range right is crucial — that's where all the vocals live, where all the chords live, piano, everything. It has to share space. Hip-hop might be different because there's so much clarity everywhere without acoustic instruments or distorted guitars. But for organic rock music? It's all in the mid-range.
Bottom Line
This piece makes a strong case that guitar tone isn't about having the right gear — it's about understanding where the amp finds its voice and how to EQ everything into the mix's crowded middle frequency range. The vulnerability: Tim's preference for "classic rock from the late 60s" is deeply personal, and some players genuinely prefer cleaner tones in modern contexts. But the core insight — that articulation lives at edge of breakup and mids are where the magic happens — cuts across genres.