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I have a Boss Katana 50 amp and am fairly new to equipment setup for e-guitars. As I am learning "Maggot Head" from Funkadelic I have a lot of slow bends that do not have a lot of density on my setting. That means the sound is disappearing fairly quick when I pick a string.

Any common setup tips how to have a longer lasting tone?

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    "Maggot Brain", surely! For more sustain, either use more gain (this will also increase overdrive/distortion) or use compression. If you get too much hum between the notes, go into the Katana editor and switch on the noise gate.
    – Your Uncle Bob
    Commented Feb 7, 2019 at 22:23
  • as below mentioned you can try by using more gain, and maybe by adding more highs
    – Milo_666
    Commented Feb 13, 2019 at 17:36

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Basically, you want the sustain part of the tone increased in relation to the attack part. There are three ways to do that with amps settings/ effects: either you increase the gain of the amp, you add an overdrive effect, or you add a compression effect. The first and second will alter your tone more or less drastically, the third should be a lot less noticeable. Check the section of your amp's manual that deals with effects, and play with some of the "Booster" effects it offers, or the "Comp" effect.

Also, take a closer look at your playing technique and your guitar setup. The amp can only amplify what comes out of the guitar. Make sure that the tone rings clearly throughout your bends and that it doesn't get killed by sloppy fingering or high frets.

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Aside from settings on your amp and the suggestions above, you could use some slight vibrato at the top of your bend. Don’t move the string too much but slightly up n down and you can get a longer ring out of it.

You’d be surprised with how much you can change the sound with your fingers and the way you play the guitar. Granted, this comes with experience and many hours of playing, you need to be comfortable with the guitar to be able to express that through your fingers.

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On Maggot brain he uses a 60's/70's fuzz and wah. If you combine the Wah pedal with the vibrato technique mentioned above you can achieve some awesome sustain. You can achieve this using more gain but you will need to be a lot more accurate with your technique otherwise you will sound like you are failing a Guitar Hero song. It takes a lot of practice! good luck!

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Of course it depends on the kind of amplifier, but I'm sure that if you increase the sustain, maybe the highs too, and try to bend with more power, you are surely going to get better bends

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