First appearing in the ’50s and popularized by artists such as James Brown and Parliament Funkadelics, the funk genre has become as recognizable as rock or metal.
Unlike those genres, funk is considered by many to be more about your playing style, rather than your guitar tone. Getting the right tone, however, can still help emphasize and color your playing.
Although there’s not a set definition for what a funk tone is, the common characteristics are a bright, clean sound to help the rhythmic playing stand out.
Let’s go over some essential pieces of equipment that can help refine your funk tone.
Table of Contents
Guitars for Funk
There isn’t really a ‘perfect’ guitar for playing funk. As long as you can produce a clean and punchy tone, any guitar will really do.
There are a few guitars that have become popular choices for funk players over the years.
Fender Stratocasters, Telecasters, and Jazzmasters are perhaps the most common choice and first pick for most getting into funk. Their great clean tone and single coils make them a great fit for letting funk rhythms stand out.
Most semi-hollow body guitars, like the Ibanez Artcore series, are great for funk because of the nice rounded clean sound they tend to produce.
If you want your funk sound to be a bit beefier, or have a bit more bite, either a Gibson SG or Les Paul would work perfectly. Even going down to an Epiphone SG or Les Paul won’t be a bad choice for creating nice and crunchy funk rhythms.
As I mentioned earlier, almost any guitar will be fine for playing funk. These are just a few examples of guitars that work well with funk naturally, but let’s take a look at what makes a guitar suitable for funk.
The Neck
Having a guitar with a comfortable neck is important no matter what type of music you play. Having the wrong neck can greatly affect the way you play.
I feel that your guitar’s neck should be easy to grip, especially at the bottom. This is because a lot of funk chords are played mostly on the higher strings.
A lot of ‘muting’ also happens with your fretting hand, so you want to be able to quickly press and release chords.
A ‘fast’ shape neck like a D-shape or C-shape is what I personally prefer, but many guitarists play funk on U-shape necks.
Pickups
Pickups are the most important part of the guitar to take into consideration if you want to have a good funk tone.
Since you want a bright, clean tone that is as thin as possible, you naturally want a pickup that is best suited for that sound.
Single Coil
The best choice here would probably have to be single-coil pickups. Single coils are very bright, produce excellent cleans, and can be made quite thin, depending on the guitar.
Single coils also lack sustain. Although you would want a lot of sustain for other genres like rock and blues, funk is the exact opposite.
Because you’re playing fast, snappy rhythms in funk, you don’t want the notes to stick around for longer than they should. Having as little sustain as possible means that the notes won’t ring out after they’ve been played.
Humbuckers
If you want to beef up your funk tone while still keeping the cleans intact, humbuckers are a great choice.
They aren’t the traditional choice for funk, because of their beefier sound and they’re not as bright as single coils.
They do have the advantage of naturally compressing the tone and they don’t hum. This is great if you’re adding a bit of overdrive to your funk sound.
P90
A good alternative to both humbuckers and single coils, P90s have a tone that’s essentially halfway between the other two.
They’re brighter than humbuckers and beefier than single coils, meaning that they have very good cleans, without potentially being too heavy for funk.
P90s usually come standard on semi-hollow body guitars.
Pickups You Shouldn’t Use
Unlike necks which are more a preference than a must, there are pickups that aren’t really suited to funk.
Because you don’t want a pickup with really any sustain, high gain humbuckers like EMGs, Fishman, certain Seymour Duncans, etc, should be avoided.
Active pickups are also very high output and might not be great for playing funk.
Amps for Funk
Just like with guitars, practically any amp will work fine for funk. But just like guitars, there are a few things to keep in mind when picking a funk amp.
You preferably want an amp that can produce a bright and clear clean tone. Funk is all about the clean tone after all.
You want an amp that has enough headroom so that you can push it if you need to. An amp that offers great EQ control is also important so that you can fine-tune your tone and dial it in perfectly.
It’s also important that the amp you use works well with pedals. Pedals are quite important to creating a solid funk tone as I’ll get to in a bit, so you don’t want the amp to clash with the pedals, ruining the sound.
With all that in mind, some great amp picks would be something from Fender or Vox. The Fender ’65 Twin Reverb or Vox AC30C2 are two great picks.
If you have the budget for it, the Mesa/Boogie Mark Five:25 could also be a great choice with its very customizable EQs.
Effects Pedals
To help you really dial in the funk sound, there are a few effects pedals that are very helpful, and one that might even be essential.
Compressor Pedals
The compressor pedal might be the one that many consider to be vital to achieving a truly great funk tone.
A compressor pedal essentially squeezes the high and low frequencies together to create a tighter sound.
This is important as funk relies on having a very snappy sound with a lot of attack, making it especially useful for cleans to create a more rounded and bright tone.
Compression also helps to balance the volume of different playing techniques.
Funk involves a lot of palm muting and muted scratches. Muted notes are slightly softer than unmuted notes, and compression helps bring down the unmuted notes.
This means that the muted parts get a slight volume boost, giving a more balanced level of volume.
If you’re playing with single coils, a compressor pedal will also be essential.
Single coils aren’t naturally compressed like humbuckers. So, when you pair single coils with a compressor pedal, the tone will be brighter and the output boosted. This will make your tone crisper, snappy, and balanced.
Some great compressor pedals are the MXR M102 and the Boss CP-1X.
Phasers
Phaser pedals help to add texture to what you’re playing by adding a slight oscillation to every note.
Phasers also add a bit of thickness to the tone, making it stand out a bit more. It’s perfect for those especially funky rhythm sections.
The MXR M290 is a nice and simple phaser pedal if you just want to control the speed of the oscillation.
If you want to get a bit more psychedelic tone, EarthQuaker Devices The Depths offers a ton of control to help shape the sound even more.
Wah Pedals
Another way to add some extra dynamics to your playing is by using a wah pedal.
Wah pedals are another great way to create extra dynamics during rhythm parts, especially with fast strumming involved. They are also commonly used during solos.
There are two types of wah pedals: expression pedals and auto wahs.
Auto wahs, like the Boss AW-3, are perfect if you just need quick, short bursts of the ‘wah’ effect. They are also useful if you want a very constant ‘wah’, almost like a more intense phaser sound.
If you’re looking to have more control over the way the wah pedal affects the sound, then an expression pedal is the way to go.
An expression pedal also works great when you want the intensity to slowly increase and decrease, and when you don’t need it to be as consistent.
There is a wide variety of expression pedals out there to choose from, but you definitely won’t go wrong with a Cry Baby, Vox Wah, or Fulltone Wah.
Strings
The strings you choose to play with are completely up to you.
It is important that the strings you use are comfortable while still sounding good.
Because funk has a brighter tone, most funk guitarists lean towards the thinner side when it comes to the strings they use.
The standard is around .009 – .042 or .010 – .046 gauge. You might find thinner or thicker to be more comfortable.
Just remember that heavier gauge strings won’t be as bright as a lighter gauge, and a light gauge won’t sound as full.
It’s in the Way You Play
With all that being said, the most important thing is that funk comes from how you play, not what you play. All these elements will help you get a good funk tone, but that won’t mean much if you can’t play funk.
So, keep practicing those strumming hand rhythms and fretting hand mutes, and you’ll be jamming some real funk soon.
